Samuel Huntington is still unpopular due to his proposals in “The Clash of Civilizations”; “Who Are We?” certainly didn’t help anything. And yet there is something fascinating about his suggestions. The fertility of Huntington’s ideas aroused me as I read George Marsden’s “Jonathan Edwards” last summer. Marsden commented on the peculiarity and ubiquity of international Protestantism in the 18th century: Protestants in both Europe and North America were keen observers and active participants in a trans-Atlantic effort that incorporated religious and political aspects into an ostensibly unified strategy to promote Calvinistic polity and politics across the West. Jonathan Edwards was a typical example of a prominent Protestant who did his part to track and assist the international Protestant agenda. What struck me was the similarity of the efforts of Edwards and his cohorts to Huntington’s proposal: there was an informed attempt to unite nations, based on their religious and political stances, in international action.
Of course, the West is now post-Christian, and we have long since watched the Protestant vs. Catholic dispute lose its urgency. But I think that, in light of the fervent Christian profession still extant in the United States and its confrontation with the newly-discovered (!) enthusiasm of the Islamic East, we may have an opportunity to consider Huntington’s proposal. I say this in light of the emergence of the Religious New Right (as Richard John Neuhaus would have us term it) in the United States. The Christian Right tends to have its foreign policy dictated to it by the Republican party, with all of the corporate and Zionist commitments that that entails. But what if the Christian Right were to re-think its policy based on Huntington’s vision and the previous commitments of their Protestant forbears? If it were conceivably advantageous to all concerned parties to ally themselves based upon shared civilizational (previously religious) heritage, could that provide a coherent foreign policy?
It is far beyond my competence to answer that question, but it fascinates me. What if Israel were no longer a foreign policy priority due to its lack of a common heritage with the United States? What if there an intentional cultivation of international relationships with those countries most congenial to Christianity?
But if there is to be anything distinctly Protestant about this vision, what could it be? The Christian affiliation of most countries so inclined is generally Roman Catholic. The importance of Roman Catholic nations to an international Christian vision is no less real than the pragmatic necessity of the co-belligerency alliance that has developed between Protestants and Roman Catholics in the U.S. I do not see any way to escape the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic that has developed in the American Culture Wars. But I do think that Protestants would be wise to adopt a similar position to the one propounded by such Catholic thinkers as Richard John Neuhaus: we plan to both work with you in the present and assimilate you in the future. We’re a long, long, way from even being able to consider dumping the Papists, domestically or internationally; but that must be our ultimate goal if we are to remain recognizably Protestant.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Was Miguel de Cervantes a Closet Theologian?
“I now repeat,” replied Don Quixote, “what I have said many times before, that the majority of people in this world believe that knights-errant have never existed, and I hold that unless Heaven miraculously convinces them of the truth—that there were and that there are—any labor that I may undertake for that purpose must be in vain, as experience has so often shown me. So, I shall not stop now to deliver you from the error that you hold in common with the multitude. What I intend to do is pray to Heaven to deliver you from it and to make you see how beneficial and necessary knights-errant were to the world in past ages and how useful they would be today if they were in fashion. But now the sins of mankind—sloth, idleness, gluttony, and luxury—are triumphant.”
-Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote II.18
It comes as no surprise to anyone to hear that Cervantes’ masterful Don Quixote is a multi-layered work. At once a parody of chivalrous romances and a critique of the emerging bourgeois world, Don Quixote is so stratified as to provoke wonder. However, to my own very limited knowledge, no-one has so far pointed out the parallels between the Manchegan knight’s delusions and the doctrines of the Calvinistic churches—which, by 1615, were well known, even in Spain.
Consider the passage above, with its obvious similarities to Calvin’s observations on total depravity and irresistible grace. For Calvin, there could be no reception of the Gospel without a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. This doctrine was propounded in marked contrast to the Thomistic model of naturally available knowledge of God. Interestingly, in context the above statement of Don Quixote serves as evidence of his insanity. As Don Lorenzo observes after having heard this comment, “[H]e is a gallant madman.” Could it be that one aspect of Don Quixote is an assessment of early Calvinism? I should like to think so, and I suspect that no-one will bother to stop me.
Obviously Cervantes’ greatest novel is a fascinating work; how much more intricate does it become, though, if a satire of Calvinism is thrown in gratis? Consider, for example, that the Calvinists posited presbyterianism as the original Christianity, a hypothesis which many would consider akin to Don Quixote’s insistent belief in the literal existence of the knights-errant. Additionally, there is the devotion of Don Quixote to his books of chivalry: books which he accepts at face value, books which he considers imbued with an absolute authority which trumps all others.
And then there is the episode of the windmills. Ah, how tantalizing it is to imagine a seventeenth-century Roman Catholic author lampooning Calvinism with this scene! But the most touching aspect of the whole portrayal is the wistfulness with which Cervantes regards his knight’s illusions.
-Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote II.18
It comes as no surprise to anyone to hear that Cervantes’ masterful Don Quixote is a multi-layered work. At once a parody of chivalrous romances and a critique of the emerging bourgeois world, Don Quixote is so stratified as to provoke wonder. However, to my own very limited knowledge, no-one has so far pointed out the parallels between the Manchegan knight’s delusions and the doctrines of the Calvinistic churches—which, by 1615, were well known, even in Spain.
Consider the passage above, with its obvious similarities to Calvin’s observations on total depravity and irresistible grace. For Calvin, there could be no reception of the Gospel without a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. This doctrine was propounded in marked contrast to the Thomistic model of naturally available knowledge of God. Interestingly, in context the above statement of Don Quixote serves as evidence of his insanity. As Don Lorenzo observes after having heard this comment, “[H]e is a gallant madman.” Could it be that one aspect of Don Quixote is an assessment of early Calvinism? I should like to think so, and I suspect that no-one will bother to stop me.
Obviously Cervantes’ greatest novel is a fascinating work; how much more intricate does it become, though, if a satire of Calvinism is thrown in gratis? Consider, for example, that the Calvinists posited presbyterianism as the original Christianity, a hypothesis which many would consider akin to Don Quixote’s insistent belief in the literal existence of the knights-errant. Additionally, there is the devotion of Don Quixote to his books of chivalry: books which he accepts at face value, books which he considers imbued with an absolute authority which trumps all others.
And then there is the episode of the windmills. Ah, how tantalizing it is to imagine a seventeenth-century Roman Catholic author lampooning Calvinism with this scene! But the most touching aspect of the whole portrayal is the wistfulness with which Cervantes regards his knight’s illusions.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Cynics, Windmills, and Ex-Lutherans
“There have been many writers who have not known how to mingle the useful with the pleasant, and in consequence their work has come to nought, in spite of all their toil. As they are unable to imitate Diogenes as philosopher or scholar, they go to the opposite extreme and blindly and licentiously try to imitate him as cynic.”
-Francisco Marquez Torres, state censor of Spain, in his official approbation of Don Quixote, Book II, published 1615
“Unable to imitate Diogenes”; of how many people could that be said? In fact, who has ever been able to imitate Diogenes? Diogenes was precisely that prototypical man whom one remembers particularly for those traits which no-one could ever meaningfully mimic. (By the way, the Jesus seminar should get a clue from this: if Jesus of Nazareth was a Cynic, he was hopelessly uninteresting when compared to his forbear.)
Be that as it may, Marquez Torres has a point. However futile it may be to attempt building Diogenes’ platform, there have been multitudes who have tried to speak from it. But perhaps I have spoken rashly of Diogenes’ inimitability; perhaps there are those who can manage both his radical critique as well as his capture of the public imagination. Marquez Torres seems to be saying that whoever would assay one successfully must assay both simultaneously. And he is not far wrong in remarking that Miguel de Cervantes achieved both with his monumental Don Quixote. But he is also correct in his condemnation of those throngs who obnoxiously seize on one trait without grasping the other.
Marquez Torres has, I believe, hit upon an explanation for the unrelenting tediousness of our age. There are legions of opinionators today, but how many of them will be memorable in a later age? How many of them, once the urgencies of the moment have passed, will scorch their marks upon the mind the way Diogenes still does? How many of these anointed sages can do, for example, what Richard John Neuhaus has done with his idea of “the naked public square”? Neuhaus is an uncommonly good opinionator, but what truly distinguishes him is the fact that he has produced an enervating metaphor that continues to captivate the imaginations of many.
What Marquez Torres says to our opinion-guzzling age is this: If, in your search for the good, you’re not capable of taking a lantern with you to the marketplace in the daytime, stay at home.
-Francisco Marquez Torres, state censor of Spain, in his official approbation of Don Quixote, Book II, published 1615
“Unable to imitate Diogenes”; of how many people could that be said? In fact, who has ever been able to imitate Diogenes? Diogenes was precisely that prototypical man whom one remembers particularly for those traits which no-one could ever meaningfully mimic. (By the way, the Jesus seminar should get a clue from this: if Jesus of Nazareth was a Cynic, he was hopelessly uninteresting when compared to his forbear.)
Be that as it may, Marquez Torres has a point. However futile it may be to attempt building Diogenes’ platform, there have been multitudes who have tried to speak from it. But perhaps I have spoken rashly of Diogenes’ inimitability; perhaps there are those who can manage both his radical critique as well as his capture of the public imagination. Marquez Torres seems to be saying that whoever would assay one successfully must assay both simultaneously. And he is not far wrong in remarking that Miguel de Cervantes achieved both with his monumental Don Quixote. But he is also correct in his condemnation of those throngs who obnoxiously seize on one trait without grasping the other.
Marquez Torres has, I believe, hit upon an explanation for the unrelenting tediousness of our age. There are legions of opinionators today, but how many of them will be memorable in a later age? How many of them, once the urgencies of the moment have passed, will scorch their marks upon the mind the way Diogenes still does? How many of these anointed sages can do, for example, what Richard John Neuhaus has done with his idea of “the naked public square”? Neuhaus is an uncommonly good opinionator, but what truly distinguishes him is the fact that he has produced an enervating metaphor that continues to captivate the imaginations of many.
