Anne Weaver's Archive

Our last class was very interesting concerning subliminal messages and other stimuli to create some sort of atypical response. For instance, I was surprised that thinking of old people made you walk slower or thinking of what a professor looked like made you score higher on an exam, placement test, etc. Sitting in class I was reminded of an experiment my Greek professor encouraged us to do last year.

Last year ACU had a speaker on “White Privilege” that sparked a lot of conversation and controversy on campus. One of the things this particular professor told us was that we must recognize how we were raised and where we come from in order to fully recognize our own biases concerning race. This recognition will help us deal with our automatic responses and hopefully move forward in such a way as to change ourselves and others for the better. We cannot pretend our past doesn’t shape us. To help us better understand what he was saying, he encouraged us to take a test online. The results were confidential and not revealed to anyone other than the test taker.

The test paired certain good words and bad words with an African/African-American face or a Caucasian face. The test taker was supposed to match the terms as quickly as possible to the “correct” terms. One time through bad words were paired with Caucasians and good words with African Americans while a second time through did the opposite. The pairings were chosen randomly. When I took it, Caucasian was paired with good the first time through and with bad the second time through. A rating was given after the testing based on the time it took to match the questions and the number that were paired incorrectly. The rating was made by comparing the test takers 2 scores. It was not based on comparing the test taker to a neutral group.

I was not surprised with my own results. I grew up in a highly racist family from the south east. My father still flies the Confederate flag and considers Arlington National Cemetery in DC to be stolen property from the North. Though I hold vastly different views from my parents (more particularly my father), I knew my automatic responses would be less than great. However, I am grateful to my professor for the suggestion. I am now aware how strong my innate reactions despite my own opinions. It is interesting how much there is “unconscious” that we are not aware of. I wouldn’t consider myself crazy about Freud’s particular analysis of the unconscious, but I do agree with him that it is important. We must know how we’ve been shaped (maybe more of a behaviorist mindset) before we can live how we believe is right.

I have always been interested in Watson’s experiments over the years, but having read through parts of his life in addition to knowing his famous studies, I feel as if I understand him a good deal better. Reading through, I began to wonder if Watson’s great focus on children is due to his own difficult childhood. His nanny told him horrific stories of the Devil lurking in the dark, and as a result he battled a fear of the dark for the rest of his life. When he was having a particularly nervous time, he would sleep with the light on. I wonder if his experiment with little Albert was a result of his own fears from childhood. Was he searching to find a way to unlearn/systematically eliminate his own fears? If he was, then his study on Peter might have given him hope for himself.

Similarly, I wonder if Watson’s poor childhood contributed to his passion for child studies. As a child, his father was a drunkard who was continually chastised by his zealously religious mother. Eventually, he left both the bickering and his family. Watson began to act out, and he refused to see his father despite his father’s approaches later in life. Was an overbearing mother and an absent father create a desire in Watson to see how children ought to be brought up? Was it the lack of a father figure that left him devoid of proper emotion (according to his sons by Rosalie)? I can only speculate on these matters.

Concerning his child-rearing practices though, I am almost certain I dislike them. Treating a child as an adult and depriving them of emotions seems unhelpful.  I think children would more likely end up having difficulty expressing emotions properly as well as demonstrating a good deal of insecurity in their adult lives. Watson may have coped with his circumstances by avoiding emotion, but that doesn’t mean others should deprive infants and children of hugs and giggles.

