Choosing the Right Concealed Carry Handgun

Seen on The Firearm Blog.

 

Construction of Online Identity

The question of identity, what it is and how it is constructed, is difficult to answer in everyday life. How does the process of identity construction change when the complexity of online social structures are added? This paper will address the idea of identity construction and how, if at all, the online world changes our perception of identity and its construction.

Thoughts on Identity

The Enlightenment gave the Western world the idea that human identity is a simple, straightforward matter and that an individual’s identity is “unitary, fixed and stable” (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004, p. 97). This idea is prevalent in modern society and can lead to conflict and misunderstanding. People often try to concretely say this is who I am as though a person is just one thing.

Actually, identity is much more flexible than previously thought. Often the thought of playing multiple roles is presented as a way of explaining this flexibility. I have my identity, but I have different roles: husband, father, student, brother, son, teacher, employee; and I simply modify my identity to fill the role that I am playing at the time. This method of thought follows George Herbert Mead’s theory of Symbolic Interactionism (Griffin, 2009). A second way of describing the flexibility of identity is that people have multiple identities, in a non-schizophrenic sense. One proponent of this theory is Amartya Sen, the Indian economist and philosopher. In his book Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, Sen (2006) explains that people have many identities but choose to “present,” or handle a situation through, one or several identities. This means that person has a family identity (or several), political identity, religious identity, spiritual identity, and various social identities as they relate to friends and work.

Sen’s explanation is closer to the mark, I feel. While the difference between playing a role and presenting an identity may appear to be verbal semantics, the difference lies in the accountability of the person. Playing a role is victim language for doing what others think should be done. Presenting an identity places the person in control of their actions and also holds them accountable for their choices. Presenting an identity also allows people to accept or reject identities that are given to them by others.

Identity Construction Online

How does the online world affect the construction of identity? Early computer mediated communication scholars appeared enthusiastic at how this new tool called the internet would liberate people. “You can be whoever you want to be. You can completely redefine yourself if you want to. You don’t have to worry about the slots other people put you in as much” (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004, p. 99). The internet would be the great equalizer in our biased and prejudiced world. Yet, “the trouble with much of the early excitement about identity play in cyberspace is that it tended to exaggerate the realities of online communication in terms of what people actually do and what they actually want to do” (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004, p. 101). The internet originally offered a certain level of perceived anonymity to users. But with the advent of social networks like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and the ease of creating personal blogs via sites like Blogger and WordPress, the perceived desire for online anonymity has appeared to diminish.

Just as identity is affected by the groups with which we associate in the offline world, I feel it is much the same in the online world. Internet culture has evolved so that online identities mirror offline identities. Any group, idea or fetish can be found online. Traditional time and space constraints become moot and any person can find a group online with which to associate, thus allowing an individual to explore and create an identity associated with that group. The internet does not change the way that identity is created, it simply provides another avenue through which identity creation can occur.

Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look at Communication Theory (Seventh ed.). New York, New York, United States: McGraw-Hill.
Sen, A. (2006). Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

 

Hope and Change

To learn what President Obama’s Safe School Czar wants to teach your children, click here.  Warning, it WILL make you sick to your stomach but you should know what The One could be putting in the hands of your children.  By the way, you’re not getting any of this from the MSM.

 

Unpacking Things

This semester, the final semester for my undergraduate degree, has been very interesting.  I’ve never taken this many credits in one semester – 16.5.  I think that I’ve been handling it pretty well.  I was able to take a Pistol Marksmanship class, and get credit for it, so who doesn’t love that?

One of my classes, Dialogue and Cultural Studies, has probably been the favorite of undergraduate studies.  Professor Leonard Hawes is teaching the course and I’ve learned a lot about myself, how I deal with conflict, and how dialogue can work.  The semester began with the book The Identity of Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen and the introduction of two ideas, Immanence and Transcendence.