What Marquez Torres says to our opinion-guzzling age is this: If, in your search for the good, you’re not capable of taking a lantern with you to the marketplace in the daytime, stay at home.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Dude, That Is SO Derivative
Christian culture is derivative e.g. Augustine's Platonism, Aquinas' Aristotelianism, Calvin's humanism. Christian culture is dependent on successful derivation.
Christian culture is also dependent on successful transformation of derived cultural forms. Eg. Scholasticism and natural law.
Christian culture is also dependent on successful transformation of derived cultural forms. Eg. Scholasticism and natural law.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Logically Speaking
For everyone's benefit, let us avoid romanticizing the days when "everyone" studied some form of logic. Familiarity with the discipline has never implied its consistent or appropriate use. However, now that logic is rarely studied at all, appeals to it are for the most part either amusingly or annoyingly meaningless. Does that seem too harsh? Consider that a speaker appeals to logic; it is unlikely that he himself is familiar with the discipline in any form, and even less likely that a majority of his hearers are. Which makes his appeal to logic about as substantive as an appeal to nano-computation.
But the funny thing about logic is, as much as it is spurned in study, it still retains powerful emotional ties to the popular mind. This emotional tug of logic on the nous of the populace is explicable by a lingering affection for reason; it is ironic, though, since rigorous rationality is the last thing the poster [post-everything] mind desires. Logic is the bomb-shell ex that you sometimes remember fondly but can't stand in person.
More ironic than the poster's incantation of logic in an affectionate though meaningless manner is what he means when he says "logic" or "logical." Even a brief examination of a popular address in which some form of the noun "logic" occurs will reveal that the speaker most likely intends something along the lines of "this makes sense to me." Thus, "This is the only logical way of looking at x" becomes intelligible as "This is the only way of looking at x that makes sense to me." The poster mind has even succeeded in vaporizing logic via the narcissistic ego.
Of course, logic is not yet as arcane a discipline as, say, Latin. The academy still occasionally seeks to implement it--usually in philosophical or theological papers. However, outside scholarly writing, the appeal to logic is usually just a "red herring" on the way to another non sequitur.
But the funny thing about logic is, as much as it is spurned in study, it still retains powerful emotional ties to the popular mind. This emotional tug of logic on the nous of the populace is explicable by a lingering affection for reason; it is ironic, though, since rigorous rationality is the last thing the poster [post-everything] mind desires. Logic is the bomb-shell ex that you sometimes remember fondly but can't stand in person.
More ironic than the poster's incantation of logic in an affectionate though meaningless manner is what he means when he says "logic" or "logical." Even a brief examination of a popular address in which some form of the noun "logic" occurs will reveal that the speaker most likely intends something along the lines of "this makes sense to me." Thus, "This is the only logical way of looking at x" becomes intelligible as "This is the only way of looking at x that makes sense to me." The poster mind has even succeeded in vaporizing logic via the narcissistic ego.
Of course, logic is not yet as arcane a discipline as, say, Latin. The academy still occasionally seeks to implement it--usually in philosophical or theological papers. However, outside scholarly writing, the appeal to logic is usually just a "red herring" on the way to another non sequitur.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Joe Ratzinger Needs to Grow a Pair
American Philistine is highly disappointed with Joe Ratzinger's flip-flopping on the "evil and inhuman" Mohammed quotation. Since when does the Pope apologize to anybody, let alone to a bunch of Mahometans who somehow manage to get in a tizzy over a serene and erudite speech?
And where are the angry Protestants in all of this? Joe R. did not directly criticize Mahometans, in fact his speech had little to do with them at all (see the link below), but he did single out Protestants for criticism. Where is Rick Warren demanding that Joe R. find a better purpose in Germany than taking pot-shots at Protestants?
Pope’s Regrets Over Statement Fail to Quiet a Storm of Protests - New York Times
And where are the angry Protestants in all of this? Joe R. did not directly criticize Mahometans, in fact his speech had little to do with them at all (see the link below), but he did single out Protestants for criticism. Where is Rick Warren demanding that Joe R. find a better purpose in Germany than taking pot-shots at Protestants?
Pope’s Regrets Over Statement Fail to Quiet a Storm of Protests - New York Times
Friday, September 15, 2006
Joe Ratzinger Pisses Off Ragheads
Nobody would mistake me for being pro-Catholic. Protestantism is in my blood and my brain, to the extent that my main interest in Ireland, where I will be going next year for my anniversary, is meeting the Orangemen. That said, Joe Ratzinger did a helluva job on this speech, and I believe that, with typically Protestant reservations, he ought to be commended and defended against the suicide-bombing peoples of the world.
The speech:
Meeting with the representatives of science at the University of Regensburg
The speech:
Meeting with the representatives of science at the University of Regensburg
Annie Dillard on Seeing
I'm re-reading Annie Dillard's remarkable Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. The following is an excerpt:
"I was sitting on the sycamore log bridge with the sunset at my back, watching the shiners the size of minnows who were feeding over the muddy sand in skittery schools. Again and again, one fish, then another, turned for a split second across the current and flash! the sun shot out from its silver side. I couldn't watch for it. It was always just happening somewhere else, and it drew my vision just as it disappeared: flash, like a sudden dazzle of the thinnest blade, a sparking over a dun and olive ground at chance intervals from every direction. Then I noticed white specks, some sort of pale petals, small, floating from under my feet on the creek's surface, very slow and steady. So I blurred my eyes and gazed towards the brim of my hat and saw a new world. I saw the pale white circles roll up, roll up, like the world's turning, mute and perfect, and I saw the linear flashes, gleaming silver, like stars being born at random down the a rolling scroll of time. Something broke and something opened. I filled up like a new wineskin. I breathed an air like light; I saw a light like water. I was the lip of a fountain the creek filled forever; I was ether, the leaf in the zephyr; I was flesh-flake, feather, bone.
When I see this way I see truly. As Thoreau says, I return to my senses. I am the man who watches the baseball game in silence in an empty stadium. I see the game purely; I'm abstracted and dazed. When it's all over and the white-suited players lope off the green field to their shadowed dugouts, I leap to my feet; I cheer and cheer.
But I can't go out and try to see this way. I'll fail, I'll go mad. All I can do is try to gag the commentator, to hush the noise of useless interior babble that keeps me from seeing just as surely as a newspaper dangled before my eyes. The effort is really a discipline requiring a lifetime of dedicated struggle; it marks the literature of saints and monks of every order East and West, under every rule and no rule, discalced and shod. The world's spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind's muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness. Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness; you raise your sights; you look along it, mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and and gazing beyond it into the the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance. 'Launch into the deep,' say Jacques Ellul, 'and you shall see.'
The secret of seeing, then, is the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise. I return from one walk knowing where the kildeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return from the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name. Litanies hum in my ears; my tongue flaps in my mouth Ailinon, alleluia! I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff."
"I was sitting on the sycamore log bridge with the sunset at my back, watching the shiners the size of minnows who were feeding over the muddy sand in skittery schools. Again and again, one fish, then another, turned for a split second across the current and flash! the sun shot out from its silver side. I couldn't watch for it. It was always just happening somewhere else, and it drew my vision just as it disappeared: flash, like a sudden dazzle of the thinnest blade, a sparking over a dun and olive ground at chance intervals from every direction. Then I noticed white specks, some sort of pale petals, small, floating from under my feet on the creek's surface, very slow and steady. So I blurred my eyes and gazed towards the brim of my hat and saw a new world. I saw the pale white circles roll up, roll up, like the world's turning, mute and perfect, and I saw the linear flashes, gleaming silver, like stars being born at random down the a rolling scroll of time. Something broke and something opened. I filled up like a new wineskin. I breathed an air like light; I saw a light like water. I was the lip of a fountain the creek filled forever; I was ether, the leaf in the zephyr; I was flesh-flake, feather, bone.
When I see this way I see truly. As Thoreau says, I return to my senses. I am the man who watches the baseball game in silence in an empty stadium. I see the game purely; I'm abstracted and dazed. When it's all over and the white-suited players lope off the green field to their shadowed dugouts, I leap to my feet; I cheer and cheer.
But I can't go out and try to see this way. I'll fail, I'll go mad. All I can do is try to gag the commentator, to hush the noise of useless interior babble that keeps me from seeing just as surely as a newspaper dangled before my eyes. The effort is really a discipline requiring a lifetime of dedicated struggle; it marks the literature of saints and monks of every order East and West, under every rule and no rule, discalced and shod. The world's spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind's muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness. Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness; you raise your sights; you look along it, mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and and gazing beyond it into the the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance. 'Launch into the deep,' say Jacques Ellul, 'and you shall see.'
The secret of seeing, then, is the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise. I return from one walk knowing where the kildeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return from the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name. Litanies hum in my ears; my tongue flaps in my mouth Ailinon, alleluia! I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff."
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Why We Watch Movies
This post is a draft of a presentation to be given on opening night at the Long Island Movie Night event.
Why, as Reformed Christians, do we watch movies? What justification, if any, can we give for spending a couple of hours at a time sitting passively in front of a screen? Beyond that, how can we rationalize inundating ourselves with the words, images, and actions of films which so often militate against our faith and the commandments of our God?
Film has been called "the art form of the twentieth (and, by extension, of the early twenty-first) century." Motion pictures have taken over the place formerly held by other public art forms in previous centuries. Whereas once painting, drama, literature, and music were important forms of public art, forms that had a nearly universal appeal and a massive popular and communal significance, we find that, to a large extent, film is left to us now as the one incarnation of art which we all enjoy together.
And that is not neccesarily a bad thing. Film has a remarkable capacity to incorporate the salient features of other art forms. Film unifies in its single format components of drama, literature, music, visual arts, and so on, and provides them with a nearly limitless platform for expression.
So far I have explained why Joe Pagan might justifiably be interested in watching movies. But what about our case as Christians?
Consider Augustine's comment on Exodus 12, where the Israelites are recorded as taking the riches of Egypt with them when they left:
Why, as Reformed Christians, do we watch movies? What justification, if any, can we give for spending a couple of hours at a time sitting passively in front of a screen? Beyond that, how can we rationalize inundating ourselves with the words, images, and actions of films which so often militate against our faith and the commandments of our God?
