Something has to give.

In this series—the Academic Survival Guide—I give you the tips that may just get you through your next quarter (or semester, if you prefer). Of course, your mileage may vary.

To get through the tough times, you’ve got to know your substances. “What do you mean by substances,” you ask? Pain-killers, caffeine, prescription drugs, herbs, spices—any chemical compound that will get you through your day.

After all, a headache can kill your productivity, make your downtime less refreshing (read: less effective), and leave you tired the next day. Two or three of my professors have Costco-bulk-style bottles of pain killers in their office—how else would they be able to read Richard Rorty as if it were a Stephen King novel?

Here’s what to do:

Stock up on medications. Know what they do, which are effective, and (most importantly) in what ways may can harm you. Either way, it is good to have cold and allergy medicines, painkillers, and other first aid medicinal supplies on hand just in case.

Invest in a knowledge of herbs. Peppermint oils have been shown to aid digestion, while St. Johns Wort has been found to be effective in treating mild to moderate depression symptoms. Teas are your friend, and often the soothing feeling of warm flavored-water is placebo enough to keep the most unstable of us from flying off-the-handle.

Gauge yourself. The key to success lies within the old adage: “know thyself.” Trite? Sure. But novelty does not always equal truth—especially when it comes to medicating yourself. If you know that you’ll be jittery after that third cup of coffee, pace yourself! If you don’t know if Acetometophine will obliterate that toothache, figure out what will. And for Christ’s sake, don’t take that whole dose of vicodin the night before the deadline—no matter what the doctor ordered!

Go easy on the junk food. A greasy bag of Doritos and a syrup-laden Coca-Cola will always bring you down no matter how delicious it may be. A couple plump, juicy oranges will leave you nothing less than refreshed. I’ve seen the junk-food-effect happen to more than my fair share of freshmen and professors alike. It is better to be spry than sluggish.

Be Careful. Aspirin may keep the elderly from dying of heart attack, but it can rip a hole in your stomach lining if you’re not careful enough. Again, figure out what harm your chosen substances can do before it’s too late.

Let’s switch gears. I once had a dog—a spaniel named Cody—who fell into a violent fit of epilepsy. Once every hour he would quake. The late night veterinarian asked my mother and I what Cody had (or could have) eaten. “There is this fertilizer that he might have eaten—but it says that it is all-natural,” mother replied. Being a covert smart-ass, I kept my initial reactions to myself and hoped the vet would speak on my behalf; after all, the vet held post-graduate credentials and I hadn’t even finished high school. Fortunate enough for me, the vet came through with a calm but pointed remark: “just because it’s natural does not mean it won’t hurt you.”

There is a line drawn between man and his environment, and this line is flimsy. Drawing attention to this line sells deadly fertilizers, (morally) justifies the actions of predatory creatures, and (to return to the original topic) makes us feel dirty for eating Flaming Hot Cheetoes. Today I ask a question that should occupy the thoughts amongst the hoi polloi (yes, that means you and I): are we not part of the natural world?

When I look at the New York City skyline, I can marvel at it and wonder how men can come to build magnificent things. When I look at a mile long series of beaver dams, it would not be out of the ordinary to consider the works of beavers one of many works of “nature.” Birds nests, grassy fields, coral reefs; all of these things are considered natural in that they are untouched by humans. Perhaps the lowly beaver considers the skyscraper a marvelous work of nature, in that a skyscraper is untouched by beaver hands … paws.

I, for one, happen to consider human beings a full part of the natural process; and, sure, “natural” will become a useless category in the aftermath. Of what use is it to separate what is naturally attained from what is humanly attained anyway? Human hands, at this point, are required for the use of anything outside of ourselves. Wheat must be processed and packaged, cleaned of bugs and seasoned for flavor. Even berries must be picked and used for something other than nourishing the seeds contained within. Everything we have dubbed natural has lost it’s link to nature; we devise each step in the process, and each step is one away from “nature” (if there was such a distinct thing to begin with). Is high fructose corn syrup any less natural than a simpler sugar? If you think so, then you must have an elaborate definition of nature. Yes, you may be in for a sweet surprise.

It was no surprise for me to find that seaweed extract has a high concentration of MSG in it—this happened long before the term mono-sodium glutamate came around. Scientific language is part of the problem here. No scientist is afraid of dihydrogen monoxide, but many have fell prey to shame when they figured it out: they were the butt of a joke. The fear of the unnatural has the average person afraid of drinking water!