Sen’s presentation of identity is that it is not singular.  I do not have “an” identity, I have many.  Identities stem from affiliations.  I am: male, white, an American, a Utahn, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a husband, a father, a son, a brother, an ex-boyfriend, a fiscal conservative, a social moderate, a gun owner, and much, much more.  The idea is to avoid the all-encompassing “other.”   Immanence is the idea of remaining within a conflict.  Transcendence is the idea of stepping outside of the conflict, creating boundaries of right/wrong, better/worse, etc.  Now, before you get all bothered, “well here’s a bunch of hippie, leftist relativism,” stay immanent with me.

Real Life Situation: 

The other night Tammy and I were lying in bed and a sensitive subject was brought up.  As we talked about it, we came to see that we both had completely differing views of the subject, but hadn’t realized that the other person saw it differently.  Our natural reaction was to say, “well, my way is correct,” but we rejected that notion and let our opinions stand independently.  We didn’t “resolve” anything, meaning we didn’t come to a common agreement on how we would treat that subject in the future, or who was “right” and who was “wrong.”  But now we have a better understanding of how each other views that topic and this will allow us to navigate it in the future.

That is immanence, rather than transcendence. Immanence does not say that you cannot have an opinion, or that everyone is right, it says simply that remaining within a conflict rather than attempting to step outside of it helps resolve conflict.  It would have been very easy for me to try and force my position on Tammy, telling her that she was wrong and needed to change her views.  But I didn’t and we both grew through the process.  A tool that assists in immanence is witnessing.  When I witness someone’s truth, their reality which is socially constructed, I get to understand them better.  By witnessing what my wife was saying that night I was better able to see not only how she feels about the topic but also why she feels the way that she does.  This gives me the knowledge that I need for when this comes up in the future.

The second book that we read this semester was A Public Peace Process: Sustained Dialogue to Transform Racial and Ethnic Conflicts by Harold Saunders.  The books main focus is creating understanding through sustained dialogue.  The course syllabus describes our dialogue method:

The purpose of self-indexical, self-reflexive and self-implicative dialogue is for you to affirm identifications by actually practicing what you’re learning.  You will be paying close attention to fluid changes and subtle processes rather than to more static positions and stationary relations.  The process of this method of inquiry is dia-logical – a logic that is different from and one that goes beyond both formal logics and dialectics.  The processes and practices of dialogue are driven by the movements of desire and reason, which show up in the perpetual turning and reversing of conversation.  The Latin root terms for “conversation” - con and vetere – mean to turn together in a continual process of reversal.  The reading, writing, speaking and listening of dialogue are grounded in your lived experience – i.e., in the problems, contradictions and paradoxes of your everyday life.

So, you’re probably asking yourself, “well, what do you do twice a week? Get together, hold hands and talk about your feelings?”  No, we sit and have dialogue based on what we’re reading and what is going on in the world.  We are putting into practice what Saunders is suggesting – sustained dialogue, over the course of a semester, so that we can better understand each other and the common conflicts that we face!

The book that we’re currently reading is Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity by Arnold Mindell.  And though, at times, Mindell can seem a little “out there” (think campfire and Kumbaya), the book challenges the reader to at least consider some of the propositions being made.  Which cycles back to immanence (being present in the conflict) and taking the conflict for what it is.

This class has helped me unpack some things.  For years I’ve felt that I’m supposed to be ashamed of being a middle-class, white male because, zomg!!!!11!!1eleven!, I’m the devil incarnate and the oppressor of the world.  After moving back to Utah I had one more thing to be ashamed of – I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the dominant religious group in the state.  These presumed feelings of shame made me angry at the world and “those liberals who say that I should feel this way.”  My anger began to consume my identities and was forcing me to shut down when ever I heard one of “them” talking. 

In Sitting in the Fire, Mindell discusses what he calls rank: skin color, gender, sexual orientation, education, religion, age, expertise, profession, health, psychology and spirituality are just a few that he mentions and how each person has a higher or lower rank that someone else in any given field.  The difference in rank is all socially created and is tied to identity.  For example, in western cultures lighter skin gives a person a higher rank than dark skin; males have a higher rank thank females; more education gives you higher rank over then uneducated, etc.  Mindell says that it’s not the differences that cause conflict but what we do with the differences.  Do we abuse others, either consciously or unconsciously, with our rank?