Film has been called "the art form of the twentieth (and, by extension, of the early twenty-first) century." Motion pictures have taken over the place formerly held by other public art forms in previous centuries. Whereas once painting, drama, literature, and music were important forms of public art, forms that had a nearly universal appeal and a massive popular and communal significance, we find that, to a large extent, film is left to us now as the one incarnation of art which we all enjoy together.
And that is not neccesarily a bad thing. Film has a remarkable capacity to incorporate the salient features of other art forms. Film unifies in its single format components of drama, literature, music, visual arts, and so on, and provides them with a nearly limitless platform for expression.
So far I have explained why Joe Pagan might justifiably be interested in watching movies. But what about our case as Christians?
Consider Augustine's comment on Exodus 12, where the Israelites are recorded as taking the riches of Egypt with them when they left:
“Whatever has been rightly said by the heathen, we must appropriate to
the gospel. Their garments, also--that is, human institutions such as are
we
This concept, known as "plundering the Egyptians," is related to the Creation Mandate in which God commanded Man to subdue the earth and rule over it in obedience to Him. It also ties in to the Great Commission, where Christ ordered his servants to disciple the nations. This is part of what we ask for when we pray, "Thy Kingdom come." We see this approach to pagan culture in Paul's actions on Mars Hill; we catch a glimpse of it in John's Apocalyptic vision of the "wealth of the nations" being brought into the New Jerusalem.
As Christians we are to privileged to discerningly appreciate the legitimate cultural productions of the world's societies, and to seek to appropriate what is good in them for the expansion of the Kingdom of God. By examining such productions in the light of God's revelation, we separate the wheat from the chaff, praising what is excellent and condemning what is wicked. For, as Augustine, Calvin, and Kuyper have taught us, whatever is excellent among the heathen is the work of the Spirit of God.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Churchy Church
I still remember the cute young couple that arrived at our small, thriving church in Southern Illinois. I couldn't have been older than 12 at the time, but my mother's comment to me has managed to survive the intervening years: "They're not used to it here. They come from a churchy church."
Odd, now that I think about it, that she should say that. Her statement was somewhat cryptic, of course, unless you knew her. As a refugee from superficial evangelicalism, she had developed a reflexive fear of a program-heavy Protestantism that emphasized appearances and lingo at the expense of community and day-to-day obedience. She had found safety in our local PCA congregation, where young families embraced the Reformed faith with enthusiasm and sincerely struggled to consistently live out its ramifications. The vitality of this congregation was obvious, in spite of, or perhaps because of, its lack of a youth group, ladies' Bible study, cell groups, outreach committee, etc. Put another way, our church was vital because it was an organism, not an artifice.
I'm too familiar with the anarchy attendant upon the "home-church" movement to naively think that a lack of organization generates an organic community. But I have had opportunity in the last few years to discover that the temptation to create a "churchy church," where programs, committees, and general busyness crowd out that sense of "bodyness" that one finds so rarely, is a very real one, even in the most ardently Reformed communions. Maybe Aristotle's "golden mean" is not a myth, but a secular statement of the sacred imperative to "turn not to the right hand, nor to the left."
Odd, now that I think about it, that she should say that. Her statement was somewhat cryptic, of course, unless you knew her. As a refugee from superficial evangelicalism, she had developed a reflexive fear of a program-heavy Protestantism that emphasized appearances and lingo at the expense of community and day-to-day obedience. She had found safety in our local PCA congregation, where young families embraced the Reformed faith with enthusiasm and sincerely struggled to consistently live out its ramifications. The vitality of this congregation was obvious, in spite of, or perhaps because of, its lack of a youth group, ladies' Bible study, cell groups, outreach committee, etc. Put another way, our church was vital because it was an organism, not an artifice.
I'm too familiar with the anarchy attendant upon the "home-church" movement to naively think that a lack of organization generates an organic community. But I have had opportunity in the last few years to discover that the temptation to create a "churchy church," where programs, committees, and general busyness crowd out that sense of "bodyness" that one finds so rarely, is a very real one, even in the most ardently Reformed communions. Maybe Aristotle's "golden mean" is not a myth, but a secular statement of the sacred imperative to "turn not to the right hand, nor to the left."
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Black Helicopters over America
I'm a sucker for highbrow magazines. Delectable prose, nuanced thoughts, what's not to like? Sometimes even the poems are palatable. Sure, the authors are usually orthodox Leftists, but I've become adept at ignoring their hatred of God, country, religious people, children, rich people, white people, and Jews. Once in a while, though, the Left comes up with a whopper that even the Right couldn't match.
Like this one, from E.L. Doctorow's essay, "Notes on the History of Fiction," from the "Fiction Issue 2006" of The Atlantic:
"In the Iliad there are many gods; in the Bible, the God to whom the Biblical writers cede authorship. But under many gods or one God, the stories told during this time were presumed to be true by the fact of being told. The very act of telling a story carried
a presumption of truth."
This seems more a description of Doctorow's audience than an observation concerning Bronze Age peoples. Doctorow's readers seem remarkably credulous toward statements made, for example, by The New York Times or CNN. These enlightened persons do precisely what Doctorow describes Bronze Agers doing: believing a story because it is told. If anything, Bronze Agers were less credulous than Posters: the stories believed and accepted by the ancient peoples (even if they were as naively accepted as Doctorow imagines, which I doubt) were generated by trusted members of the community, not by highly-paid employees of capitalist corporations.
Doctorow seems to be indulging in an epistomological wet dream that even John Locke considered far-fetched: the ideal of a deeply incredulous sovereign individual who examines every belief he entertains, measuring its relation to the indubitable, foundational truths of sensory perception. Locke, as much as he did to advance the popularity of this ideal, didn't think it possible, at least not for most people. 300 years later, nobody seriously entertains this as an epistemological model; the reason being the obvious, common-sense one (cf. Thomas Reid) that human persons are compelled by both inclination and experience to exercise credulity toward certain sources. The issue, contra Doctorow, is not credulity; credulity is a necessary and inescapable feature of human consciousness. The issue is rather the directedness of credulity. And, faced with a choice to believe American literati or the apostles and prophets, I think I'll hedge my bets.
Like this one, from E.L. Doctorow's essay, "Notes on the History of Fiction," from the "Fiction Issue 2006" of The Atlantic:
"In the Iliad there are many gods; in the Bible, the God to whom the Biblical writers cede authorship. But under many gods or one God, the stories told during this time were presumed to be true by the fact of being told. The very act of telling a story carried
a presumption of truth."
This seems more a description of Doctorow's audience than an observation concerning Bronze Age peoples. Doctorow's readers seem remarkably credulous toward statements made, for example, by The New York Times or CNN. These enlightened persons do precisely what Doctorow describes Bronze Agers doing: believing a story because it is told. If anything, Bronze Agers were less credulous than Posters: the stories believed and accepted by the ancient peoples (even if they were as naively accepted as Doctorow imagines, which I doubt) were generated by trusted members of the community, not by highly-paid employees of capitalist corporations.
Doctorow seems to be indulging in an epistomological wet dream that even John Locke considered far-fetched: the ideal of a deeply incredulous sovereign individual who examines every belief he entertains, measuring its relation to the indubitable, foundational truths of sensory perception. Locke, as much as he did to advance the popularity of this ideal, didn't think it possible, at least not for most people. 300 years later, nobody seriously entertains this as an epistemological model; the reason being the obvious, common-sense one (cf. Thomas Reid) that human persons are compelled by both inclination and experience to exercise credulity toward certain sources. The issue, contra Doctorow, is not credulity; credulity is a necessary and inescapable feature of human consciousness. The issue is rather the directedness of credulity. And, faced with a choice to believe American literati or the apostles and prophets, I think I'll hedge my bets.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
The Will to Empire
"Too Late for Empire," squealed the cover of The Nation as I browsed through magazines at the Lincoln Square Barnes & Noble. "True," I thought, "the United States' opportunity for empire, at least as far as the psyche of the citizens is concerned, passed a couple of generations ago, if we ever had such an opportunity." I reached for the magazine, since I remembered having seen a decent article in it once--but that was before Iraq, and before Neil Postman died. Sure enough, though the author laboriously sought to escape regurgitating drivel, he regurgitated drivel. Blaarrgghh. Organic produce of the American Left. I bought the "fiction issue" of Atlantic instead.
Fast-forward 24 hours: blood pressure rising, I'm sitting at a table in the church basement, having completely lost control of the Spanish-language Bible class that I'm supposed to be teaching. I try to interrupt the parallel conversations politely, to no avail. I stifle my anger, I walk to the bathroom, I peek in on my wife's babysitting, silently signing suicidal handguns to her as I drag myself back to the group that seems not to have noticed my absence. Sigh.
As my wife drives home, I remember the concessions that I made at work that day, which weren't necessary, but I made them anyway, without much fuss....
Reflecting on the day's events, I begin thinking that Nietzsche was right: my mentality is that of a slave, worse--of a bovine. I, member of a nation that cannot summon the will to empire, myself cannot summon the volitional force to impact those around me. Instead, I concede. I acquiesce. I walk away. I am weak, in the final analysis, and the world, insofar as it knows me, recognizes that I am weak. I am symptomatic of a generation so diseased in its voluntas that films like "American Beauty" actually resonate with people. Homer Simpson is intelligible in this society.
After letting Nietzsche shame me, I go on to Ayn Rand. This Atlas can't shrug, both because he's psychologically incapable of doing anything that inconsiderate, and also because none of the world's weight rides on his shoulders. An ontological superfluity. A metaphysical exercise in double-speak: I champion Constantinianism and patriarchy, but only from the safety of my keyboard. Away from it, I am a study in subjugation.
I drift off to sleep, extrapolating myself by millions, and imagining a future world in which China, India, and the Caliphate vie for world control, having relegated the reluctant West to ignominy and extinction. Maybe, I drowse, after we have squandered the corpus of power through weakness of spirit, our grandchildren will at least have the luxury of despising "niceness" as an archaic vice.
