All Mixed Up: Perplexing Hyphenated Identity, 50-50 Concepts and Mixed up Ethnicity

By Gary Berg-Cross

Mary Bellamy recently noted her perplexity at the meaning of the words “Merry Christmas" in the context of mixed salad of multi-ethic, religious and racial society. Different people with different cultural-religious background interpret it differently. One may ask how religious is it or how American?

I was thinking of this of this multi-ethic, religious and racial context and perplexity while listening to Pete Seeger's song "All Mixed up" about how races mixed to give us a rich stew the English language. Then I read that Pat Buchanan has gotten into trouble for what seems like ethnic and racial charged views promoted in his new book Suicide of a Superpower. One of the chapters is entitled "The End Of White America." He's very worried about the mix of races (e.g. Black and White/Caucasian), ethnic culture with Nationality (e.g. American or Mexican). One can add a 3^rd category of religious identity (e.g. Christian or Hindu) as a broad category that is gets mixed into the discussion. We are used to checking these categories off on questionnaire along with age or gender as if they are unitary-atomic things. The categories can seem pretty clear captured in simple words but these denotations are simpler than the implied connotations that people have. As a result terms like American are often used in head spinning ways and allow us to talk past each other in conversations about things like identity & loyalty. To channel New Gingrich talking about Palestine and Palestinians, American is an invented nationality with many ingredients.

I recently wrote about vague language which is partly the reason we get perplexed about the concept of Christmas, but also identity. Differing concepts creep into the language that people use describe themselves (e.g. American, Secular Italian, or Christian Humanist). We can do a good deal of my head scratching about religious and non-religious people describe themselves, which is one part of 3 basic dimensions, but it probably easier to start with national identities which seem to bother some reactionary politicians/commentators like Buchanan and is a dog-whistle item in political campaigns.

One of the things that historically gets American conservatives off about nationality is the hyphenated American label phenomena – Italian-American, Irish-American, German- American etc. That hyphenation epithet seems to have come in vogue in the late 19^th century a surge of immigrants. World War 1 sparked a bit of consternation since German-& Irish Americans (i.e. Catholics) were big on U.S. neutrality in that war. This earned the enmity of former President Teddy Roosevelt. In a speech in 1916 before a luncheon given by Astor, TR "eschews" hyphenated Americans such as Italian-Americans, German-Americans and Jewish-Americans as being 50-50 Americans and the former colonel said:

"The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to a breed of spirit of bitterness and
prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens. If some
citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then
after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans
or Scandinavian-Americans, and every such banding together, every
attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a
Scandinavian-American alliance, means down at the bottom an effort
against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to
bring into our nation the bitter Old World rivalries and jealousies and
hatreds "

There is a history to talking like this. It reflects the old melting pot hope of a majority identity and loyalty to a simplified, unified national identity. Well, as Mary noted, the fact is we live in more of a mutli-racial/ethnic nation now and the fact is that hyphenated groups abound. The melting pot aspiration of TR's time came under fire when it became apparent that the mainstream public had no intention of "melting" with (certain) "other" races and cultures or of giving up their historical religions. In the face of this fact subsequent immigration policies became restrictive based on race,but immigration ground forth to produce today's synthetic multi-racial-ethnic America.

Over time many have softened into tacit acceptance of what seems like a quasi-compromise. We have what is described as a tossed salad society where the racial ingredients remain somewhat recognizable distinct, but also leads to some identity vagaries.

To some, like Buchanan, there is no real agreement and we are drifting into danger down the road. It raises issues like loyalty. If your are Chinese-American or Mexican American to which label are you loyal too? Buchanan thinks the Mexican-American hybrid might eventually annex and take back the American West.

Nationality is only part of the problem of labeled identity, because there are other ways of identifying oneself. Usually in parceling out identity, as on a biographic form, we again use our 3 simple labels of seemingly independent categories of:

• Nationality/Country (US),
• Race (Negroid)
• Religion (Muslim).

So you can be a Negroid US citizen (say of Egyptian descent) and a member of the Muslim religion. Seems like a simple, atomic formula. Sort of like chemistry. We can switch the labels around to have Italians who are Catholic or make compounding distinctions. So we can construct Southern American of African descent who are Southern Baptist Christians. But there are some vagaries here. Not everyone fits into nice compound labels. In reality things get a bit fluid in the compound mixing of labels since there are dependencies between the concepts.