When we remain immanent in a conflict we have the opportunity to see our rank and how we may be abusing others.  This then gives us insight into how we can potentially resolve the conflict or transform it into something else all together (taking an either/or and making it a both/and).  I had not, until recently, been able to see how this, as a system, can be applied in large groups (between ethnic groups or political parties, for example).  But I think I’m getting closer.  In order for large groups to change, the individuals in that group must change.  In order for individuals to change there must be dialogue where participants are willing to remain immanent and witness the experience and social reality of the other participants.  This does not lead to a “right” and a “wrong,” but it does lead to a better understanding of what ranks I have and how I’m using them to either assist or abuse others.  Regardless of the size of the group it still comes back to the individual.

So, as a workable model:  When a conflict presents itself and I begin to react I first need to know which identities are being threatened and why are they feeling threatened, remembering that the person(s) on the “other side” also have identities feeling threatened for various reasons.  Re
maining immanent allows me to understand that person and either resolve the conflict or transform it into something else.  This works in large groups because I am part of the process, which never ends.  It is always fluid and moving.

Okay – bring on the world!

 

Lack of Postage

So, if you’re wondering what has been consuming my time and why I haven’t been posting much, the reason is very simple.  A 16.5 credit hour semester and we’re post-mid-terms!  That means term papers are coming due (my first is next Thursday) and I’m spending all of my available time working/trying to get motivated to work on them.  In my last semester I’m getting trunky and have developed a severe case of senioritis. 

Okay, break over.  I’d better get back to it…

 

Pistol Marksmanship

This semester I’m taking a Pistol Marksmanship class at the U. Last night we had our first shooting session. I did not do very well. I was concentrating so hard on my breathing, sight alignment and trigger control, that I let some other very important things slip.

You see, before last night I’d never shot a pistol from a bench rest. Here are a list of problems that I discovered and will correct next time I’m on the powder range (we have a small range here at the U with only 5 stations. Does anybody have $7 Million that they’d like to give to the University of Utah so that they can build a new Naval Science building with a 15 station range?), since we shoot air pistol and .22LR.

• I need to raise the table. I’m 6’3″ and the table was set for someone who is 5’8″
• I shouldn’t rest my elbows on the table. This leads to my next point
• Lock my wrists. Resting my elbows on the table put my wrists in a bent, unlocked position and it was difficult to control recoil.

I made two of three corrections on my last 5 shots of the night – picked up my elbows and locked my wrists but the table was still low so my shoulders were at a funky angle. In the end my corrections came too little too late, my grouping was huge and I’ll have to use the rest next time. My arc of movement isn’t very large – it’s very, very small in fact. I think what I need to go is go practice outside of class.

 

Public Notice

Attention all bicyclers, skate boarders and long boarders on the University of Utah campus this fall.

The next one of you that encroaches my personal space at high speeds, or has the audacity to yell, “move” or “get out of the way,” will find yourself promptly removed from your transportation device and you will be firmly planted on the pavement (I will not aim for the grass).

The University of Utah enrolls 26,000+ people, not to mention the numerous faculty, employees and visitors, and enrollment was expected to increase by 4-5% this academic year. This means that you have to slow down and be respectful of the pedestrians who do not share your passion for endangering others.

You’ve been warned!

Thank You

 

This Semester's Reading List

My two week vacation ends in 6 days when my final semester at the University of Utah begins.

Fall promises to be pretty busy with five classes (15 credits) plus a one credit hour Day Hikes class that I need to take to get me to the minimum 122 credit hours needed to graduate. So far, two of my professors have not posted their books for Fall. But my other professors are making up for it!

