On Politics and Philosophy and Why My Brain Hurts for Three Hours Twice a Week

I don't really understand why people seem so quick to distinguish politics and philosophy.  This might be because one is my major and one is my minor (and every Tuesday and Thursday, I have two back to back classes in those disciplines), but bear with me for a moment.  While I'm hesitant to draw distinct lines between any two disciplines, I feel like this instance in particular is a mistake.  To make a political decision is to make an inherently moral judgement (I use moral here to mean "related to morality" rather than "good") about the relative worth of the individual or the collective and how we ought to behave with respect to them.

I know some people want to respond that they can come to their decisions about politics or how to act without doing something as "lofty" or "useless" as philosophizing, but that's really not entirely true.  You may not throw around heavy philosophical terms like "utilitarianism," "egoism," "deontology," or "Capital T Truths," but you're unknowingly following them in some capacity.  If you're weighing the relative harms and benefits of a solution with respect to others, you're thinking like a utilitarian.  If you're acting in accordance with the ethical rules you were taught/absorbed from your parents and mentors, you're a virtue ethicist.  All philosophy asks of you is to really consider the implications of how you make those choices -- which is exactly what you have to do in politics.  Different ethical systems of views of human nature lend themselves to different ideas on laws, the structure of government, and the rights of individuals.  The sheer concept of "human rights" is a philosophical speculation.

I think I admire the classical thinkers (and even many moderns) for the fact that they really didn't differentiate the importance of disciplines -- being a philosopher meant living a life where you really thought about things, ranging from who we are and how we should live to physics, math, how we communicate, languages, and yes, even politics.

There's a reason that Plato and Aristotle and Locke and Hobbes and Kant can be applied to ethics and metaphysics and politics as well, and it's because trying to distinguish their ethical ideas from their ideas about those implications for politics and how we should view people would be a mistake.  And one I think it's a shame to make.

Thinking,
Rachel Leigh

On Holding it Together...and Faking it When You Can't

Do you ever have one of those days?  One of those days where literally nothing from the moment you wake up goes right and you're pretty sure that if someone looks at you the wrong way, you'll probably either scream, cry, vomit, or potentially all three at once?

This is not to say that today was one of those days, but god, do I have those days.  Waking up feeling like there are small jackhammers taking turns at the inside of your skull and knowing that no amount of sleep will ever make this better.  Going to class and getting an assignment back only to realize you completely bombed it.  The dining hall's bad and it's raining and if you had the opportunity to just fast-forward through this day to the next one, you would take it in an instant.

Well, thankfully, I've developed some coping mechanisms for days like these...as well as some ways to at least appear like you're coping.

1. Comfort Food:  This is no new discovery, but there are very few things in the world that comfort food can't at least make infinitesimally better.  I'm a big fan of soup and grilled cheese.
2. Caffeine: I may hate today.  I may want to punch the sun for being out when I'm in a bad mood.  But a little caffeine kind of forcibly perks you up.  It's hard to stay angry when there's liquid chemical happiness energy coursing through your bloodstream at roughly twice your normal heart rate.  It kind of makes me want to go run a mile or six.  Haha, I lied, nothing makes me want to run six miles.
3. Dress Up: No really.  This is my go-to way to push through when I feel like absolute crap.  At the very least, other people will THINK you feel awesome, and the positive energy that you get back from that will help.  Plus, inside tip -- dresses are the best thing ever.  They always look put-together and all you have to do is take them off the hanger and put them on. Also, sunglasses.  Learn it.  Love it.

So that's how I survive.

Holding it together,
Rachel Leigh

On My Psychotic Resume

If, in addition to being one of my darling readers, you happen to be friends with me on Facebook, then you probably know that two weeks ago, I was obsessing over my resume and the fact that my job history makes NO sense.

Honestly, I blame that mostly on necessity -- I took the jobs that were available because I needed them, and I took the opportunities that were there because they were there.  So much of what they teach us in school/college these days revolves around preparing for your future: you need work experience in high school because it looks good on your college applications, then you need internships and good grades in college because they look good for graduate school.  And god forbid, you don't get that summer internship in DC because then how will you ever rise to the top of the Democratic Party and then become the youngest President in U.S. history?  And they drill this into us.  Even today, at the orientation I had to attend to study abroad in the fall, they stressed thinking about how this experience will relate to your future career plans.

