Artists vs. McCarthyism

The Red Scare was on the rise! After World War II, the anti-communist sentiments were raging as a political stance known as McCarthyism, after Joseph McCarthy, led the charge. McCarthyism was first described as the widespread sentiment of anti-communism in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s, but today it has come to mean generally the practice of publicizing accusations of political disloyalty or subversion without sufficient evidence. During a span of about fifteen years, hundreds of innocent people were blacklisted. Some were imprisoned, while others were suspended from their work. One of the only valuable results that came from the McCarthyism was the influence it had on some of the great artists of the day, who, inspired by the accusations made against them and their fellow artists, created significant works that are still held in high regard today.

One government organization spurred on greatly by McCarthyism was the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which was established in 1937 for the purpose of investigating subversive and un-American activities. During the 1950s, HUAC began an investigation into the Hollywood motion pictures industry, and created a blacklist of 320 people, including geniuses such as Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Arthur Miller, who were suspended from their jobs, some for ten years. In the case of these three artists, some good did come of this terribly frustrating and unjustified act against them. Inspired by the events caused by McCarthyism, their art reflects vividly the experiences they had.

In September 1947, Charlie Chaplin was summoned to appear before the HUAC. Little did he know that the FBI had a 1,900 page file on his political activities. When getting ready to return from a stay in London in 1952, he found that his entry permit had been revoked, and that he had been denied the right to live in the United States. Chaplin wrote in his autobiography, “My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist. Although I am not a communist I refused to fall in line by hating them." He responded to the blacklist by making the film A King in New York, a satire starring Chaplin as a deposed king of “Estrovia” who flees to America where he is persecuted by McCarthy style investigations. Unsurprisingly, the film was not released in the U.S. It wasn’t until 1959, when the accusations were lifted, that the film was released to the American public.

On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet called Red Channels was published with the names of 151 writers, director, and performers whom they claimed had taken part in subversive activities before the Second World War. Criticized for his work in the 1930s with Marc Bliztstein, a Marxist composer, on The Cradle Will Rock, Orson Welles’s name was on in the list. He didn’t make another movie until 1958.

Although Arthur Miller, like Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles, was blacklisted by the HUAC, this did not stop his plays from being performed, since Broadway, in contrast to Hollywood, did not impose the blacklist. Miller was distressed to see his friends’ careers being rent apart by the accusations of communist involvement, especially when friends betrayed information about other friends.  He determined to write a play based on these events. At the time, Miller was reading The Devil in Massachusetts, a book about the Salem Witch Hunts of 1692, which brought to his attention the many similarities between the Salem Witch Hunts and the Red Scare—or the Communist Witch Hunts. Out of this idea was born The Crucible. Because of its background, the play was not well received. Miller reminisced years later, “"I have never been surprised by the New York reception of a play. . .What I had not quite bargained for, however, was the hostility in the New York audience as the theme of the play was revealed; an invisible sheet of ice formed over their heads, thick enough to skate on. In the lobby at the end, people with whom I had some fairly close professional acquaintanceships passed me by as though I were invisible." Ironically, The Crucible still won the Tony Award at the end of the year and is still performed all of over the world today.

Overall McCarthyism brought the Red Scare only more fear, injustice, and chaos, but there were a few glimmers of light that came from it. The work of Chaplin was surely affected by the McCarthyism, when his career in America was put on a temporary halt, after he was accused of subversive activities. Similarly the work of Arthur Miller, namely The Crucible, might never have been accomplished if it had not been for the McCarthyism blacklisting. If nothing else came from the ridiculous, inadequate, and unjust measures taken during the Red Scare, at least we gained a few great works of art from these artists and others like them.

What’s a Woman?

