Social Google

I'm sure you're aware of the changes Google has made the past few months, but have you done your research on them? Read these articles:

• Gizmodo: Google Just Made Bing the Best Search Engine
• Gizmodo: Google's Broken Promise
• Wired: Google Streamlines Privacy Policy to Integrate its Products

Man, what's got Gizmodo's panties in a bunch? They should try to act more like their big brother Wired. These changes are something to be mindful of, and certainly precautions should be taken, but none of it is the betrayal of trust it's being seen as by some. What I see happening here is a chain of events beginning with Google's decision to enter the social networking arena and never done in malice.

1. Google, while staring hungrily at all the ad revenue Facebook gets, notices that social network users are growing increasingly dissatisfied with Facebook. They decide that it is a good time to start a social network of their own and try to claim all that traffic themselves. Innocent so far; competition is the essence of business.
2. Google+ launches to far less fanfare than Google wanted. The userbase reaches a plateau much below where it needs to be. Despite this setback, the company isn't going to let it die like Wave did. Google strives to do its level best to make people want to use Google+, so it adds a benefit for Plus users to its most popular service: web searches. Now, anyone with a profile on Plus will get results even more relevant to them, because it will also search their social network. The enormous problem is that this is not an opt-in feature — it is opt-out. The reasoning here is obvious: a feature that's on by default is visible to more users, and will therefore draw more users to use Plus. But those users who use Plus and do not want this feature are now bombarded with the unsettling surprise of very personal results appearing in a service which has always been seen as homogenized and impartial. Google has changed the characterization of their primary service by doing this, and that degree of redefinition will always have significant negative backlash.
3. Social networks, by their nature, aggregate samples of every single sort of interaction and information that is possible on the Web. Since Google owns the most popular providers of many of those mediums (YouTube, Blogger, etc.), it is absolutely in their best interests to try to streamline the interactions between their social network and their other services. If you upload a video to YouTube, for instance, and want to share it on Google+, it will help if there are mechanisms in place for precisely that. So, as part of this, they decide that it will allow beautiful integration of their services — hypothetically boosting the popularity of each — if they make it so that all your separate Google profiles are simplified and consolidated into just one.

Now, this is alarming to us because we're suddenly seeing that all the information we've given Google is in one place. But Google accounts should always have been combined this way. It's far more efficient, and in many ways can improve services. The bit that makes us panic is the social hub around which this is all built. When Google provided us with a social network, we do what we always do on them: we loaded it with personal information, safe in the knowledge that, short of high-profile hackers with vendettas against us, the only people who will see that information are the people we add to our circles. Now this private information — most notably, the name and photographs we've given Plus — will be propagated to all the Google services that we've linked together under the same account.

However, the proper response to this is not panic, and neither is it condemnation of Google. Google's dynamic is shifting slightly to a more social focus, and their structure must necessarily change to allow this. It is still, as it has always been with their business model, in their best interest to keep you, as the user, happy. This is why they've loaded your inboxes with notifications about their changing policy. This is why they have engineered a data liberation program to facilitate removing your information. The best course of action, if you have any concerns, is to simply use that service to remove private information, then wait until March 1 to see how, exactly, they will be using the information from one service in another. Personally, I seriously doubt anything beyond your name and possibly a photo would be visible to other users if you left all your data intact. Everything else will just be used to tailor ads to the user — and I don't know about you, but I much prefer seeing ads for things that actually interest me.

Personal Dialects

Imagine that I say a word to you. Imagine that this is a word that you know very well -- you have heard it many times in many contexts, and you have naturally learned the concept that it embodies. Now imagine that I have learned the word in the same way, gleaning the definition by seeing it applied. If we each learned it through our own experiences, and your life has been different from mine, is it even possible for the word I know and the word you know to be exactly the same? I don't see how it is.

Let's take the idea further. Imagine that I say a sentence to you. This sentence is composed of many words, but all of the words are ones that you and I both have learned in the courses of our lives. Furthermore, the grammar of it -- the meaning intrinsic to the order in which I placed the words -- is something that you and I have learned to interpret by means of our personal experiences with language. If the meanings of the words are dependant on our unique pasts, as is the way these words interact with each other, then you and I will see two entirely different meanings within the one sentence.