We are part of this world whether or not we like to admit it and regardless of our theoretical baggage. Some of our actions will kill us, others will kill us slowly but contribute to our mental well-being (recreational drugs, anyone?), and much of what the others will tell us about these acts will be—excuse the obscenities—utter bullshit.

Think about it next time you pick up the groceries.

I do not mean to sound melancholy, nor do I mean to condemn those with no plans to read Nietzsche. I only seek to express doubt, uncertainty, and caution. It becomes less clear what is academically relevant, what methods are acceptable to your peers (especially if it your thoughts are inarticulable in any other fashion or if your peers aren’t accustomed to those methodologies), and who should be addressed. If I talk the language of modal logic in an argument with my mother (she is no philosophy professor), it will look as though I am bullying her—bludgeoning her with some specific and (from her perspective) useless knowledge. She (and most people I’ve come to know) would rather I not speak to her that way at all. But what else am I supposed to do when a friend says, “I have a philosophical question for you.” We have to use a gentle hand, but does that mean forgetting our education entirely?—as if that were possible (for me) without heavy drugs.

I like to believe that Stan Cavell was trying to ground his work in the “real world,” or in things he felt were more relevant than mere shop-talk. I like to believe that I am trying to figure out how knowledge can be more accessible for those who do not want to waste their years figuring out what Kant means by “transcendental.” These beliefs, however, may turn out to be convenient (or inconvenient, if you’re the lazy sort) fictions.

Whenever I formulate this question, people respond by pointing out: “It’s the Internet,” as if it were some sort of tautology. Isn’t there a reason for this? Is the human race doomed to bicker over insignificant matters until they become zealous battles? In my city, people die because of a disagreement over the neighborhood they live in.

This not “just the internet,” and this is a serious matter.

That’s not to say that people are dying over web browsers and computer brands. I only mean to suggest that perhaps these disagreements are futile in most ways: there as so many problems in the world, and so many solutions. There are so many important things in the world, but we dedicate hours to laying out the comparative merits of tabs and spaces.

I feel foolish, dirty, and dissatisfied.

If a person is making art, then their art-making is important to them, right? If my art is making websites, why should my art hinge on whether or not I use Arial or Helvetica? Or—rather—why is the choice to use Arial treated like a crime? Would a community of painters oust a member for using house paint?

You might be saying to yourself right now, “But Key! Arial is just a knock-off of a better font. People only use it because it comes with Windows.” If you believe your stake in the politics of the past should be the sole dictator of every typographic (artistic) decision, then you’re part of the problem. It is as if you were to say: “You shouldn’t use burgundy because it is dark brown masquerading as red.” Is one color better than another?—what does this even mean?

(Besides, perhaps Arial would be the best choice for me because everyone can read it, and I want people to read my work without problems. Wouldn’t Arial be a reasonable choice for that purpose?)

Again, I feel ridiculous, filthy, and unfulfilled. It is as if I’m screaming from a mountain top at the top of my lungs, but—alas—the world is sleeping. Maybe I am sleeping?

A professor once told me it was important to test theories by applying them to the theory itself—doing so would show you how solid (or flimsy) the theory is. So today I’m setting up my own battle: the war against holy wars. See how ridiculous that sounds? It shows that the world is more complicated than picking a side and drawing a sword, and so I beg of you to lay your swords down.

As I watched Maher’s trek across the world and his ineffective (but common) method of arguing with believers, I couldn’t help but think, “There is something else going on in this film. Something strange.”

Is this film Bill Maher’s soapbox? Of course it is. Ever since ABC canceled Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher has used most (if not all) of his media pull to exercise his first amendment rights—his soapbox privileges. His film, however, does something special: it turns Mr. Maher into the object of debate. In Religulous, William Maher Jr. is not presented as the tenacious and witty television icon we all know and love (or, perhaps, love to hate). Instead, we are confronted with a Bill Maher who has a personal grudge to settle.

Andrew O’hehir explains: …I gently tried to suggest to Maher [that] his scattershot and ad hominem attacks against many different forms of religious hypocrisy don’t add up to a coherent critique, and he’s not qualified to provide one. Any serious theologian from the mainstream Christian or Jewish traditions would have eaten his lunch for him, and that’s why we don’t see anybody like that in this film for more than a second or two. It would seem Maher used the Religulous project as an opportunity to reduce the religious world into a sideshow attraction instead of opening channels of potential dialogue.

