lessons for a teaching assistant

The semester has ended, and so has my year as a teaching assistant. Unlike my prior stint as a teaching assistant, I did not serve as just a grader, but led discussion sections on top of meeting with students, reading student drafts, and the usual grading. And unlike my prior stint, this was done during the mist of the COVID-induced move of higher education to Zoom. It was an interesting set of circumstances. But I am overall proud of my work and the results. I took away a few things I thought were worth sharing.

compassion costs nothing

There is a kind of instructor whose conduct becomes infamous on campus. Whose commitment for the rules border on extreme. Whose sympathy for students is below zero. And whose view of the world is one of jaded cynicism towards their students. Instead of instructors, they see themselves as gate keepers; their students see them as vindictive bullies.

I can say I have never experienced this sort of instructor first-hand through my collegiate career. But on Reddit, on professor-rating websites, and on Twitter, such instructors gain infamy as students vent their frustrations. When their infamy grows to an absurd level, these instructors are even subject to news coverage by national and international media.

During my time as a teaching assistant - and before coming to Vanderbilt, as an adjunct instructor - I have just grown to dislike those type of instructors. Why become a teacher if one is going to view their students antagonistically?

For my part, I would like to think I have become more empathetic given my experience as an instructor/teaching assistant. It’s easy to become wrapped up in one’s duties: but it’s important to know that for the students, the course is one of many aspect of their lives. This is doubly so in the context of COVID-19, when semesters are truncated and the challenges of distanced learning and isolation increasingly grates on the student’s psyche. Something has to give, so why not us as instructors?

That is to say, why should we be sticklers for hard deadlines given the students are under so much stress? To give one example, the course I TA’d for had an overarching project in which the students had to write a series of papers on the same topic. When it came time to submit papers, I received an unprecedented number of extension requests. Ultimately, I spoke with the professor and we agreed to waive the late penalty for this assignment. I think the students appreciated that gesture.

These decisions cost nothing. Allowing students to turn in assignments late costs nothing. Giving them leeway to complete their assignments costs nothing. So why is it so hard for many instructors to be compassionate and merciful?

There are fears that such compassion are detrimental to the “rigour” of academic learning; that in giving students breathing room, one is debasing academia via grade inflation. But as this professor points out, that sentiment is just hogwash:

I agree wholeheartedly. We should not fetishize an ideal of academic rigour if it comes at the expense of student well-being. Besides, this gets to the question of why we teach: is it to weed out students or to create an environment where students are able to learn the material and concepts we want to teach them? It’s unfortunate that a lot of incentives for instructors are geared towards a sociopathic stance on students, such as the charge of “grade inflation” when it comes to determining if one should receive tenure.

This is not to say that I am against having high standards for academic work or that I am devaluing student excellence. Only that a stringent adherence to deadlines and procedure is not synonymous with the promotion of such excellence. If anything, compassion on the part of the instructor is conducive to student creativity and curiosity.

zoom is good!

Like many instructors, this past year was my first foray into distanced, online learning. While there are many things I miss about in-person instruction, such as the intangible benefits of body language when leading a class discussion, I will say that I’ve come to like Zoom at the end of this experience.

There are the benefits of reducing commuting to-and-from campus; as someone who lives a dozen or so miles from Vanderbilt, the ability to log into Zoom to lead class has been liberating and cost-effective.

But more important are the pedagogical benefits to Zoom. A clear example is with the flexibility of office hours that video chatting offers. In an in-person context, I would need to be on campus at a certain period of time and find a space in which to discuss things with students. But I would never be available to all students as many would be in other classes or busy with extracurricular activities when I set my in-person office hours.

