tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65438535237917744632024-03-17T01:59:57.564-04:00IzgadIzgad is Aramaic for messenger or runner. We live in a world caught between secularism and religious fundamentalism. I am taking up my post, alongside many wiser souls, as a low ranking messenger boy in the fight to establish a third path. Along the way, I will be recommending a steady flow of good science fiction and fantasy in order to keep things entertaining.
Welcome Aboard and Enjoy the Ride!Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.comBlogger998125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-65516799503133796282024-03-17T01:59:00.000-04:002024-03-17T01:59:26.065-04:00 In Search of the People (Part I)
We have previously discussed the role of Motte and Bailey
tactics in leftist revolutionary thought. Words like critical thinking,
education, racism, oppression, and genocide do not mean what most people think
they mean. Specifically, they have nothing to do with physical violence, teaching
people to read and think for themselves. Instead, these words are simply
reduced to matters of whether youIzgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-50916377615929615162024-03-03T16:45:00.001-05:002024-03-03T16:46:06.703-05:00Oppression and Alienation: Understanding Palestinian Terrorism This post owes a debt to Clarissa. I made the decision not to talk about Russia here for the purpose of space and lack of competency in the field but much of what I say here about Hamas and the logic of alienation being used to justify irrational cruelty as an end in of itself has been influenced by her discussions of Russia’s motivations for invading Ukraine and their sense of grievance against Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-46400489570078190742024-02-11T20:42:00.000-05:002024-02-11T20:42:33.575-05:00Chabad and the Benedict Option To return to the issue of Chabad and its methods of
outreach. It is interesting to compare Chabad to Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option. Dreher
urges Christians to recognize that they have lost the culture war and are now
living in a society that is not only not even formally Christian but is
outright hostile to Christianity. His basic model is of fourth-century pagans. They still believed that they Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-13311032781999860732024-02-02T13:59:00.000-05:002024-02-02T13:59:12.684-05:00Genocide, Ecocide, and, Christopher Columbus
I was recently helping a student with an assignment on
putting Christopher Columbus on trial. The student struck me as reasonably
intelligent and without any strong political axes to grind. My basic pitch to them was that
there are good arguments to make against Columbus but he was not a simple
cartoon villain. I asked them if they had ever heard of Howard Zinn, the
primary Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-9922659152490999952024-01-24T23:04:00.000-05:002024-01-24T23:04:12.457-05:00Fighting for Peace in GazaAs a follow-up to the previous post, I hope it is obvious to
my readers that there is a profound distinction between pursuing
justice/revenge and self-defense. Israel’s actions in Gaza are defensible to
the extent that they make it less likely that an attack like October 7 will
ever happen again. If it were not possible to eliminate Hamas as a military
force (distinct from a political ideology) Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-85928047649533612872024-01-15T12:17:00.000-05:002024-01-15T12:17:02.399-05:00Avenging Noam: Why Oppression Does Not Create Terrorists It is commonly argued that oppression leads to violence. This
argument can take the form of outright apologetics for terrorism. It is
“understandable” that Hamas launched the attacks of October 7 as they are
responding to 75 years of oppression. There is a more subtle version of this
argument that grants that what Hamas did was wrong but suggests that Israel’s
response is only going to Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-63625273028757664422023-12-26T15:22:00.004-05:002023-12-27T10:54:12.041-05:00The Paradox of a Bohemian Community: A Conservative Deconstruction of Rent Among my favorite musicals is Rent. I confess that I feel guilty about some of the more problematic aspects of the musical. It is not as if I actually approve of the life choices made by any of the characters. In my defense, I would like to make the case for seeing the musical from a conservative perspective as an exploration of the intellectual trap of attempting to live outside of any Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-59589365700558401912023-11-22T08:37:00.000-05:002023-11-22T08:37:25.094-05:00Public Judaism: Chabad's Outreach Playbook In the previous post, I discussed Charles Taylor's argument that the Protestant notion of privacy led to the rise of modern secularism. Here, I would like to use the example of Chabad as a model of how Taylor's version of secularism can be countered. Once one understands the extent to which modern secularism
relies on the privatization of religion, Chabad’s style of outreach begins to
make Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-7617678486482478192023-11-14T23:26:00.002-05:002023-11-21T10:00:12.106-05:00Protestantism, Privacy, and the Rise of Secularism Charles Tayor’s Secular Age is one of those rare books that
are nearly a thousand pages but demand close reading. At the center of his
narrative regarding the rise of secularism is the rise of privacy. Ironically,
as with much of the origins of European secularism, privacy was a creation of
Protestantism. In contrast to the Catholic model where one was saved by being
part of the visible communityIzgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-66625574928123791912023-11-12T00:23:00.005-05:002023-11-12T10:35:57.009-05:00I am From PalestineIn the previous post, I spoke about how Paulo Freire uses his
made-up problem of banking education as a deceitful Motte and Bailey argument in
favor of turning education into ideological indoctrination. In the following
video, we see a similar use of Freire’s tactic on behalf of Palestinian
propaganda.