Deborah Tannen suggest in her essay that there is no unmarked woman. Women cannot escape the judgments and classifications made on their sex. Although Tannen herself is not a feminist, I feel that many feminists share this frustration about the marked woman. I wanted to respond towards feminists and their relation to this particular topic.
I have no problem with the view that a woman’s role is in the home. I do not believe that this is an oppressive view. Women should have the freedom to vote and have the career that they choose, but it cannot be denied that a woman’s role traditionally is as mother, and women are naturally endowed with nurturing and comforting gifts. Women’s bodies are built for having children. Men can’t have children. That’s the woman’s job. Not all women are meant to be mothers, yet as women, they bear a collective responsibility and joy. There are obvious differences between men and women, both physically and emotionally. I find it silly that feminists try to deny this. Of course, as a woman, I think that women should be treated fairly, but I still understand that men and women are different. I think it’s far more offensive to say to women that they are exactly the same as men.
With that being said, I feel that a certain view of women has developed over the last few decades especially. So often today, women are viewed as packages—they are viewed solely by their appearances. Men can pick out their preferred prettily-colored boxes conveniently, just as they pick out a new car. As Tannen says in her essay, there is no existing hair style or footwear for a woman that is unmarked—that is free of attached assumptions and symbols. Ever heard a man say that he has “a thing for blondes?” At a glance, people make assumptions about women according to their hairstyles, makeup, and clothing. These objects have become chains for women, and the media and consumer market trains them to willingly submit. Will women ever be unmarked? I feel as though a lot of it has to with women who feel that they have to be different than other women, to be attractive or to find satisfaction. Perhaps this issue is born because women aren’t finding satisfaction in their roles in life whether that is as wife and mother or doctor or chef.

Hattie Bush: Joining the Ranks of Rosie the Riveter

Just as the roaring twenties rolled around the corner, my great-grandmother, Hattie Simmons Bush arrived in the world on May 10, 1922. Growing up the middle child of nine children, Hattie was an easy going girl, who worked hard and played harder. She grew up on a farm in Pisgah, Iowa, where her family raised sheep, pigs, and cows. When Hattie was small, she and her older sister, Delores, loved to ride their pony, Dixie, who had a crippled foot, but still gave the girls plenty of excitement. Before Christmas, they would go out to the pasture and pick out a tree, which they would decorate with candles.

Hattie graduated with a class of eighteen students from Pisgah High School in 1940—one year before the United States joined the war—with aspirations of becoming a hair stylist. The next year, while she was attending beauty school in Sioux City, Iowa, she met Frank Bush at a social dance in town. Before the year was out, they were planning to get married. However, when tragedy struck at Pearl Harbor and the United States jumped headlong into World War II, Frank was drafted into the Army Air Force Ground Troops and sent to California to the Air Base in the mountains near Victorville.

Loathe to be separated from her newly found beau, Hattie packed her bags and made the long trek to California to live with her aunt. In Victorville, Hattie met Joellen and decided to move out of her aunt’s house and rent an apartment with her new friend.  Not long after, Joellen informed Hattie of a job opening at an airplane factory. When I asked my grandmother why she chose this job, she answered with a laugh, “Well, I had to support myself!” Hattie and Joellen worked there for good wages, in a group of women assigned to put parts on the lower section of the airplanes. Because many men were drafted into the army, there were many opportunities for women to acquire jobs that were usually reserved for men. Who would imagine that twenty-year old girl from a small farm in Iowa, who had graduated from high school only two years before, would be in California helping to build airplanes?

Too soon, news came that Frank was to be deployed to England were he would be stationed at an Army Air Force base. Before he flew out, Frank and Hattie were married in January of 1944. They made their vows before a priest in the chapel on Sheppard Army Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, a decidedly non-frilly affair, with only one other friend of Frank’s present and without any wedding dress or veil. My great-grandmother reminisced that she wasn’t disappointed by the ceremony, but was simply ecstatic to be married before Frank left. It would be two years before she saw him again.

The newly-named Mrs. Hattie Bush moved back to Iowa, and because of her experience at the factory in California, was lucky to get a job working at another airplane factory in Sergent Bluff. She passed the time while Frank was in England by keeping busy. She still went to dances with her girlfriends, where there were plenty of soldiers to dance with. Hattie also went to the movies, although she was always disgruntled that the films were so often about the war that she was trying so hard to forget. She worked hard to support herself while Frank was away and waited impatiently for his return. Like many women, she waited for news of the war’s end, listening closely to her radio and watching every headline. When the news arrived in September, 1945, Hattie was overjoyed. It wouldn’t be long before her husband, Frank, would be home, and they could begin their marriage together, unfettered by war any longer.

The course of my great-grandmother’s life was significantly altered by World War II. If America had never joined the war, Hattie almost surely would never have moved to California, worked in an airplane factory, or been married on an Army Air Force Base, but like so many women of the 1940s, she established her independence during the war by joining the forces of “Rosie the Riveter.”