Fast-forward 24 hours: blood pressure rising, I'm sitting at a table in the church basement, having completely lost control of the Spanish-language Bible class that I'm supposed to be teaching. I try to interrupt the parallel conversations politely, to no avail. I stifle my anger, I walk to the bathroom, I peek in on my wife's babysitting, silently signing suicidal handguns to her as I drag myself back to the group that seems not to have noticed my absence. Sigh.
As my wife drives home, I remember the concessions that I made at work that day, which weren't necessary, but I made them anyway, without much fuss....
Reflecting on the day's events, I begin thinking that Nietzsche was right: my mentality is that of a slave, worse--of a bovine. I, member of a nation that cannot summon the will to empire, myself cannot summon the volitional force to impact those around me. Instead, I concede. I acquiesce. I walk away. I am weak, in the final analysis, and the world, insofar as it knows me, recognizes that I am weak. I am symptomatic of a generation so diseased in its voluntas that films like "American Beauty" actually resonate with people. Homer Simpson is intelligible in this society.
After letting Nietzsche shame me, I go on to Ayn Rand. This Atlas can't shrug, both because he's psychologically incapable of doing anything that inconsiderate, and also because none of the world's weight rides on his shoulders. An ontological superfluity. A metaphysical exercise in double-speak: I champion Constantinianism and patriarchy, but only from the safety of my keyboard. Away from it, I am a study in subjugation.
I drift off to sleep, extrapolating myself by millions, and imagining a future world in which China, India, and the Caliphate vie for world control, having relegated the reluctant West to ignominy and extinction. Maybe, I drowse, after we have squandered the corpus of power through weakness of spirit, our grandchildren will at least have the luxury of despising "niceness" as an archaic vice.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Divine Subversion
Last weekend, I committed an uncharacteristic oversight: I forgot my book at home when Tarayn and I went to the beach. In the car, however, I had a "New Horizons" (the OPC denominational magazine), the current "Banner of Truth" newsletter, and a Bible. I skimmed both periodicals, and then decided to experiment with speed-reading books of the Bible in order to get an over-all feel for the content. I ended up reading Micah.
Reflecting on the strangeness of the prophets, I thought of the contrasts between what I had just read from 2 reputable Reformed monthlies and what I had encountered in Micah. Other than obvious differences such as inspiration, canonicity, ancient Near-Eastern situatedness, and the like, I was struck by the fact that both periodicals were noticeably self-congratulatory, whereas Micah was not, and that both magazines were rather arcane in their content and concerns, whereas Micah was speaking from within his culture to the pressing issues of his day. More than that: he was creating the issues of his day from within the matrix of his society.
Pondering these differences, especially the second one, prompted a recollection of my church history professor's rule of thumb for separating heroes from villains in the annals of the church: "In every generation, there are those who withdraw from the age, those who go along with the age, and those who confront the age." Simplistic, yes, but there's truth in it. Let us call those who withdraw "separationists," those who accomodate "accomodationists," and let us designate those who confront "subversives." I designate those who confront the age "subversives" because prophetic effectiveness seems to be tied to a limited integration within a societal universe. Micah spoke, not in generalities, but as one who was familiar with the places and the practices of Israel. He was a participant in his culture as far as that was conscionable; and in what was unconscionable, he confronted as one who knew--that is, he subverted from within.
Also, as I read a disappointing article from Ian Murray on John Knox, I thought that another difference between the prophet and the "Banner" articles was the depth of the sources. (I am speaking of both texts as merely human documents at this point, of course.) There seemed to be an existential de profundis in the prophet's words that I could not detect, in any degree, in the magazines'; a depth, not merely of feeling, but of experience. I think that you all know what I mean: you have heard a gardener speak movingly of her plants, and you have read a poet speaking tediously of love. The de profundis aspect has little or nothing to do with the topic, and everything to do with the experiential nature of the knowledge that is shared. Micah moved me, it startled me, it disoriented me, and yet there is much that is repetitious in his book, if one reads the other prophets. However, I found little else but tedium in my periodicals, mostly, I thought, because there was no depth of experience in them (also partly because the prose was bad).
Returning again to the arcane nature of the articles that I hastily read, it seemed to me that in the concern of the orthodox to avoid accomodationism, we have slipped, sometimes intentionally, into a separationism that has rendered us utterly irrelevant to our culture. (As a side note, this struck me again recently on a visit to a heavily gay neighborhood in the West Village. I couldn't imagine what we could say there that wouldn't make us seem like Amishmen.) If we are to avoid consignment to a parallel existence in this culture, I believe that we must rediscover a "divine subversion," a speaking de profundis from within in order to deconstruct and re-form. It's been done before; look what Constantine the Great did with Roman government, or what Calvin did with the Renaissance and Scholasticism. Submersion in order to facilitate subversion; I have every confidence that it's possible. But let us take care that we do it de profundis; the superstructure crashes down much harder that way.
Reflecting on the strangeness of the prophets, I thought of the contrasts between what I had just read from 2 reputable Reformed monthlies and what I had encountered in Micah. Other than obvious differences such as inspiration, canonicity, ancient Near-Eastern situatedness, and the like, I was struck by the fact that both periodicals were noticeably self-congratulatory, whereas Micah was not, and that both magazines were rather arcane in their content and concerns, whereas Micah was speaking from within his culture to the pressing issues of his day. More than that: he was creating the issues of his day from within the matrix of his society.
Pondering these differences, especially the second one, prompted a recollection of my church history professor's rule of thumb for separating heroes from villains in the annals of the church: "In every generation, there are those who withdraw from the age, those who go along with the age, and those who confront the age." Simplistic, yes, but there's truth in it. Let us call those who withdraw "separationists," those who accomodate "accomodationists," and let us designate those who confront "subversives." I designate those who confront the age "subversives" because prophetic effectiveness seems to be tied to a limited integration within a societal universe. Micah spoke, not in generalities, but as one who was familiar with the places and the practices of Israel. He was a participant in his culture as far as that was conscionable; and in what was unconscionable, he confronted as one who knew--that is, he subverted from within.
Also, as I read a disappointing article from Ian Murray on John Knox, I thought that another difference between the prophet and the "Banner" articles was the depth of the sources. (I am speaking of both texts as merely human documents at this point, of course.) There seemed to be an existential de profundis in the prophet's words that I could not detect, in any degree, in the magazines'; a depth, not merely of feeling, but of experience. I think that you all know what I mean: you have heard a gardener speak movingly of her plants, and you have read a poet speaking tediously of love. The de profundis aspect has little or nothing to do with the topic, and everything to do with the experiential nature of the knowledge that is shared. Micah moved me, it startled me, it disoriented me, and yet there is much that is repetitious in his book, if one reads the other prophets. However, I found little else but tedium in my periodicals, mostly, I thought, because there was no depth of experience in them (also partly because the prose was bad).
Returning again to the arcane nature of the articles that I hastily read, it seemed to me that in the concern of the orthodox to avoid accomodationism, we have slipped, sometimes intentionally, into a separationism that has rendered us utterly irrelevant to our culture. (As a side note, this struck me again recently on a visit to a heavily gay neighborhood in the West Village. I couldn't imagine what we could say there that wouldn't make us seem like Amishmen.) If we are to avoid consignment to a parallel existence in this culture, I believe that we must rediscover a "divine subversion," a speaking de profundis from within in order to deconstruct and re-form. It's been done before; look what Constantine the Great did with Roman government, or what Calvin did with the Renaissance and Scholasticism. Submersion in order to facilitate subversion; I have every confidence that it's possible. But let us take care that we do it de profundis; the superstructure crashes down much harder that way.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Quotation of the Day
"Life is a stupid, senseless accretion of mundanities. Enjoy it."
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Cogito Ergo WHAT? Or, It's a Geodesic, Stupid
As many of you know, American Philistine exists in part to assist in the translation of orthodox Presbyterianism from the antiquated idiom of Victorianism into the dialect of the "post-everything" person (a dialect which we call "poster parlance"). However, as I told a dear friend during a recent cigar-smoke-and-rum inundated evening, it is sometimes difficult to imagine what shape a faithfully translated Presbyterianism would take. It seems to me that one helpful move in creating this new incarnation would be to exit the Cartesian-Newtonian universe that we lamentably seem to still inhabit.
I've been reading Heidegger's Being and Time recently, and his discussion of Descartes started me thinking about orthodoxy's penchant for operating within a Newtonian universe, with all the Cartesian baggage that that universe entails. The only problem being this: several years back, there was this dude named Einstein, and he kind of interrupted the whole Newtonian gig, much as we all preferred the Newtonian thing. And then, around the same time, some dog named Heidegger came out with this anti-metaphysical phenomenological ontology that kind of turned into existentialism when Sartre and Camus got a hold of it. So, what happened is kind of like this: people don't really live in a causal, dualized universe anymore. They live in a relativized, existentialized universe.
Derrida, for example, has made bank with the idea of "curved space," the lines of which are known as "geodesics." He fruitfully uses Einsteinian physics as metaphorical bolstering for his infinite play. Meanwhile, we're still talking about moths and flames. To make matters worse, we still rely on the Platonic tripartite breakdown of the soul, which is hopelessly antiquated now that "the ghost in the machine" model of humanity has been discontinued. Like it or not, we are in a quantum universe, with all the counter-intuitiveness that's entailed by that. And the human inhabitants of that quantum universe are deeply imbued with a sense of "the horizon of their ownmost possiblities," to use Marty's catchy phrase. So, as a step toward the translation of orthodoxy, I suggest that we locate the correct universe and life form first.
I've been reading Heidegger's Being and Time recently, and his discussion of Descartes started me thinking about orthodoxy's penchant for operating within a Newtonian universe, with all the Cartesian baggage that that universe entails. The only problem being this: several years back, there was this dude named Einstein, and he kind of interrupted the whole Newtonian gig, much as we all preferred the Newtonian thing. And then, around the same time, some dog named Heidegger came out with this anti-metaphysical phenomenological ontology that kind of turned into existentialism when Sartre and Camus got a hold of it. So, what happened is kind of like this: people don't really live in a causal, dualized universe anymore. They live in a relativized, existentialized universe.