In this case that most of the interviewees were left pleading “no, no, no” and trying to get a word in. In Religulous, the interviewer sees the most airtime—his subjects take a back seat to an angry rant. I found myself asking: if Religulous is a documentary, then what is it a documentary of?

As Roger Ebert explains, This review is going to depend on one of my own deeply held beliefs: It’s not what the movie is about, it’s how it’s about it. This movie is about Bill Maher’s opinion of religion. Most scenes look as if they were transplanted from Maher’s mind with all of the details preserved—thoughts of Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments included. It is clear that Bill Maher is not only the star of his film, but he is also the subject of it.

Religious’ photography and editing preserve Maher’s position-as-subject throughout the film. Scenes often shift between the traditional documentary style (the interviewee speaks, the inquisitor obscured) and a less objective style (Bill Maher digs into his prey). Between scenes the audience is treated with anecdotes, snide commentary, and road footage. This self-aware style only draws more attention to the true subject of the documentary: it documents Bill Maher’s documentary, if that makes sense. Religulous is a meta-documentary, to word it in the most ridiculous way possible, and it documents Maher’s “spiritual journey” across the globe rather than the state of theist organizations.

To look at the public’s reaction to the film, Bill Maher “plays to his base” of non-believers, angers the religious (as can be expected), and annoys anyone with formal training in the Philosophy of Religion. The film, then, documents just how he has pleased us, his manner of angering us, and the process of irking us. If I truly enjoyed the experience, it can only be in the perverse manner of reality television—but I am content none-the-less.

Take the Presidential Campaign as an example. Both sides seem to take for granted that the majority of voters are ignorant and uncritical. The McCain campaign has called Senator Obama “dishonorable,” “dangerous,” and “risky.” Thirty-five seconds is too short a time to get at the truth—to prove that Obama is dishonorable. If John McCain himself flew to my home just to tell me, “my advertisements are meant to inform the voters about the issues,” I would laugh a hearty laugh and slam the door in his face. The McCain camp, then, is only trying to push my buttons. Then again, is there anything more to language than pushing another person’s buttons?

If the American people demand facts, politicians present things in a fact-like way. The problem is that many things are complex enough that they can look false from one perspective and true from another; truth doesn’t look like a fixed thing. To expect real “facts” is a tall order. Who is going to verify these facts? How can we trust the fact checkers? Can we say anything that is impervious to doubt? What would the undeniable truth look like anyway?

If a potential voter demands empathy on the issues, the candidate tries to “show empathy”. How do we know that the candidate really cares about Darfur? Even if he (she) does, he still has the enormous burden of making people believe it! Trust, faith, and beauty are the case here. How could a presidential candidate inspire trust? They could do it with images; they could do it with what strikes the viewer as beautiful, or what simply “looks right.”

All we have left are our impressions of things.

CNN has taken the focus group in an peculiar direction with their reaction meter that looks somewhere between a biometric meter and a seismograph. Both images (of bio-metrics and seismographs) make sense here. During each debate so far, CNN-selected Ohio voters keep their fingers on a dial and record their reactions (negative or positive) as they happen.

This sends a strong message: not only do the words of each candidate need attention but we ought to keep a close eye on the opinions of our “peers.” Are we expected to gauge our reactions by using CNN’s added bio-meter? Or are we supposed to formulate our opinions based on all of the information combined?

Indeed: our impulses, our feelings, our impressions of people, our initial thoughts are what the politicians play like fiddles. This isn’t news. Perhaps you’ve experienced empathy and admiration for Senator McCain when he claimed to have postponed his campaign to help on Wall-Street; this emotion could stick to your ribs and remind you of just how much you love John McCain. Just how long this feeling will last has something to do with: (1) McCain’s word choice, (2) the opinions of political pundits, (3) the opinions of friends and family, and (4) where you place yourself within that mess. We end up reacting—for better or worse—just as we all have in the past.

The world is a knee-jerk. Our partially-involuntary reactions to the world outside drive the stock market down, cause riot in the streets, and keep pollsters employed indefinitely. What we must do, then, is try to figure out what truth could even mean in this world of ours.

