• Parents face a dilemma -- their control over our choices must eventually end -- such that the rational response is to train a child to seem rather than to be.
  • first training us to seek things verifiably (call it "language acquisition");
  • and since their surveillance must eventually end too, conforming our actions, while still surveillable, towards choosing the visible trappings of what they think is best for us (call it "language control").

Of course your Jewish-boy head prefers finding descriptive truths rather than normative truths; your father taught you to be this way, to make you a good boy, because it made him a good surgeon. But fathers, though perhaps moral authorities, cannot be their sons' moral authorities.

Hey Mia,

I appreciate your comments. You're absolutely right: I risk of offending people, by distinguishing "my Jewishness" from "others' Christianity," and ignoring everything else. But, because that distinction is central to my essay, I'd like to defend it -- and lay out guidelines for how people can help me improve it:

1. Eben once said that he regards "Judaeo-Christian" as a deceptive combination; and of course he regards himself as Jewish, not Christian. Thus I chose this distinction because [I think] it instructs him to identify with me. Its unfortunate side effect is to tell non-Jews not to identify with me; but, as you noted, it's impossible for me to speak to everyone in every place: This part speaks better to Jews, worse to others; perhaps, as you said, better to Eben than it did to you.
2. Later I tried to identify with members of all non-secular faiths, when I said, "In a pluralist society, where Jew and Christian coexist, I need to appeal to common authorities, secular ones."
3. Finally -- given that the insult to non-Jews was inevitable -- I tried to limit it by means of a cheap trick -- saying that I distinguished Jew vs. Christian as "ideal types." i.e.: Although the characteristics I assign "Christianity" and "Judaism" don't align with how most people use the words, I hoped to shift the reader's attention onto what I was assigning these labels to: i.e., two world-views that are different and each meaningful.
   • "Insofar as" (get your gun) I'm discussing the world-views and not their labels, then the question, "What common English labels already closely approximate that distinction?" becomes distracting, and even counterproductive ...
     • (If I thought such labels existed, then I wouldn't have bothered with my own inquiry; I'd just do a full-text search of a descriptivist dictionary (i.e. read a thesaurus). And we could delegate all social research to the writers of descriptivist dictionaries ... but only because that would force them to define "lexicographer" as "everyone in society" -- and then the meanings of words would be whatever I could get people to accept, and I'd be well advised to do my own research after all ...)
     • That was a joke.
   • However, I acknowledge that my using the phrase "ideal type" was a cheap trick -- because as far as I can tell, it just means this:
     • Normal language permits the reader to take into account how people other than me use a word;
     • Ideal types instruct her to understand in a word, only what I say it means.
       The latter instructs you where to stop
       -- such that "Christian v. Jewish" forgiveness = "Christian" vs. "Jewish" forgiveness.
   I know I risk ridiculousness in asserting my right to make up the definitions of words -- as when I told my friend yesterday that "Reality can get in the way of good thinking." But I actually want to define the "good writer" in precisely those terms: as one who is as able to successfully make up the definitions of words;-- or, viewed in terms of what he thinks he's doing, able to figure out exactly which terms he ought to make ideal types, and which terms he ought not to;-- or, viewed in terms of social cues, able to signal precisely when, and how, he's using ideal types, and when he's using regular terms.

I need to find a way to balance 1, 2, and 3 within the essay, because they're each important, but they work at cross-purposes.
I would appreciate feedback on how I can do that. -- AndrewGradman - 13 Apr 2008

It is so refreshing to hear your voice come through in your papers. Your most successful moments are those when you speak from your experience and build from there.

There may be some obvious dangers where distinctions are limited to Christian/Jew (everyone else fits where?) or when speaking on Eben's intent or thought process (unless you feel it was clear). However, given the context of this paper and having read the first draft, I think you take this risk knowingly. Since your paper is ready for grading, I'll save any constructive comments for the revision process.