My reading list so far:

Communication 5150: Dialogue and Cultural Studies

• The Deep Democracy of Open Forums: Practical Steps to Conflict Prevention and Resolution for the Family, Workplace, and World
• Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny
• A Public Peace Process: Sustained Dialogue to Transform Racial and Ethnic Conflicts

Anthropology 4171: Myth, Magic and Religion

• Amish Society
• The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society in India
• The Island of Menstruating Men: Religion in Wogeo, New Guinea
• Women as Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem

Philosophy 3640: World Religions

• Living Religions

Yes, this coming semester promises to be chock full of fun! I plan on spending many long hours at my special place in the Marriott Library. Ah, the library, my home away from home. But I still have one week of rest and relaxation so I’m going to enjoy it!

Not that I don’t enjoy school, I actually enjoy it quite a bit, I’m simply stating that the last week has been nice and I’m glad that I’ve got another before things get hectic.

 

Overheard in the Classroom

Student: Didn’t the Ottoman Empire conquer India too?

Professor: No, the Mughal Empire and Ottoman were contemporaries, so there was an overlap in time but not in territory. The Ottoman’s didn’t expand past the territory of the current state of Azerbaijan and parts of Iran.

Student: Oh, so the Ottoman Empire just came to the left of the Mughal Empire?

Professor: (Confused) Um, sure…

Yes, they walk among us and they graduate with little certificates that make them think they’re smart.

 

Three Day Weekends

Don’t we all love three day weekends? I know that I do. Right now, I have them! Yep, that’s right, for the remainder of my undergraduate career (the next six months) I get to have three day weekends. Being able to plan your schedule so that you’re only sitting in class four days a week has its perks. In fact, it’s leading me to the conclusion that I need to be self-employed after I graduate, so that I can keep this marvelous schedule indefinitely!

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with working Monday thru Friday, but come on, Monday thru Thursday is soooooo much better. Yep, self-employed it will be. Now to find that perfect employment opportunity…

 

If You Need This Much Help

Then there is NOTHING that can help you study better.

 

Busy, And Stuff…

So, you’ve noticed how posting has been sporradic, at best, recently.  Well, let me fill you in on what has been going on.  Now that Spring Break is over, school has kicked into high gear with preparation for final exams and papers.  I started my job with the Census Bureau two weeks ago and, though only prep work is happening right now, things will get really crazy when I start training Listers at the end of the week.

I’m all registered for the Summer 2009 semester.  15 credit hours  (two of which are intensive, read short.  One of those being only two weeks long) Will keep me plenty busy from May 15 – August 5.  

We’re still getting over colds.  At least one person in our house has been sick since the beginning of February, with only a short break in the middle.  This cold and flu season has been murder on us.  

Oh, I almost forgot.  I need your help.  I have a 10-15 page paper due in one of my classes and I’m having the darndest time coming up with a topic.  For this paper we have been asked to

…take a position on a specific or narrow issue within the broad topic of conflict and resolution, and to argue for that position…

… it is very importatnt that you identify a narrow and focused position… (e.g., do resolutions to interpersonal conflicts, such as apologies, funciton as well at the collective level?).

I absolutely love, read hate, it when professors do this.  ”Pick a topic, any topic within the scope of this class, and write on it.  Oh, by the way, the paper is worth 50% of your grade so don’t screw it up!”  And yes, this paper is worth 50% of my grade for this class.  

So, what suggestions have you?  Conflict and resolution, on the individual or group level.  

Here are the suggestions that I put forward (and no, my brain was not working because the subject is soooooo broad)

Q. The role of fear in offense vs defense.  We know, or believe to know, the role of fear in defense, as it appears to be a tool for inciting people to action (fight or flight).  But maybe I could look at it from the other side, how fear makes people act offensively.  However, the more I think about it, the closer that those two positions sound to being extremely similar.

A. (Professors written response)  I think you could consider writing a paper about fear and its role at multiple points in conflict. There is a [sic] literature on the physiological aspects of fear (and how close they are to the physiological aspects of anger) – look for work by Robert Levenson and his colleagues; there is almost certainly research on how threats (and the fear they presumably induce) are connected to the initiation of conflict – a topic we’ve discussed in class, and which might also be linked up to the collective level phenomena of pre-emptive strikes.