Teacher of Imagination

As my mother turned from her digital scrapbooking to answer my question, she looked around the room, which had poetry on the walls, important sayings on the bulletin board, pictures, a feather theatre mask, and witty postcards, and thought over my question, “What’s something interesting about you mom?” before she answered with, “I guess I like to be creative!”

          

I decided to interview my mother because she is one of the most interesting people I know. One thing about my mother is that she loves to write. Actually she loves anything and everything that takes imagination to enjoy. When I wake up in the morning, she is oftentimes working on some project on her computer, and when I go to bed at about midnight, she is usually downstairs working on some other creative hobby. She has two main creative periods in her life: her creative hobbies as a youth and her present imaginative projects as a stay at home mom of two children.

            

When she was a small child, my mother’s favorite activity was arts and crafts. While she explained to me about what she did on Valentine’s Day, one of her favorite days of third grade, her eyes lit up as she told me what she did that day. She woke up to walk two blocks to the Harney Elementary, where she made a Valentine’s box by covering a shoe box with construction paper and making little tissue paper flowers and little pink and red hearts to cover the box with, and when she was done with her Valentine masterpiece,  she chose her favorite glitter glue and wrote her name in huge sprawling letters. So even as a young kid, my mother has always had a passion for expressing herself with the things she can make.  As a freshman in high school,  my mother decided to attempt theater as one more way to enjoy her love for being creative. She explained that the first play she auditioned for was the musical The Wizard of Oz, and she grinned to herself as she told me that loved dressing up in her green munchkin outfit and singing in a high pitched, squeaky voice as the munchkins welcomed Dorothy to their world. Auditioning for Harvey in her senior year, my mother then experienced her favorite part in a play when she received the part of Myrtle Mae, who is the spoiled niece of Elwood P. Dowd the main character in the play. She finally found a thing that she most passionately enjoyed doing while she was attending Winona State University to become an English major. This thing was poetry. From then on she was writing poetry in her free time and even began to present it at poetry readings on and off campus, and she got some of her poems published in a small poetry magazine. She then told me then began to tell me about one of her most exciting nights as a student at Winona State was being asked by the English department faculty to introduce Maya Angelou, author of the book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and future poet laureate of President Bill Clinton.  Before my mother introduced Ms. Angelou, she met her backstage and visited with her briefly.   Then when she left Winona and became a mother, her creative hobbies became more private.

            

One of her new hobbies became scrapbooking. She loved and still loves to preserve and show other people her family and their favorite memories. When she moved to Dayton, Ohio in 1997, she was the happy wife of an Air Force nurse and the mother of a two year old, my sister, and a one year old, me.  From then on, all of her creative juices were put towards teaching her kids to be imaginative. Whether it meant making Halloween costumes for her kids, building with Legos, or decorating eggs on Easter, she loved to do fun, artistic things with her two children, and she still does. Four years ago she also found a new hobby—blogging. In the last few years her thoughts, her feelings, her desires, and her experiences have made it on to her blog. Her face then lit up as she told me she found a way to print her blog off the internet so she can have her very own book of her very own writing. Diligently keeping a prayer journal in the last few years, she also explained that she loves to write her thoughts to God down on paper so that she can look back on what she has written and see how her beliefs have changed about life. Currently, she has one big creative project going on—the play A Christmas Carol.  She is currently is working on making display different Christmas “eras” to set up in the theatre, which means lots of shopping for things from lots of different eras, everything from a Victorian era to an 1970s era. She will also be playing the part of Agnes, the charwoman, in the production of The Christmas Carol this winter season, which she is quite excited about.

            

This is my mother in a nutshell. She is a passionate teacher, and she has a passion for learning from poetry and other arts. When she was young she loved to make crafts and her favorite birthday present as a child was a journal that she could write her thoughts down in. In high school she loved theatre and in college she loved poetry and creative writing. As a mother she has loved blogging, prayer journaling, stamping, scrapbooking, and teaching her kids about the importance of being curious. As she sat there and got more caught up in the story she also stated one of the most important things to her is “not just liking a story, but discussing what makes it a good story, and looking at a writer’s style of expressing himself.” With that, she sat back and said, “Isaak, I really need to get back to my project!” This is my mother who has been the most passionate, creative, brilliant teacher I have ever had.

