Hard News: A Full Sense of Nationhood
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You've been to a lot of poorly run meetings, in that case.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the civil service!
Can anyone recommend any good atheist or non-religious karakia? Seems to be the sort of thing it might be useful to know.
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I also found myself detached from the whole Waitangi thing this year. it just seemed so "other' - these days it seems little more than an exercise in the French disease of out-of-touch École elites living in their world while everyone else lives in theirs.
I was intrigued by Roughan's use of the word "spirit". For someone who says he is an unbeliever, he spends an awful amount of time in his columns talking about spirit (as in things that go bump in the night) and Christianity. From his musing, I expect his Wishartian revelation daily. Which leads me wonder at the why the likes of Roughan, Wishart, Garth George and substantial slice of the KBR mob can’t seem to let go of their dislike of Helen Clark? I suspect the linking theme here is an unreformed fundamentalism. It is definitely the case in Wishart's and George's case, and Roughan seems to spend a lot of his time engaging in wishy-washy spiritual waffle as well. As for the KBR crew I could probably prove by analysis of posts that the happy-clappy crowd is well over-represented there, but that's a particular abyss I'm not game to peer into.
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In a context where cultures meet, mine is squarely secular and non-Christian, and I'd like a compromise that reflects that.
Exactly how would you define contexts where cultures meet? Because I think tikanga pakeha infuses so much of standard business and community meetings that if you want to provide any recognition of tikanga Maori, giving people the opportunity to deliver a mihi or karakia if they think its appropriate is kind of the least you can do if you want a cross-cultural meeting to reflect both cultures.
I've been around plenty of prayers, graces, karakia, waiata, blessings, hymns, oratorios and so on, and they've not hurt my atheism one bit. But I've always seen them as applying to other people - I get to join in if they're fun and involve singing, or sit quietly and respect other's rights to their beliefs if they're not. Where I would draw the line is if I were expected to bring or perform the religion myself (thus failing John Roughan's test of great New Zealanderness, but so be it). I don't object to grace at other people's dinner tables, but I'd feel put upon if someone tried it at my own.
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Can anyone recommend any good atheist or non-religious karakia? Seems to be the sort of thing it might be useful to know.
I was taught Whakataka te hau by a teacher who was keen on pre-colonial karakia.
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Can anyone recommend any good atheist or non-religious karakia? Seems to be the sort of thing it might be useful to know.
Know any Quakers? They're usually good value for non-theist observances.
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sworn Police officers, and the less goon-ish behaviour from that quarter the better.
Well, for our Waitangi day, we watched Goodbye Pork Pie (28 years to the day since its release), in which both traffic and 'regular' cops display an amusing array of behaviours, both goonish and inept.
This was accompanied by a fine array of kiwi foods (burgers with beetroot, asparagus rolls, stirling colby, pavlova), washed down with whatever kiwi wine could be found in these parts (sauvignon blanc only I'm afraid).
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giving people the opportunity to deliver a mihi or karakia if they think its appropriate is kind of the least you can do
This implies that compulsory Christian observance is a small thing, which is very much a matter of debate.
The issue for me is the Christianity. This notion of a non-religious karakia is totally new to me, I must admit; I had always understood that karakia=prayer.
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Me also, Stephen.
I take Mikaere's point about the christianisation being a post-colonial thing but I'd object just as much to pre-colonial Maori religious ideas as well, I think. Not to them having them but to me being required to accept them.
As you say, on a marae I'd have no issue. Same as if I attended a wedding in a church. It's my choice to make to put myself in those situations, and I'm happy to accept whatever ritual applies. A powhiri in a workplace to welcome new staff has its place and can be a positive thing, but I will not sing hymns in English or Maori. Likewise I object to making the women stand at the back. If it's a worplace, then the workplace gets to set the tikanga, not the manuhiri. Paying lip-service to a wrong thing merely encourages it to continue.
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Stephen, one of the things I like about Judaism is its ability to culturally accommodate both secularism and ritual. It seems to me that has reaped a great intellectual bounty, among other things.
Got anything for us on that?
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And hey, this seems like a great time to tap the collective wisdom.
At Foo Camp this Friday, I'm to perform the whaikorero on behalf of the manuhiri, in the whare at the college where it happens.
I don't intend to be one of those people who staggers through five minutes of bog Maori, so I'll express my respect in English. But I would like to greet in te reo, and know what I'm saying.
Anyone got a few good lines for a geek retreat? Mikaere?