Derrida, for example, has made bank with the idea of "curved space," the lines of which are known as "geodesics." He fruitfully uses Einsteinian physics as metaphorical bolstering for his infinite play. Meanwhile, we're still talking about moths and flames. To make matters worse, we still rely on the Platonic tripartite breakdown of the soul, which is hopelessly antiquated now that "the ghost in the machine" model of humanity has been discontinued. Like it or not, we are in a quantum universe, with all the counter-intuitiveness that's entailed by that. And the human inhabitants of that quantum universe are deeply imbued with a sense of "the horizon of their ownmost possiblities," to use Marty's catchy phrase. So, as a step toward the translation of orthodoxy, I suggest that we locate the correct universe and life form first.
Heidegger for Today
From Being and Time:
"Irrationalism, as the counterpart of rationalism, talks about the things to which rationalism is blind, but only with a squint."
"Irrationalism, as the counterpart of rationalism, talks about the things to which rationalism is blind, but only with a squint."
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Quotation of the Day
"Centuries from now, anthropologists will sift through our commercials instead of our art, because the ads will tell them what our fears and dreams were circa 2006."
-John Devore in The New York Sun
-John Devore in The New York Sun
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Kitchen Tools Gut Enlightenment
Okay, so this is old news. But how many of you have actually seen "Kitchen Stories," Bent Hamer's 2003 off-beat Norwegian comedy? That's what I thought. I, American Philistine that I am, saw it in Portland, OR, when it came out, and I just watched it again with my wife the other day. In my aspiringly cinephilic mind, there is no other film that so handily and winsomely eviscerates the inhuman Weltanshauung of the Enlightenment. And "Kitchen Stories" dismembers the Enlightenment precisely for its inhumanity, which is the aspect that I personally find most hateful.
As far as plot summary goes, the idea is that this 1950s Swedish home design outfit, after its success in mapping the traffic patterns of the Swedish housewife and developing an efficient kitchen, decides to send a team of observers to Norway to study bachelors. The bulk of the story dryly and wryly points up the ridiculousness and misanthropy of the self-described "positivism" of the company's approach to tabulating the movements of the Norwegians, and fleshes out the blooming humanity of the Swede and the Norwegian as they escape the chilly grip of scientific materialism, objective rationality, and deontological ethics.
Kitchen Stories - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As far as plot summary goes, the idea is that this 1950s Swedish home design outfit, after its success in mapping the traffic patterns of the Swedish housewife and developing an efficient kitchen, decides to send a team of observers to Norway to study bachelors. The bulk of the story dryly and wryly points up the ridiculousness and misanthropy of the self-described "positivism" of the company's approach to tabulating the movements of the Norwegians, and fleshes out the blooming humanity of the Swede and the Norwegian as they escape the chilly grip of scientific materialism, objective rationality, and deontological ethics.
Kitchen Stories - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monday, July 24, 2006
I'm Not in a Declarative Mood
I had an epiphany this morning. It's part of my monthly subscription to www.epiphany.com. Their prices are quite reasonable, for those of you who enjoy the occasional burst of enlightenment. Foolishness aside, it did occur to me today that "post-everythings," as my pastors call contemporary persons, or "posters," as I prefer to name them, are rather shy of the verbal stance known as the declarative mood.
I stumbled on this odd revelation while discussing G.K. Chesterton with a co-worker. I lent this person Orthodoxy a while back, just as a non-threatening introduction to some key Christian concepts. The person volunteered today that some progress had been made in the book, so I inquired as to the person's impression. The reply was,"It's okay. Chesterton seems a little arrogant." It seemed strange to me that someone would think that; I purposely chose Chesterton because he's just so jovial. But then it occurred to me that universal assertoric statements of any kind, unless they are either trivialities or based on a canon of contemporaneity (e.g. world peace), probably are quite threatening to posters. Significant universal assertoric statements probably sound, to them, like the distant footfalls of the dreaded Totalizing Narrative.
Part of the professed purpose of this blog is translating pre-modern Presbyterianism into poster parlance (the other part of this blog's purpose being to provide Stephen N. Clark with a continuing source of entertainment). As I considered the fear and hysteria inspired by the approach of metanarrative, I wondered if part of the ineffectiveness of the orthodox church in our day is attributable to its insistence on continually speaking, on topics of universal significance, in the declarative mood. Could it be that we are taking an inappropriate "illocutionary stance," as it has been called by certain analytic philosophers? Can we find another, perhaps intermediate, illocutionary stance that will better serve the cause of truth in our day?
My suggestions are as follows: We should begin using the conditional mood (or the interrogative mood) more frequently, until we reach the point where the threatening nature of the declarative mood has been somewhat tamed. Posters generally consider the declarative mood simply an expression of personal opinion; perhaps we can soften some of that suspicion by couching our universal truth claims in the form of hypothetical syllogisms, since posters generally like hypothesizing (if there is water on Mars, does that mean that there is life in outer space?). We can at least learn to speak more frequently in the third person in order to give the posters some personal space--they do adore descriptions of the Other, as long as the Other stays far away. Or, if all the above seem cowardly, we can resort to speaking in the first person plural. Nothing scares the poster more than saying something so terrorizing as "I believe in God, the Father Almighty."
Please note that I am not suggesting that we abandon the declarative mood. That illocutionary stance is absolutely essential to the proclamation of our faith. I am just raising the possibility that we might be more effective if we made the scary doggy wear a cutesy sweater so that the poster-child isn't as scared of him.
Minimizing one's usage of the declarative mood does not necessitate the abandonment of meaningful content, even universally applicable meaningful content. Socrates famously used the interrogative mood almost to the exclusion of all others, and no-one has confused him with the Sophists. Maybe we need to learn Erasmus' famous prayer: "Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis."
Grammatical mood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I stumbled on this odd revelation while discussing G.K. Chesterton with a co-worker. I lent this person Orthodoxy a while back, just as a non-threatening introduction to some key Christian concepts. The person volunteered today that some progress had been made in the book, so I inquired as to the person's impression. The reply was,"It's okay. Chesterton seems a little arrogant." It seemed strange to me that someone would think that; I purposely chose Chesterton because he's just so jovial. But then it occurred to me that universal assertoric statements of any kind, unless they are either trivialities or based on a canon of contemporaneity (e.g. world peace), probably are quite threatening to posters. Significant universal assertoric statements probably sound, to them, like the distant footfalls of the dreaded Totalizing Narrative.
Part of the professed purpose of this blog is translating pre-modern Presbyterianism into poster parlance (the other part of this blog's purpose being to provide Stephen N. Clark with a continuing source of entertainment). As I considered the fear and hysteria inspired by the approach of metanarrative, I wondered if part of the ineffectiveness of the orthodox church in our day is attributable to its insistence on continually speaking, on topics of universal significance, in the declarative mood. Could it be that we are taking an inappropriate "illocutionary stance," as it has been called by certain analytic philosophers? Can we find another, perhaps intermediate, illocutionary stance that will better serve the cause of truth in our day?
My suggestions are as follows: We should begin using the conditional mood (or the interrogative mood) more frequently, until we reach the point where the threatening nature of the declarative mood has been somewhat tamed. Posters generally consider the declarative mood simply an expression of personal opinion; perhaps we can soften some of that suspicion by couching our universal truth claims in the form of hypothetical syllogisms, since posters generally like hypothesizing (if there is water on Mars, does that mean that there is life in outer space?). We can at least learn to speak more frequently in the third person in order to give the posters some personal space--they do adore descriptions of the Other, as long as the Other stays far away. Or, if all the above seem cowardly, we can resort to speaking in the first person plural. Nothing scares the poster more than saying something so terrorizing as "I believe in God, the Father Almighty."
Please note that I am not suggesting that we abandon the declarative mood. That illocutionary stance is absolutely essential to the proclamation of our faith. I am just raising the possibility that we might be more effective if we made the scary doggy wear a cutesy sweater so that the poster-child isn't as scared of him.
Minimizing one's usage of the declarative mood does not necessitate the abandonment of meaningful content, even universally applicable meaningful content. Socrates famously used the interrogative mood almost to the exclusion of all others, and no-one has confused him with the Sophists. Maybe we need to learn Erasmus' famous prayer: "Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis."
Grammatical mood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Friday, July 21, 2006
God's Preferential Option
I'm making headway in my Gustavo Gutierrez anthology; it's been an interesting journey so far. His concept of theology as reflection on praxis, as a "second step" following after action, seemed odd to me at first; how could a-theological praxis serve as a basis for theological reflection? I think maybe he means to say that pre-praxis theologizing should be as minimal as possible, with maximal theologizing following the minimally theologized praxis. I still don't know why that would be a desirable scenario, but at least it gives theologizing a theoretical possibility of being recognizably Christian. I also still don't know how theology could be primarily reflection on praxis in the first place; that seems incoherent. I suspect, utilizing the methods of Marxist analysis that Gutierrez so admires, that both theology and praxis would have to have been previously based on something other than the practice of the Church in order for his proposal to exude even the slightest whiff of plausibility (which it might lack anyway). That is, I'm Marxistly suspecting G. of constructing a parasitic system.
Well, I was harboring such a suspicion until I came across G's thesis of "God's preferential option for the oppressed." This is sometimes stated as "God's preferential option for the poor," but Gutierrez remarks that it holds true for all the oppressed: women, minorities, inhabitants of previously colonial territories. The notion that God intervenes in history primarily for the oppressed and, through them, for all men, seems a powerful concept to me. And this is why: it occurred to me last night that there are truly despised ones in the earth; they are an absolute under-class which even women, minoritities, post-colonials, and Gutierrez himself despise. These pariahs are rejected by both powerful and disenfranchised, both wealthy and unemployed; their way of life is continually mocked, their convictions maneuvered into the region of criminality. Their very presence in society is regarded as shameful. They are known as "orthodox Christians." It occurred to me that, using Gutierrez's reasoning, God could be seen as "exercising a preferential option" on behalf of orthodox Christians. And right then and there I decided that I love liberation theology.