But with Zoom, I can be flexible in speaking with students as I’m already at my desk at my dinky apartment. This proved especially helpful in two contexts. The first is with inclement weather. Earlier this year, there was a large snow storm that made travel impossible for many people. No matter, I was able to speak with several students over Zoom about their questions about the readings and their assignments. The second context concerns international students. As a result of COVID-19, I had students forced to do their studies in China because they could not travel to the United States. With Zoom, I was able to speak with the students in the evening (their morning), which proved to be fruitful.

keep it simple

Sticking with Zoom, I’ve been impressed at the creative ways in which instructors have navigated both the advantages and weakness of the platform. I, on the other hand, am not creative 😵 As such, when deciding how to format my discussion section, I kept it simple: it was an open forum where I would ask questions in order to facilitate a conversation over the course reading. No break out rooms, no gimmicks: just talk.

Part of the reason is that I observed that many students, while appreciative of the benefits of the technology, were also frustrated by aspects they found to be gimmicky. Breakout rooms, a favored technique by many of the TAs I followed on Twitter, were not a hit with students. As this collection of memes highlights, there is a lot of disdain for breakout rooms among undergraduates. This meme sums up the sentiment:

This isn’t to say that breakout rooms are always bad. For example, the instructor I worked with this semester had the students fill out a Google Docs sheet with their thinking about a short reading done during the lecture session. That’s clever as it allows students in a breakout room to see what other students are talking about. Instead of being siloed into a single group, a connection is maintained with the rest of the class. I’m totally stealing this for when I’m designing my next remote-learning course 😆

But I will admit I have an aversion to do this for the discussion section. Part of this was my own conception of responsibility to the course: I only had 50 minutes to speak with both sections so why was I going to abdicate that time with my students? While I understand why professors - who also give lectures - may rely on breakout rooms for a much needed respite, I am not as sympathetic with TAs who only have the discussion section to worry about. And because I know my limitations, I think a simple discussion format was the best way forward. While there was an imbalance in terms of activity levels between my two sections for both semesters, I think it worked out in the end.

clarity is golden

Students hate ambiguity, especially when their grades are on the line. This is something I had to learn the hard way from my days as an adjunct. It created a situation where students would often ask me to reconsider certain grades as I was ambiguous with how I graded their papers. I eventually learned that I needed to have readily-available rubrics in order to make clear my expectations regarding their course work. This seems obvious in hindsight. However, this was my first time teaching so I learnt this obvious point on the fly.

With this in mind, having rubrics proved essential for a teaching assistant. I was fortunate to work with another teaching assistant during the Fall 2020 semester. Early on, we both decided we had to craft a rubric when grading the papers as 1. the professor did not provide one and 2. that there would be a consistent rubric for each half of the class. We spent an hour making our own, bringing our experiences together to craft a unified rubric. And it worked really well! I made it a point to post the rubric on my section’s Brightspace page and to reference it whenever I gave my grading comments. I did not get a single student pushing back against their grades because the rubric was comprehensive and comprehensible. Clarity here paid dividends.

spring break is necessary

Vanderbilt decided to accelerate the Spring semester by jettisoning Spring Break. In hindsight, this was a stupid decision. Epidemiologically, it made sense: there were numerous examples of off-campus get-togethers and vacations contributing to on-campus outbreaks of COVID-19. But the students needed a break! It proved disastrous as students were running on fumes by the end of the semester.

keep your cool

There were times when it was clear that no one did the discussion readings. It’s understandable why a TA may snap at the students on this point. But when I got frustrated, I thought of my own undergraduate experience; of how many times I skipped a reading and just winged it the best I could. Like I said earlier, the course I TA’d for is one of many classes the students are taking. There is always going to be a prioritization of certain courses by students, and this changes depending on when major assignments are due.

When I had my first experience with a silent group of students, I had a hard time not taking it personally. But, over time, I realized that such silences were not the result of a moral failure in my part: instead, the students were trying their best and juggled multiple courses to the point of feeling overwhelmed. This became evident as different sections exhibited different levels of engagement with the same material. It will just be the case that some groups will be more active than others, and that’s outside one’s control.