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Stephen:
I wouldn't call it non-religious exactly. But not necessarily Christian A karakia could invoke Rangi raua ko Papa, the power of the southerly wind, or e te Matua, e te Tama, e te Wairua Tapu. A higher power as a concept, in any case.Freedom from religion isn't insisting that nobody mention religion in front of you. It's not compulsory to be welcoming and respectful of another culture, but it can really smooth things along. And if you (as a non-religious person) provide the space for the other culture to provide their own content, then the religion or otherwise of that content doesn't oblige you to participate or endorse it, the same way as you're not obliged to agree with what someone else says at a meeting.
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Russell, there are lots of very good internet resources on the subject of mihi, whaikorero and so on. I hate to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but have you tried googling?
You might also want to drop by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori to see if they have an online dictionary for new tech words. I particularly like piripiri for velcro.
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I take your point, but most do involve some form of religious interaction and I object to this mightily.
I understand completely. There seems to be an unwritten rule that Maori = Christian, which I personally find incongruous with the pre-European origins of Maori cultural practices.
You've been to a lot of poorly run meetings, in that case. In the classic pakeha tradition, meetings have a chair, the chair calls the meeting to order, and the chair calls the meeting to an end when there is no further businesses. I am afraid this is a tradition in decline, but many groups would do well to revive it.
Oh yes, I've been to a lot of poorly run meetings.
Even a meeting with a competent Chair benefits from having a karakia to begin/end it. There's something ineffable about all the participants stopping their chatter, and standing in silence whilst the karakia is recited. It's like we all inhabit a common mental node-point or something, which somehow lubricates the meeting.
And ending karakia seems to add a shared sense of closure, which I don't detect when the Chair simply declares the meeting over.
Sure, and the purpose of grace is to instil a sense of gratitude and humility before eating. The objection is not to the purpose, but to the religious form. (Someone mentioned an atheist grace upthread, which I find bizarre, but whatever ...)
I agree with the gratitude and humility - it adds a sense of occasion to any auspicious meal.
On New Years' Day we put on a spit-roast feast at my parent's-in-laws place. My father-in-law is a Zen Buddhist, and the Buddhist contingent recited a very cool Zen Buddhist grace. While it wasn't strictly Atheist - it didn't mention Atua/God, but was definitely spiritual in nature - it did give thanks and regard to all sentient creatures. Very cool.
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A powerpoint presentation of LOLCats? (OK, I know that was spectacularly unhelpful but I did try to resist. Really.)
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I hate to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but have you tried googling?
Well, yeah, but I thought I'd ask my friends ...
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Even a meeting with a competent Chair benefits from having a karakia to begin/end it. There's something ineffable about all the participants stopping their chatter, and standing in silence whilst the karakia is recited. It's like we all inhabit a common mental node-point or something, which somehow lubricates the meeting.
And ending karakia seems to add a shared sense of closure, which I don't detect when the Chair simply declares the meeting over.
This sounds like excellent technology.
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LOL Craig
Although I think a slideshow of LOLCats in Te Reo might have something to recommend it...
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its ability to culturally accommodate both secularism and ritual. It seems to me that has reaped a great intellectual bounty, among other things.
Got anything for us on that?
Nope. It's an illusion.
To expand: secular Jewish culture grows out of the religious culture; and to the extent that it rejects religion, it dwindles into a particular sense of humour and ethnic food.
(Phillip Pullman famously said that although he was an atheist, if you had to perform surgery to remove Anglicanism from him, he would die. The religion is still the wellspring of the culture, and without it, the culture changes into... something else.)
Your high-achieving Jews of the last couple of centuries are overwhelmingly people who were raised only one or two generations from practicing families. Spinoza was ostracized as a heretic, Disraeli and Mendelssohn and Marx were baptised, ... They brought a non-Christian sensibility to their work, perhaps, but it was precisely because they left the observant world that they were able to undertake that work.
This leads me to the depressing conclusion that as their descendants abandon the religion, that sensibility will also diminish, and whatever cultural special sauce might contribute to secular achievements will go too. Preventing assimilation as a culture in practise requires adhering to the religion.
There is no special solution that accomodates secularism except ethnic solidarity. The Judaism that most tries to change in response to the modern world, the Reform movement, is barely recognised by the Orthodox rump, except insofar as its members are Jewish by descent. Within families ceasing to practise causes conflict, within communities failure to observe religious norms can even result in violence.
In practise, Jews don't bring their rituals into the bigger gentile world, where they are a minority. When they feel brave enough, they contest the imposition of other people's rituals in the public sphere. In the past, requirements to observe Christian ritual have been a positive barrier to participation in public life.