What is the pay-off for the average joe—or what W.V.O. Quine calls “the man in the street?” Enlightenment? An understanding of dead Greece, Rome, Germany? A sense of what sort of life they should live? Strength of character? I cannot commit to any of the proposed answers. In philosophy “nothing is sacred.” Other students would strike pre-emptively in philosophy class, sinking their teeth into the current philosopher of note and looking to draw blood. I tend to sit back and wait for Kant to do the dirty-work for me—his tooth is still sharper than mine, especially against David Hume.

After watching each philosopher dig into the next (last), I wonder what point there would be to pressing onward with Philosophy. Better yet, I wonder what would be the gain from approaching Philosophy while outside of the classroom. Imagine that. A friend—named James for convenience’s sake—turns to me for advice, “I’ve lost my faith in God, love, myself. It’s hard to get out of bed, and I think of dying every morning. It is as if God wants me to suffer. Why does God want me to feel this way?”

It might sound absurd to reply, “Let us turn to the defense of God’s existence put forth by Alvin Plantinga, so that you can be assured that evil and God are consistent with one another.” In fact, I think it would be absolutely absurd. How can you comfort someone with a proof? It just doesn’t seem to fit.

Every now and again I see an article in the New York Times or two discussing Philosophy and it’s prospects. Popularizing Philosophy in the United States seems, on the face of it, a tall order. What would you rather watch: American Idol or Plato’s Greatest Hits? I doubt Plato’s Meno on Broadway will draw the crowds that Radiohead’s last tour has.

Philosophy doesn’t appear to have relevance, but it I know it to have more actual relevance than it ever has before. Moral dilemmas crop up every day as our brand of technology becomes more viable and more real. We live in what is called an “Information Age.” It may be useful for the average person to be familiar with how justified beliefs might work.

There must be a way and, hopefully, we can figure it out together.

Let us make up a couple of characters for the sake of argument (about arguments): Daniel and Jennifer, husband and wife. Dan just tied the knot with Jen, and they’ve moved in with one another. They, unfortunately enough, have never lived together. Hell, neither of them have lived with anyone other than their own families. And oh, what a surprise—they’re arguing over chores.

”…that’s because you never wash the dishes,” an exasperated Jennifer exclaims.

Dan’s eyes widen—redden. She has plucked a chord. “You must be blind then,” he says.

”When I wake up, everyday, I see the same dishes sitting there. You never wash them!”

”That’s because I eat every day, damn it. I eat, I wash, I eat, I wash.”

Jennifer appeals to evidence of an empirical nature. ”You’re lying. I never see you do anything but sit on your ass,” she asserts.

”How could you? You’re not around when I wash them,” Dan retorts with an attempt to invalidate her evidence.

Most of us have heard this sort of argument many times before. It would be a lie to say that I have not participated in such an argument before (I’ll let you guess which side I’m on). I, then, put myself on the line when I ask: both sides think they’re correct, but do Jen or Daniel care about the truth at all?

My question sounds peculiar. It would be easy to say that Jennifer knows the truth, and she refuses to be lied to. Many would sympathize with her (in long telephone conversations where Jen chooses to vent her frustrations). We could say the same for Daniel: he knows the truth. Both Jen and Dan “know the truth,” so their argument is not meant to discover the truth but to convince the other of it. Truth looks like it is just the hammer used to strike the enemy.

How would such an argument be resolved? If he admitted defeat, what would he do? I suppose he could wash more dishes, but recall that Dan claims Jennifer is never around to see him wash the dishes. If he’s correct, Jennifer would still be discontent no matter what the outcome of the argument, since she would never believe that he has ever washed a single dish. Winning—for either side—the argument might change matters very little, but in the short term victory feels substantial.

In conflicts between husband and wife, father and son, friends, we believe a conflict will be resolved by our efforts. This rarely ever occurs. What could a person do to resolve it but back down and admit defeat?—this is not an option for most of us. The truth, which we claim to know so intimately, is not on the line. What is on the line is our dignity, the thrill of battle, and the sweet elation “that’s right, I sure told her what is what.”

This isn’t to say that both Dan and Jen wouldn’t be better of examining their lives to see what the truth of the matter is; I only claim here that “truth finding” may be something altogether different, something that is difficult to do in an argument—where “facts” are used as weapons. Philosophy, in light of this, might have no winners and only losers. It is, before all else, the pursuit of endless and painful debate. What is going on here, I wonder? Am I imagining things?