Well, I was harboring such a suspicion until I came across G's thesis of "God's preferential option for the oppressed." This is sometimes stated as "God's preferential option for the poor," but Gutierrez remarks that it holds true for all the oppressed: women, minorities, inhabitants of previously colonial territories. The notion that God intervenes in history primarily for the oppressed and, through them, for all men, seems a powerful concept to me. And this is why: it occurred to me last night that there are truly despised ones in the earth; they are an absolute under-class which even women, minoritities, post-colonials, and Gutierrez himself despise. These pariahs are rejected by both powerful and disenfranchised, both wealthy and unemployed; their way of life is continually mocked, their convictions maneuvered into the region of criminality. Their very presence in society is regarded as shameful. They are known as "orthodox Christians." It occurred to me that, using Gutierrez's reasoning, God could be seen as "exercising a preferential option" on behalf of orthodox Christians. And right then and there I decided that I love liberation theology.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Courtesy of Comedy Central:
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"The Onion" Reports on Google
Google Announces Plan To Destroy All Information It Can't Index
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Executives at Google, the rapidly growing online-search company that promises to "organize the world's information," announced Monday the latest step in their expansion effort: a far-reaching plan to destroy all the information it is unable to index.
CEO Eric Schmidt speaks at Google's California headquarters
"Our users want the world to be as simple, clean, and accessible as the Google home page itself," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt at a press conference held in their corporate offices. "Soon, it will be."
The new project, dubbed Google Purge, will join such popular services as Google Images, Google News, and Google Maps, which catalogs the entire surface of the Earth using high-resolution satellites.
As a part of Purge's first phase, executives will destroy all copyrighted materials that cannot be searched by Google.
"A year ago, Google offered to scan every book on the planet for its Google Print project. Now, they are promising to burn the rest," John Battelle wrote in his widely read "Searchblog." "Thanks to Google Purge, you'll never have to worry that your search has missed some obscure book, because that book will no longer exist. And the same goes for movies, art, and music."
"Book burning is just the beginning," said Google co-founder Larry Page. "This fall, we'll unveil Google Sound, which will record and index all the noise on Earth. Is your baby sleeping soundly? Does your high-school sweetheart still talk about you? Google will have the answers."
Page added: "And thanks to Google Purge, anything our global microphone network can't pick up will be silenced by noise-cancellation machines in low-Earth orbit."
As a part of Phase One operations, Google executives will permanently erase the hard drive of any computer that is not already indexed by the Google Desktop Search.
"We believe that Google Desktop Search is the best way to unlock the information hidden on your hard drive," Schmidt said. "If you haven't given it a try, now's the time. In one week, the deleting begins."
Although Google executives are keeping many details about Google Purge under wraps, some analysts speculate that the categories of information Google will eventually index or destroy include handwritten correspondence, buried fossils, and private thoughts and feelings.
The company's new directive may explain its recent acquisition of Celera Genomics, the company that mapped the human genome, and its buildup of a vast army of laser-equipped robots.
"Google finally has what it needs to catalog the DNA of every organism on Earth," said analyst Imran Kahn of J.P. Morgan Chase. "Of course, some people might not want their DNA indexed. Hence, the robot army. It's crazy, it's brilliant—typical Google."
Google's robot army is rumored to include some 4 million cybernetic search-and-destroy units, each capable of capturing and scanning up to 100 humans per day. Said co-founder Sergey Brin: "The scanning will be relatively painless. Hey, it's Google. It'll be fun to be scanned by a Googlebot. But in the event people resist, the robots are programmed to liquify the brain."
Markets responded favorably to the announcement of Google Purge, with traders bidding up Google's share price by $1.24, to $285.92, in late trading after the announcement. But some critics of the company have found cause for complaint.
"This announcement is a red flag," said Daniel Brandt, founder of Google-Watch.org. "I certainly don't want to accuse of them having bad intentions. But this campaign of destruction and genocide raises some potential privacy concerns."
Brandt also expressed reservations about the company's new motto. Until yesterday's news conference, the company's unofficial slogan had been "Don't be evil." The slogan has now been expanded to "Don't be evil, unless it's necessary for the greater good."
Co-founders Page and Brin dismiss their critics.
"A lot of companies are so worried about short-term reactions that they ignore the long view," Page said. "Not us. Our team is focused on something more than just making money. At Google, we're using technology to make dreams come true."
"Soon," Brin added, "we'll make dreams clickable, or destroy them forever."
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Rough Transition
I just finished Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks, which was quite good overall, although I had the same experience with this book that I have had with other Wolterstorff writings: the more specific he gets, the more disappointed I get. Wolterstorff is not what I would call a "first-order" mind; he is acute, incisive, provocative, but not earth-shaking. What I love about Wolterstorff is his minute precision, and also his insistence on the "messiness" of all conceptualizing, the way he explodes simplistic accounts of things, from epistemology to literary theory to theology. And I also appreciate the fact that he shies away from mathematical explanations. I don't have a mathematically wired brain, so Wolterstorff is easier for me to grasp than, say, his buddy Alvin Plantinga.
And so on my way into Manhattan this morning, I finished Divine Discourse and picked up an anthology of Gustavo Gutierrez's writings (the liberation theologian, for you fellow philistines). I read half the editor's introduction, then gave up, finding it unhelpful redundant adulation. I started the Gutierrez pieces with some anticipation: after all, this is the guy who has rocked the theological world in the last few decades. So far I am quite disappointed. After the calculating precision of Wolterstorff, Gutierrez seems an amateur. I couldn't help thinking of the poor marks this guy would get in any decent college: his definitions are confusing, contradictory, and sometimes utterly incomprehensible. (For example, theology and faith are interchangeable, they are prior to action, they are existential stances, and they are reflection on action, all in the same short paper.) So far, all I get is that Gutierrez is a South American Marxist who wanted to sprinkle his Communist revolution with holy water. And maybe he was into the hallucinogens of the counterculture too, because he sure seems confused.
And so on my way into Manhattan this morning, I finished Divine Discourse and picked up an anthology of Gustavo Gutierrez's writings (the liberation theologian, for you fellow philistines). I read half the editor's introduction, then gave up, finding it unhelpful redundant adulation. I started the Gutierrez pieces with some anticipation: after all, this is the guy who has rocked the theological world in the last few decades. So far I am quite disappointed. After the calculating precision of Wolterstorff, Gutierrez seems an amateur. I couldn't help thinking of the poor marks this guy would get in any decent college: his definitions are confusing, contradictory, and sometimes utterly incomprehensible. (For example, theology and faith are interchangeable, they are prior to action, they are existential stances, and they are reflection on action, all in the same short paper.) So far, all I get is that Gutierrez is a South American Marxist who wanted to sprinkle his Communist revolution with holy water. And maybe he was into the hallucinogens of the counterculture too, because he sure seems confused.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Lost Youth
It's a bromide that an important component of maturity is finding out how much you don't know. Profession of profound ignorance, nonetheless, has been admired by many in figures such as Socrates, to name the most famous. Admission of ignorance, with its attendant attitude of epistemological humility, is widely regarded as ushering one into the enlightenment of that wisdom which comes only with age. Those of us who have been so enlightened usually wait with a certain degree of impatience for the rest of humanity to join us; most particularly our impatience is reserved for those who are "old enough to know better."
We excuse youth, to an extent, for its sureness of itself. One must learn a fair bit about God, man, and the universe in order to truly comprehend the insignificance of one's knowledge. Usually it takes some living to get to that point.
I got to that point rather earlier than most, I think. Possibly because I was so exorbitantly sure that I had the cosmos in a noetic box; possibly because that box was unusually small; possibly because I suddenly had rather more of the world to cram into my box than many would have at 18.
I remember clearly when the box tore. It wasn't a moment, but 90 days in Chile that did it. I had started reading theology at the tender age of 12; soon after, listening to taped sermons was a favorite pastime of mine. I continued to read, but I became really serious about my studies around the age of 16. Calvin's Institutes, Luther's The Bondage of the Will, Jonathan Edwards' sermons; that type of thing. The expected rebelliousness of the teen years was in my case channeled into strict Protestant theology and radical right-wing politics of the American sort. I became a die-hard Covenanter by 17, had read a lot of the pertinent 16th- and 17th-century writings by 18, and I had the world figured out.
Until I went to Chile. My mother is Chilean; she did her utmost to become a devoted Midwestern stay-at-home mom, but her assimilation did nothing to erase the reality of friends and a whole lot of family in Southern South America. I went down there, not to discover my roots--too liberal a concept for my radical teenage self--but to put faces to my mother's stories. And it was then that I discovered that you can't really fit Chile into a Steelite Covenanter box. I tried, initially, but it was just too absurd a project, even for a perverse contrarian like me.
After that, I tried to slough off the brainiac act. I read Louis L'amour, collected guns, got a job doing carpentry work, learned to like country music, went hunting, drove a 4x4 pickup, and made a Herculean effort to learn to speak in the proletarian manner (the one thing I never could quite get down). But I still thought that I had a decent, if tenuous, grip on Total Reality.
Then I went to college, a very conservative Presbyterian one, of course, where I took an "Introduction to Philosophy" course. Now the torn remnants of my box were burning to ashes, and the original vision of my epistemic poverty had become the epiphany of nearly complete ignorance.
I've never fully recovered. Okay, it's only been 5 years, so maybe I'm over-dramatizing my personal narrative. I got past the temptations to theological liberalism, simply by presenting myself with the personal consequences of such a move. I would have missed God and heaven and hell too much, plus I couldn't do that to my folks. Anything other than orthodoxy seemed malleable to the point of laughability, and trendiness had always appeared despicable. So what to do with my framework of Presbyterian orthodoxy, since I was intent on keeping it?
I still don't know. I've toyed with various ideas, dabbled in metaphysics and epistemology. I once professed to be a semi-neo-Thomist, just to irk my Van Tilian peers. I've poked around in the Reformed Epistemology, which I like, but it's just too generic and spineless. I'd still like to intellectually ground the convictions to which I cling, to do the sort of thing that Anselm attempted in his Proslogion. I guess I find too much irrationalism in the leap that kept me an orthodox Presbyterian; I guess I got too much air on that particular jump. Maybe what I miss is just the certainty of youth.