-- MiaWhite - 13 Apr 2008

Media Res

• to believe that his social position, and the information impacting him about others’ social positions, can never be “arbitrary,” --
• to ignore what he's learning about physics, biology, evolution, psychology, sociology, and path-dependant accounts of history—because all of these bottom-up accounts are ruled, from the top down, by Morality, --
• to ACT! as though beneath the descriptive meanings he's so adept at finding, there lie latent normative meanings, for the very purpose of finding which, his parents gave him his smarts.

And yet, for all my blessed perceptiveness, I've never yet revealed a single one of these meanings. And that's the curse -- to be apathetic towards things that should make a mensch indignant.

• I hesitate before making Holocaust jokes, not because they make me uncomfortable, but they make others uncomfortable, and those people then attack me. What do they have, that I lack, that they know to be indignant?
• When I deferred my admission to Columbia Law School for a year—and worked for the American Jewish Committee, to learn what issues I should be concerned about -- I emerged a year later with a list, but I couldn't care less whether I ever checked anything off that list. Even today, I still have no idea what order I'm to go about crossing things off.

The curse: that the only indignity I can justify is against myself. "Don't forgive me, Lord! I know not what to do."

Thus, when I answered Eben's question, I presented the phenotype of a Jewish son -- the son of Jewish parents. Jewish, that is, in that they wanted me to do good and to do well, but parents in that they also wanted proof that I would do good and do well.

• Given the dilemmas that parents face -- that their control over our choices must eventually end -- the rational response is to train a son to seem rather than to be.
  • parents first train us to seek things verifiably (called "language acquisition");
  • and since their surveillance of us must eventually end too, they conform our visible choices, while still surveillable, towards the visible trappings of what they think is best for us.

Of course your Jewish boy head prefers finding descriptive truths rather than normative truths; your father taught you to be this way, to make you a good boy, because it made him a good surgeon. But fathers, though perhaps moral authorities, cannot be their sons' moral authorities. If moral authority came from Rabbis, men who studied Torah, you who live in a secular era must look those who study Truth, to reveal NEW ETHICS, not ossify the old.

Hello,
My goal was to characterize the ambiguity between [the demands of society and the demands of the individual] in a lot of different ways. Sometimes I do that by intentionally making the essay itself unclear. But where that OBSCURES the content [e.g. through vague syntax / poor logic / opaque metaphor] that's UNINTENTIONAL and BAD. I could use help identifying those places. Thanks. -- AndrewGradman - 13 Apr 2008

Media Rerum

• the senate election, where I finished sixteenth and last;
  
• your responses to a previous, poetic draft of this paper;
  
• and Eben's excoriation of me in his office last semester.
  

• to believe that his social position, and the information impacting me about others’ social positions, can never be “arbitrary,” --
• to ignore what he's learning about physics, biology, evolution, psychology, sociology, and path-dependant accounts of history—because all of these bottom-up accounts are ruled, from the top down, by Morality.
• to ACT! as though beneath the descriptive meanings I’m so adept at finding, there lie latent normative meanings, for the very purpose of finding which, his parents gave him these cursed smarts.

• I hesitate before making Holocaust jokes, not because they make me uncomfortable, but they make others uncomfortable, and those people then attack me. What do they have, that I lack, that's making them indignant?
• When I deferred my admission to Columbia Law School for a year—and worked for the American Jewish Committee -- looking to learn what issues I should be concerned about -- I emerged a year later with a list, but I couldn't care less whether I ever checked anything off that list. Even today, I still have no idea what order I'm to go about crossing things off. The only indignity I feel is against myself.

I presented Eben the phenotype of the son of Jewish parents, who wanted me to do good and to do well, but who also wanted proof that I would do good and do well.

He indicted my society, but I took it personally, and this is what it meant to me:

Of course, your Jewish boy head prefers finding descriptive truths rather than normative truths; your father taught you to be this way, to make you a good boy, because it made him a good surgeon. But fathers, though perhaps moral authorities, cannot be their sons' moral authorities. Moral authority comes from Rabbis, persons who study Torah. Which in a secular era, means, those whose purpose in studying truth, is to reveal NEW ETHICS, not ossify the old.