Education-based meritocracy; Religion n'est pas pour moi

Going for a seminar on that by John Goldthorpe, University of Oxford, in 15 minutes. Comments later. :)

Well, the best bit of it were the sarnies. I grabbed three on the way out. *yumbley scrumbley*

Thankfully, he didn't rant against education based meritocracy and its philosophical flaws as I would expect sociologists in this institution to. Instead, he proposed evidence showing that meritocracy has not been achieved in England, and suggested that policy should aim to address this. Hardly groundbreaking.

He used an interesting word to describe people in the top socio-economic class: salariat. Is this the equivalent of the proletariat? A search for 'salariat' on dictionary.com yields nothing. No wonder 'salariat' sounds so salar. What is 'salariat' supposed to refer to? The salaried class? :S

Ran a search online for Goldthorpe's articles. There's one available on meritocracy, but the computer can't seem to get at it, and it's prolly fate. His co-workers include Michelle Johnson, so a search for her might yield something, but I'm not that bothered.

Went for the seminar coz I thought it might be useful for my Education and Development in Asia module essay. Ah well. Maybe tangentially.

Parce que, at least for now, religion is a rather personal thing for me.

I just do not like institutional religion. It is a very strong gut instinct.

Religion for me, and for others undoubtedly, is about truth. Truth in institutional religions tends to be universal, to be objective, to be the TRUTH. And the objectivity of this truth has not quite been that solid, as evident from history.

People say that their gut tells them what's right and what's wrong. They are Christians, Buddhists, Moonies, etc. because their religion sounds (and is) right for them, that their religion resonates with their heart, that their religion emanates the truth. So it is that there are TEN commandments, NINE sons, EIGHT directions, SEVEN this-that-and-the-other, and all of this is not questionable nor refutable in any way, even if counter-evidence exists because to attempt to refute the truth 'is to miss the point' (cue the predictable speech on how religion is meant to be believed in and not thought through with human logic because human logic is so limited and truth is so universal and boundless and limitless). Since the truth is so truthful to hard core believers of their respective faiths, no amount of explanation seems sufficient for them to understand that their truth does not resonate with me or that my automatic response to proselytising would be to go according to my gut instinct and question, doubt and query, and more usual than not, in my usual devil's advocate or confrontative manner. It is frustrating and I would rather just shut up really. Playing devil's advocate and being confrontational in arguments that are purely intellectual and peripheral can be fun. In religion, it isn't, and shouldn't be enjoyed, for in some cases to do so can shake the hard core (and dissipate the soul?)of individuals, and therefore could well be rightly viewed to be sadistic. Let the religionist be safe and comfortable in the space and discourse of his religion, provided that he does not harm others. Please give me some space alone in my non-institutional not-really-religious-according-to-any-institutional-religion guts-space.

Believe me, I'm not lonely being alone in this guts-space, so don't feel sorry for me.

The other thingy I am not quite comfortable with is that there is hierarchy in most institutional religions that I am aware of. As mentioned earlier, religion is deeply personal to me. Truths can be absolute, but in human perception can be relative (note: I am not setting up the presence of a superior or indeed inferior being here), and different experiences of the truth by different individuals would prolly shape their perceptions of the truth. Therefore, there are arguably many different truths, all of which are truthful to the believer of each truth. A hierarchy probably means that truth or the means of exploring / discovering the truth would be imposed from the top down. blar blar blar. Enough of my rant. GRRZIEBOOOBLE!

Let's just say that I have a rather strong gut instinct against institutional religion, and that my heart does not resonate with any institutional religion, or any of their discourses. I don't mind religion. I like it that people celebrate their religions. Just don't try to religionise me and recognise that your religious discourse is not necessarily his, hers or mine.