Huey Long: A Wrangler

“‘It is a far greater thing that I do now than I have ever done before.’  That man was beheaded.” . . . “I’m not surprised.”  --The Fantasticks

Huey Long’s prediction of his own death came true on September 10, 1935, when he was shot in his side by an eye doctor. Long knew he was a loudmouth, and he was proud of it, saying without flinching that when his time was up, he would be killed. And so it happened. Huey Long was a man adored by many and loathed by many, but he was too bold to be regarded by anyone with neutrality. Many people feared him, for he was a powerful man who stuck to his promises. Politicians always make big promises to the people, but few ever plant their feet and follow through—they’re too safe, too cowardly. Long wasn’t safe, and he wasn’t cowardly. His policies were radical, with a desire to “break up the swollen fortunes of America and . . . spread the wealth among all our people.” Long said adamantly, “I'm for the poor man—all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance. They gotta have a home, a job, and a decent education for their children. 'Every man a king' — that's my slogan."*

Huey Long cared about the poor. There was a good deal of George Bailey in him, whatever his other faults. However, George Bailey, though a fictional character (It’s a Wonderful Life), of course, got something done. Huey Long wrangled tirelessly for his policies, but did any great good come from it? Long retorted when critics criticized his methods,

“They say they don't like my methods. Well, I don't like them either. I really don't like to have to do things the way I do. I'd much rather get up before the legislature and say, 'Now this is a good law and it's for the benefit of the people, and I'd like you to vote for it in the interest of the public welfare.' Only I know that laws ain't made that way. You've got to fight fire with fire."*

Long called for people to share the wealth like a mother screaming at her child, “Be nice to your sister!” Making a law which requires people to share their money will not create a good community between rich and poor. The rich will always try to hold on to their money, and the poor will always resent the rich. Huey Long’s motives were certainly admirable, but his methods would never have succeeded, had he lived for a thousand years.

*Quotes from Huey Long found at

http://www.hueylong.com/perspectives/huey-long-quotes.php

What We Love, What We Hate, and What We Buy

When Susanna Berger stepped off the plane and into America, with one green suitcase, fourteen body-piercings, and a scared countenance, I had no idea how to pinpoint her. Susanna stayed with my family for one year as a foreign exchange student from a small German village of 600 people. For the first few weeks after her arrival, because of the language barrier between us, the only clues I had to understand who Susanna was were her possessions. She wore punk clothing, had a nose ring and a tattoo, and listened to Pink, the rock star with explicit lyrics, so at first I judged that she would be a rebellious, tough sort of girl. I quickly realized that this was not true and that Susanna was not rebellious, but very shy. There were many things about her that surprised me. Although she loved the horror movie, Saw 4, she also loved Disney’s The Lion King. Although she always went to wild parties in Germany, she also enjoyed sitting and playing strategy games for hours on end with my mother. I just couldn’t figure this girl out! It turned out to be much more difficult than I had predicted to understand our new family member. Susanna turned out to be much more than her possessions, of which she had few when she came to America. Her belongings were simple, owning one pair of shoes, a couple of books, and a couple of pairs of clothing. I had only the possessions in her one green suitcase to judge her by, which furthermore were possessions from a completely different culture than America and were not familiar to me. Because Susanna owned fewer possessions when she arrived in America, her image was freed from being chained to them, and it was easier for me to realize that there was more to her than what she had bought.

In a period where a consumer culture flourishes like never before, marketers tell us continually, “You are what you buy.” Is this true? Do our possessions define us? To answer this question, we must first ask three other questions that will give us insight into the topic. First off, what do our possessions say about us? Can you tell a person by what he buys? Or, perhaps possessions are just a piece of the puzzle. This leads to the next question; what is it that we desire? In any realm of life, if you want to understand a person or a culture, always ask what they desire, because our desires are a significant part of who we are. And finally, if we are not solely what we buy, what else forms our identity? With these questions, we begin to answer the looming question, are you what you buy?

