Reasons # 1 - 7 why when i actually do make decisions about my future or make my plans that I should not consider graduate school as an option (besides the fact that this sentence is grammatically incorrect).
1) I hate writing papers. The actualy writing that is. I like having the finished product. I like the reading. I like editing. The actual writing process is a form of torture that has been especially tormenting. Future Me: remember the painful days of writing, procrastinating, and all of the active things you could pursue rather than writing. Think about all the writing you will have to do in grad school.
2) Oftentimes, I hate academic thinking. [As this is a negative list, we will ignore all the times that I absolutely love academic thinking for the moment.] Academia is helpful and wonderful...to a point. And when you cross that point it is just painful to sit and discuss, or write. Learning is valuable, so is writing and critically thinking, but then its time to DO SOMETHING.
3) Under the assumption of #2, grad school would only delay the actual doing of something, whatever that something may be.
4) It costs a hell of a lot of money. See #5 for why I won't be getting one of those fabulous fellowships.
5) Grades. Mine are good, but I could relax a little bit and just focus on learning rather than the actual grades themselves if I didn't have to worry about grad school.
6) The GRE and the LSAT. Enough said.
7) Sometimes thinking is just too much.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
City of God
There are some movies that reach in and grab your heart and then instead of just dropping it to the ground, they decided to use it as a dart board for approximately 130 minutes so that at the end you really feel it not only in your chest, but your gut, and your mind.
That my friends, is how I feel about City of God. Directed by Fernando Meirelles. About Rio de Janeiro's most notorious slum.
The story is of a boy growing up in a slum surrounded by abject poverty, drug dealers, a hell of a lot of drugs, a hell of a lot of guns, and very little opportunity...even less hope. The movie narrates over three generations of slum lords all within the space of about 10 years. Little children committing cold-blooded murder. Eight year olds banning together to take over a druglord. One drug dealer taking down a couple, raping the girl in front of her boyfriend and then leaving the boyfriend alive...only to change his mind, go to his house and gun down his uncle and brother leaving his house full of bullet holes.
I like to think that I'm a fairly knowledgeable person. I try to not live in idealistic, happyland where my suburban, white-dominated, middleclass, Lutheran university life is reality. But movies like this...stories like this, remind me how little I know. How small my problems really are.
And yet the thing is, I'm still struggling. I can't get out of a rut and I'm safe every night I go to bed. I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or whether or not I'm going to be safe the next time I go out the door. Hell, I go to a school where I can leave my crap in the library, go eat a meal, come back and not think twice about whether my stuff is going to be where I left it...sitting on my favorite couch.
I don't know what's more frustrating. That my heart and mind cannot be satisfied that some people live lives of horror like those depicted in this movie. Where things just happen because its what life is, and its what one person with power decided...more like one person with a gun decided. I am not okay with that being reality, and I don't like feeling like I've been given a better life than someone else, just because. I certainly don't deserve it. And right now I'm certainly not doing anything mertiable of giving back and earning it.
I feel like I want to go change something. Make something better for someone else. And not just little things. Not just "in my own little pond" things.
There is too much hurt in this world. Too much anger and hate. Too much violence and blood and gore all for naught. It's not right.
I hate living in my own little world that's fine, where my biggest problem...well. Where my problems don't even compare to millions of people's lives who despair because of hunger, disease, violence, prejudice, and hatred.
I know that everyone has to find their own ways of dealing with these problems. And I've worked on it. I've seen these types of movies before. Hell, I've been reading about the freakin' South African apartheid system all semester. I've been getting my regular reality check. And its good to have that sometimes. To be shocked out of your system. To be reminded that the body that you live in each day is just like the bodies that suffer from aids, gang violence, malnourishment, rape, human rights abuses, I could go on.
The thing is. I can talk myself into the fact that I've got to figure out myself before I can really help anyone else. I have to get my education before anyone will take me seriously enough to really help anyone else. And I've got to figure out where God is calling me to go to help. Even if it is next door. I can realize all of those things. But I still feels like I'm stealing. Like I'm mocking the millions just by sitting and typing at my Dell computer in my suburban wood frame house in Indianapolis.
