Moving homes

Hi people!

I'm proud to say that I've decided to move to a new address, easier to remember, if you can only manage to spell my name right. See you all there for the future in Theology, Cooking & Music!

www.jonatanbackelie.com

Best

/J

You wanna be a role?

This is off course a paraphrase of Tyra Banks' quote in the vinaette of America's Next Top Model. I think the concept of role models is a bit ascew these days (if it's ever been not-ascew remains a valid question). Maybe we ought to challenge this idea on the whole. Let's break it down. Sometimes when Britney Spears (yes, I'm aware of a person called that) have been out shaving her head, breaking up, getting drunk, this that and the other, she's put in question for setting a bad example for young girls; she's not a good role model.

The question I want to pose is: what happened with the concept of role within the concept of role model? A role can off course be elaborated in various ways. However, one common conception is the likeness to what a role means in a movie - it's portraiting someone with specific traits. In this sense, picking up a role, is trying to portrait (fictious) behavior modeled on someone. With this line of argument it follows that anyone following the example of such a role model, exhibits a behavior that isn't genuine to their own character.

However, if we widen our understanding of role within role model, we can discuss how indentity is constructed both through social structures and (both positive and negative) pressures, but also through external sources of inspiration that is not present in the individuals immediate environment. With the help of such a concept, we can choose parts of Britney Spears actions, deeds and accomplishments to implement into our own behavior. Let's say that the two feats that Britney displays that isn't present in my immediate surroundings is (1) being able to sing and (2) disorderly drunken behavior. Both of these will be possible to pick up from this external (outside the family and other structures) source of inspiration (Britney). The question is however with what ease we can add these to our roster of characteristics. Probably the (presumably it's a young) individual we're talking about, will try to "feel out" how much resistance the immediate group displays towards these both feats of Britney's, and if both seem appealing and both also seem unoffensive to the group, there's a pretty good chance that the individual will pick these up. However, if drunken behavior isn't accepted or a frequent part of the immediate surroundings, chances are that that part of Britney's actions will not be implemented.

This probably seems relatively straight forward, however, what we also do here is that we choose who Britney is. We choose one of her feats as something aspiring, and we combine this with a row of other feats that has nothing to do with her. In this sense, we isolate Britney-for-us as a singer, not an examplary mother, party girl, or academic exemple to aspire to. All the different people we meet through every day interaction, social media, television etc, essentially work in the same way. We choose what we want to pick up on. This gives us a quite unique set of feats that is combined to a person - you.

The last thought I wanna pursue here, is my attitude regarding these different roles (and the people we model ourselves after). The main problem is not "snatching" feats from here and there, but more so trying to make everything to fit in one person. For instance, I have various ideas, thoughts, feelings, an different people that have inspired me in different areas of life. But what I don't want to do, is try to put one of my feats as the most important characteristic of me. For example, if I postulate that my being a Christian is the most important characteristic, this puts me in danger of thinking that I can probably not get along with i.e. Muslims, Jews or Buddhists, who have this essentially different character. This is tied in with the second danger I see. If you see yourself as role-X-first (i.e. Christian) you run the risk of being extra sensitive to other people's attempts to fill that role with their impression of what it is to be a X (i.e. Christian). The danger then, is that you try to model your different feats and sources of inspirations, not in a way that you yourself is comfortable with, but that corresponds to someone elses version of your "top-role". My experience is that identity/identities are much more fluid than this, and that this is a really positive thing. If we let our identities be slightly disorganized - instead of hierarchial - we are better equipped to face today's world of pluralism, and enjoy it; rather than seeing it as a threat towards your "main" identity.

3xserious pleasure

Arvid Nordqvist Reko Coffee, Booka Shade "Teenage Spaceman" & reading in "34 3-stjärniga krogar i Europa" (34 three star restaurants in Europe) about parisian Le Grand Véfour.

Pleasuuuure has never had more uuuu.

J

Can a feminist get married?

That was the headline of an article in Swedish evening mag Aftonbladet. The answer is: Yes, I already have, once. :)

Seriously though, there was a portion where some (other) feminists seriously proposed that it wasn't possible to get married in church, because of the partriachal history of it. This is like saying I wont wear clothes, because of the partiarchal history of clothes. Few would propose that blue jeans today would have anything to do with signalling that you're a full blown souther state cowboy who opress native americans, although jeans were invented to suit the needs of cowboys.

If the attitude is, nothing good can comes from anything that has a connection to a history, then we are not only stuck - we also utterly fool ourselves. It's simply not possible to disconnect from history. You may think that the church or christianity altogether is patriarchal, but the fact remains that many modern values and many ways that europeans and americans see the world, are deeply intertwined with religious perspectives regardless of whether we think that we hold them or not.

To rule out church weddings on said basis, is not to be a feminist. It is to be a conversative, not only opposing change, but thinking that it is an actual impossibility. I think nothing could be further from the truth. Change is going to come (and is happening everywhere, all the time). It may not always be pleasant or easy to figure out new modes of living together in a changed and still ever-changing world. Be that as it may, it is still our only option.

Länk till Aftonbladetartikeln (svenska)

twitter.com/jonatanbackelie

Yes, I also tweet. I have written a blog post about the exact opposite - that I'm more like the ents in Lord of the Rings: They never say anything that doesn't take a long time saying, and they never say anything unless it's worth taking a long time saying.

160 characters, how on earth will that work out for me ... Maybe the blog vs twitter will be sort of a textual yin and yang? Or maybe my address should've been twitter.com/treebeard?

PS. I know I look like a rabbit. Always on top of my rodent-game.

Come face me at meatbook!

Yes, it's been me and Usama bin Laden who has refused to sign up to Facebook.

Sorry Usama, you're on your own.

No comments.

But I wish for some.

Feel free to go crazy in the comment field.

blog vs spot

Det finns dem som är gamla och trötta i internetgamet. Som tror att man kan ta betalt för saker som finns i bättre versioner gratis. Blog.com verkar falla in just i den kategorin. Av mina blog-stats (och min skivförsäljning) att döma är jag ingen Britney Spears. Det borde därför gå utmärkt att hålla jämn takt med trafikflödet på min blogg - men icke. Varje månad når jag nån form av stenåldersmässig transfer limit och sedan får mina besökare (du) inte se bilder mer, bara text. Så efter mycket våndande över att bli av med den klart klatschiga adressen jonatan.blog.com så får framtiden nu istället hostas av google och heta jonatanb.blogspot.com
En nyhet (för sådana ska man ju ha) är att jag kommer försöka skriva mer på svenska. Ibland bara. Kanske.
Så vänligen börja nu begagna er av detta som er one-stop-shop till allt som har med teologi, matlagning och musik att göra... och droppa gärna en kommentar nu och då!

Fridens
Jonatan


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After a year of great confusion and a stranglehold on how much data one blog may transfer (hardly any it seems), I've decided to leave blog.com and instead rely on the sturdy hosting of google who doesn't seem to mind hosting blogs that people actually read. People charging money for less usable versions of something you can get from free is a tiresome breed on the internet. Blog.com surely falls into this category. Hence good bye to the nice address jonatan.blog.com (the url was the only reason I stayed), and hello to the not impossible to remember jonatanb.blogspot.com.
One new thing with this blog is that I will write more in Swedish. It surprised me that people would comment on my former myspace-blog every time I wrote in Swedish, pointing out that not everyone understands Swedish. Well, english may be lingua franca, but I like Swedish. Very much, actually. And sometimes, as you learn whilst taking a hermeneutics class, translations are never quite the same things as what they intended to translate.

Yours truly
Jonatan