So much information is revealed by the things we buy. In a moment we project a menagerie of different signals and symbols to the people around us. In many cases, however, it isn’t who we are that we present, but who we want to be viewed as. For example, a normal middle-class woman will often be seen wearing a pair of scuffed oxfords and an old comfy sweater, yet carrying a Coach purse. Just because this woman owns a Coach purse does not automatically make her a fashionable, wealthy, chic woman. Perhaps she would like to be viewed as this kind of woman, and the image she projects will be just that—a woman who wants to be associated with wealth and fashion. Another possibility is that the woman is simply fond of Coach purses; however, I would suggest that there is hardly ever a situation where we are solely fond of an object for its utility. I observed this when Susanna lived with us. She brought with her a diary covered in promiscuous photos and a Playboy wallet. These two items gave an air of rebellious sexuality like her tattoo and piercings. However Susanna’s personality was never remotely rebellious while she lived with us. She wore little makeup and wasn’t overly concerned with her appearance. When she described her life in Germany, she told us that she was very shy and didn’t talk very much. Not only were the diary and wallet symbols of sexuality and rebelliousness, but more specifically, Playboy is based in American Culture, and America is very popular in German fashion, so the wallet was a way to identify with American sexuality and also with money, since carrying money is the purpose of a wallet. The possessions were a way for her to express an image of herself which she wished was true. We use possessions as a language to express who we are, or more appropriately, to express who we want to be.

To further understand our culture and ourselves, it is vital to understand what we desire. Understanding what our possessions say about us exposes a lot of important information, but to discover what we want from our possessions goes to the heart of the subject. In Signs of Life, Laurence Shames maintains that possessions are about control. Humans, especially in this day and age, love to believe that they are in control of their lives. We delude ourselves into thinking this with our climate-controlled cars, our climate-controlled houses, our retirement plans, and our schedules penciled in by the hour. We also desire to create an image for ourselves—a very controlled image—of course. By creating an image for ourselves with our possessions, we attain another important desire: a feeling of security. My mother is a relatively frugal woman; nevertheless she owns her own computer, regardless of the fact that we have another laptop and a desk top in our house. Although she could share the other two computers with our family, she chooses to have her own laptop that only she uses, so that she can use it at a moment’s notice, without anyone else in the family competing with her over it. By eliminating competition, she gains control over the time she can use her computer. We in American hate to share. In contrast however, my brother and I share a cell phone. It’s a rare occurrence to see a teenage girl and boy sharing a cell phone. It’s very practical for us to share a phone because it is cost efficient and it makes it easy for my parents to get a hold of us; however most people would think it odd because a cell phone is a status symbol for teenagers and many teenagers wouldn’t dream of having to share one. For me, my cell phone is primarily an object for utility.

In his essay, "The More Factor," Shames also suggests that people today want to be viewed as safe, yet new. Just like the woman with the Coach purse, people often try to project an image that is not quite true to them. We attempt to be rebels, without doing anything rebellious. Clearly, our possessions attest to our insatiable desires for control, safety, and yet wealth and the new.

If it is true that our society is significantly defined by and engrossed in its possessions, then are we what we buy? Can our identity be fundamentally broken down to our possessions? For example, a young man in his prime owns a red sports car, an i-Phone, and a comfortable apartment. He is a wealthy, fashionable, young man with a taste for excitement and flashiness. Is this all he is? That’s it? This seems like a pathetic identity. What about this man’s beliefs, values, and dreams? These must come into play; they are a crucial part of a person’s being. Our belongings may reveal something about us to others, but they are not the thing that makes up our identity. Primarily, the thing that makes up a person or culture’s identity is its beliefs about God, other humans, and what is important in life.

After one year with Susanna, my view of her had absolutely changed. Taken out of her normal surroundings, Susanna presented an image of herself primarily by her preferences and dislikes and her reactions to new things and new situations. I learned that she was a social person, loving to sit up with my family, talking for hours on end. I learned that she was a sensitive person, crying the first time she attended an American church. I learned that she was a hard working person, helping out with house hold chores every day. The year she lived with us, Susanna changed a lot, and her purchases reflected these changes. When she arrived she was very particular about the clothing she bought, preferring the colors black, purple, and blue. By the end of the year she was open to shopping at new stores and liked wearing brighter colors like green, yellow, and brown. Because she knew that her trip to America was temporary, Susanna purchased a few special, expensive items, including an i-Pod and an elegant prom dress to wear to her graduation. When Susanna first arrived, she most certainly would have bought a black prom dress, but later in the year she chose to buy a bright blue dress which was feminine and matched her eyes. This shows that she learned to embrace a different side of herself, which was positive, girly, and proud of what she looked like. Susanna’s favorite thing to spend money on was Caribou coffee. Unlike America, Germany does not have a Starbucks, Caribou, or Dunn Bros. on every corner, so the idea of specialized dessert coffee, which has become a symbol of intellect and fashion in the USA, was a new and exciting one to Susanna. I learned much about Susanna by what she bought, but more importantly, I learned that she was so much more than what she bought.