It’s frustrating, no doubt. We’ve all been there. It happens even with the best of instructors. Adjust if need be, but such silent moments are not a judgement of you as a person. It’ll be fine 🙂

the students are great

Lastly, my biggest takeaway from this past year as a TA was being in awe of the tenacity and brilliance of my students. They persevered despite the challenges of distanced-learning and the stresses of the past year. Many brought their creativity to the fore despite these challenges. Many students continued despite contracting from COVID-19; and others finished the school year despite tragedies in their own lives. To do all that work and do so ably is just astounding. I was a crummy undergrad, so seeing so many brilliant students is really humbling. They made this past year work, and for that, I am immensely grateful 🙂

paris

In February 2020, I took a fortuitous research trip to the United Kingdom, not knowing that it would be the last opportunity to do such research as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the month wore on, and coverage of the virus began to focus on the plight of Spain and Italy, I decided to take a trip to Paris for a few days in between the end of my research in Durham and the final days in London. I booked a room in Paris and took the Eurostar to Paris.

Unsurprisingly to anyone who has gone to Paris, I fell in love with the city. I visited the Louvre for only a day. But its vastness felt like a challenge to visit it again and again in the years to come. The rainy weather and increasing uncertainty of COVID-19 meant that I couldn’t take advantage of my Parisian sojourn to explore more of the city. But what I saw whetted my desire to go to Paris once more. I hope that the proliferation of vaccinations will allow for a return to normalcy of tourism in Paris. I miss Paris despite being there for a few days.

Below are a few images I took during this visit. A belated post, no doubt. But I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations to posting these images. So enjoy! Maybe I’ll be back soon, who knows?

embellishments in travel narratives

This is just a stray thought, but in the course of these past few years of research, I am struck by the difference between the contents of exploratory field journals compared with the published works based on those field journals. Specifically, I am referring to the phenomenon whereby published journals and travel narratives contain more embellishments and details that are not found in the original field journals.

After going through a few journals by Richard Francis Burton, I am struck by how much more detail is found in his published works than are in his field journals. I found a similar pattern after reading Samuel White Baker’s journals during my first research trip some years back. This is to say nothing of John Petherick’s oeuvre, namely his apologia over claims of his involvement in the Nile slave trade.

I am having a hard time reconciling this fact. Were these explorers so good at retaining these narrative details that they did not bother recording these events in their field journals? Maybe something else? However, my more cynical take is that some of the embellishment never occurred in the first place, being added in the course of publication to “spice things up.”

My view can be best summed as: “you’d really think someone would do that, just publish a travel narrative and tell lies?”

After reading Raymond John Howgego’s lecture “Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day,” I think there’s some reason to be skeptical as to the veracity of these narratives, given that the reading public (and certainly the scientific community) would have a hard time verifying these claims.

However, I think the one aspect that made it difficult to fib was what can be termed “geographic data,” such coordinates, place names, ethnographic information, etc. Given the discussions and debates moderated by the Royal Geographical Society or the Athenaeum over controversies regarding place names or field research, I do wonder if the potential to verify such data gave license to explorers to embellish (or outright lie) about their deeds and adventures in far off lands. After all, the existence of geographical features like lakes and rivers, along with botanical and ethnographic data would be verifiable by future explorers. But how would one verify specific encounters with “greedy” natives? Or the “heroics” in defending English pride to an uncouth chieftain? Or in felling an especially ferocious beast? Truth be told, it’s not possible.

There’s no way to know for sure what’s truth and what’s fiction regarding these narratives. But it does open up the question as to why details are added or omitted in travel narratives, especially in the case of travel narratives that also serve scientific ends.

gordon’s map of suakin to berber

What I find interesting in researching Nile exploration is the synonymity between field science and colonial warfare present in Sudan during the 1880s and 1890s. This map, taken from an 1885 issue of Science, is from a report by C.P. Stone on the unfolding siege of Khartoum.