There are many things that can be seen in different ways. The Black-American category is too big a racial and ethnic grouping, and many of us don’t see a West African or Central African distinction. Biologists tell us that there are actually more historical genetic differences between groups in Africa than anywhere else in the world groups. But skin color tends to be used to overwhelm this deeper distinctions and we tend ignore the use of different languages and customs that might mark the difference. We do make these distinctions for Asian-Americans, so Chinese and Japanese are easily distinguished as is their language.

The religious categories can also be vague. As some one noted when discussing Christians in the Middle East :

"Yes, all Assyrians are Christians. But we are Christians in different ways, of course."

We can cite the usual major categories from Christian to Muslim to Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist etc. But as a Mormon can we agree that Romney is a Christian or just a Christian in a different way? Fundamentalists don’t see it that way and are concerned about the beliefs and values that Mormonism has imbedded into its culture.There is lots of baggage and stretching Christianity to accommodate Mormonism seems as dangerous to them as accommodating Mexican-American hybridization to Buchanan. It’s like the meaning of Christmas. It will change depending on which group is doing the interpreting.

Here is a final example where simple, atomic labeling yields to a complex of underlying . meanings . Does it make sense to say that one is an atheist Catholic? It doesn’t seem like it. I can be an atheist who is a White, English person, but atheist and Catholic are both in what seems the “religion” dimension with no overlap on the Venn diagram. Does it make sense, then to call a person an Atheist Jew then? I’ve heard several people describe themselves that way, but does it make any more sense than being a Protestant Atheist?

Here the perplexity seems to be about Jewish as a religion as opposed to an ethnic group label. When listing religious categories Jewish gets thrown into the mix with Muslim etc. Maybe we want to say the religion isn’t “Jewish” but Judaism. Then Jewish becomes an ethic identity label which relates to a mix cultural factors such as nationality, culture, customs, ancestry, language and beliefs.

Our simple categories have become all mixed in ethnicity and this is more generally true than we like to admit. It allows some flexibility, but probably some confusion. Maybe we want to allow atheist or secular Catholics. These would be folks who hold onto cultural and historical experience and celebrate Easter, like secular Jews celebrate Passover which has religious roots and ceremony. Machar (The Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism) is perhaps an example of this hybrid. They may meet in a temple with religious culture and tradition evident and talk of humanist values.

It seems a mixed message and doesn’t appeal to me particularly, but perhaps that is a half-way house for transitioning people slowing out of a faith culture into a more secular stance, while keeping the comfits of cultural identity while waiting for a secular humanism with its own building and cultural tradition. This might mean a half-way, more Humanist type of Christmas season celebrate mixed with Humanlight. Or maybe this is all too mixed up and leads to that competition between groups to celebrate in their own way in the winter season. Hanukkah is a minor holiday in Israel but Jewish culture in America has what a Washington Post called The Christmas effect: How Hanukkah became a big holiday.

In part, as the article says, the importance of Hanukkah among American Jews is driven by its proximity (in the time dimension) to Christmas and the need to "resist conversion" to the alien Christian culture. No melting pot there. More of adding some new humanist ingredients to an existing mixed salad.

Maybe there are pluses to go along with the minus in allowing some hyphenation of religious/ethnic culture and a stance like atheism or secular humanism. It’s the old tossed salad rather than melting pot again where religious culture and tradition sort of remain in a form that hyphenates with an identity like atheist. Perhaps it is what atheists and theists talk about at Inter-faith meetings. It might lead to some compromise or perhaps it is just one of those unsatisfying compromises that is compromising. It takes us sideways and puts off the harder decisions about identity.

Towards Better New Year’s Resolutions

by Gary Berg-Cross

I’m not a big one for making New Year’s resolutions. Mark Twain touched on it-
“New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.” Further, according to Wikipedia New Year's Resolutions come from the old Summerian-Judeo-Christian concepts of human imperfection. This has evolved to institutionalize the idea of getting God’s mercy by apologies for one’s wrong doing over the past year. It also fits the Protestant idea of self-improvement which is OK.

It also fits what Barbara Ehrenreich calls America’s love affair with positive thinking, which is taken to task (along with an urgent call for a new commitment to realism) in Bright-sided How Positive Thinking is Undermining America.

There’s the older Catholic ethic of giving up pleasures (e.g. alcohol and meat) during pre-Easter Lent as an act of discipline. Discipline is good, self discipline better and looking as these as personal vows not religiously dictated makes sense as a secularist. It;a a gift we give ourselves to enhance the self, others or the world in a way that makes sense to oneself.

