Umbrellas and Philosophy

     I know, I know. The irony. I finally get a computer, and I don't write for months. Despair not, though, because I have actually been writing enough to keep you happy and informed. I've been keeping a news blog for one of my classes, called The Journalism Project. I learned a few things while keeping another blog (like how to insert links), which I'll try to use to give this one a boost.

     I also made a video while I was out, called Rain or Shine. You'll laugh, you'll cry. It's about umbrellas.

     On a different note, I've decided to use my writing abilities for a field other than journalism. I've been thinking about this for quite a while, almost the whole year. The longer I've studied journalism, the more convinced I've become that it's not the job for me. What really tipped me in this direction was the two-week trip to Summit Ministries in Tennessee. I enjoyed those two weeks more than I've enjoyed anything in a long time. I was surrounded by people who were interested in studying deep things, who weren't afraid to ask questions that would make most Christians nervous. It was a place for true seekers, people who really wanted to dig deep into Christian thought and understand the world. That said, next semester I'll be studying philosophy, with the idea of teaching in the back of my head. I can hardly think of anything I would enjoy more than teaching philosophy.

     What's surprised me most is how little this switch has interfered with my plans. I'm still going to write, it's just that now I'm going to be writing about things I really care about. I've already got an idea for a book. I'm thinking about calling it "Common Philosophy" because I want to show people that philosophy isn't just for the educated and "intellectual elite," but that everyone uses, encounters, and expresses philosophy in some way. We're all philosophers, we just need to learn how to do it right. I think that by talking about a lot of weighty questions in simple terms, people will see that philosophy is an unavoidable, yet enjoyable, part of life.
   
     Enjoy the blog and the umbrellas. I'll try to write soon.

SDG

The End of Jones

Well, summer is over, which means that I have to stop being lazy and start writing again. Yes, I could have written at any point during the last few months, but I just get this irresistible urge to sit down and do nothing but read and go on vacations when the weather turns hot. The good news is that I should be able to post much more frequently now since I have finally acquired my own laptop.

It feels like a long time since I've been at Jones, but it's really only been three months. I suppose I'll miss ol' JCJC, but at the same time I'm ready for something new, and USM is certainly that. Yes, I am officially a student at the University of Southern Mississippi. I'm continuing my study of journalism, with an emphasis on News Editorial (writing for print or online publications, basically). School started on the 22, which was a Wednesday, and my first assignment was due that Friday, my second on Tuesday. They don't mess around up here. However, school didn't meet Tuesday or Wednesday because of Tropical Storm Isaac.

How have I spent my summer? Glad you asked. After my graduation, I worked with my dad at our family's meat processing plant. That lasted until the end of June. I also helped him with a couple of construction projects that we did for his mother, who lives in a house that's over 100 years old. Seriously. In July, I went to a two-week, um, I guess you would call it a conference, but it was more like two weeks of intensely interesting college classes. Officially, it was an apologetics conference hosted by Summit Ministries. Apologetics means "a defense," and it's typically used to describe the defense of the Christian faith. You basically learn to defend Christianity as actually true, instead of just one version of the truth (which is an idea propagated by Postmodernism, the belief that there is no absolute truth). After that, I spent a few weeks doing almost nothing but reading Orson Scott Card and hanging out with my friends before everyone had to go back to school. That, in a nutshell, was my summer.

There was only one real downer during this otherwise happy period. When I was signing up for the Student Printz, the campus newspaper at USM, I got a little careless. I filled out the application online, and a few days later I left for the apologetics conference. I'll admit that I knew the Printz would probably ask for samples of my work, but I didn't know when and I didn't think that there might be a deadline to turn them in. I suppose it's really my fault, though. I could have found a way to check my email if I had wanted to badly enough. Let it suffice to say that my samples were late and that I didn't make it on the Printz. There's always next semester. Who knows, maybe not getting on the Printz may turn out to be a blessing in disguise, since I'm taking a couple of writing intensive courses this semester.