A Civil War veteran, Stone (along with a hundred other veterans) was invited by Egypt to train its military. Stone stayed in Egypt until the 1882 Urabi Revolt and the subsequent bombardment of Alexandria by the Royal Navy. In 1884 and early 1885, Charles Gordon was besieged in Khartoum, his force surrounded by the Mahdist rebels. On Jan. 26 1885, the Mahdist took Khartoum.

Using his experience as a springboard to speak authoritatively on matters of geography, Stone speaks about Khartoum’s fall by providing an overview of Sudan’s geography between the Nile and the Red Sea. With an attached copy of Gordon’s 1874 map of the region, Stone speaks to the logistical issues facing any mission to avenge Gordon’s death.

But why was this published in Science? Given that this same issue of Science would extol Gordon’s scientific credentials by citing Gordon’s military prowess, I have questions on how Americans viewed the relationship between scientific thinking and military skill during the 1880s and 1890s.

In any case, I went through the journal article to reassembled the map. It’s above in all its glory. For a larger copy of the map (at 10 mb), click here: Link

citation: CP Stone, "The Route from Suakin to Berber," Science 5, no. 114 (10 April 1885): 290.

mexico city

Apologies for the lack of updates, but as I try to collect my thoughts for a future post here I figure it would be good to post pictures of my trip to Mexico City last summer.

The Mexican flag at the Zócolo, June 2018

I stayed in Mexico City for a week in June 2018. I decided to explore the city on my own and at my own pace. What I wanted to see most was the Museo Nacional de Antropología (MNA), the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. The MNA houses the pre-Columbian heritage of Mexico, from the first arrivals millennia ago to the Mayans, Tarascans, and Aztecs.

Facade of the Museo Nacional de Antropología (MNA)

The Murals of Cacaxtla

There is always a crowd around the Aztec Sun Stone…

The MNA is large and will take the better part of a day to navigate. It is one of the best museums I have ever visited.

Beyond the MNA there are plenty of sites to visit in Mexico City, such as the Monumento a la Revolución. Originally built to be the centerpiece of the Mexican Congress during the Porfiriato, it was commandeered to become the monument for the Mexican Revolution.

Monumento a la Revolución

There is Palacio de Bellas Artes, the historical theatre of Mexico City.

The Palacio de Bellas Artes

Oh hey! Darwin! This is from a (small) portion of Diego Rivera’s mural El hombre controlador del universo (1934)

If you go to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, just be aware that you will need to buy a ticket from the ticket booth to go beyond the ground floor. Stand at the long line, since that’s for the theatre and not to see the murals.

The last site I’ll mention here its the Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL), which is close by to the Zocolo. It houses Mexican art from the colonial era into the modern. I especially enjoyed their special exhibit on Nahui Olin.

I’m embarrassed to say that I did not know of Nahui Olin until this visit. But I’m now a fan. Her typography and design aesthetic is phenomenal.

There is also a large collection of portrait art at the MUNAL

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay in the city longer. There were many more sights I wanted to visit, but time was limited since I had to prepare for a research trip to the UK. If time permits, I will go back this summer. As someone born and raised in the US and who is also of Mexican descent, I really connected with the art and culture of my ancestral homeland. It’s useful to know where one comes from, and I hope to learn more from Mexico in the years to come.

john hanning speke's 1863 map of central africa

One of the joys of researching is encountering the unexpected. Case in point is this map, produced in 1863 for the Royal Geographical Society, depicting the travels of John Hanning Speke through Central Africa:

JHSpeke1863.jpg

I discovered this map through JSTOR's archive of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (Article Link). Attached to a report by Speke on his return to Britain detailing his various encounters and exploits, the map itself was divided into 16 distinct pages. I decided to collate these pages together to produce the map above. Neat, huh?

city drawing series : kathy prendergast

City Drawings Series - London-n13 1997 pencil on paper 31 x 21 cm / 12.2 x 8.3 in. Click the picture for source.

City Drawings Series - London-n13 1997 pencil on paper 31 x 21 cm / 12.2 x 8.3 in. Click the picture for source.