One more step. Imagine that you read a blog post that I write. It is composed of many sentences, and each of those is composed of many words -- and the words and sentences alike draw from our unique pasts to gain meaning. These sentences are strung together, each with individual meaning, but placed in a particular order with common threads running between them to carry a larger message. As with the smaller parts, the way we form the singular thoughts into a larger mosaic depends entirely on how we have learned that statements fit together. From the top to the bottom, the blog post is built from pieces that the two of us can never see in quite the same light.

A Criticism of a Criticism of a Criticism

There's a new viral video wherein a man recites a poem he wrote, railing against certain views of Christianity. Watch it, if you haven't already.


Now, there's also an article going around which criticizes that video. Read it, if you haven't already.

I don't like that article. I see some issues in it. Here's my analysis of it:

Fitzgerald begins his criticism of Jesus>Religion by talking about one of Bethke's other poems, trying to build a sentiment against him without actually saying anything about the poem in question. This goes on for an entire paragraph. I won't dissect that paragraph in detail — I'm just going to dismiss the entire thing as irrelevant.

In the third paragraph, Fitzgerald finally begins criticizing the poem. He doesn't actually say much about it. There's just a sarcastic statement which implicitly questions the very notion of "chains of religion" without actually offering an argument against the idea, and accusations of "false dichotomies and outright bad theology." Maybe in later paragraphs he'll expand on what, exactly, he means by that. Let's read on and see!

Fitzgerald says that Bethke "begins by suggesting that Jesus came to abolish religion". What he's failing to recognize is that this is a poem, not an essay. Words have different meanings than they do in prose, sculpted over the course of the poem. Clearly, "religion" does not mean the same thing here as it does in common English. Of course Jesus didn't want to abolish the belief in cosmic forces and entities which underlie the universe and give it meaning. To claim such would be absurd — he was, after all, a religious man himself. Bethke is giving the word "religion" a new meaning for his own purpose, and Fitzgerald ignores that.

Fitzgerald claims that the statement that "Republican doesn't automatically mean Christian" is off-topic. Is he even listening to the poem? The entire thing is about misguided notions of what it means to be Christian. Bethke is criticizing instutionalized, standardized approaches to religion, particularly those with the tendency to condemn groups which they classify as "sinners". In the United States, one aspect of this is that people who espouse conservative values — which are traditionally the mainstay of the Republican party — often call them "Christian values". Bethke is criticizing that. He does not think that those values are what true Christian values were intended to be, even if they have been values within various denominations for a long time.

Fitzgerald identifies one of Bethke's statements as playing "right into the hand of the so-called New Atheists". Now that is just sensationalism. There is no actual criticism there. He's just implicitly identifying "New Atheists" (whatever those are) as the enemy, and saying that Bethke is naively helping them along, without actually saying how or why that makes him necessarily wrong.

Then Fitzgerald says something that I, frankly, find hilarious. "See, he’s not actually on about religion, but about people whose expression of their faith doesn’t match his criteria. It’s not religious people he’s talking about, it’s what we used to call Sunday Christians." Yes, Fitzgerald, you are exactly right! That is, in fact, what he is using the word "religion" to mean! Except he's broadening it a bit — Bethke is also including the people who embrace their religion all week long, but focus on the rules rather than the sentiment. If you follow all the rules of your religion, but you never give a dime except when required, and you harshly condemn with an unforgiving attitude anyone who commits certain sins, then, according to Bethke, you are not truly in the spirit of it. Bethke is taking issue with the people who focus on the religion itself, not the faith and love behind it.

A few times, Fitzgerald claims that Bethke departs from the subject of religion. I'm honestly not sure where he's seeing that. And he pulls out a few nitpicky criticisms, like pointing out a slant rhyme, in an attempt to worsen the reader's opinion of Bethke. It's a good rhetorical trick — specifically, it's damaging Bethke's ethos — but, ultimately, it doesn't mean Fitzgerald is right in anything that he says. Those irrelevant details should be ignored in considering what both of them are saying.