I wouldn't want to speak on behalf of a fractured community in which I don't really participate, but I think that in the diaspora we favour an aggressive separation of church and state. (In Israel, this leads to outbreaks of violence). Either everyone gets to do their thing (time-consuming and difficult to manage without offence to someone) or everyone refrains from doing their thing (a time-honoured solution in multi-confessional communities with a history of violence). In that sense my opposition to importing Christian practice into public life, whether under the rubric of tikanga Maori or for any other reason, is certainly rooted in my upbringing.
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(Phillip Pullman famously said that although he was an atheist, if you had to perform surgery to remove Anglicanism from him, he would die. The religion is still the wellspring of the culture, and without it, the culture changes into... something else.)
Pullman does have a point (and a remarkably complex one), but I think if you're paying more than lip service to living in an open, pluralistic civil society then you've really got to be willing to start drawing lines between the secular and the religious. And don't forget I'm saying this as a devout Catholic.
For me, prayer is an incredibly powerful tool for (among much else) focusing and clarifying the mind. But I've no problem with doing that in private, and not trying to impose that on others. I'd also point out, in the context of tikanga Maori, my whanau includes Mormons, Rastafarians, Ringatu, Ratana, Jehovah's Witnesses, Anglicans and atheists -- as well as the odd fellow Catholic. What is spiritually meaningful to me is actually pretty offensive to many of them, and vice versa.
And why not, when to come down to it, open a meeting by asking the participants to observe a two minute silence and contemplate the common work ahead in whatever manner floats their respective boats.
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And why not, when to come down to it, open a meeting by asking the participants to observe a two minute silence and contemplate the common work ahead in whatever manner floats their respective boats.
I think this pretty much encapsulates where I'm coming from.
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"You just missed a great New Zealand cultural moment," advised the MP for Wellington Central, and I expect he was right.
And if you'd been in Wellington Central, you'd have witnessed another "great New Zealand cultural moment". Horrific though it is to contemplate the thought that the swilling, pullulating festival of munterhood that is the Sevens is an authentic cultural moment, I fear that it may be just that.
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I've been to my share of meetings with karakia, and while I don't object to others expressing their beliefs, I feel it would be more disrespectful to mouth empty words than to keep quiet. I felt that I didn't make a fuss about it, and that by bowing my head in silence during the prayer I was both respecting others' rituals and joining in the contemplative moment.
However, there was always at least one manager who would give me the evil eye for not reciting along. When I came to my turn to choose a karakia, I happily went with Whakataka te Hou (as others have mentioned), and I joined in secular waiata and mihi with pleasure, but for some it seemed that unless I joined in the full Maori/Anglican theology I was being an ignorant colonialist.
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Lx,
Fantastic. Key's done damn well. I don't much like his politics, but I do respect the approach he has to people and Big Gay Out mightn't need his validation but it's bloody fantastic to see the PM just getting involved sans attitude.
Agree. I do like having Mister Middle New Zealand turn up to my community festivities like it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Even if he does have to stridently confirm his heterosexuality by showing us he dances as only a straight man can. Craig, whatever you say in other threads about turning in your toaster oven I defy you to dance like that.
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For me, prayer is an incredibly powerful tool for (among much else) focusing and clarifying the mind. But I've no problem with doing that in private, and not trying to impose that on others. I'd also point out, in the context of tikanga Maori, my whanau includes Mormons, Rastafarians, Ringatu, Ratana, Jehovah's Witnesses, Anglicans and atheists -- as well as the odd fellow Catholic. What is spiritually meaningful to me is actually pretty offensive to many of them, and vice versa.
God?
Or dont we mention s/he/it in polite company anymore?
If multiculturalism had been thought of and put into practice, oohhh say 2000 yrs ago we might all be atheists now. -
God?
Or dont we mention s/he/it in polite company anymore?
There's a place for everything, and everything has it's place. And being a good conservative, I see the wisdom of the old saw that sex and politics join religion as subjects to be avoided at the dinner table -- and it has applications to the workplace.
But here's a little factoid to consider. In the 2006 census, 1,297,104 respondents professed no religion; 242,610 (including me) objected to state an answer. (By contrast, the largest religious groups were 554 thousand 'Anglicans".) They made up a a significant plurality, considering the largest religious grouping was 554 thousand Anglicans.
Is it within the bounds of possibility that respect and sensitivity is a two way street, especially in a context, like a work-related event where it's not actually easy for those who find it objectionable to absent themselves?
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