Most importantly, after asking the questions, “What do our possessions say about us?”, “What do we desire? and “What else defines us?”, the resounding answer is that we are much more than what we buy. For example, the U.S. A. defined itself long ago, not by what it possessed—the new frontier—but by saying that it was “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Surely, who we are is made up by many different things, including, but not at all limited to, what we love, what we hate, what we feel about God, what we feel about our fellow human-beings, what our parents taught us, what our name is, what kind of ice cream we like, and yes, what we buy.

What a Banjo Can Tell

As I stood on the sidewalk in downtown Rochester during Thursdays On First, a weekly summer event in Rochester that allows a great opportunity for making money street-performing, my guitar case open, the sun beating down on me and my fellow musicians, and my voice cracking from hours of trying to sing over the hubbub of the busy street, only one thought motivated me to keep playing. If I kept my music going for a few more hours, I might finally have enough money to buy a banjo. As I plucked my guitar strings while my best friend, Ciaran, strummed away on his mandolin, and Sophia played her violin, people stood around and listened to us play “The Ballad of Love and Hate,” a folk song by the Avett Brothers. When nine-thirty finally came and there were no more people passing by, I sat down to count out how much I had made in my ten hours of performing that day and found that I had, indeed, made enough money. I spent the next few days pouring over banjos on the internet, trying to pick one that was the quality I wanted. I was very particular because I did not want to be known for having a low quality banjo. So, I am a street performer who likes banjos and folk music. Do you have me figured out? Am I what I buy?

When I look around at peoples’ possessions, I am always left wondering who they really are because peoples’ possessions often mislead us. When we see people and the things that they own, we need to ask ourselves three important things. First, how do people represent themselves through what they buy? Second, what do people want or desire for themselves? And third, are people who they appear to be as shown by their possessions? When we take some time and explore the answers to these three questions, it will be clearer whether people are what they buy or not.

 When looking at the American culture to see how people represent themselves, a good place to start is with some of the most obvious possessions such as cars and clothes. Americans seem to use their cars to show at a glance how their owners want to be characterized. “The jock” is more likely to be driving a red Mercedes than a Smart car. The “tough guy” is less likely to be seen driving a mini-van, but might invest in a Harley. And a “soccer mom” is more likely to drive a mini-van than a Harley, which is an indicator that she’s a mom because it’s a practical choice for her family. Similarly, clothes also show others who they are. For example, people love to be characterized as the “jock” or the “musician” because of the outfits they wear. If guy is wearing an Adrian Peterson jersey, then chances are he is a football fan, and more specifically, a Vikings fan. That does not mean that at his core being, he is just a football fan and nothing more. Not only do people buy tangible things that others can see, but they also buy experiences. In the same way, my banjo does represent the tiny part of me that loves folk music, but it doesn’t show that my favorite genre of music is hardcore, a style that has much darker connotations to it. 

Running up to my room to count my money the Thursday night I had enough cash to buy a banjo, I threw down my acoustic guitar and collected money from all around my messy room. I rummaged through drawers full of Harry Potter books and notebooks, and I searched under various instruments until I finally gathered up all the money I had. The reason I wanted a banjo so badly is because I love how the banjo is a unique instrument with a very distinct sound, and also I believe it is a very undervalued and forgotten instrument in the current generation of youth, so I want to have something special that other kids my age don’t have. Although some people may argue that my purchase of skinny jeans and band t-shirts are just a couple more things that describe who I am, there are also many other genres of music that I also love that I haven’t purchased.