City Drawings Series - Tehran-n44 1997 pencil on paper 31 x 21 cm / 12.2 x 8.3 in. Click on the picture for source.

City Drawings Series - Tehran-n44 1997 pencil on paper 31 x 21 cm / 12.2 x 8.3 in. Click on the picture for source.

Following yesterday's post is another contemporary example of map-art, this time from Kathy Prendergast. I first learned about Prendergast's work in Denis Cosgrove's article "Maps, Mapping, Modernity" (as posted in yesterday's post). Cosgrove's succinct writing does all the summarizing needed to introduce Prendergast's work:

“Prendergast’s City Drawings (2001) trace the intricate and beautiful street patterns in the world’s capital cities while challenging their usual hierarchy of size and political or economic significance by removing names and indicators of scale.”

take heart : ruth watson

in
Ruth Watson's Take heart (1999), Exhibited as part of The World Interrupted, a solo show at the Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch, 1999.

Ruth Watson's Take heart (1999), Exhibited as part of The World Interrupted, a solo show at the Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch, 1999.

I first heard of this art piece by reading Denis Cosgrove's essay on cartography and modern art in the 20th century. The essay is a brilliant piece of writing that expands the study of artistry and mapmaking beyond the early modern period. While the piece can be found at JSTOR, I have linked it here for your viewing pleasure. 

applying to grad school: conclusion

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The first part was done: deciding to go to graduate school. The rest was a bit harder.

After I had successfully defended my master's thesis , my advisor asked what my plans were now that I had done that hurdle. When I told her of my inclination of going on for my PhD, she was super supportive. Her only word of advice was in carefully choosing were I would like to get my doctorate from.

Fit is important in choosing a graduate program. Not only do you have to consider if the potential faculty and department are able to support you the best that they can, but you have to wonder how you would fit into the program. Are there enough faculty members who are able to serve as your mentor? How does the university do in funding graduate students? Stipends? Travel/research grants? In providing academic resources? 

This is something I wholly neglected to evaluate until it was too late. I was only concerned with finding potential professors to work with, which also was done badly. I searched a random set of universities - schools I've heard of, schools I thought were interesting - and searched for professors through departmental faculty pages to see any potential interests. But since no other professors is really doing what I'm doing, it was an awkward process. In hindsight, after reading numerous forum posts from GradCafe after I had applied, the best bet would've been to contact professors and asked them. But I didn't and pressed forward.

If there is any takeaway from my experience, it's that I did a lot of things badly and got immensely lucky at the end.

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Applying to graduate school is expensive. You will normally pay $50-70 per application. As someone of limited financial means since leaving my old job, this constrained the number of schools I applied to. And even if you get rejected, that money will never be seen again. I do wonder why there isn't a greater movement to remove these application fees across the board. Yes, some schools do have fee-free applications for financially disadvantaged applicants, but this is neither consistent or readily advertised. If universities were actually serious about opening up graduate education to minutes and lower-income students, this needs to change. But it hasn't, and I was forced to charge this on my credit cards. 

Not only are fees a limitation, but so is asking professors to write you letter of recommendations. Even if application fees are not a barrier, asking your professors to write you 15 LoRs comes across as a bit much to me. But maybe it wouldn't be. Maybe your professors will be happy to write those letters. But I didn't know since I didn't ask them what a reasonable number of applications would be. I simply assumed six applications was "enough." I asked and had no issues on that account. But again, the professors I've asked I have worked closely with, and they knew what I was capable of. If you are thinking about graduate school, just keep in mind who you need to ask for LoRs and ask them what they process normally entails. Would've done me some good.

With both those out of the way, I then went on to do my applications. If there is one takeaway here, it's to read the instructions carefully and press forward. Fortunately, I did not screw this part up! Yay me!

