inferences

 Inferences are assumptions made with style. 

Things I’m learning about the Army.

Army Standard Time is a little faster than Indian Standard Time.

Aspirin is the duct tape of medicine. 

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

origin of the word 'racism'

The word racism apparently was first used in 1902 by U.S. Army General Richard Pratt:


Segregating any class or race of people apart from the rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their growth very slow. Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism.



From reading the speech these words are taken from, I think Pratt's use of the word racism, like his use of 'classism' has less to do with private motives or purposes and more to do with actual lived experience of people. Segregation is racist because it kills the progress of the segregated people. Destroying "racism" is therefore an actual, concrete, attainable goal by integration (or "association") of the "races".

While some claim essential to racism is an explicit belief about the inferiority of a group of people, Pratt's focus is not on the belief but the actual difference in treatment.

Similarly, the 1965 UN International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination defines "racial discrimination" as


any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Notice the "purpose or effect" prong of the definition.

Truth in tension

One really important thing I learned about life: the necessity of finding your own way. Learn from others, sure, but your way is *your* way. Don’t pretend to be like everyone else. 

Another really important thing, possibly more important than the first: don’t set out to find your own way. Instead, set out to resolve the contradictions of justice and mercy, maturity and integrity, and work in a field suited to your personality that doesn’t pollute your conscience. Imitate people you admire. Read many books. Pray for guidance. Then do what seems right. You’ll find your way. 

Conversations with Brain

 B: Hey how’s it goin?

Me: not bad, bout to enter REM 4 slee...

B: Is now a good time time to show you that memory you repressed for years?

Me: what? N..

B: also I’ve included three alternative endings showing how you could have handled it better. 

Me: pls sto...

Brain: *popcorn*

Mission Impossible > 007

Rewatching all the Mission Impossible movies. IMHO, an underrated series.

Some have criticized the lack of flashbacks and backstory. The most you get about his past is a detail in MI3 that he, like his fiancé, lost his parents some time ago. Films obsess over those details, draw them like spaghetti, and stuff them into every filler moment in between action scenes. As if we need to meet the first girl Hunt kissed, his childhood doll or his childhood bully in order to understand him. I'm glad we didn't. Films have a bad habit of overexplaining characters in dull predictable terms (family, status, childhood). 

It's not that people don't have such backstories. But the backstory is infinitely more complex than any film could capture, so the angle tends to feel forced.

So I respect MI's choice not to dig into Hunt's life. The closest you get to insights in Hunt's personal values is IMF's Secretary telling him, "some flaw deep in your core being simply won’t allow you to choose between one life and millions." And really, it's more honest to appeal to the mystery of what beats a person's drumbeat. Philosopher Robert Kane suggests that each act of free will is an experiment: I don't know what will come of this decision, but here I go, I have set my course, let's see what happens. It's your task to see it through, "should you choose to accept it." 

Into the Wild: Original Sin Reimagined.

When Adam and Eve were created, all of human nature existed in them, and none of it existed anywhere else (Anselm). We are 'in Adam' in the sense that Adam and Eve are the source code for our own bodies; they are the blue print for the rest of humanity (Augustine/Crisp). Adam's sin changed him and Eve. It made them know sin, but without the benefit of wisdom or maturity (Irenaeus). As a result, they became stunted in their person, altered from their original design (Irenaeus). Coffee spilled on the blueprint (Crisp).

Here, original guilt refers to our state of condemnation: more a 'state of things' than a punitive function (Augustine). It is metaphor for an existential reality of strife and separation to which we are resigned until the savior comes. All humanity is born outside Eden, born in the wild. All are therefore born in exile - suffering the consequences of their ancestors, whether they ate the fruit or not. All other humans have been born into the world into this sadly altered state, knowing sin, but not knowing themselves or God, and having been expelled from Eden, not having the resources innately to right the ship.

But the good news is God has also left Eden or, rather, has brought it with him. God has come into the wild. Jesus enters the human race in order to change the blue-print - for "what is unassumed is unhealed" (Gregory). He, the new Adam, submits to God in the garden where Adam failed (Irenaeus). He goes the distance, enters and dies in our exile. Then he walks anew in the cool of the first day of the week as the new gardener. He is correcting the course of humanity. He gives the Spirit to those in allegiance to him so that they, too, can receive the breath of new life (Reeves). There's a sense Jesus is Eden, the place where reconciliation with God exists (Torrance), and also Adam, the person who reigns on our behalf and reigns with us (Wright).