On Being Blog
In our show this weekend, “Being Autistic, Being Human,” Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder point out that not all people with autism have savant-like abilities. I think we’re drawn to those stories of extraordinary talents, in part, because they suggest the nearly limitless possibilities of the human mind. As Paul Collins writes in his book Not Even Wrong:
“Autists are described by others — and by themselves — as aliens among humans. But there’s an irony to this, for precisely the opposite is true. They are us, and to understand them is to begin to understand what it means to be human. Think of it: a disability is usually defined in terms of what is missing. … But autism … is as much about what is abundant as what is missing, an overexpression of the very traits that make our species unique. Other animals are social, but only humans are capable of abstract logic. The autistic outhuman the humans, and we can scarcely recognize the result.”
This video is a clip from a German documentary series about savants called Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain. The subject of the clip is a man with autism named Stephen Wiltshire, who can draw an entire cityscape from memory after a single helicopter ride.
As I watch him draw, I can’t help but wonder at the origin of our uniquely human desire and ability to depict the world through art. Somehow, that ability emerged and was woven into our genetic code thousands of years ago, passed down from the cave painters to subsequent generations until the present, when even my own 4-year-old daughter can produce drawings that vaguely resemble things in the real world. But here we can see it rushing out of this man’s hand with such breadth and precision as to seem almost impossible. I’m not sure what it means, but it makes me feel proud of my species.
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— Ryan Wilson, referring to tribal elders who were listening to young girls singing in Arapaho.
Wilson, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and a board member of the National Indian Education Association, is working with the Northern Arapaho tribe to establish Hinono’ Eitiino’ Oowu’, an Arapaho language immersion school on the Wind River Reservation in northwest Wyoming. Wilson’s words remind me of something David Treuer said to Krista about his tribe’s effort to preserve the Ojibwe language:
“What I really love about language revitalization, what is so key to it, is that it’s always been ours and it’s a chance to define ourselves on and in our own terms and in ways that have nothing to do with what’s been taken. We can define ourselves by virtue of what we’ve saved.”
This December, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) turns 60 years old, and the video above was released in preparation for that celebration. The UDHR (listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “Most Translated Document” in the world) was drafted by the United Nations in response to the Second World War as a means of clearly defining what the UN hoped to protect — namely, the “equal and inalienable rights” that “all members of the human family” are entitled to.
I thought it was worth mentioning on the blog because the issue of human rights is a pretty important one at SOF; so much of what we do here is about taking larger ideas and bringing them down to the level of individual lives. Often issues that seem irreconcilable in their abstract form seem more managable when you hear the stories of those affected.
Case and point: our recent feature “Between the Polarized Extremes of Abortion.” Looking through some of the thoughtful and heartfelt responses we received on this topic, I realized that for all of the rhetoric I’ve heard on this subject, I’ve rarely seen it dealt with on such a personal level. Your responses turned out to be refreshing and much-needed antidote to the political and cultural battling this issue tends to invoke.
It seems that if there is going to be any reconcilliation on the issue of abortion, it will probably come through an understanding of the individual lives that are affected by it. And while the UDHR has its critics (I imagine anything claiming to be “universal” would), to me it’s an important step in the right direction — a larger way of acknowledging the need to understand the world on a more human scale.
While doing a little research on this, I discovered that there is also an older (much longer) animation about the UDHR, sponsored by Amnesty International. The tone seems a little different in Amnesty’s video, and I thought it was worth including because, while it is pretty dated, it also strikes me as being a little bit more … well, human.
When we first produced our autism program a little over a year ago, I had just watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, a fascinating movie that was shot more like a play than a movie. All of the scenes take place across two adjacent rooms and were shot with one camera, meaning all of the edits were just end-to-end, joining edits, without any cutaways to other angles, etc. So, it is as if you are watching a play without any set changes.
There is a scene in the film where Philip Morgan (Farley Granger) is playing Poulenc’s “Perpetual Motion” at the piano and Rupert Cadell (Jimmy Stewart) is asking him sensitive questions, with metronome in hand, intermittently dialing up the tempo with Morgan in lock step, playing this same piece faster and faster, the tension building.
That setting of the tune is rather anxiety-inducing, but I found the piece to be light and jaunty, with a tinge of melancholy, which reminds me of this time of year. I found James Campbell’s recording of that piece for piano and clarinet and set it into the autism program and it took on a whole other mood than was presented so cleverly by Hitchcock. You can hear the piece on the Being Playlist.
I tried to find the scene at the piano on YouTube, but I could only find the trailer in which you can faintly pick out an arrangement of the Poulenc piece for orchestra, in the background.
Hitchcock’s Rope — great movie, even if it is a bit grim. Check it out! Incidentally, if you rent the DVD, make sure you watch the additional “behind the scenes” segments; they explain the challenging shooting process (during one of the shoots, a member of the crew had his foot broken by a camera dollying across the floor!)