And you know grace isn't a good enough answer. Because I believe in God's grace but I also want to march on up to heaven and ask him why he didn't give it to everybody else? And, yeah I mean in a worldly way...I'm a bit too steamed to talk theology right now.
I just want to go and make something better.
I also want things to be better in my head and heart.
I want tomorrow not to feel like the same, and for my goal to be something bigger than finishing my f'n term papers and trying to not fail in the last 3 weeks of the semester.
I'm tired of the in-between period. The struggle. The trying to figure things out.
And my inner hope has been the victim of a few too many emotional/mental go arounds this semester.
Stupid assignment. Stupid movie.
Stupid world.
That my friends, is how I feel about City of God. Directed by Fernando Meirelles. About Rio de Janeiro's most notorious slum.
The story is of a boy growing up in a slum surrounded by abject poverty, drug dealers, a hell of a lot of drugs, a hell of a lot of guns, and very little opportunity...even less hope. The movie narrates over three generations of slum lords all within the space of about 10 years. Little children committing cold-blooded murder. Eight year olds banning together to take over a druglord. One drug dealer taking down a couple, raping the girl in front of her boyfriend and then leaving the boyfriend alive...only to change his mind, go to his house and gun down his uncle and brother leaving his house full of bullet holes.
I like to think that I'm a fairly knowledgeable person. I try to not live in idealistic, happyland where my suburban, white-dominated, middleclass, Lutheran university life is reality. But movies like this...stories like this, remind me how little I know. How small my problems really are.
And yet the thing is, I'm still struggling. I can't get out of a rut and I'm safe every night I go to bed. I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or whether or not I'm going to be safe the next time I go out the door. Hell, I go to a school where I can leave my crap in the library, go eat a meal, come back and not think twice about whether my stuff is going to be where I left it...sitting on my favorite couch.
I don't know what's more frustrating. That my heart and mind cannot be satisfied that some people live lives of horror like those depicted in this movie. Where things just happen because its what life is, and its what one person with power decided...more like one person with a gun decided. I am not okay with that being reality, and I don't like feeling like I've been given a better life than someone else, just because. I certainly don't deserve it. And right now I'm certainly not doing anything mertiable of giving back and earning it.
I feel like I want to go change something. Make something better for someone else. And not just little things. Not just "in my own little pond" things.
There is too much hurt in this world. Too much anger and hate. Too much violence and blood and gore all for naught. It's not right.
I hate living in my own little world that's fine, where my biggest problem...well. Where my problems don't even compare to millions of people's lives who despair because of hunger, disease, violence, prejudice, and hatred.
I know that everyone has to find their own ways of dealing with these problems. And I've worked on it. I've seen these types of movies before. Hell, I've been reading about the freakin' South African apartheid system all semester. I've been getting my regular reality check. And its good to have that sometimes. To be shocked out of your system. To be reminded that the body that you live in each day is just like the bodies that suffer from aids, gang violence, malnourishment, rape, human rights abuses, I could go on.
The thing is. I can talk myself into the fact that I've got to figure out myself before I can really help anyone else. I have to get my education before anyone will take me seriously enough to really help anyone else. And I've got to figure out where God is calling me to go to help. Even if it is next door. I can realize all of those things. But I still feels like I'm stealing. Like I'm mocking the millions just by sitting and typing at my Dell computer in my suburban wood frame house in Indianapolis.
And you know grace isn't a good enough answer. Because I believe in God's grace but I also want to march on up to heaven and ask him why he didn't give it to everybody else? And, yeah I mean in a worldly way...I'm a bit too steamed to talk theology right now.
I just want to go and make something better.
I also want things to be better in my head and heart.
I want tomorrow not to feel like the same, and for my goal to be something bigger than finishing my f'n term papers and trying to not fail in the last 3 weeks of the semester.
I'm tired of the in-between period. The struggle. The trying to figure things out.
