Bygone Talk

Call me a lazy bastard, but I felt like posting an old "autobiographical" paper that I had due in Political Science 1375 (Religion and Politics) this past semester. Should be an interesting read...

Eric Joseph
Political Science 1375
January 17, 2003

Judging by the results of the religious survey taken last Friday, I am a secular humanist. To be quite honest, I never have heard of the term “humanist,” so it did come as quite a shock. At first, I thought the results were wrong, however, as I read into the description of what a humanist is, I agreed with it more and more. I checked out some sites regarding humanism, and for one of the few times in my life, I was stumped by the fact that I had nothing to argue against being one. Usually, whenever I am classified as a specific something, I feel the need to argue against my being that.

For example, last semester, after speaking with the school, I was deemed to be disabled because I have a stutter. My argument against being labeled as “disabled” is that it is suppose to be an excuse for many things, but I find that it is only a burden. Since I do not want to be burdened by such labels, I do not feel that I am disabled. I would tend to agree with the label “handicapped” because it denotes an ability to still function but slightly hindered, while disabled denotes broken, needless, and inoperative. Some people may feel that changing this wording is only a way to fool myself into believing that I am something more than what I already am, but I think that it helps both sides on a subconscious level.

Anyways, onto the meat of this paper. I feel that since I am not held to any religious belief, I am better able to see political issues in a different light. By that, I mean that a majority of the population of the United States is religious, and since most of them grew up regarding their religion as “superior” in one way or another, they are going to tend to go one way over another. Another way to put it is that since all religions have an agenda and since people are influenced by their personal religion’s agenda, their views are much closer to their own religions despite any of their protests against such accusations. Since the world of politics has to do with people, and more specifically, interactions between people, there is a war of agendas constantly being waged as people try to do or have done what they want. Thus, it is safe to say that religions persuade a majority of this war of agendas.

Where might I come into all of this? Well, I do not have any ties to any religion, thus I am not held to any specific ideology. In this fashion, I am free to think and do as I please without feeling that I may have gone against anyone in particular. As far as my own agenda goes, I guess you can say that it is manipulated by a philosophy called humanism, but seeing as how I have never read any books pertaining to humanism and that I was born from a family that was half Protestant and half Jewish (Sorry, but I do not know which specific sects or factions they are from), I feel that I am not bound by humanism.

As far as what is on my agenda, I am searching for a place where we (Humanity) can live our lives in peaceful days, with no wars and no stealing; a place that is not run by fear; a place where people can live and can actually trust other human beings. I think I would call this place paradise. However, now that I have a defined ends, the means is where politics comes into play. My idea may sound like a bunch of bullshit on paper because there is no one way to get to this paradise. I would like to believe that it would take a collective effort in order to realize such a dream, however, as much as I would die to make such a place a reality, there would probably be even more people who would want to stop such a dream from coming true.

Before I came back to Pitt from Christmas vacation, my mother told me to fill out a voter registration form because I had not done so for the previous elections in November. I went down the form, filling out all of the boxes and writing in what they wanted. However, probably the one part that surprised me the most about me was the box marked “Political Affiliation.” I feel that I am a pretty liberal person, and most people would guess that I would have checked the small box next to either “Democrat” or “Green.” The weird thing is that I marked “No affiliation.” Some people may just wonder what may be wrong with that, or perhaps why I was weirded out by my own response in such a way. I think it was because I did not want to feel any obligation to vote for any party in particular.

Admit it to yourself, but when you say that you are a Democrat or a Republican, you feel as if you should vote for them despite what their platform is. I know that is what many people feel. And sometimes, it is the other way around; people vote for a party not out of obligation for their own party, but rather out of an obligation to not vote for the other party. Forget what the issues are in the campaign, because it becomes irrelevant to some people at this point. Parties simply become names for some people, and issues become meaningless.

For me, I like to look over all sides of the issues and see who stands where. I might be liberal, but that does not mean that the conservative side of the spectrum is not home to some perspectives that I consider being correct. The one thing that I do hate is when people blindly vote for a party without understanding or even knowing what issues that party is supporting. I will use my own mother as an example. She is a major advocate for a women’s right to abortion, so often times, her vote will usually hinge upon which candidate supports abortion. If all candidates support abortion, then it comes down to party, because she makes an automatic assumption that Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong. Never mind the fact that perhaps the Republics may support a better social security system, or that Democrats may support the building of a national defense system that 95% of the population is vehemently opposed to. She puts her blinders on to such things, and labels parties as black or white. I guess in some ways, that is her way of being a good citizen, but I see it as almost disrespectful towards the hardworking men and women who dedicate their lives towards the political world. Yeah, I may not agree with what some of them represent, but I should at least look over and understand their issues before I vote.

Quite honestly, I am not sure what you were expecting from this paper. Perhaps you wanted some long dissertation about my political attitudes towards major issues confronting the United States in today’s day and age, or maybe you wanted our own stories on how we came to form our beliefs of right and wrong. Whatever you were looking for in this paper, I probably either nailed it on the head or I briefly spoke about it. On the other hand, maybe the point of the paper is to simply allow me to reflect upon what I wrote down later. Whatever the point may be, I guess that is what each person who reads this paper has to come to a decision on.

I am not exactly sure why I decided to bring up this particular paper, as it did not really pertain to much of the class' material, but as I read over it, I realize that I wrote it in a similar fashion as how I write a lot of these entries. I start off with a basic idea, and from there, I usually go off on different tangents relating to that idea. However, some entries (Particularly the "Faces" entry) seem to lack a general direction in their construction.

Not trying to bring politics into everything, but I would say that I lean closer to being liberal than I do being conservative. With this fact in mind, I try to be objective towards both sides, whatever the situation may be.

At Erin's last soccer game (Another thing: I always find a way to bring Erin into a journal entry), they were playing the first round of districts against Penn Manor. Although I may not be the best soccer referee (Seeing as how I do not know all of the proper rules and I did not have the proper perspective of the field), I would always call fouls regardless of the side and score. I can remember Allison intentionally nailing some other girl out on the field and she did not get called for it. The same would happen with Penn Manor. However, as being a fan, one thing always irked me: parents and fans would always scream out "Foul" or "Obstruction" when there was clearly no foul or obstruction on the field of play. This seemed like a clear sign of not being objective to what is going on almost to the point of ruining the game.

I just hope that the referees were as objective in their calls as possible.

Another aspect that I took in this paper: paradise. Many different people have many different definitions of paradise. I pretty much ripped the first line of the fifth paragraph from an episode of Trigun (Said by Vash in episode 22), but it got across an idea that I hold dearly: my view of what paradise is and should be. And just like I said in that same paragraph, I would die to make that paradise a reality, and as much as I would die to make it happen, many more people would die just to prevent that paradise from being created. It may not be that these people do not want a paradise to be created, but rather, because they do not want my paradise to be created. My idea would be of a utopia, but incidents going on around me all the time make me question whether or not human beings would be able to handle a utopia; true "perfection" is in the eye of the beholder, and also, people have a habit of being destructive after everything is said and done.

I wonder what thoughts I wrote down further into the past. Sooner or later, time will tell.