Anyway, my experience on the whole has been a positive one. I'll be posting again soon, I'm sure. This is Seth, signing off.
SDG

Book Ideas 2

It's been almost a year since I told you about some of the ideas I've had for future books. At the rate I'm writing them, they may cover my retirement fund and not much else. The book I mentioned last time, about a world which I made up, has undergone some extensive changes. First, I finally have a vision of what the book should really be about. I was planning on writing an allegory, similar to C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. One day, as I was reading my Bible, a particular verse jumped out at me. It said, "love the lord with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength." Instead of thinking about the commandment, like I usually do, I thought, "Interesting. So there are four parts that make up man." I began to wonder how the parts influenced each other and what their functions were. Instantly I thought of my book, and decided that each race in this imaginary world would represent one of the four parts of man. So, even though the main storyline is full of typical fantasy fare, there is also an underlying message of how each person is put together and how our different parts work together to fight against darkness. It can also represent how society works, or should work. After all, in most people, one or two of the parts are more dominant and strongly developed than the rest. It's what gives us our different personalities. Readers might be able to identify with one of the four races, and start to learn what their function should be.
I had an idea for another book, but it's not very well developed yet. I don't know what chain of events led to this idea, but for some reason I began wondering what it would be like to be a kid being raised by the devil. I began to think of all the things that Satan might say and do, and why he would be raising a kid in the first place. Eventually, it gradually morphed into an idea for a book. If I do end up writing it, I want it to mostly have a comical feel, so that it will appeal to a wider audience and be more fun to read. Of course, I imagine that it will have its more serious moments as well.
I have at least one other idea for a book up my sleeve, but I don't think I'll mention it here. It's still really rough, and I don't want to give all my secrets away. After all, if I told you everything now, what would I post about next year?
SDG

My Favorite Author

I figure that, since I'm a writer, I should probably tell you who I look up to and get my inspiration from. My favorite author by far is C. S. Lewis. At first, I was only interested in the Chronicles of Narnia, which appealed to me because of his incredible storytelling ability and imagination. Not long after, I started reading his theological works, and I was hooked. I still haven't read all of his books, and to be honest I'm not exactly sure how many he wrote, but I am slowly and steadily working my way through them as school permits. I feel like I have to get all the boring, useless schoolwork out of the way so I can actually learn something.
Lewis is my favorite author for a number of reasons. His reasoning ability is absolutely astonishing. He has a way of taking those subconcious assumptions that most of us have and sitting them front and center for analysis. When I read Lewis, I constantly find myself thinking, "I never really realized it, but I suppose I do think that way." He also has a very appealing and understandable writing style. The best way to describe it is "conversational." If you don't have a problem with his British terminology and phrasing (which is easily understood by reading in a British accent), then you'll discover one of the clearest voices you've ever heard. That, combined with his firm grasp of logic and liberal use of analogies, makes him one of the hardest people to disagree with that I know. His proof of Christian religion, "Mere Christianity," has converted many an agnostic and atheist, and would have converted me if I hadn't already been a Christian when I read it.
Right now I'm reading his autobiography, "Surprised by Joy." It's not a book I would recommend to people unfamiliar with his works. You have to read his other books to develop an interest in who he is before you can read his autobiography, or at least that's how it worked for me. With all that said, I don't think that Lewis is for everyone. People who don't enjoy logic or truth should steer clear of his theological works and limit themselves to The Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy series. For everyone else, I recommend starting with "Mere Christianity," which I think is one of the best examples of his writing.
Until next time.
SDG

The Knowledge of Good and Evil

Here's another one of my philosophical theories which, as far as I know, hasn't been duplicated by anyone else. There's a great debate in philosophy about whether or not man has an inherent (pre-installed, or innate) knowledge of what is moral, or whether we just made it up or learned it from an outside source such as nature or God. Until recently, I sided with the philosopher John Locke, who said that although we don't have any inherent knowledge, God has told us and given us the tools to discover what is right and wrong. Locke asserts that we are blank slates when we enter the world, and that the only way we can have knowledge and ideas is by reasoning, using our five senses, and reflection (observing how our own minds work).
The reason I no longer completely agree with Locke is because I thought of an idea that I think is inherent to everyone, even if someone were raised completely separate from other humans. Let me take that example and show you what I mean. Let's assume there's a child who was born in the jungle, we'll call him Bob, and for some reason his mother died and he was raised by animals. Now let's say that you wandered into this jungle and got lost and started to starve. Bob sees you and realizes that you're starving. Due to social instinct, Bob goes to the trouble of finding and preparing some food for you. However, when he brings you the food, let's say that for no reason at all you take it, throw it on the ground and grind it into the dirt. Now what do you suppose that Bob, who has never heard of morality, justice, or right and wrong, would do? He would probably be ticked.
I think that everyone, no matter where they come from, starts out thinking that kindness should be returned with kindness. Even if people say they don't believe it, if they say that we should take what we can get and not bother about where it comes from, I think their actions show otherwise. If we do something nice, we expect people to appreciate it; or, at the very least, not to show contempt for it.
This discovery may seem insignificant, but the desire to have kindness reciprocated is actually the basis for most of our social and moral laws. After all, it is only a small step from there to the famous command, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And from there, all sorts of theories can be deduced. Kant's Retributivism, and Bentham's Utilitarianism are both different interpretations of that command, when you think about it. So perhaps there is something to be said for inherent ideas after all, or at least for one. Maybe when Adam and Eve decided to chow down on the forbidden fruit, the human race was introduced to the concept of "Do as you would be done by." Maybe our ability to understand that is, in fact, the knowledge of good and evil.
S.D.G.