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The application process finished in December. Everything was submitted on time, and my LoRs were sent on time. It was now to play the waiting game.It is around this time when I began reading GradCafe and other sites, and as I read more, I cringed more. So yes, read these sort of sites before you start applying. They're full of wise sages. Heed their advice!

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Of the schools I applied to, three accepted me and three rejected me. In hindsight, I chalk this up to my obliviousness to note how I would fit into these programs. One was a dream school that I applied to without considering the fact that the faculty members I needed were not entirely a good fit for my own research.

The three schools that did accept me were more close to me in the "fit" department. What made the difference to me was that Vanderbilt reached out to me: first my future advisor, then graduate students. What made me lucky was that my future advisor was animated to reach out to me (despite not having prior contact) and wanted to see my research first-hand. I imagine he would be busy enough to justify looking over GPAs and discarding those that would not interest him. But he looked into my application and saw something there. I really lucked out there, and I'm thankful for that. 

Not everyone will be so lucky. If there are any takeaways, it's these:

  • Contextualize your research interests into something larger. Since my research dealt with geography and cartography, I should have situated my own research into the wider history of science. 
  • Understand that your research is unique. As such, you will not find a future person of interest (PoI) who will do what you do. From what I've heard from various professors at Vanderbilt, having a graduate student apply doing the exact same thing as you is actually detrimental. Find someone who you admire and think can expand your research, not another you.
  • Aim High. Vanderbilt's graduate acceptance rate is on par with Yale. I purposely did not apply to any Ivy League schools out of a sheer sense of intimidation. If you have the money, try to apply to a top-tier program. You'll never know!
  • Contact your PoI! Seriously, it's necessary. Why? Because the department will discuss amongst themselves for graduate students, and if a PoI knows you, they will vouch for you. This is how students are accepted. Not by the "best" GPAs or "best" credentials, but by these intra-department discussions. That my advisor would reach out to me and vouched for me in these discussions only proves that I should've done this will all the schools I applied to. 

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In the end, I got into a great program. I just finished my first semester, and I'm very much looking for the next. While things worked out for me, they so easily could not. I do wonder where I would be if I was not accepted to any programs. Some on GradCafe have said they've applied multiple years before they got accepted to their dream schools. I don't think I would've been able to do that, and I greatly admire those who do.

I do not know where my journey in grad school will take me. But I'll be sure to keep this page updated with any news. 

applying to grad school: impetus

Last summer, I voluntarily became unemployment. It wasn't that my old job was particularly hard. Rather, i had graduated with my M.A. from North Texas earlier that May. Was I going to have a graduate degree and simply stay on in my tech support job? With a half-assed plan in place, and little-to-no savings, I quit after seven years there.

Through luck and the fortuitous friendship of my M.A. advisor and the person in charge of hiring me, I was able to find as an adjunct-instructor at a local community college. Was the pay good? Hah, no. But I figured it would be a good testing ground to see what I ultimately wanted to do with my life. Obviously I would teach history, but the question would be where and in what context. That is, do I want to continue on with my education to get my doctorate degree and brave the academic job market in a few years time? Or would I use my M.A. to finagle my way into a high school job and be content there? My heart wanted the former, while my brain told me to be realistic. At the very least, I could buy time with my adjuncting.

I wouldn't teach actual college students, by the way. I would instead teach high school students who wanted to earn college credit before heading off to a four-year university. Now I would actually interact with high schoolers and see if teaching high school would be something I want to do. 

Truth be told, I didn't know what to expect. But seven months in, I can say that I love my job. This is what I want to do with my life. And even if I "settle" to teaching at a high school, I can say that I would still be a happy man.

Except...except I still had that itch, that desire to get my doctorate degree. My experience as a M.A. student is not entirely analogous to others in that 1. I was a part-time student and 2. did not really partake into the clique of graduate students that predominated North Texas.* I wasn't able to graduate in two years on account of work-related changes and training. But despite the time constraint and the anonymity I felt with the department, I loved graduate school. It's simplistic to say if it was "hard" or "easy." It was challenging, but I love a challenge. I found a good topic to write about, and while funding from UNT was non-existent, I did the best I could to research my thesis. Researching topics, grappling with historiography, and writing are things I also loved. And I would not be able to do any of that in a professional setting if I went the high school or community college route.