When people buy things, they often desire the approval of other people. Catching the eye of others, they feel a sense of comfort that comes with being supported or admired. The soccer mom in her minivan may have made her vehicle choice based on her need or desire to drive kids around. And the man wearing the sports jersey may have selected it because he desired to support his team or because he wanted to fit in with the rest of his friends who also love sports. People will do anything to belong, from dressing a certain way, to talking and acting a certain way, or even by pretending to know about things that they do not. The last reason we often buy things is to feel important or superior. Driving around in their nice sports cars, people might easily think, “I bet those people there in their rusted used car think I am pretty important” or “I look like I have a grand life compared to those people.” My banjo definitely shows what I desire. I want to be able to play music and I want to be accepted by the people who also love that genre of music.

The last and trickiest question is whether or not peoples’ possessions are a façade of who they really are. This leads me to think that we are not what we buy because what we buy is sometimes just what we want to seem rather than what we are. For example, a person might have a beautiful house, but they might just have a great eye for decorating cheaply by refinishing their tables or by sewing their own curtains or just by having a real knack for bargain shopping and a gift for hunting for great deals. Buying nice clothing may have left another person with no money for anything else so even though a person might give off the sense of being in style, they might actually be a very poor person in every other sense. So, if I bought a banjo to carry around rather than to learn to play it, or If I bought a banjo rather than saving up for an I-pod, I would be putting on a mask to seem a certain way that I’m not or I would just not be showing all the things I want in life.

From the possessions people buy to represent themselves, to the things people desire, and even to the façades people use to be accepted, what we buy plays an important role in who we are. Are we solely what we buy? When it comes to what we buy to show who we are, possessions cannot show who we are as a whole; they only show little bits and pieces of us. Even though someone may be dressed exactly the same as me, in skinny jeans and band t-shirts, and we might both be in different hardcore bands, often that kid uses lots of profanities when he speaks, whereas I don’t because I don’t find it a polite or intelligent way of presenting myself. We might also have opposite views on life, he might be an atheist, and I believe in a relationship with a God who loves. As for desires, sometimes we desire things that are contradictory to our other possessions such as a person wanting to belong to a group because they are cool, but their beliefs are contradictory to the groups’ beliefs. Lastly, if a person buys something to be accepted rather than because the item itself actually matters to them, they are not accurately depicting how a person is. If a person buys a football jersey, not because they like football, but because their friends like football, they are falsely representing themselves to fit in. Even though people buy things to represent themselves, their possessions cannot solely depict who they are. People are much too complex to be represented purely by what they buy. Therefore, we are not what we buy. The banjo can only reveal a little of who I am.

Problema I

Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical?

Kierkegaard says that if we are to go saying that these people do not have faith and these others do have faith, we must be clear about what we mean by faith, for it is very easy to fall into old clichés. It’s not difficult to explain the whole of existence, answering every moral and philosophical question cleanly and clearly, faith included, and this man is not the worst kind who is admired for such an achievement. There are worse things a man could do, however, as Boileau says, “A fool can always find a greater fool who admires him.” So then, what does Kierkegaard himself mean by faith? Kierkegaard talks about the ethical, which is the universal. I think this means the absolute moral laws we follow. Teleological is a philosophical doctrine that believes that final purposes exist in life—there are absolutes. When Kierkegaard refers to the universal, he means absolute moral laws, with of a view of what is right and wrong is right and wrong in all circumstances, at all times, and to every person equally. In this case he is talking specifically about the beliefs of Christianity.

Faith is putting aside what we hold as the universal—the absolute moral code—in the interest of something higher. Abraham put aside the universal when he brought Isaac up the mountain, ready to kill his own son. When taken outside of the pretty picture storybook version of Sunday school, this looks an awful lot like murder. Not only was it murder, but it was murder of his own son, which is child sacrifice which we know the lord despises. Or at least we thought we knew. But that is the key to faith. God asked Abraham to sacrifice, or murder, his own son, and Abraham obeyed God, even though every moral code he held to was being violated by his act of obedience.  Kierkegaard says, “For faith is just this paradox, that the single individual is higher than the universal, though in such a way, be it noted, that the movement is repeated, that is, that, having been in the universal, the single individual now sets himself apart as the particular above the universal. If that is not faith, then faith has never existed in the world, just because it has always existed.”  I think what he means is that in faith the particular, which is everything is outside the ethical, and is usually described as sin, becomes higher, than the universal when a person who first followed the ethical code breaks away from this law and does something outside of the ethical code in obedience to the Lord. Faith will always look ridiculous, idiotic, or absolutely sinful, and yet it is higher than the absolute moral code of the Bible.