Q. In regard to international problem solving, many believe that multi-lateral discussion is the best method to use when reaching agreements.  Does multi-lateral pressure in international negotiations exhibit the same behavior as peer pressure among teenagers?

A.  This is harder to guide you on; particularly the analogy issue. For example, multi-lateral discussion may be valued for a variety of reasons, including the representation of multiple standpoints on an issue, and the engagement of the relevant vested interests. I’m not sure that the phenomenon of peer pressure has those elements – perhaps most especially the first one. If, on the other hand, you’re asking whether group dynamics  might have overlap in those two very distinct contexts – sure…..in the sense that groups are vulnerable to particular kinds of dynamics in their deliberations and discussions (but for teens, peer pressure also unfolds in many ways that are not ‘located’ in the discussion space, but in other places).

Any ideas will be helpful.

 

Patience And The Payoff

As many of you know, my position at the mortgage company who shall not be named was eliminated back in December and I’ve been looking for work since. After three months I was honestly starting to lose hope. The job market is uber saturated with qualified workers and I was finding that my school schedule was getting in the way of receiving a job offer, because there are plenty of other people who do not have that schedule conflict. My schooling has also interfered with collecting unemployment benefits, as the State claimed that my schooling makes me “unavailable to seek and accept full-time work.”

We were getting frustrated. About a month ago, Tammy and I realised that if I pushed myself this year, and completed 31 credits in two semesters, I can graduate from the University of Utah in December, 2009 rather than August, 2010. We decided to make this our goal and see what would happen. While still looking for work, Tammy and I have been living off of savings, student loans, and the kindness of our family. We can not express our gratitude for the help that our family has given us.

After making the decision to try and complete my B.A. by the end of the year, I found information about Utah’s Displaced Worker Training Program. This is a wonderful State program where, if a worker has been displaced through no fault of their own, as I have been, and the worker is seeking training for another job, which I am, the State will assist the worker in paying for that training. We submitted all of the paperwork and have been waiting for over a month for the State to make a decision concerning my acceptance/nonacceptance into the DWTP.

Well, all of our patience, prayers, and hard work have paid off. Last week I started a new job with the U.S. Census Bureau. For the next three months I’ll be training and supervising Listers as they canvas addresses in order to update the Census Bureau’s maps and address lists for the 2010 Census. But wait, it gets better.

Yesterday we received a telephone call from Lindsay, our State employment specialist (case worker), informing us that I have been accepted into the DWTP and that we’ll be receiving assistance for the Summer 2009 semester!

After three monts of being unsure about our future, Tammy and I have finally received the answers that we, and our families, have been praying for! When thinking about the past three months, what has or has not been happening, a couple of scriptures come to mind.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Ether 12:6
And now, I, Moroni, would… show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

Each day, Tammy and I are being given more and more direction concerning the path that the Lord wants us to take. We are being allowed to move forward with choices and then learn whether or not those choices were good for us, and that’s how it should be. I’ll keep you updated with what happens as we move forward.

 

Letter To The Editor

Back on December 11, 2008, the Daily Utah Chronicle, The University of Utah Paper, published an article titled “Guns Shouldn’t Be Recreational.” Now, I know that the title is difficult to understand, not to mention grammatically incorrect (I mean it is in a University Newspaper).

Well, there was a little bit of backlash from the University Gun Community, seen here, here, here, and here. When you’ve had a minute to calm down after reading that poorly written and researched article, if you like, send a letter to the editor – letters@chronicle.utah.edu. Sure, the semester is out now, but “The Chrony” should be putting out better material than that.

 

It's Over

The Fall 2008 Semester is over. My last final was this morning at 8:30. I walked out feeling confident in my answers so we’ll see where that takes us. Grades will be posted when I get them.

This semester really flew by. Normally I hit a mid-term slump where my studying falls off and I miss a class or two. But that didn’t happen this semester. Maybe it’s because I’ve finished my generals and am actually working on my major. That’s probably it.