I see that people are still getting and giving advice on how to get personal improvements. It is understandable that people try to take possession of 2012 by setting a reasonable personal goals. There are some smaller scale, modern ones such as Nick Bilton’s promise to take breaks from his tech devices (see his Bits blog post “Disruptions: Resolved in 2012: To Enjoy the View Without Help From an iPhone,” )

Getting a job, living the American dreams, change a lifestyle, and losing weight are all popular. More denotations to the poor, become more reflective or becoming more environmentally responsible are all grander goals and sets them apart from ordinary resolutions. In this category I’ve seen worthy goals/projects listed on this blog:

· “Turn-off the TV,

· elect intelligent School Board members,

· void excessive debts from student loans,

· support Head Start”

Edd Doerr might add a resolution to write more letters to the editor on topics of interest.

But as Tara Parker-Pope noted in her New York Times column, a third of resolutions are ditched by the end of January. Four out of five people simply give their resolutions up (see Why Your New Year's Resolution Will Fail by February 1.

One problem comes from the type of resolutions we make. Many of then are just too extreme all-or-nothing New Year’s decisions. Taking on a big challenge is heroic and it is nice to start the year that way, but this one step transformation is often something that is so unrealistic we can’t possibly keep the commitment. Eric Zorn, put it this way-

“Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.”

People know they will have difficulty especially losing weight or making health gains. Deep down we might not expect ourselves to keep to such a goal, but are proud to start. But as CNN noted in its Why bother with resolutions? Because failure inspires there is value in trying. And maybe there is value in just developing the self control that resolutions require. It may be a dramatic end to procrastination. It seems good in itself to commit to developing what Psychologists call our own “locus of control”

OK, so let’s try. Does Social Science suggest anything useful? Dan Ariely, Decision Scientist at Duke University, has several ideas. They aren’t exactly new, but being based on study have some value.

A place to start is that many resolutions are general and vague (support Head Start might be vague). We don’t really believe we can hit them because the goal is uncertain. So the obvious remedy is Be specific, very specific. Ariely suggests the obvious fact that:

“the more clear cut your resolutions are, the easier they are to handle. Very specific restrictions make it easy to know if you are following the resolution.”

Maybe there is time to rescue that vague resolution before February. So to lose weight it helps to understand where your calories are coming from. You may need to cut down on desserts, but “ don't say you'll simply eat fewer desserts." Instead locate the action in space and/or time. Maybe you have the will power to avoid eating desserts late at night or on weekdays or at that expensive restaurant. This becomes a pragmatic/operational definition of what “fewer” means.

What else? Here are 4 more I’ve adapted from a summary by Ariely and his Duke Colleagues:

Get inspired. That is, make it meaningful to you (but also concrete as noted above). Meaningful resolutions have sticking power even if they aren’t grand challenges. Beth Reardon, director of integrative nutrition at Duke Integrative Medicine put it this way:

"If you want your resolution to act like Velcro rather than Teflon, be sure to link it to deep, authentic intentions. For example, resolving to order more food from Community Supported Agriculture is more powerful if you link it to your desire to support local businesses as well as your own health."

Reflective, Planned Readiness Resolutions are most effective if they are based on a genuine readiness to change a behavior – evidenced by development of a plan and consideration of likely effects, difficulty etc. Don’t just jump into it, but consider it.

Andy Silberman, director of Duke's Personal Assistance Program counsels not resolving to take on a big change until “you can explain how concerned you are about the behavior. It is also useful to outline what your motivation is to change, what specifically you want to accomplish and how confident you are that you can make the change.”

Environment & setting yourself up for success. Scott Huettel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke who studies decision-making, cites pre-committing to, and expecting, changed circumstances. Environmental structuring is a powerful tool for making a resolution stick. An example might be changing your environment to help reduce monthly spending. OK, so pre-commitment to cutting up a credit card (or placing one in the freezer) to slow down spending.

The right circumstances just help one to make better decisions that are less impulse driven. That’s a step towards more control & less procrastination which is a good end in itself. And it may help avoid Mark Twain’s observation about New Year's Day… “now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

Vague Policy, Agreements & Political Language

by Gary Berg-Cross

Politicians, lawyers and ad men make a living exploiting the vagaries of language. This is not always bad since it may be used to circumvent some prejudices that are fired up by particular language. Growing up Abe Lincoln read the philosophical works of the deist Thomas Paine which greatly influenced his thinking. Historian Craig Nelson reports that Lincoln’s friends & neighbors believed the Lincoln largely agreed with Paine’s deist and infidel position expressed in The Age of Reason. But in his political life Lincoln employed masterfully vague & deferential speech when he referred to religion, marshalling it in his efforts to save the Union. Indeed he was pragmatic in his need for the support of ministers and their congregations in the civil war effort. See for example Abraham Lincoln's Humanistic. Religious Beliefs. We live far from an age of politicians like Lincoln but vague language remains a factor for good or bad in society.