My philosophy was this: I could either do this now, or live with the regret of not having tried. The worst-case scenario would be that I would be rejected from all the schools I've applied to. In which case, I transition from adjuncting to full-time teaching. I took the plunge and applied in the autumn of 2016. 

In the next post, I will expand on the application process. What schools I applied to, and what I learned (belatedly). I will also end on a very optimistic note. Stay tuned!

 

 

Totten: Eternal Enmity

In his Jan. 18 post “Iran’s Hostage Victory,” Michael Totten displays the same blindness typical of many hawks in their disdain and loathing of both Iran and the possibility of a détente with Iran.

Totten begins his post eye-rolling Bernie Sanders’ suggestion on restoring diplomatic relations with Iran:

“During Sunday’s Democratic primary debate, Senator Bernie Sanders argued that it’s time to bring Iran in from the cold. “I think what we’ve got to do is move as aggressively as we can to normalize relations with Iran,” he said.

If Iran had a representative government, if it wasn’t ruled by Ayatollah Khamenei, his dark theocratic Guardian Council and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the United States and Iran would restore normal relations almost as a matter of course.

Iran would, in all likelihood, take its proper place as one of America’s premier allies in the Middle East alongside the Kurds and the Israelis. The extreme and often fantastical anti-Americanism so endemic in the Arab world is far weaker among the Persians, Azeris and Kurds who make up the Iranian nation.

Iran right now is like Poland under the Warsaw Pact—a would-be friendly nation occupied and ruled by a hostile regime. Good and proper relations will have to wait until the government is overthrown or reformed out of all recognition like Vietnam’s current communist-in-name-only government.”

Now, my response isn’t to defend Iran. It is beyond any doubt that Iran is the perpetrator of many human rights abuses: ranging from the persecution of Baha’is and homosexuals, to sponsoring Hezbollah, and liberal use of torture against prisoners of conscious. That can’t be denied.

But for the sake of consistency, why doesn’t Totten advocate ending diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Egypt? Those same abuses can be pinned on nominal American allies. But he doesn’t. And he shouldn’t.

Breaking diplomatic relations from other states is rarely a good idea. Yes, the circumstances behind the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis were unique. But Totten is not advocating the continued situation with Iran because of the hostage crisis of 1979. Rather, he’s angry (rightfully so!) that Iran is unjustly imprisoning someone today. And while his anger is warranted, you do not base your foreign policy on those concerns. 

The United States and Iran have shared interest in the region; namely, the destruction of the so-called Islamic State. And while the 2015 nuclear deal’s ramifications are yet to be seen, the upside is that Iran’s pursuit for a nuclear weapon has been stymied for the foreseeable future. In contrast to McCain’s infamous rendition of Barbara Ann to Bomb Iran, President Obama was able to accomplish the same goal without another disastrous war in the Middle East. 

The prospect that diplomacy may work and may be a force for good is frightening to Totten and the still-extant neoconservative punditocracy, where it is forever 1938 and Obama is another Neville Chamberlain. Iran is an evil and must be dealt with post-haste!

But what is truly mind boggling is that these well-meaning (if woefully wrong) pundits have their equals in the conservative inner-circles of the Islamic revolutionary vanguard of 1979. Ayatollah Khamenei and his ilk also have memories of the United States that mirror the boogey-men of Totten’s fevered imagination. From Mosaddegh to America’s support for the tyrannical Pahlavi dynasty and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran…well, you get the idea. 

It’s easy to imagine what Khomenei would think of making peace with the United States. Why would he support dealing with a regime that has openly talked about bombing his nation for the last three decades? That surrounds his country militarily? That could theoretically exterminate his population in half an hour? And that is complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranians?