Which is why I say my resume makes no sense.  There is literally NO cohesion between one entry and the next.  I've gone through 9 different jobs and internships, some paid, some unpaid.  Mostly paid.  I took a minimum wage job because I needed the money.  I took an internship for a science museum because it was offered to me.  I've been a camp counselor and an office monkey, a research intern and a writing consultant.  And I don't want to hide any of it.  Those weird jobs and internships made me who I am.  Thanks to that weird resume, I have worked alongside dinosaurs, improved my communication skills (and to some degree, my patience), learned how to decorate cakes, learned way more about the human spine than I think I ever needed to know, gotten passionate about how terrible mental health care is at highly competitive universities, learned to mine a client database, and been background checked more times than most kids my age.  I wouldn't be the potential employee I am, or the blogger I am, or the person I am if I hadn't had so many odd experiences that weren't supposed to relate to my future plans.

And so I think it's kind of messed up that there's this drive to already know what you want to do with your life and have it all figured out.  I think it's crazy that you're expected to already be set on this path and ready to go from before you even go to college.  I still have no idea what I want or how any of the crazy jobs or hobbies I've had in the past will relate to what I decide to do.  But I want to do them.  All of them.  Just because there's no way to know how they might shape who I turn out to be.

Wandering, but not lost,
Rachel Leigh

Okay, so it's that time again where I give a nod to an awesome blog that I've been reading excessively recently.  I am ABSOLUTELY obsessed with The Ticking Time-Bombshell, also known as Janaiah, also known as BerkeleyBabe for anyone who reads articles on The College Town Life.  She's hilarious, swears like a sailor, and is probably one of the most honest bloggers I've read in a while.  Legitimately obsessed.  I'm pretty sure I fell in love with "How to Disappoint Your Parents," "Revenge 101," and "Santa's Hit List."  So yeah, seriously, go read that blog.

On a completely unrelated note, while I am neither the first nor the only person to say this, is there ANYTHING duct tape can't do?  I'm starting to believe the answer to that question is no.  Well, actually, I know from personal experience that it can't make a good/usable cup, and said cup would probably kill you if you used it more than once.  But in all seriousness, after about 10,000,000 failed attempts to hang my posters with sticky tack or poster strips like we're supposed to and having them fall down every. single. time., I sucked it up and used duct tape, and now everything is better.  Take that, people who called me out on buying $20 worth of duct tape.  Perfectly reasonable investment.

In other news, my trip to Copenhagen is officially booked, and as such "WCS Goes to Europe" is set to launch August 18.  Be prepared.

Well, this was just a little news update for all you, my darling readers.  Be good.

MY BLOG IS BEING DUMB AND ONLY SHOWING ONE POST ON MY MAIN PAGE.

It's supposed to show 15.  It's not working and I've been trying but I can't fix it.

There are more posts from the last several days (varying from highly political rants about Rush Limbaugh and the Kony 2012 campaign to me complaining about people on public transportation) available if you clicked "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page.

I apologize for the dumbness.

On This Little Thing Called "Slut-Shaming"

Sub-title: "Why Rush Limbaugh is Still a Big, Fat Idiot"

I'm sure you've all heard about Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke.  If you haven't, it basically boils down to "Fat, old white guy with a radio show calls a Georgetown Law Student a slut and a prostitute because she wants government health care to cover contraception and therefore, in his mind, wants the government and tax payers to pay for her to have sex."


This guy.

Leaving out the fact that Rush clearly doesn't understand how birth control works or the plethora of reasons outside of sexual activity that a woman might be using birth control (in a Congressional hearing, Fluke cited her friend who is on the pill to treat ovarian cysts), there's another issue at hand here.

Let's talk briefly about something called "slut shaming."  Because really, that's what Rush is doing here.  Slut shaming is the idea that a woman can be judged as a person in virtue of whether or not, and the extent to which, she is sexually active.  It directly correlates the value of a woman with whether she is sexually active and ties her into a system that my spiritual guide, the late John Hughes, describes as a "double-edged sword."

 "Well, if you say you haven't, you're a prude. If you say you have you're a slut. It's a trap. You want to but you can't, and when you do you wish you didn't, right"

The idea that a woman can be judged for her sexuality relates back to a culture that believes that a woman who isn't a virgin can't be raped, or that a woman who's sexually active in her own right is "asking for it."  And Rush, your comments -- your idiotic comments which equate the desire to have a medical expense covered by your insurance policy (which I know is a horrifying concept) with prostitution and a foray into internet porn -- contribute to this horrible excuse for a justification.  So, congrats.  You're an ass.

Fumingly yours,
Rachel Leigh