A few times when I was in elementary school, my mom took me out of school to go to the annual pro-life march at the Minnesota state capitol. I remember waiting for a shuttle from Colonial Square in Wayzata, standing in Rexall Drug’s entrance next to a woman with a sign that read, “Real Feminists are Pro-Life.” At that age, I didn’t know what a feminist was and remember asking my mom, but I don’t think her answer made it any clearer for me. Isn’t everybody for women’s rights?
One particular year we were at the capitol and I remember signs that had pictures of aborted fetuses pasted to foamcore; another striking display was a grim reaper effigy being toted around by a cross made of 2x4s, which the strong winds made even more terrifying. My memory tells me that each time it was a gray, overcast January day, with exhaust-covered snow heaped upon the banks of the streets. I don’t know what I was thinking of it at the time, but my recollection is that we were doing what was needed.
I remember screenings of The Silent Scream were offered in my church’s basement. My parents never let me watch it. I guess I was too young to witness that strong a message. But I went to the capitol each year because it was what my mom asked of me. I would do it for her then, and I would like to say I would support her today, a little over a year since she passed away, but I cannot be sure.
My mom always called me her “Jesus-baby,” a moniker my siblings still give me grief about (and perhaps now my colleagues), and an affection my mom expressed to me as late as her death bed. I’m not sure I know the entire story behind this nickname, but I do know that mom quit smoking and drinking two years before I was born and also had a born-again experience during the time when charismatic Christianity was firing up Roman Catholic parishes in the early 70’s. I also know that her doctor tried to persuade her to have a hysterectomy around this time — my mother had had 5 children already. I don’t know how much of this, or all of it, is what shaped my mom’s views on abortion, but they do represent some of the circumstances.
I am very conflicted on where I stand on abortion. I can’t say I would abide by the pro-life position if my wife and I found ourselves in a place which would be too challenging for us at some stage in our lives. I do, however, wish that there were fewer abortions, as I think it is a choice and commitment of such anguish for a woman that no one ever wants to undertake, if possible.
And so this contentious struggle continues, without much progress. Maybe I have softened due to the inevitability of maturing, though doubtful. But I can point to something Rod Dreher said on a recent SOF program that was revealing to me.
“If I were pro-choice, I would feel very strongly about it and I would find it very difficult to compromise.”
What’s there to do when you can’t compromise and are unwilling to see the opposite perspective? When I say that I am passionate about my beliefs, I guess I am speaking theoretically. My problem is that I see both perspectives as valid, a convenient strategy my dad and I argue about that he calls situational ethics. He feels that there are absolutes in one’s faith and you need to abide by those, no matter the scenario. I feel as though no decision is free from the circumstances, and it is the very apt approach to regarding hindsight or looking back on previous decisions that allow us to progress.
Perhaps that’s what I am, pro-gress. But I am sure we all are.
[Editor’s note: Out of the hundreds of responses we’ve received about abortion, many people are wrestling with same personal and societal conundrums of legalization. I encourage you to visit our map and read some, and submit you’re own perspectives.]
Do you have a blog? Well, this October 15 (tomorrow), why not use it to highlight the issue of poverty for Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the world are going to flood the Web with talk about poverty — personal stories, political ideals, solutions, problems — to bring increased awareness to this “other” global economic crisis. There’s no limit to the ways we can talk about this. You don’t need to have Nobel Prize-worthy thesis or anything. Check out some suggestions for ideas on how to talk about the subject, regardless of your passion and your blog’s focus.
This presidential election feels like it’s moving at gastropod’s pace. As subtle as a leviathan, this large body exerts an irresistable gravitational force on everything around it. We keep talking about it here in the office, but we’re also wondering how much politics we can all handle, and trying to balance relevance against saturation.
We’re trying to give voice to some interesting people during this election season, but next week, we’ll back off the political stuff and re-air our show on autism. Following that, a show on leadership, religion, gender, and race with the dynamic preacher Vashti McKenzie. It’s about her but also very much about the issue of biography in this election cycle.
Then comes the weekend prior to the election. What to do…
We will be airing a repeat that week, and the question came up: relevance or saturation? Can we provide a non-political alternative, or should we offer something useful for the occasion? We decided that we couldn’t well ignore the reality of the situation — gravitational pull.
So we went back and forth on what show we wanted to repeat that weekend. An initial thought was our program with three prominent Evangelical Christians. Pro: a look at how this influential community, if they vote as a bloc as in past elections, might sway the election. Con: an abundance of coverage of this issue lately.
Then came the thought of airing our classic program, A History of Doubt. Pro: remaining skeptical in the face of dogmas (and partisanship?). Con: it’s not a political show, so let’s not force it to be.