Ethical Beatings

In my ethics class, we've been doing presentations on different areas of ethics, such as religion, prostitution, animal cruelty, and the like. I was assigned the topic of how ethics applies to punishment, hence my odd but intriguing title. Contrary to what my title suggests, I didn't talk about parent to child discipline. I aimed at the much broader category of criminal punishment. It's really an interesting topic, so I decided I'd post the one page paper I wrote about it. It's a bit more formal and wordier than my usual stuff because I wrote it for an Honors class, but I hope you'll like it anyway:

This presentation will evaluate the justification for punishing criminals and present three different philosophies concerning how and why criminals should be punished.

1.      Why punish criminals?

Here are two of the most common arguments made against legal punishment. First, inflicting hardship on someone does not benefit anyone, increase happiness, or undo the crime. While it is true that the crime is not retractable, punishing criminals usually does bring peace of mind, security, and a sense of justice to the victim and most of society. Second, our aim should be to restore what was damaged, not punish the damager. This idea is known as restitution. It sounds nice, but it is usually inapplicable and sometimes leads to absurdities. For instance, how should a murderer atone for his crime? Our ideas of restitution are usually subjective, making them difficult to apply to an entire society. There is also the problem of premeditated crime. If you knew that a murder was being planned, you could do nothing about it. Because no crime has been committed, the would-be criminal can’t be arrested.

2.      Utilitarian Justice.

Jeremy Bentham, a proponent of Utilitarianism, proposed the correctional theory of punishment. Since Utilitarianism wants the greatest good for the greatest number of people, Bentham believed that criminals should be separated from society, since this would secure the benefits of security and peace of mind for citizens, but he also advocated reforming prisoners through job training, education, and counseling. Bentham believed that if criminals had the opportunity to make money honestly, then they would.

3.      Retribution.

Directly opposed to Bentham is Immanuel Kant and his Retributionist theory. Simply put, Kant believed that criminals deserve to be punished in proportion to the severity of their crime. He reasoned that if someone saw fit to harm other people for selfish gain, then we should return their behavior in kind. Kant believed that this was actually a form of respect for the criminal’s human dignity.

4.      Divine Command Theory.

The Christian theory is a complicated one. In Matthew 18:23, Jesus begins to tell a parable about a man who owed a huge debt, but was forgiven by the man he owed. The forgiven man then proceeded to find someone who owed him a small sum and relentlessly demanded to be repaid, ordering him to be thrown into prison until he could pay. When the man who had forgiven him heard about it, he ordered the unforgiving man to be thrown into prison until he could pay the original huge debt. The story illustrates that since God has forgiven our sins, we have a duty to forgive other people as well. However, although we may forgive, there are still earthly consequences criminals must suffer. A life of adultery may lead to STD’s or a sex addiction, for instance. Paul also encourages submission to the law and its punishment by saying in Romans 13:4 that government “does not bear the sword in vain.”

In conclusion, we have looked at different philosophies regarding punishment. Although their motives and methods differ, I have shown that criminal punishment is necessary in a just and secure society.


S.D.G.

My Obituary

One of my classes this semester is an online course which teaches more in-depth journalism techniques than the regular newspaper. In newspaper, the focus is more on experience, and the business of making a paper sometimes pushes back the actual "learning the trade" part of the class. The online course is designed to pick up the slack and is much more focused on techniques and tricks of the trade. Anyway, our first real writing assignment was to write our own obituary. That may sound a little morbid, but our teacher explained that most universities will assign it to us anyway.

Do you know how intensely boring most obituaries are? Usually it's the same words used over and over with different names. Sure, occasionally you might find one that really portrays a person's life, but they're rare. Writing a 200-300 word self death notice was none too interesting to me. So I did what anyone with an artistic license and an imagination would do. I had fun with it. I may have had a little too much fun, in fact. By the time I was finished with it, I decided that I would put it up here for you guys to see as well. Please bear in mind that I have no intention for my actual obituary to look like this. This is just the product of someone desperate to add interest to a potentially dreary project:

The church bell is greeted with jubilant cheers. So ends the funeral for Seth Houston, journalist and respected member of society.