There is a strange and fuzzy relationship between writer, written work, and reader. When a writer sits down to write, there is a sense in which the writer does not simply just dump thoughts onto a page—they think about who they’re writing for, what they’re writing for, how they want to be seen. In a sense, the act of writing has an effect on the person writing. I remember reading Orson Scott Card’s introduction to his classic Sci-fi “Speaker For the Dead.” He claims that, after creating an outline for the book, he found himself lacking the maturity to write such a book. It is only after several rewrites that he gained the mental maturity to write such a book.

Are the two entities separate: book and writer? The line is a marred one. The book creates the man while the man creates the book; it may be better to say that there is a reciprocation going on. Better still, we could say that books and people emerge and gain definition simultaneously. I could say that I don’t know who I am until I’ve lived life, until I’ve painted a great piece of art, until I’ve written a bestseller. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I am undefined until I’ve lived life, until I’ve painted a great piece of art, until I’ve written a bestseller.

Writing books, I think, is not a matter of just writing books. It turns out to be the path you walk on, even if you treat it as “just a job.” Like every good path, the ground underneath gives way a bit, leaving an imprint in the ground and a little dirt on everyone’s shoes: something is taken, and something is left over. Like it or not, I am changing with each word, and each word is changing with each thought.

Beginning my writing career will be a messy business. Other people—companies, magazines, journals, papers, publishers—will dictate the terms under which I write, the content they desire and, ultimately, whether or not my content is good enough. That is a vast amount of influence over my character that others wield. Then again, how is this situation any different from any other social situation? It seems that the conditions of the artists world are less foreign than is immediately apparent.

So which way should I fork, what must I fork, and who made the fork in the road? The Writer’s Market would lead me to believe that I must find, or make, a niche in the market. I can only assume that it takes a bit of fast-talk to convince an editor that a certain column is worth publishing—enter the query letter. What sort of person will I become if I succeed? If I fail? How will the act of writing inform my life, and the lives of others? I have already been “informed” that my previous/current work in ad-copy is the first sign of “selling out.” True or not—putting aside what “selling out” means in the first place—those words still have an effect on something.

In the next few months, I should tread carefully: there is a lot going on here that I want to take in.

They asked the usual questions (I paraphrase): do you know that Jesus Christ died for your sins? What is your relationship to God? What are you doing this Sunday? My answer to the first two questions began: to believe that God is some greater being who judges, loves, and thinks seems odd. Who does God worship at night, I asked. Himself? Someone greater? Us?

A person might take my question one of two ways (this is not exhaustive, however). They might think that I was hinting at some sort of recursive problem in place. If God is just a “thing” that knows everything and can do everything, then he is just a human being with special powers. Thinking of God in this way sounds a bit offensive, and it should be.

A second way one might take my question is to say there’s something wrong with a God that is an authority figure. To disagree with God, perhaps, is treason against the sovereignty of the universe and is worthy of punishment. In human affairs, totalitarian rulers all have opponents—in such a description, I’ll call Lucifer the condemned revolutionary in God’s kingdom. Could it be that God has no more grounds for punishment than Stalin?

Both readings of the problem with God share a common theme: anthropomorphism. There is something fishy about likening God to humanity. Genesis describes the moment God created Mankind in his image, but images are odd things. In all images, we could say, Man places himself into them. God’s grace, the evil of Lucifer, and the beauty of their eternal struggle—mankind sees itself in these images. Is it that God created us in his own image or that God is merelyunderstood in light of our own image? A little bit of both.

To make paint matters of divinity as Human matters on the scale of infinity seems short-sighted. In other words, we make God seem like “less” than what a God can be. I feel that God is so much more, if such a thing exists at all. Does God “love” in the conventional sense of love? Teach in the conventional sense of teach? Does God rule all of existence—what would it mean for something greater than us (in the the more “transcendental” sense of “great”) to do any of these things?

At this point, my new-found Christian friends seemed confused. Like a broken vinyl record, they reminded me that God looks over us, teaches us valuable lessons, and makes the impossible possible. And like a bad DJ, I would respond, “doesn’t make sense for God to ‘look over us’ or ‘teach us lessons’“—at least not in a conventional sense. The image of God is more than just a pretty picture that accords well with the human psyche. My words seemed to confuse them—to be honest, they were confusing me at that point as well.

What is God then? What could “it” be? I am sure our questions were, at that point, one in the same. I’ll save my preliminary conclusions for the next time. The punch-line is coming soon.