And my inner hope has been the victim of a few too many emotional/mental go arounds this semester.
Stupid assignment. Stupid movie.
Stupid world.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
International Law Penchant
So, I think I have mentioned previously that I have a deep love for words. Prose that spins webs and hits straight to the heart is inspring. Poetry lets words describe emotion in ways that normal conversation can't even aspire to. Strong rhetoric changes attitudes, thoughts, conflict...
And then there's the beauty of law. At this point, I may have lost you my crazy, thoughtful, (one of a small few) reader...but I'm telling you there is something fascinating about law. Specifically laws that are trying to honestly do good, create solutions, and create spaces and mechanisms for people to make positive change.
I was reminded of my penchant for the rhetoric and organization of law twice today, thus I thought it deserving of a blog post.
My honors thesis, as I have mentioned is on truth commissions - specifically the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and the Equity and Reconciliation Committee in Morocco. I've been writing the South Africa section for days now and have been sifting through the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act of 1995 which established the South African TRC and created a draft of truth commission law that is awe-inspiring to say the least.
It is of course first beautiful because it was written by a government that cared enough (or at least wanted to be seen as caring enough) to create a legitmiate mechanism for "making things right" after a brutal system of apartheid. Additonally, it added in the whole goal of reconcilation, which while still extemely controversial is fascinating. Try setting down precise language to faciliate reconciliation sometime...it won't be an afternoon project.
The ins and outs of the PoNUR Act are fascinating, from the meticulous defintions of phrases like "gross violations of human rights" which are themselves practically impossible to define...to the mandate of the Commission which draws on theology, philsopohy, the lessons of previous truth commissions, and the political compromises that the South African legislature spent hours debating...to the actual setup of the Commission which while in someways was shortsighted, in other ways is admirably well thought-out.
Of course, it is also this kind of law that brings hope for the realm of law which also issues out pork barrel-filled laws, useless declarations, and free trade agreements that are thousands of pages long and for each page affect the same number of people in a negative manner...but that's a discussion for another day.
My second reminder of my little "crush" on law was in reading for my International Relations class today...a chapter entitled "The Liberal Institutional Paths to Peace" (aka Hannah's favorite stuff all in one chapter).
For those of you who aren't familiar with international terms, let me also just state that "liberal" in this instance does not mean liberal in the sense of Nancy Pelosi "liberal," but in the longstanding liberal tradition which is commited to liberalism, and these days international coopeartion, free trade, free choice, etc.
It is out of this tradition that came first the League of Nations, and then the UN. Liberal philosophy underlies the EU, the WTO, international conferences and agreements, free trade and of course...international law.
This chapter outlined some of the many arguements for and against international law, as well as the principles and limits of international law. For example, international law was primarly set up to protect states and originally set up as norms and common law procedures that states used in dealing with one another (i.e. international trade, law of the seas, etc). However, as international law evolved and became more focused on protecting the individual states were (and are) still the primary actors. Thus, international law is limited by interests of individual states and can only be as strong as participating states make it.
This is thus argued on both sides as a weakness and strength of international law. Critics say that international law is weak and has no purpose because states do not always have to follow it. (However, some of these tend to be the same persons who argue against states like the US giving up bits of its sovereignty to stregthen international law and institutions.) Proponents say that this limit is actually the strength of international law, that because states must agree to conventions and laws and embed it within its own national laws that it shows the strength of the international legal system when states do sign on and hold up the treaties and resolutions. These persons usually argue that it is in the self interest of states to sign on to international legal norms...and that especially in the 21st Century era of globalization and mass communcation/trade/etc that international cooperation and interdependence is necessary and thus so is international law.
It's so interesting! All of the arguments intertwine and bring in questions like:
And then there's the beauty of law. At this point, I may have lost you my crazy, thoughtful, (one of a small few) reader...but I'm telling you there is something fascinating about law. Specifically laws that are trying to honestly do good, create solutions, and create spaces and mechanisms for people to make positive change.