The basic story we have here is about a little Palestinian girl named Samidah who
goes Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-3811119690042334142023-11-09T00:28:00.001-05:002023-11-09T00:28:39.372-05:00Paulo Freire's Bank of Motte and BaileyThere is a type of Motte and Bailey argument where you offer
a strawman version of the opposition that no serious person believes. Having
presented a problem that does not really exist or at least has been greatly exaggerated, you then offer a solution that
sounds innocent, mainly not to do the thing that no one is really doing anyway,
but really is quite radical. Then, in true Motte and Bailey Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-59485824047717239172023-09-14T20:04:00.000-04:002023-09-14T20:04:18.010-04:00Orual's Blindness: Understanding the End of Till We Have Faces Years ago, I did a series of posts on C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, but I never really felt happy with how I explained the ending. Essentially, I tried to keep with the idea that Orual is right and the gods acknowledge this fact by offering her salvation even though she is their enemy. I would like to take another pass at explaining the ending and make the case that the Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-74166605007015914052023-09-08T00:09:00.005-04:002024-02-08T00:15:23.866-05:00Voyaging Into Jewish History
Previously, I explored Haredi education through an Abie Rotenberg song. I would like to continue to use Abie Rotenberg to better understand Jewish thought. The song "Journey at Sea" from the album Journeys Five stands as a useful introduction to a traditional view of Jewish History. To be clear, by history here, what I mean is not so much the particular facts about the past but the Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-7502392356745187092023-08-20T22:41:00.000-04:002023-08-20T22:41:44.623-04:00Time Traveling Missionaries or Why Christianity Needs DepravityImagine if a Jew and a Christian took off in the TARDIS to the year 2023 BCE to preach their faiths. As there is no such thing as Judaism or Christianity at this time, our Jew and Christian would have an identical pitch to any person they met. There is one God, who created the world. You need to get rid of all of your idols and worship just him. In addition, you should commit yourself to an Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-25680086446402029522023-08-09T12:15:00.001-04:002023-08-09T12:15:22.833-04:00Ground Rules for a Discourse With Me In an earlier post, I explored why I felt I had an easier time reading conservative Christians than woke leftists. The practical implication of this is that I recognize that I struggle to engage people on the left. I am open to the possibility that this is a failure on my part that I need to rectify. Readers should feel free to offer book recommendations or to attempt to engage me in Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-16878441538330511312023-07-30T21:12:00.002-04:002024-02-08T00:14:03.447-05:00Critical Anti-Semitism Theory: The 33 Project Growing up with one foot in the Haredi world, I was surrounded by a particular narrative about Jews and gentiles. The non-Jews around us might appear, at first glance, to be decent people but, in reality, they are all vicious anti-Semites ready to murder us at the first opportunity. "Esau hates Jacob" was a historical metaphysical fact much the same as the notion that Jacob and Esau were Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-6754469036111957862023-07-18T13:50:00.004-04:002023-08-14T15:14:46.141-04:00Am I to Blame for Killing Your Lord (or for Racism)? As a principled classical liberal, I believe in the importance of reading things that one disagrees with the goal of being able to pass an Ideological Turing Test. This means being able to talk about a position in such a way that people will not be able to tell the difference between your description and the words of genuine supporters. I do read plenty of things that I disagree with. That Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-38884027102686961422023-07-16T15:37:00.002-04:002024-02-19T18:19:48.744-05:00Who Gets to Be the Equity Box Czar?In the previous post, I discussed the question of what might be considered equality. Here I would like to turn to the question of who gets to make that decision. The popular image of equity is of the child who gets the box