We excuse youth, to an extent, for its sureness of itself. One must learn a fair bit about God, man, and the universe in order to truly comprehend the insignificance of one's knowledge. Usually it takes some living to get to that point.
I got to that point rather earlier than most, I think. Possibly because I was so exorbitantly sure that I had the cosmos in a noetic box; possibly because that box was unusually small; possibly because I suddenly had rather more of the world to cram into my box than many would have at 18.
I remember clearly when the box tore. It wasn't a moment, but 90 days in Chile that did it. I had started reading theology at the tender age of 12; soon after, listening to taped sermons was a favorite pastime of mine. I continued to read, but I became really serious about my studies around the age of 16. Calvin's Institutes, Luther's The Bondage of the Will, Jonathan Edwards' sermons; that type of thing. The expected rebelliousness of the teen years was in my case channeled into strict Protestant theology and radical right-wing politics of the American sort. I became a die-hard Covenanter by 17, had read a lot of the pertinent 16th- and 17th-century writings by 18, and I had the world figured out.
Until I went to Chile. My mother is Chilean; she did her utmost to become a devoted Midwestern stay-at-home mom, but her assimilation did nothing to erase the reality of friends and a whole lot of family in Southern South America. I went down there, not to discover my roots--too liberal a concept for my radical teenage self--but to put faces to my mother's stories. And it was then that I discovered that you can't really fit Chile into a Steelite Covenanter box. I tried, initially, but it was just too absurd a project, even for a perverse contrarian like me.
After that, I tried to slough off the brainiac act. I read Louis L'amour, collected guns, got a job doing carpentry work, learned to like country music, went hunting, drove a 4x4 pickup, and made a Herculean effort to learn to speak in the proletarian manner (the one thing I never could quite get down). But I still thought that I had a decent, if tenuous, grip on Total Reality.
Then I went to college, a very conservative Presbyterian one, of course, where I took an "Introduction to Philosophy" course. Now the torn remnants of my box were burning to ashes, and the original vision of my epistemic poverty had become the epiphany of nearly complete ignorance.
I've never fully recovered. Okay, it's only been 5 years, so maybe I'm over-dramatizing my personal narrative. I got past the temptations to theological liberalism, simply by presenting myself with the personal consequences of such a move. I would have missed God and heaven and hell too much, plus I couldn't do that to my folks. Anything other than orthodoxy seemed malleable to the point of laughability, and trendiness had always appeared despicable. So what to do with my framework of Presbyterian orthodoxy, since I was intent on keeping it?
I still don't know. I've toyed with various ideas, dabbled in metaphysics and epistemology. I once professed to be a semi-neo-Thomist, just to irk my Van Tilian peers. I've poked around in the Reformed Epistemology, which I like, but it's just too generic and spineless. I'd still like to intellectually ground the convictions to which I cling, to do the sort of thing that Anselm attempted in his Proslogion. I guess I find too much irrationalism in the leap that kept me an orthodox Presbyterian; I guess I got too much air on that particular jump. Maybe what I miss is just the certainty of youth.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Dr. Wolterstorff Weighs In
For those favored few who have been following the "St. Paul Goes to Berkeley" series, I will reveal this blog's perspective on the current topic under debate--the "death of the author"-- by quoting from Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks. Which, incidentally, is a wonderful tome for those of you who are interested in contemporary theology and hermeneutics. If a Yale philosopher's defense of interpreting for authorial discourse contra Derrida and Ricoueur is the kind of thing that gets you all hot and bothered, you need to read this. But I digress. Without further ado, here is Dr. Wolterstorff:
"...Derrida does not draw the conclusion that we ought to put authorial-discourse interpretation behind us and conduct our interpretation exclusively in accord with his alternative understanding. As we saw earlier, he doesn't tell us to put it behind us even when interpreting his own writings! Because we can't put it behind us. And we can't put it behind us because we can't put metaphysics behind us. Several times over Julia Kristeva, in her published interview with Derrida, invited him to discuss strategies for "escaping metaphysics" and to describe the workings of language after the escape. Each time Derrida's answer was the same: 'I do not believe, that someday it will be possible simply to escape metaphysics...'
This is one of the most persistent and striking themes in Derrida's writing: escape is not possible. It's not possible to conduct one's writing and one's interpreting, not much of it anyway, outside the language of ontotheology. Not possible for us, that is. One can speculatively imagine a human being escaping; but you and I cannot escape. For metaphysics is not a special language, found in the books of certain philosophers, which one can write and speak for a while and then return to our customary ways of writing and speaking. Our customary ways are all metaphysical ways. Metaphysics is not 'a regrettable and provisional accident of history,' 'a slip,' 'a mistake of thought occurring within history,' Metaphysics 'is the fall of thought into philosophy which gets history underway.'
The case against metaphysics was itself conducted, and could only have been conducted, in the language of metaphysics; we have no other language in which to conduct it....Engagement in the practice of discourse interpretation is indeed fated. Derrida is right about that--though the fate is to be located in the requirements of human community and of respect rather than in the fact that we can't escape the language of metaphysics."
"...Derrida does not draw the conclusion that we ought to put authorial-discourse interpretation behind us and conduct our interpretation exclusively in accord with his alternative understanding. As we saw earlier, he doesn't tell us to put it behind us even when interpreting his own writings! Because we can't put it behind us. And we can't put it behind us because we can't put metaphysics behind us. Several times over Julia Kristeva, in her published interview with Derrida, invited him to discuss strategies for "escaping metaphysics" and to describe the workings of language after the escape. Each time Derrida's answer was the same: 'I do not believe, that someday it will be possible simply to escape metaphysics...'
This is one of the most persistent and striking themes in Derrida's writing: escape is not possible. It's not possible to conduct one's writing and one's interpreting, not much of it anyway, outside the language of ontotheology. Not possible for us, that is. One can speculatively imagine a human being escaping; but you and I cannot escape. For metaphysics is not a special language, found in the books of certain philosophers, which one can write and speak for a while and then return to our customary ways of writing and speaking. Our customary ways are all metaphysical ways. Metaphysics is not 'a regrettable and provisional accident of history,' 'a slip,' 'a mistake of thought occurring within history,' Metaphysics 'is the fall of thought into philosophy which gets history underway.'
The case against metaphysics was itself conducted, and could only have been conducted, in the language of metaphysics; we have no other language in which to conduct it....Engagement in the practice of discourse interpretation is indeed fated. Derrida is right about that--though the fate is to be located in the requirements of human community and of respect rather than in the fact that we can't escape the language of metaphysics."
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
The Judgment of God?
Check this out: some chick from Beliefnet trashes the mainline Episcopalians and Presbyterians in an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times, of all places.
Link:
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins - Los Angeles Times
Link:
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins - Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Thrownness Grabs a Frisbee: Part II
If my extensive audience will but grant me that I have established in my previous post that repristinating Presbyterianism is both feasible and desirable, I will proceed with with the what of Westminster-era Scottish Christianity. Hmmm....a quick scan of my crowded inbox not having revealed any dissenters, I shall proceed forthwith.
If there was a defining issue for Presbyterianism in the 17th century, it was worship. I do not mean to say that worship held a central place in their theological system; the Calvinistic revolt was always a battle with many fronts. Not until Abraham Kuyper reformulated (Dutch) Calvinism in the late 19th century was Calvinism really considered to have a central theme. [Kuyper indicated that the key concept of Reformed theology is the sovereignty of God (his Neo-Calvinist heirs have generally followed him in this). B.B. Warfield responded that the key concept is actually the glory of God. Warfield seems closer to the mark, but it appears to me that Calvinism was originally too organic an approach to be thought of as having a central concept.] The importance of worship to the Scots was the result of two distinct phenomena, closely related in the Scottish reality: one was the emphasis that they inherited from Calvin on the simplicity and spirituality of worship, the other was the recurring insistence of the English that the Church of Scotland accept the Episcopal liturgy.
Most of you will remember Jenny Geddes, who in 1638 at Greyfriars, Edinburgh, threw her stool at the priest, shouting, in response to the newly imposed reading of the Episcopal liturgy, "Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" [Most of you will simultaneously be loath to admit that pretty much every Presbyterian church you have ever attended voluntarily includes many, or most, of the then objectionable practices in its liturgy.] This was the beginning of the popular revolt that spawned the renewal of the National Covenant in 1638 at Greyfriars, the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643-the Solemn League and Covenant being the document that convened the Westminster Assembly.
Of all the Assembly's discussions, some of which were rancorous and long-lived, the discussion on worship was fairly short. This is because British Calvinists in the 1640s, whether Presbyterians or Independents, agreed on the structure and elements of worship. Worship consisted of a minister praying, reading from the Old and the New Testament, preaching, and blessing the people. The congregation was silent except in the singing, which was restricted to metrical Psalms unaccompanied by instruments. Sometimes a male member of the congregation acted as precentor in leading the singing. There was a rough order in the worship which was generally followed, but there was never a liturgy such as that found in The Book of Common Prayer-even the Westminster Assembly only produced a Directory for public worship, which was a recommended order instead of a prescribed format. In particular, British Calvinists, but especially the Scots, found kneeling, genuflecting, vestments, images, incense, hymns, and instruments troubling. These Calvinists believed that adding any element to worship that did not have express warrant in the Apostolic church of the canon involved committing the sin of Nadab and Abihu.
There are more idiosyncracies to 17th-century Calvinistic worship that a 21st-century Presbyterian would find odd: there was no passing of the plate for alms, and the Lord's Supper, when it took place (quarterly or yearly), was at a table with a common cup (of real wine) and a common loaf. The Lord's Supper was only open to members of the national church. Presbyterians, and Independents with them, did not celebrate any holidays, observing only the Lord's Day and occasional, spontaneous days of supplication or thanksgiving-which were often declared by the magistrate. In those churches that had seating, the congregation stood only for prayer and remained seated at all other times. Funerals were not allowed, as they were considered superstitious prayers for the dead. Congregational singing, utilizing the metrical psalter, was in unison, with no harmonies and no printed tunes (did I already mention that there were no instruments?).