For all the faults Iran has done to the United States, it does not compare to what we have done to Iran.

But to Totten, while may think it’s Munich 1938 all over again, our past against Iran is irrelevant. Iranians will just have to get over ancient history.

The point is not that two wrongs make a right. Peace is not going to happen when one side completely capitulates to the other. That’s a fool’s errand. Instead, the first steps to peace are always tentative: one side gives, the other side reciprocates. Pride and reactionary factions on both sides would rather want war than admit their mistakes.

To their credit, both Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani have made those first steps despite the opposition. That the Iranians quickly released US navy sailors after their capture shows what diplomacy can accomplish. 

Diplomacy isn’t always going to work. And that’s okay. There are no easy answers, and peace is hard for both sides. But war is even harder. Totten may fret that Iran isn’t perfectly compliant with his image of what it could be. But as the saying goes, the perfect is the enemy of the good. And of course, good is better than our current situation.

One hopes that the future American and Iranian leadership continue the work accomplished this last year. Peace depends on it.

the idealization of pope francis

Last week, my father spoke highly of Pope Francis. He said "Me cae bien." (He's fine by me). Now, if you knew my father, this is extremely out of character. Since a child in rural Mexico, he was vehemently anti-Catholic and flirted with Evangelical and Charismatic Christian churches. And given the long history of the Catholic Church in Mexico, who can blame him for his attitude? 

My father was not impressed by Pope John Paul II, and much less by Pope Benedict. But Francis? He's fine by me. I thought hell had frozen over.

But Pope Francis has that effect on people. Many of my fellow atheists and liberals have been swayed and enamored with Francis. Unlike his predecessors, Francis hails from Latin America and brings in a new perspective on a euro-centric religious organization. The actions of Francis in the early days of the papacy showed a man more committed to the poor, vulnerable, and shunned than the pomp of Benedict's red Prada shoes. Instead of an insular body out of touch from the realities of modernity, Francis showed that he was at least listening. 

The amount of goodwill Francis had generated among skeptics and critics is astounding. And indeed, some of this is warranted. While the Republican party still clings to antediluvian denial on climate change, Francis's Laudato Si was a clarion call to all Catholics to combat climate change. That Francis has spoke critically on the pervasiveness of poverty was also welcomed by his nominal leftist critics. And let's us not forget his role in bridging US-Cuban relations.

Clearly, Francis is living up to the hype.

But let's be honest: has Francis change one doctrine, one tenet of Catholicism? Has Francis signal a change to redefine Catholicism stance on marriage?

No. 

But there is widespread disappointment over the meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis by many liberals, as exemplified here in Slate. There is a difference between giving the Pope credit in voicing concerns on issues like poverty and climate change, and idealization: the latter is inherently unstable as it ignores that Francis has never wavered from his view on religious liberty or same-sex marriage. So how can we be disappointed over nothing? 

Regardless of what you think of Kim Davis and the reactionary attempts to make her a martyr, one cannot claim that the Papacy had a position resembling that of the pro-SSM side in the US. Where would anyone get that idea? Or the idea the Catholic Church was going to break with centuries of tradition over this issue? Again, the idealization of Francis led to delusions of the reality of the Catholic Church. 

I do not say this to be harsh. As a former Catholic, a portion of me is still moved by Mass, by Catholic hymns, and the antiquity of the Church. I will admit that I am sympathetic to the Catholic Church, if I can never actually bring myself to believe again. Nonetheless, even my sentimentality doesn't cloud the reality of the church's stance on gay marriage, on divorce, abortion, contraception, and sex. These positions have not changed while Francis has been pontiff, and they are positions I reject whole-heartedly. 

Maybe Ross Douthat is correct in saying that the West is not entirely secular. Maybe that can go some length into describing why Francis has had such a hold on even nominal skeptics like myself or my father. But even if that is the case, and even if Francis is fine by you, do not be taken: the Church hasn't changed at all.