to stand on to look over the fence and watch the game. I find it interesting
that this image specifically looks at a situation where there is a
clear problem and solution.Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-66844380082242651002023-07-12T14:03:00.000-04:002023-07-12T14:03:01.411-04:00Slicing the Equality Cake Legal equality, or something reasonably close to it, is a real possibility. There should be one set of laws that apply to rich and poor alike and regardless of skin color. Whether a person accused of murder is rich or poor, black or white, there should be the same legal process. I readily grant that such legal equality is far from actual equality. The O. J. Simpsons of the world will be Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-57255924175256288782023-07-05T13:49:00.000-04:002023-07-05T13:49:08.428-04:00Legalizing Discrimination: A Liberal Solution to the Recent Supreme Court Rulings Last week, the Supreme Court offered two rulings along 6-3 ideological lines that upset many liberals, which I would like to discuss here. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the court ruled against the affirmative action programs of Harvard and North Carolina, arguing that they discriminated against Asian students. In 303 Creative LLC v. Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-32362075317840981562023-06-18T17:05:00.001-04:002023-08-14T15:20:43.705-04:00Passing a Loathsome Test: The Case Against the CalTPA I have just completed my work on my California single-subject teaching preliminary credential. This allows me to teach middle or high school. (If you know of any
schools in the Los Angeles area looking for a history teacher, feel free to
contact me.) Work on this credential involved classes, four months of unpaid
student teaching, and the completion of both cycles of the CalTPA (California
Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-55152429777729369922023-05-24T23:02:00.003-04:002023-12-31T20:44:18.383-05:00Jewish Capitalism and Religious Liberty I would like to follow up on my previous post and consider the implications of what I wrote for Judaism. Does not Judaism have its own
tradition of religious liberty, independent of Protestantism? For an
explanation, let me turn to the example of Max Weber and Capitalism.
Much as I argued that Protestantism is a crucial ingredient
for religious liberty, Weber famously argued that Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-4299594403153738342023-05-23T23:46:00.000-04:002023-05-23T23:46:02.352-04:00The Protestant Balance for Religious Liberty Historically, there have been few principled defenders of
religious liberty and, in truth, there are few today. To appreciate this, it is
useful to consider the various factors needed to render religious liberty as something sensible. There is a balancing
act here. One needs to believe that religion is important but that, at the same
time, there is a value to having a personal conscious. Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-22132677972012808822023-05-21T18:54:00.002-04:002023-05-21T18:54:44.155-04:00Racism or Confession as a Social/Political Skill The beginning of Home Alone 2 offers us an excellent example of a well-handled confession on the part of Kevin's older brother, Buzz. One would think that Kevin has the moral high ground against Buzz, who instigated the fight during the staged Christmas pageant. What Buzz understands, though, is that this is not about what either he or Kevin actually did but about the legitimacy of theIzgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543853523791774463.post-28332845493331964052023-05-16T14:28:00.001-04:002023-07-13T14:59:21.154-04:00 Coming Out of the Closet to Claim Group Rights
Essential for understanding African American history in this
country is the fact that, for hundreds of years blacks were persecuted as a group.
It was not just that blacks were disproportionally targeted for slavery,
lynchings, and ultimately the system of Jim Crow, these things were part of an organized
conspiracy against black people for the simple reason that they were black. By
the end of Izgadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03869626126435460209noreply@blogger.com0