Fitzgerald spends a few paragraphs doing little more than quote Bethke, then, at the end of it, says, "Where do we begin?" I would ask the same question, because it doesn't seem like Fitzgerald ever actually does begin on some of his arguments. Here's that accusation of false dichotomies again, but he's not naming what they are or why they're false. Then he questions a few statements: "Religion is an infection? Religion puts you in bondage? Religion makes you blind?" He never really refutes them, though. Keeping in mind Bethke's unique definition of "religion" for the purpose of this poem...yeah, all those statements seem to ring true. It's an infection in that this particular type of faith which Bethke dislikes does spread from person to person and, in his eyes, damage them. It puts people in bondage because they feel bound to follow the rules, rather than inspired to follow their morals. It makes people blind in that they do not see what is, in Bethke's opinion, the true Christian path.

Fitzgerald claims, "What Bethke is actually railing against is people whose expression of religion doesn’t look like he believes it should." Yeah. Yeah he is. That's what Fitzgerald is doing to Bethke, too. That's what everyone does when they express what they think religion should be like. Criticism implies disagreement, and disagreement implies an opinion. I don't see a problem here.

In Fitzgerald's closing, he summarizes his point that what Bethke is criticizing isn't actually religion as a whole, but a particular manifestation of religion. I'm astounded that he thinks that needs to be said. It's pretty clear, isn't it? That's the whole point of the poem. But Fitzgerald states it like it's a piercing insight into poorly chosen words. I think it's quite obvious that Bethke is building a specific concept, drawing a dichotomy between what he calls "religion" and what he calls "Christianity". He could just as easily have picked "doctrine" and "faith", or "rules" and "heart". It's a poem. Interpret it like one.

Fitzgerald seems to be good at scoffing, but bad at actually constructing arguments. Maybe he has some good reasons to dismiss Bethke. He never actually said most of them, though. The only ones that he did state were based on very literal interpretations of the poem. Which is rather like responding to "I have a frog in my throat" with "There's no way you swallowed a whole frog."

A Distinction and a Difference

A gay comedian performed at our school today. That's how he was described: "a gay comedian". His name was mentioned mostly in passing, except when he was actually announced on the stage. The rest of the time, he was "a gay comedian" that our local Gay Straight Alliance hired to perform. I see a problem. The GSA is drawing a distinction, and they are hurting their own cause by doing so.

Let's consider racism for parallels. Racism certainly exists here and now, but we can all agree that it isn't nearly to the extent that it was half a century ago, yes? Part of the reason is that we honestly do not see the distinction to the extent that we did decades ago. One of my closest friends is black. I'm well aware that he's black. But I don't really think about it. If I'm asked to describe what he's like, I'll say that he's a friendly guy. I'll say that he's involved in a ridiculous number of extracurricular activities. I'll say that he can be a bit self-centered at times, but in the end he is honestly a decent person. I'll say that he's gay. But I will not say that he's black until I'm asked about his physical appearance.

So why would I say that he's gay, but not that he's black? Why is his orientation a larger part of my idea of his identity? The simple answer is that it's mentioned a lot. The more complicated answer is that all sides of society seem to be trying to carve it out as a separate category. There is a large effort in LGBT activism to build a sense of LGBT community. The effects of this activism work in concert with homophobic efforts, creating a general view among everyone that we are somehow separate. There is a common link between the discriminatory comments of certain public figures and the activists' attempts to unite us under a rainbow flag: they all draw a distinction.

The simple fact is that we cannot have the equality that we want if we continue displaying ourselves as a separate category. The message that we convey is that we are different from the norm. What we need to do is make it normal. What we need to do is treat it as no big deal that we're different in that one way. Every time we proclaim our orientation as something to take note of, people really do take note of it more than they did before. They perpetuate the label, the distinction, and, therefore, the possibility for discrimination. That really isn't what we want.

Rhetor

Show me the method of seeing the universe;
I am untrained, I am vulgar and ignorant.
Tell me your notion of how to imagine; my
mind is unbridled, but I need it tame.

My prior experience, childhood fantasy.
Laughable, really, and none of it usable.
Savage ideas. But I now know the dictum:
The first one to think something has to be wrong.