So finally, we decided to repeat our program on the history of the church-state separation in the U.S. Pro: interesting historical perspective on the issue of faith and politics and how they’ve related. Con? It is a fairly new program, but the timeliness of the subject seems to override that concern.
The week after the election, we’ll broadcast our new program on the science of revenge and forgiveness (and yes, we do talk about some politics in that, too). And the next couple of weeks/months will see some serious, newsy topics: Shia Islam in the context of Iran and geopolitics; potentially the economy, finance, and what we do with all this depressing information; and a potential two-parter on the ethics of international aid and development.
Lots of serious shows coming up looking at serious issues. It’s a serious season, I guess.
Two weeks ag I began working with Speaking of Faith as a production intern, and I am excited to be both at SOF and in Minnesota. I grew up here in St. Paul, but have lived elsewhere for the past several years, most recently studying at the London School of Economics in the UK. Returning to Minnesota and starting at Speaking of Faith are both unexpected gifts that have cropped up rather suddenly in my life. Just a few months ago, I had planned on staying in London and trying to make my way in the UK. I came back to St. Paul to finish my thesis, and at the last minute decided to stay.
Returning home isn’t always easy. In some ways, it is harder than leaving. Things shift gradually while we are away, and the differences, which aren’t always apparent to the eye, are felt deep in our gut. No matter where we are, we constantly readjust ourselves to subtle changes in the world around us. Returning home forces one to confront the many changes that have occurred in our absence all at once. As I start at SOF, I am excited to be on a team of individuals who think deeply about the ways in which the world changes and does not change, and the subtle differences in each of our interpretations of this. The themes that I pick up in the show — faith, difference, belonging, and perception — have run as undercurrents in my life abroad, and are resurfacing again as I begin to sort through my past and my present.
I will be with Speaking of Faith for the next six months. Unlike many media internships, I am lucky in that I will be learning not only about the production of a weekly show, but also about the power of a simple conversation to spur deep questioning, thought, and growth. I am tremendously excited to begin, and I look forward to the next several months.
You might be surprised by what our nation’s most famous Evangelical Christian has to say about Muslims.
I first met Rick Warren at the Aspen Ideas Festival a few years ago, where he was doing a talk on leadership. Somebody in the audience asked him — with no lack of scorn — if he thought everyone was going to heaven. That’s when I realized how much of a risk Warren had taken by coming to Aspen — a town of people with a generally condescending attitude towards Warren’s brand of Evangelical megachurch Christianity.
I asked him about why he chose to come to a place where much of the audience was suspicious of him because of the title “Pastor.” He smiled and said that he liked all kinds of people, including folks with a bias against religion, but he was looking forward to getting on a plane and heading to Rwanda the next day, where he had taken on the massive project of helping a country recover from genocide. “It was faith that got them through, and it’s faith that keeps them going,” he told me.
I was equally struck by the pragmatic and profound way Warren answered the man’s question. He basically said that he didn’t come to Aspen to disagree with people about heaven, but to find common ground about working together on earth — and in his recent travels across the developing world, he had seen enough suffering to make anyone with an impulse to serve put aside their differences and develop practical partnerships that actually helped people.
I caught up with Pastor Rick at another bastion of folks suspicious of faith (I spend a lot of time in those places!) — the Clinton Global Initiative. This time, he was even more forceful about the need to focus our efforts on improving earth instead of arguing about heaven. When he was asked how “the church” could play a role in ending poverty, he responded by saying that the armies of compassion included people of all faiths.
I took him aside after his panel presentation and talked to him about the religious diversity he expressed respect for on stage.
As for how this Muslim views that Christian, here’s what I have to say: We might have different ideas of heaven, but I would happily play soldier to his general in an interfaith army of compassion solving the problems of earth.
Eboo Patel appeared on SOF as a guest in “Religious Passion, Pluralism, and the Young.” He’s also the founder and executive director of Interfaith Youth Core, a contributor to the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog, and author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation.
This past Sunday, my colleague Shiraz and I went to an Iftar dinner put on by the Northern Lights Society, a Turkish-based interfaith group based in the Twin Cities. Iftar is the meal that breaks the fast for the day during Ramadan. The meal included various speakers from the community, as well as a video presentation of Ebru, a Turkish form of painting on water with dyes.
Also referred to as paper marbling, Ebru is a process of dripping dyes upon water, shaping the colors in every which way with various tools and finally, transferring the final composition to paper that is laid over the water. Upon contact the dyes cleave to the paper, leaving the water blank as in the beginning, thus, each print is one-of-a-kind. In the video, you will see the transfer to paper take place at 8:33. Yılmaz Eneş, an ebru artist, has a great Web site including videos and some beautiful images in his gallery.
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