I was reminded of my penchant for the rhetoric and organization of law twice today, thus I thought it deserving of a blog post.
My honors thesis, as I have mentioned is on truth commissions - specifically the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and the Equity and Reconciliation Committee in Morocco. I've been writing the South Africa section for days now and have been sifting through the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act of 1995 which established the South African TRC and created a draft of truth commission law that is awe-inspiring to say the least.
It is of course first beautiful because it was written by a government that cared enough (or at least wanted to be seen as caring enough) to create a legitmiate mechanism for "making things right" after a brutal system of apartheid. Additonally, it added in the whole goal of reconcilation, which while still extemely controversial is fascinating. Try setting down precise language to faciliate reconciliation sometime...it won't be an afternoon project.
The ins and outs of the PoNUR Act are fascinating, from the meticulous defintions of phrases like "gross violations of human rights" which are themselves practically impossible to define...to the mandate of the Commission which draws on theology, philsopohy, the lessons of previous truth commissions, and the political compromises that the South African legislature spent hours debating...to the actual setup of the Commission which while in someways was shortsighted, in other ways is admirably well thought-out.
Of course, it is also this kind of law that brings hope for the realm of law which also issues out pork barrel-filled laws, useless declarations, and free trade agreements that are thousands of pages long and for each page affect the same number of people in a negative manner...but that's a discussion for another day.
My second reminder of my little "crush" on law was in reading for my International Relations class today...a chapter entitled "The Liberal Institutional Paths to Peace" (aka Hannah's favorite stuff all in one chapter).
For those of you who aren't familiar with international terms, let me also just state that "liberal" in this instance does not mean liberal in the sense of Nancy Pelosi "liberal," but in the longstanding liberal tradition which is commited to liberalism, and these days international coopeartion, free trade, free choice, etc.
It is out of this tradition that came first the League of Nations, and then the UN. Liberal philosophy underlies the EU, the WTO, international conferences and agreements, free trade and of course...international law.
This chapter outlined some of the many arguements for and against international law, as well as the principles and limits of international law. For example, international law was primarly set up to protect states and originally set up as norms and common law procedures that states used in dealing with one another (i.e. international trade, law of the seas, etc). However, as international law evolved and became more focused on protecting the individual states were (and are) still the primary actors. Thus, international law is limited by interests of individual states and can only be as strong as participating states make it.
This is thus argued on both sides as a weakness and strength of international law. Critics say that international law is weak and has no purpose because states do not always have to follow it. (However, some of these tend to be the same persons who argue against states like the US giving up bits of its sovereignty to stregthen international law and institutions.) Proponents say that this limit is actually the strength of international law, that because states must agree to conventions and laws and embed it within its own national laws that it shows the strength of the international legal system when states do sign on and hold up the treaties and resolutions. These persons usually argue that it is in the self interest of states to sign on to international legal norms...and that especially in the 21st Century era of globalization and mass communcation/trade/etc that international cooperation and interdependence is necessary and thus so is international law.
It's so interesting! All of the arguments intertwine and bring in questions like:
- Can international law really be law if it binds together states and cultures that lack universal values and norms? Apparently this goes back to a Roman law precept, ubi societas, ibi jus (where there is society, there is law) that requires shared communal values as a prereq for a legal system.
- As a legal system, international law must justify the "competitive pursuit of national advantage iwthout regard to morality or justice." Thus, what is legal under international law is not necessairly what is morally right? Does international law break from this in regard to human rights law? Can it be law if it does so?
- Is international law just another instrument of the powerful to oppress the weak? Is this yet another human invention for those in power to use as a mandate to do whatever they want?
- Does international law really infringe upon a nation's sovereignty? Is this a problem?
- Should the international legal system be institutionalized such that is a more rigid international governing system at some point in the future? Would it just then fall apart amidst global conflict?
- Isn't it interesting that even nations that decry the UN and other international legal norms still find it in their interest to go through the proceedings and support the system while complaining like whiny two-year olds?
That's enough questions for now, but ometime I'll share my fascination for the UN Charter...
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