Some people’s efforts to be ambiguous is intentional, but our everyday language used for ordinary activities is often vague even though it serves non-exploitative interests. Certainly, that are particular parts of the physical world where there is a strong connection between that reality, our experience of reality and the words we use. A word like rock is precise because it describes a well–defined set of objects. So we may feel confident with a claim like, “a rock in on the table.” By contrast, words like “tall”, “kind”, “justice”, “soul”, & “life” seem open ended and vague.

Consider, for example, the word “tall.” There is no precise, known height which defines the line between a person who is tall and a person who is not. There is no fixed agreement on the meaning. I may say that my grandson Caden is tall because he is taller than other boys his age that I see. But he would not be tall in comparison to an adult. Or in olden days we might have said that a man 5’10 was tall. In today’s world 5’10 isn’t tall and on the basketball court maybe 6”3 isn’t either. Tallness is a relative term and is understood in some context or by some fiat, such as declaring that 6’4’’ is tall for a man. This provides some additional information to base a judgment and we might reach an agreement on what “tall” means. But even with context some word-concepts like “kind”, “good”, “enemy combatant” or “justice” remain vague and people don’t agree on their meaning.

I might believe and say that Barak Obama is “kind” or that people are by nature “good” or that Muslims are “enemies”, but what does this mean? The meaning of an individual belief might be pragmatically tied ultimately and necessarily to some observed experience for justification. I might say that Obama was seen performing acts of “kindness” and I have some personal notion of what this is, but it may differ from other peoples. While a pragmatic approach to the concept helps provide a context it also pushes the problem a bit further on since it implies some way of identifying a kind or good act. They can’t be easily localized to an object or act or some easy combination of them. Thus there remain entire sections of Philosophy devoted to understanding the concept of values like goodness.

I was thinking of the vagaries of language and agreements on meaning recently as I read about the debate over the 2012 National Defense Authorization Bill which taken as a whole includes powers for indefinite detention of alleged terrorists (aka ‘terrorist sympathizers’) anywhere in the world (including the US). The bill gives the US military the duty to arrest, imprison and interrogate suspects without benefit of counsel. In the bill one finds Orwellian doublespeak phrasing including: ‘substantially supports’ and ‘associated forces.’ The later seems to allow rendition of suspects to other countries for interrogation.

One worries about vague language getting into legislation and being interpreted politically according to intentions not stated in the Bill. There was a similar problem with the recent
climate change agreement and the convoluted language of the agreement. Here one may subscribe better intentions to the effort, but an equally troubling result which relies on vague language. Clearly climate change is a complex topic, even if measurements of average temperatures are not. As with many advanced scientific areas our understanding is based on a mixture of historical data, current measurement and interpretation via models. Still taken as a whole the scientific case is strong and growing stronger rapidly so the question is what can be done to mitigate the likely effects?

This was what the Climate Change meeting was about and brings me to the so called “agreement” reached after 2 weeks of grueling negotiations held at the 94-party climate conference in Durban South Africa. On the verge of collapse in the final days, the parties reached not exactly an immediately binding protocol. So they formulated a vaguer concept expressed in clause in the documents that called on countries, within three years, to complete negotiations on ‘a protocol, another legal instrument, or a legal outcome’ that would succeed the Kyoto Protocol. But the EU objected to the wording of this phrase ‘legal outcome,’ which it said would allow countries to wriggle out of commitments. The final compromise, reached at 3:30 a.m., changed the final option to ‘an agreed outcome with legal force.’ Better, but what does this mean? It might seem clear to a layman, but it is a technical term and will take on different meanings to different people.

The agreement gives about five years for ratification. So we face more negotiations to reach a later new global climate agreement by 2015 with this agreement to come into effect by 2020. It's better than "the worst" possible outcome, but as some said it's still a cowardly, and builds in an unacceptable delay on global climate action. To some of us delay seems like and a recipe for climate disasters. The so-called Durban platform is not exactly the plain language of Science, or the inspired phrasing of a Lincoln. It’s more of a dose of artful diplomatic wording that glosses over political divisions and makes some feel that success progress has been achieved. What seems less unambiguous is that it is unambitious and kicks a can down the road and heads mitigation pledges and efforts in a sideways direction. Climate science gives us an increasingly detailed projection of a warming and changing earth ecology that will take the world of our children into a red zone of catastrophe. It’s language of urgency grows clearer while the political and diplomatic effort lack courage to commit to reasonable mitigation actions.