Seth Houston was born and raised in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi. After graduating from Jones County Junior College, Houston moved out of the state for legal reasons. He soon began travelling the country on a journey to gain experience in his chosen profession, journalism. “He moved around a lot to hide from the law,” Sheriff Ted E. Bear said. “It’s a good thing he died when he did, because he was running out of places to go.” The entire police force attended the funeral to pay their respects. “I had to make sure he was really dead,” said Bear after respectfully spitting on the coffin.

Houston was preceded in death by his mother and father, who died of natural causes after reading a newspaper article celebrating their son’s community-centered activities.

Houston leaves behind two brothers and four sisters, as well as a loving wife, Caroline. “The scoundrel left after the first month,” she said, the tender emotion evident in her voice. “Nobody could find him, so I couldn’t even get a proper divorce.”

Houston was found in a warehouse, the victim of a tragic gang shooting. He was 35. “It just goes to show that even common thugs have a sense of decency,” said Bear. 

Houston’s grieving wife also had words to affirm his strong character. “He’s lucky the gang got to him before I did,” she said.

Many friends of the deceased from across the country turned out for Houston’s funeral, escorted by their local prison guards. Other than a small cheering section, it was evident that Houston will be missed by many.
S.D.G.

The Secret Scotsman

I was recently asked if I was from Scotland. Needless to say, it was one of the best moments of my life. For those of you who do not know me very well or have never met me, I have a red beard (my regular hair is brown) and can do a pretty mean Scottish accent. Most of my ancestors were Scottish as well, but I doubt that has anything to do with my accent. Besides, I've never actually been to Scotland and know almost nothing about it. Anyway, I was recently asked to say something for a promotional video. The video was for a dear and talented friend of mine (who I'll call Bethany Dillon) who was playing a concert. Naturally, I agreed to do it and made a very awkward and bumbling attempt to persuade people to attend Bethany's concert. Then it occured to me to try using my accent. The second attempt was much better and very convincing, if I do say so myself. Even more misleading was the video's description, which read, "I interview some Americans (and a Scotsman) on why you should come to my show."
After the show, it just so happened that I met someone who had seen the promotional video and who didn't already know that I wasn't Scottish. Ironically enough, she happened to be from South Africa and had a real accent. I felt kind of like a fake. Regardless, I ended up doing my accent for quite a few people, which I kind of enjoyed. Since then, I've come up with quite a few ideas in case Bethany decides to do any more promotional videos, such as the Angry Scotsman, Singing Scotsman, and even one involving an Australian accent. Normally, I would post the video so you could see it for yourself, but since it mentions Bethany's real name, I've decided not to. Anyway, g'night, wee bairns.
S.D.G.

The Last Jones Semester

Yes, everyone, I'm still alive. Well, it's almost time to start my very last semester at good ol' Jones County Junior College. In the fall, if all goes well, I will be starting to attend Southern Miss as a Communications major with an emphasis on Editorial Journalism. That's a fancy way of saying I'll be learning how to write for a newspaper, just like I'm doing at Jones. As far as what I'm planning on doing after that, I've been thinking about checking in to writing for World magazine. World is a "specialty publication," so called because it is written from a Christian perspective. I love it because it's real news, yet it's also made relevant to me and other Christians.
Now for a quick summary of what's happened since last year. As history will attest, my article on Proposition 26 had little effect. It was overturned by an impressive amount, although I can't remember exactly how much. The girl who wrote an article opposing mine did a good job. I disagreed with her on almost every point, but she has obvious talent. Nothing else of particular significance has happened, or at least nothing that comes to mind. The classes I'm taking at Jones are all pretty enjoyable so far. I'm also taking online classes for the first time this semester, so we'll see how that works out. What I'm most anxious about are my new staff members. Last year they turned out fine, except for one who dropped out of school. This year I've got two new members, and I'm anxious to see how they'll turn out. I think that managing people is probably the hardest thing about being an editor, and it's also one of the most useful experiences I've had at Jones. It's difficult to try to balance authority and leniency.
My second favorite class this semester would have to be Ethics. The teacher is great, but he has a tendency to toot his own horn occasionally. I will probably vent a lot of my opinions on different ethical theories here in the future, so be forewarned. I think that if I weren't a journalism major, I would probably choose philosophy instead. I think I would really enjoy teaching philosophy classes. I like philosophy for much the same reason I do journalism: it's a search for truth. I suppose truth matters more to me than almost anything else. My mom is kind of like that. She says that truth people tend to be kind of insensitive and prone to legalism, which I guess is true of myself.
Anyway, that's what's going on right now. I'll keep you posted.
S.D.G.