Redemption

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

I think "higher calling" is being used here as a title rather than a comparitive term.

Your thinking so is fine and illustrates exactly why I want Tex to clarify what he means.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

The Bishop's humility was a very touching part of the story for me. It's difficult to admit a mistake and in this case probably quite embarrassing as well after he'd had time to think about the situation. He had other options, but chose meekness in the end.

It's a great story. Meanwhile, this thread is reminiscent of Sacrament Meetings when our six kids were doing battle around us while Mrs. PAC and I strained to hear what we suspected were some pretty good talks. Were it possible, I'd welcome a board feature that would automatically split threads such as these into two, one whose thematic icon could be a lighted lamp, the other bearing a photo of a pissoir. But I'm a newb with no influence, so I'll try to enjoy both the uplifting message and the contemporaneous fun of watching the kids punch it out.

[FMCoug]

Originally Posted by PaloAltoCougar

It's a great story. Meanwhile, this thread is reminiscent of Sacrament Meetings when our six kids were doing battle around us while Mrs. PAC and I strained to hear what we suspected were some pretty good talks. Were it possible, I'd welcome a board feature that would automatically split threads such as these into two, one whose thematic icon could be a lighted lamp, the other bearing a photo of a pissoir. But I'm a newb with no influence, so I'll try to enjoy both the uplifting message and the contemporaneous fun of watching the kids punch it out.

See this is why we need PAC here. What I was trying to say but SO much more eloquent.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Tex

Likewise, except more annoying than amusing.



"higher" as in:

7 : exalted in character : NOBLE <high purposes>
9 : of relatively great importance: as a : foremost in rank, dignity, or standing <high officials> b : SERIOUS, GRAVE <high crimes> c : observed with the utmost solemnity <high religious observances> d : CRITICAL, CLIMACTIC <the high point of the novel> e : intellectually or artistically of the first order <high culture> f : marked by sublime, heroic, or stirring events or subject matter <high tragedy> <high adventure>
synonyms HIGH, TALL, LOFTY

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/higher

"criticism" as in:

1 a : the act of criticizing usually unfavorably <seeking encouragement rather than criticism>

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/criticism

"criticizing" as in:

2 : to find fault with : point out the faults of

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/criticizing

You still refuse to answer my simple questions. I already pointed out the futility of an appeal to a conventional dictionary. I'm not interested in what the dictionary says. Strings of supposed similes and circular constructions (criticism being defined as "the act of criticizing...") don't elaborate your point of view.

In rhetorical terms I am asking for what can be called categorical and definitional arguments. You have simply made a claim. Reason, evidence, accounting for assumptions and exceptions--these are things that will elaborate your POV.

"Criticism of Church leaders is when members...but not when...because..."

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

"Criticism of Church leaders is when members...but not when...because..."

Criticism of Church leaders is when members find fault with and/or point out the faults of men in priesthood authority. Some, in particular many on this board, view doing so as a noble, lofty calling of relatively great importance reserved for those intellectually of the first order, to be observed with the utmost solemnity.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Tex

Criticism of Church leaders is when members find fault with and/or point out the faults of men in priesthood authority. Some, in particular many on this board, view doing so as a noble, lofty calling of relatively great importance reserved for those intellectually of the first order, to be observed with the utmost solemnity.

This is a position that, when accompanied by evidence and reason, could be argued. Some would challenge your definition of criticism, perhaps arguing that you are over-generalizing a sub-type of criticism, or that you need to account for tone, context, justifiable critical behaviors and so on.

I would argue that criticism of any structure, whether it is a human organization, a literary work, an ideology, or whatonot is sown by that very structure. Structures fertilize the soil from which their own criticism springs. They sow the seeds of their own critique, as it were. I would further argue that, in the context of the Church, this is a good thing for it keeps us from preferring the old wine to the new, from being satisfied with old wine in old bottles. I would then empasize that one remarkable quality of the Church is that it is Restored--literally "Jesus Christ's Church stored again," and that one of the things so powerful about it is that it has mechanisms in place for constantly putting new wine in new bottles. Members being thoughtful and looking to improve their Church are critical (in both senses--pun intended!) to these mechanisms.

Asserting how critics see themselves and their importance is a tricky business that would be difficult to prove, and probably does little more than belittle (which, of course, has practical applications). It's pathos (an appeal to emotion and an invitation to see such people the way you see them), but it's trajectory is ethos: that critics' values (arrogance, exclusivity, the taking of themselves too seriously) are suspect, and are implicitly inferior to your own. You're asserting that God, the angels, and all that is right is not on the side of such people and/or critical behaviors. Any argument on these grounds will devolve into personal attacks and the kind of mind numbing stupidity with which talk radio overflows, unless it is acknowledged that what's really at stake is a difference in values. There are ways of usefully weighing and considering values (Are they in a hierarchy? Do they become vices in the extreme? Are they universal? Are some of them universal? Are they culturally bound? Are they simultaneously culturally bound but also dynamic? Are they like junctions in a web from which a particular shape emerges that one asserts is "moral behavior?").

Moreover, a critic's intent may not be understood by the critic himself/herself, is dynamic, and could actually be at cross purposes with the effects of criticism itself. A famous example of this is that hackers, who see themselves as anti-establishment, often become the impetus for further policing and regulation of media access. Hackers keep network security people in business and justify restrictions on free access to information. Network security people actually NEED hackers and profit from their activities.

A likely type of argument against your position would be a categorical argument. The activities that you're attempting to categorize as "criticism" might be more appropriately categorized as something else--"reform," "thoughtful stewardship," "productively discussing troubling issues so as to keep people from getting cynical and apostatizing" etc. What is most significant about their activities should drive how they are categorized in any given context, and that would have to be argued with reason and evidence.

Much too loosely posited, human communication could be broken into three epochs: narrative, informational, and sensational. I would argue that there have most always been elements of all three, but a decent case that oral culture priveliged the narrative, written culture priveliged the informational, and electronic culture priveliges the sensational can be made. This is one way of distinguishing antiquity from modernity from post-modernity (there are actually many variations of each, but this post is getting overly long as it is). A reasonable position can be taken that the Western mind has trouble conceiving of reason outside of the formal trappings of literacy (linear, progressive thinking that can be laid out objectively in words as information) and that therefore democracy depends on reason. Currently, some scholars are trying to figure out whether a cultural shift to the sensational--the aestheticizing of information into spectacle and image and the management of the public via "public relations"--is inevitably a shift to fascism, or whether it forbodes a new feudalism, opens the door for a renewed oral culture, some or all of the above, or what. The fact that conservatives and liberals seem to only be able to throw talking points at each other, and that a well-reasoned argument can't really be mounted between commercial breaks, is symptomatic of the anti-democratic powers in the sensational and the media that facilitate it.

So playing with words and trying (or not trying) to reason is serious business. Counter cultures do it purposefully and with a political ideal in mind (cue Derrida, Nietzsche, and the British Cultural Studies people). Sub cultures have their own particular applications of words as well. But to simply play with words for the sake of angering a fellow CG contributor, to aestheticize them--has implications for some pretty large questions: like whether or not we are willing to try and understand our neighbors and fellow Chuch members enough to love them.