As a result of our talk on Wednesday about the “God module,” I decided to take a better look at the article on Bb critiquing Dawkins’ God Delusion. For the most part I have to agree with it. Often Dawkins looks at Christianity or any religion and has over simplified it. Differing creations stories in the Bible are seen as contradictory pieces of empirical evidence rather than the compilation of the character of the complex nature of God. In this instance, Dawkins has failed to be a true student and learner concerning these texts. He expects all of the Bible to be fully taken at face-value with no consideration of Hebrew literary style and genre. Prose is different than poetry, betrothal scenes are different than mysterious scenes of angelic strangers (Jacob at the Jabbock and Moses’ Bridegroom of Blood) and Hebrew numerology conveys more meaning than it does fact (ex: 40 years [Israelites in the wilderness] and 100 years [the age of each generation listed in Exodus 6] very commonly refer to the time of a generation and not an actual period of time). Dawkins seeks to convey expert advice concerning the validity of religion, yet he is not engaging several of his greatest critiques and most important texts in the process. The readers of many texts (including the Bible) understood what was taken at face value and what was considered to be a rhetorical or literary device. Some of Dawkins critics believe he is merely looking at religion as a “straw man.” In other words, he has taken something complex and has simplified it in such a way that it can be easily knocked over and invalidated. In his writings, yes it seems he has failed to dive more deeply in this subject matter of theology. However, his own life does not attest to what he says. While studying abroad in Oxford, I attended church at St. Aldates with one of Dawkins’ neighbors. I don’t recall his name anymore, but he was an extraordinary Christian. He had a wonderful wife and family, and created his own organization, VIVA, in his 20s to help connect impoverished street kids and local humanitarian efforts around the world with one another. He often reached out to Dawkins, and was a friend to him. Though I don’t know how these efforts went, I do know Dawkins is (due to his location) in a continual relationship with an extraordinary believer. I don’t think this is an accident. Theology may be made a straw man, and the God module may be seen as the straightforward reason for inklings of God, but a compassionate neighbor is no delusion.

I also feel the need to address the God module while I am on the general topic. I see no discrepancy between a part of the brain wired for theology and the existence of God. I am reminded of the curses God puts on the man and the woman as they leave the garden. God seems to be acting mercifully when he curses them. Their lives after the fall will be full of pain, selfishness, feelings of superiority, a lack of care for others, etc. God is merciful when he creates a longing in Adam and Eve for something more. In their pain they will cry out to God and find him. In their longings, they will be made whole again. It is this desire and longing that God wires into us that reminds me of the God module.

I had never heard of the concept of a phantom arm/leg before class on Friday, and it was quite surprising to me. Since the problem at hand has to do with perception and reality, my first thought was this, “Would a prosthesis help the individual at all? And what kind?” Growing up, I was around many individuals who lost limbs and choose to wear a prosthetic or a compression sock because my father was a specialist in orthotics and prosthetics. I remember watching my dad make plaster molds of legs and then bring them to fruition over the next several weeks while it was my big and exciting job to hammer the hard plaster out of the buckets he used. So several things went through my mind from what I know of the area (which is still very little). Would a prosthetic help? What kind? Is a multiple-function hydraulics leg (a C-leg) better than a general walking leg? What about special carbon fiber legs made for exercise and running? Would the ability to move your body more vigorously help? Who has the worst pain? Is it diabetics, or those who lost their limb from an accident, or a degenerative condition? And is there a large difference between below the knee/elbow patients and above the knee/elbow patients? Finally, phantom leg and arm pain isn’t just for patients who have lost a limb. I remember my dad seeing a girl my age (maybe 7 or 8 at the time) in his office, and as usual I asked how she had lost her leg. He told me that she was born without one, and the world finally showed itself to me as fallen. When researching the concept of phantoms, I discovered those born without limbs also experience phantom sensations, usually painful but not always.

Generally, what I found was that better fitting legs and compression socks could be a big help, but not as much as the mirror box or a virtual reality simulation. Heating or cooling a limb, massaging it, putting a prosthesis on, taking it off, exercising the limb, wearing a sock, etc. were ways to cope with the pain, but even the visual perception of the arm didn’t replace a real arm. It couldn’t perform the same functions. The hand is so complex, there are few good prototypes of a working prosthetic hand. There is no way to replace that visual perception of an intricately functioning hand except by creating an image of a working hand. Though I tried to find more information on the subject, most resources (like the Mayo Clinic and small clinics using the mirror-box system) either said the condition was largely untreatable or spoke of Ramachandran’s system. It seems prosthetics cannot make a perception so realistic that it becomes reality to the individual.

And I guess that is the catch with psychology. When the situation is unfavorable (having phantom pains) we seek to trick the mind and believe something that isn’t real (I have two arms now). However, if someone perceives that they are Jesus or that aliens will abduct them, then we seek to help individuals have an accurate perception of reality. But I must be fair, the first situation used an untruth so the mind would begin to send accurate signals (you don’t have phantom pains because you don’t have a phantom arm). Can anyone else think of situations that involve tricking the mind in order to create an accurate portrayal of reality? Or can you think of any ethical situations? What about individuals who perceive themselves as one gender but in reality are not? Do you correct the perception to meet the current reality? Do you trick the mind somehow? Do you change reality to meet the current perceptions? And how do ethics come into play?

