Recent Events

Life is staying pretty interesting. Last week, I attended a conference at West Point on academic ethics. It was really cool. I learned a lot and, of course, I said a lot First, let me say that West Point is simultaneously the most beautiful and most hideous school I have ever encountered. It is awe inspiring to see the dedication of the cadets, to see them stand to attention, to see their pressed uniforms, to see their devotion to duty, to see the way that they are respectful (in general) and to see their minds at work. It was beautiful. However, there was an ugly side. It kept coming back to me, these young men are preparing to kill and to be killed. They use bayonets, they fire artillery shells, they are going to war. The cadet that I stayed with had a piece of shrapnel on his desk that he had picked up after an exercise. I held the chunk of metal in my hands and imagined it traveling at hundreds of miles per hour through flesh and bone. It was terrifying.
There is a legend at West Point concerning the flag pole. According to the tale, at the top of the pole, there is a container with a razor blade, a match and a pistol with one shot. Supposedly, when the nation is attacked, the last cadet alive at the academy is supposed to climb the flag pole, cut up the flag, burn it respectfully and then kill himself/herself. I wanted to ask my guides whether they would actually do that. For once, I held my tongue. It would have been a less interesting conference if I had kept to that principle the rest of the time. I rocked the boat... a lot...
I asked a lot of questions and managed to make a number of people quite frustrated with me. And, guess what, I managed to do so without ever mentioning foreign policy or the military. All of my "offenses" involved my criticisms of Capitalism and Utilitarianism. We had a panel discussion with a large number of "big-wigs" including the CEO of Arbys, a Boeing executive, a judge on the US circuit court and a few others. We had the opportunity to question them. I took my opportunity. Basically, I stood up and called everyone in the room (myself included) murderers. I based my statement upon the unfair distribution of wealth which causes the deaths of 16,000 children per day. Then after monologuing for 2 minutes about how the philosophy of John Locke can no longer be applied to the 21st century, I asked them how they could talk about ethics when they were murderers. They didn't answer my question. They answered the question that they wanted me to ask: "How does your company help the poor?" Oh well...
A lot of the speakers were much less than stellar. One in particular really ticked me off. He kept saying one offensive thing after another about "liberals", immigration, muslims, the war and everything else. I nearly walked out. I with I had. I confronted him later in private. It was stressful. At every second and in every situation in the entire conference, I had to be filtering everything that everyone said. Some was good, a lot was bad. I could write pages about the little things that happened, both the good and the bad, but I will spare you more details.
There is one more thing though: I wonder if it is possible to go to war without believing that God is on your side. I have never gone to war. I do not know. But, something deep inside me tells me that that is a necessary condition before putting ones life on the line, or before taking the lives of others. Many of the Christians that I talked to at the academy spoke of church and country almost interchangeably. Can one be in the military without believing that God supports that decision? I don't know... But I am beginning to suspect not.
On a much lighter note, Emily has been organizing some pretty sweet things here at Dordt. It is really awesome to see all of the stuff that is happening. I feel like the campus is actually changing bit by bit. Ill let Emily fill you in on the details of the different events. They were her ideas.
I miss you all VERY much.
Ma3salema ya habibeen
Oh and one more thing. One guy (an adult!!!) at the conference said that I was arrogant for telling him that he didnt understand Arabic culture. He kept insisting that he DID understand it even though he had never been there. I kept insisting that I myself did not understand it even though I lived there for 4 months. He kept talking about the Arab world with very "western" categories like freedom, individualism and the like while completely dismissing any emphasis on community and honor. It was so sad that it was funny.