Beyond the distraction of wonderful friends across the table and snowflakes falling outside, there are a few things in coffee shops that impede a writer’s ability to jabber away on a keyboard.
With all due respect to free speech, I hope it is appropriate to say this with honesty — when the words “God” and “Jesus” are used more than 10 times in one sentence just inches from your right ear, the result can be one of two things. In my case, a desire to defiantly type an opinion column about why God should drink less coffee and hang out in churches or in other people’s cases, a headache.
Some things are deemed inappropriate for coffee shop conversation by general cultural consensus. Take for example, the description of explicit sexual encounters or bowel problems. These discussions tend to make people feel uncomfortable. There are other coffee shop topics that people consider to be in the gray zone that vary geographically and demographically.
In Idaho, these topics typically include theistic
discussions on Islam or other religions, abortion, euthanasia, mothers-in-law and mental illness. These gray topics are those that could potentially challenge the dominant ideology.
There is no denying that Western culture is infiltrated by Judeo-Christian foundations and ideas. Applied to a coffee shop setting, this allows groups adhering to mainstream Christian values to claim moral superiority in the airspace of public places. The mindset that followers of the dominant religion have an intrinsic right to comfortably speak of their deities as loud and for as long as they want, while those adhering to other mindsets may not be given the same liberty.
This same situation is seen on the University of Idaho campus. Those of certain belief systems are allowed to publicly promote their point of view and are protected by a shared belief in freedom of speech. However, we all know that the determinant of free speech extends further than regulations. People of minority groups, no matter how supported by laws, will often be culturally silenced by “softer” forms of social pressure such as ostrasisation, judgment and discrimination.
There is debate about whether indigenous groups benefit from or are in fact harmed by so-called equalizing laws of affirmative action. This is also relevant to the idea of social control, verbalized or otherwise. Detrimental effects can arise from both action and non-action and from both rules and free society. It seems discussion and awareness of the situation are the only ways to support all points of view.
“In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure,” said Daniel C. Dennett, evolutionary scientist and philosopher.
PZ Myers, who will present with Dennett at Darwin on the Palouse Day Feb..9, said, “Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity’s knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality.”
A place of higher learning such as a university needs to challenge the way we learn, and what and why we learn the things we do. Coffee shops are just as deserving of intellectual and human respect. If the church is going to be brought into the coffee shop, then its proponents need to be aware that not only are they reinforcing an often discriminatory set of cultural and conversational values, but they are also distracting struggling Argonaut writers.
– See more at: file:///Volumes/argonaut$/stories/sections/opinion/stories/2012/Jan/18/when_free_speech.html#sthash.0QQmEeoA.dpuf
With all due respect to free speech, I hope it is appropriate to say this with honesty — when the words “God” and “Jesus” are used more than 10 times in one sentence just inches from your right ear, the result can be one of two things. In my case, a desire to defiantly type an opinion column about why God should drink less coffee and hang out in churches or in other people’s cases, a headache.
Some things are deemed inappropriate for coffee shop conversation by general cultural consensus. Take for example, the description of explicit sexual encounters or bowel problems. These discussions tend to make people feel uncomfortable. There are other coffee shop topics that people consider to be in the gray zone that vary geographically and demographically.
In Idaho, these topics typically include theistic
discussions on Islam or other religions, abortion, euthanasia, mothers-in-law and mental illness. These gray topics are those that could potentially challenge the dominant ideology.
There is no denying that Western culture is infiltrated by Judeo-Christian foundations and ideas. Applied to a coffee shop setting, this allows groups adhering to mainstream Christian values to claim moral superiority in the airspace of public places. The mindset that followers of the dominant religion have an intrinsic right to comfortably speak of their deities as loud and for as long as they want, while those adhering to other mindsets may not be given the same liberty.
This same situation is seen on the University of Idaho campus. Those of certain belief systems are allowed to publicly promote their point of view and are protected by a shared belief in freedom of speech. However, we all know that the determinant of free speech extends further than regulations. People of minority groups, no matter how supported by laws, will often be culturally silenced by “softer” forms of social pressure such as ostrasisation, judgment and discrimination.
There is debate about whether indigenous groups benefit from or are in fact harmed by so-called equalizing laws of affirmative action. This is also relevant to the idea of social control, verbalized or otherwise. Detrimental effects can arise from both action and non-action and from both rules and free society. It seems discussion and awareness of the situation are the only ways to support all points of view.
“In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure,” said Daniel C. Dennett, evolutionary scientist and philosopher.
PZ Myers, who will present with Dennett at Darwin on the Palouse Day Feb..9, said, “Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity’s knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality.”
A place of higher learning such as a university needs to challenge the way we learn, and what and why we learn the things we do. Coffee shops are just as deserving of intellectual and human respect. If the church is going to be brought into the coffee shop, then its proponents need to be aware that not only are they reinforcing an often discriminatory set of cultural and conversational values, but they are also distracting struggling Argonaut writers.
– See more at: file:///Volumes/argonaut$/stories/sections/opinion/stories/2012/Jan/18/when_free_speech.html#sthash.0QQmEeoA.dpuf