For many years I have heard countless quips, ideas, suppositions, and biases concerning Luther. It was only until I actually sat down and read a bit about him that I feel I can finally make some kind of opinion about him. As I typically do, I neither fully commend nor fully despise a man’s work.

On the one hand, Luther made great reformations upon a dire church scene. Though Germany is not Spain, St John of the Cross and St. Teresa d’Avila made many comments of how poorly the regulations of the Catholic church were. Nunneries were essentially brothels with no restrictions on who came in and who went out. Indulgences were created to collect money for a corrupt system of monasteries and nunneries. Teresa herself tried to make reformations on this corrupted institution (and she did with great success). In Germany,  Luther saw how confession was spreading the towns gossip and church events could easily be drunken parties. As a result, he swung in the opposite direction. Though it is good to flee from the very presence of evil, there is a way that one can swing too far and become a Pharisee.

Luther ran, but like any individual at times he ran too little, too far, and just right. Concerning marriage he ran far too little. Adultery and “secret marriages” were alright to him if a party was not sexual pleased. Concerning flippancy, he ran too far. One does not have to be drunk or stern to have an appropriate attitude towards God. There is a balance to be reached. Concerning Aristotle, I have said before that I have a distaste for the mixing of Greek philosophy and Eastern religion, so I may be biased. However, I think it is appropriate to say Aristotle’s works do not belong in the canon. For that matter, I think some of his viewpoints are down right un-Christian (which is fine for philosophy but problematic when people can no longer distinguish Aristotle’s words from Jesus’,Paul’s, or Moses’ words). Finally, concerning free will, I must disagree with Luther without crediting this disagreement to how he approached the situation. We simply disagree on a point that (at least to me) doesn’t seem very important in how I live my life. It seems to be a good scholarly question to wrestle with, but the wrestling is more important than being right. I have so much to learn and “be” in simply being a good follower of Jesus that I am not going to loose sleep over free will vs predestination.

Overall, I feel mixed about this Luther. I’m glad he stood up against corrupt churches (and it takes a strong personality to do that kind of thing), but was his solution better? In the end, I am glad that people could read their Bibles in their own language and thus reconsider their viewpoints about faith and God. This was a good time to wrestle with what you really believed in.

This “cave” has run so many of our lives and we never considered if it was a good idea when we first sat down. You see in this story, we weren’t always in a cave. There was a time when we lived outside, but the cave makes things easier. Unlike the outside world we trust this cave to protect us. We think it’s better than anyone else’s cave, and now…

it is just too hard to leave the cave

From my title it is already obvious that this cave is our American food industry, but why would I have a beef with them? About a year ago I was diagnosed with a digestive disorder. The disease partly stems from genetics and partly from diet (but it really only shows up in the US). Very quickly I was introduced to an entirely new way of eating. My doctor ordered me off overly processed foods, cryptic labels, GMOs, anything artificial, and meat treated with steroids, antibiotics, hormones, and ammonia. I didn’t know why I had to do all the things, but in time I took the time to learn what I had been eating all my life. It wasn’t pretty. A good way to equate it is to Sinclair’s The Jungle about the horrors of the early 1900s meat packing industry.

Over 100,000 cows are fed, bred, and slaughtered at this feed-lot in California

I could talk to you for hours, but I have chosen to talk about the beef industry from a documentary Food Inc. that you can watch on your own to get a basic background on the industry. Corn is highly subsidized, and more corn is made than needed in the US. As a result, a lot of it ends up as a cheap animal feed, creating unhealthily fat cows and chickens. A cow is supposed to eat grass, but its corn diet creates a strong environment for E. coli O157:H7. This is a new strain of bacteria that is highly resistant and quite deadly. However, most cows live on mass feeding lots where they trudge through foot high manure spreading the disease to one another. Cows are taken to slaughter even if they are sick, so meat is given an ammonia filler to help kill some of it off. Despite this measure, plants still ship off tainted meat each year. The USDA had made a regulation to monitor these production plants and shut them down, but the plants sued them for it rendering the USDA helpless on the matter. Thus your everyday hamburger is a nice ground up compilation of an ammonia and maybe 1000 other cows of which at least one was probably sick. E. coli O157:H7  runoff from these plants has begun to show up in vegetables fields, and the problem is growing.

Do you really know what is in your food?

If you knew where your farmer’s market was would you go?

Will you take a couple hours to watch a documentary?

Would you ask me questions after it? Or before?

Food Inc. Trailer