Combined, these elements strike one with a quality of primitiveness. That was precisely the idea: to return to the severely simple worship of the Apostolic period. It was at the time of the Awakenings that Psalm paraphrases, then hymns, and then instruments were introduced, all for the purposes of creating a more emotive atmosphere in worship. British Calvinism became American Calvinism, a revivalistic evangelicalism that was more a product of the 18th and 19th centuries than of the 16th and 17th. And today, as conversionist evangelicalism is getting threadbare at its Victorian seams, contemporary Calvinism is diffusing into either postmodern evangelicalism or seeking roots in Anglican/Lutheran/Roman Catholic liturgical practices. Of course there is always a dogged minority that defends the Victorian status quo; this usually fails to inspire, since the sawdust of the tent revivals is by now giving off a rather rancid smell. Now that we are entering the era of the "emerging church" and the exploration of medieval liturgies, maybe the time for a return to Calvinism's own medieval anti-liturgy has come. If you're a dedicated Presyterian, the other options kinda suck.
If there was a defining issue for Presbyterianism in the 17th century, it was worship. I do not mean to say that worship held a central place in their theological system; the Calvinistic revolt was always a battle with many fronts. Not until Abraham Kuyper reformulated (Dutch) Calvinism in the late 19th century was Calvinism really considered to have a central theme. [Kuyper indicated that the key concept of Reformed theology is the sovereignty of God (his Neo-Calvinist heirs have generally followed him in this). B.B. Warfield responded that the key concept is actually the glory of God. Warfield seems closer to the mark, but it appears to me that Calvinism was originally too organic an approach to be thought of as having a central concept.] The importance of worship to the Scots was the result of two distinct phenomena, closely related in the Scottish reality: one was the emphasis that they inherited from Calvin on the simplicity and spirituality of worship, the other was the recurring insistence of the English that the Church of Scotland accept the Episcopal liturgy.
Most of you will remember Jenny Geddes, who in 1638 at Greyfriars, Edinburgh, threw her stool at the priest, shouting, in response to the newly imposed reading of the Episcopal liturgy, "Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" [Most of you will simultaneously be loath to admit that pretty much every Presbyterian church you have ever attended voluntarily includes many, or most, of the then objectionable practices in its liturgy.] This was the beginning of the popular revolt that spawned the renewal of the National Covenant in 1638 at Greyfriars, the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643-the Solemn League and Covenant being the document that convened the Westminster Assembly.
Of all the Assembly's discussions, some of which were rancorous and long-lived, the discussion on worship was fairly short. This is because British Calvinists in the 1640s, whether Presbyterians or Independents, agreed on the structure and elements of worship. Worship consisted of a minister praying, reading from the Old and the New Testament, preaching, and blessing the people. The congregation was silent except in the singing, which was restricted to metrical Psalms unaccompanied by instruments. Sometimes a male member of the congregation acted as precentor in leading the singing. There was a rough order in the worship which was generally followed, but there was never a liturgy such as that found in The Book of Common Prayer-even the Westminster Assembly only produced a Directory for public worship, which was a recommended order instead of a prescribed format. In particular, British Calvinists, but especially the Scots, found kneeling, genuflecting, vestments, images, incense, hymns, and instruments troubling. These Calvinists believed that adding any element to worship that did not have express warrant in the Apostolic church of the canon involved committing the sin of Nadab and Abihu.
There are more idiosyncracies to 17th-century Calvinistic worship that a 21st-century Presbyterian would find odd: there was no passing of the plate for alms, and the Lord's Supper, when it took place (quarterly or yearly), was at a table with a common cup (of real wine) and a common loaf. The Lord's Supper was only open to members of the national church. Presbyterians, and Independents with them, did not celebrate any holidays, observing only the Lord's Day and occasional, spontaneous days of supplication or thanksgiving-which were often declared by the magistrate. In those churches that had seating, the congregation stood only for prayer and remained seated at all other times. Funerals were not allowed, as they were considered superstitious prayers for the dead. Congregational singing, utilizing the metrical psalter, was in unison, with no harmonies and no printed tunes (did I already mention that there were no instruments?).
Combined, these elements strike one with a quality of primitiveness. That was precisely the idea: to return to the severely simple worship of the Apostolic period. It was at the time of the Awakenings that Psalm paraphrases, then hymns, and then instruments were introduced, all for the purposes of creating a more emotive atmosphere in worship. British Calvinism became American Calvinism, a revivalistic evangelicalism that was more a product of the 18th and 19th centuries than of the 16th and 17th. And today, as conversionist evangelicalism is getting threadbare at its Victorian seams, contemporary Calvinism is diffusing into either postmodern evangelicalism or seeking roots in Anglican/Lutheran/Roman Catholic liturgical practices. Of course there is always a dogged minority that defends the Victorian status quo; this usually fails to inspire, since the sawdust of the tent revivals is by now giving off a rather rancid smell. Now that we are entering the era of the "emerging church" and the exploration of medieval liturgies, maybe the time for a return to Calvinism's own medieval anti-liturgy has come. If you're a dedicated Presyterian, the other options kinda suck.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
St. Paul Goes to Berkeley, Part 3: Advocatus Diaboli Claims Reification for the Gauntlet
Dear Promotor Fidei,
I adore your predilection for the disputatio: it is a format which in its ceaseless alternation between argument and counterargument embodies that Heraclitean flux to which we are all so liberatingly bound. I fail to see how you have simulated the disputatio in your missive, but I am pleased nonetheless.
Metaphysical reality, then. I prize metaphysics almost as much as my collection of Neolithic artifacts, and in much the same way. I suppose that in your attempt to push our topic of "the death of the author" to a higher level of abstraction, you are taking the tack of that favorite Dutch theologian of yours, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, but whose method generally consists in avoiding the question at hand. So, you would thwart my language games by an appeal to Platonic realism. Very well.
Regarding problem (a): I find it difficult to imagine how a text could "contain" metaphysical reality, and almost equally perplexing to conceive of a metaphysical reality to which it could "correspond." Surely you do not wish to revive either the Aristotelian essence or the Platonic form?
Regarding problem (b): of course the text exists externally to the reader; it is material. It is the significance claimed for the text which is created by the reader, not the text itself.
Regarding problem (c): I deny all metaphysical reality in the strict sense. I consider all attempts at metaphysics, at least in the classic Western tradition, to be pernicious avoidances of the human question(s).
Regarding problem (d): hmm, hermeneutical obligations. Consciously constructing interpretations of texts in such a way that marginalized persons/groups are "read back in" comes to mind.
Is the problem of the author truly a metaphysical one? I fail to see how it must be, although I understand how it could be made to appear so. It seems a more or less straightforwardly hermeneutical problem to me. As far as external reality is concerned, I don't think that we'll disagree much over the independent existence of the material universe. Of course there is a correlation between the external object and the noetic process; it is only the significance attached to the external object that is a construction.
Mirabile dictu or not, these questions are much older than the Enlightenment. Gorgias comes to mind.
I believe, my friend, that in your "counterstroke" you have conflated "meaning" with "univocity." My claim is not that there is no shared sphere in which language games can take place; my claim is that entrance into the language games entails the equivocity innate in the disparate natures of multiple minds. You seem to understand "meaning" as a hermetically sealed unit that can be shuttled back and forth between minds without contamination. Of course your words have meaning; there is a phonetic sequence that you have produced which signifies something. That particular something which is signified, though, is almost certainly different for both of us: not utterly different, for then we would have no communication, but substantially different, or otherwise we would have identical minds.
Take, for instance, your use of "Luddite." "Luddite" is at the present moment most commonly used as a pejorative against those who distrust technology. You seem to use the term to mean a person who avows archaic beliefs. So we share the term "Luddite," it has a referent for both of us, but that referent is substantially different in both cases-though this does not preclude discourse. It only precludes a univocal meaning for your term.
So I deny that I assume "meaning" in your sense when I write to you. I assume a shared exercise in arbitrariness, which we call "language," I assume that you are reading this as English prose and not as numerology, but I do not assume that these words will mean precisely to you what they do to me. My words, in your mind, will be different entities from what they are in mine. In particular, my dear Promotor, because you have no access to the intentionality which produced these words. You understand this text as it enters your mental matrix, not as it proceeds from mine. And this is not the death of meaning, as you claim. It is rather the birth of meaning. For the blood of univocity is the seed of infinite meanings.
I will pass by your Steiner quotation, as it seems rather far-fetched for recognition. I obviously deny the charge, as would most of your compatriots in orthodoxy. There are fideists, and there are those who have fallen off the edge of fideism. Your proposed ally appears to be one of the latter.
Promotor, you might better comprehend if you attempted to understand language, not as something inviolable which was dropped out of the sky by the gods on a particularly beneficent day, but as itself a construction of "humankind." Language is a game, its rules are arbitrary and constantly subject to change-except for the rule that there can be no teams.
Entertaining as all this has been, I repeat the untouched (by you) original pronouncement: the author is dead, and no amount of nostalgia for univocity is going to resuscitate him.
Kind regards,
Advocatus Diaboli
I adore your predilection for the disputatio: it is a format which in its ceaseless alternation between argument and counterargument embodies that Heraclitean flux to which we are all so liberatingly bound. I fail to see how you have simulated the disputatio in your missive, but I am pleased nonetheless.
Metaphysical reality, then. I prize metaphysics almost as much as my collection of Neolithic artifacts, and in much the same way. I suppose that in your attempt to push our topic of "the death of the author" to a higher level of abstraction, you are taking the tack of that favorite Dutch theologian of yours, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, but whose method generally consists in avoiding the question at hand. So, you would thwart my language games by an appeal to Platonic realism. Very well.
Regarding problem (a): I find it difficult to imagine how a text could "contain" metaphysical reality, and almost equally perplexing to conceive of a metaphysical reality to which it could "correspond." Surely you do not wish to revive either the Aristotelian essence or the Platonic form?
Regarding problem (b): of course the text exists externally to the reader; it is material. It is the significance claimed for the text which is created by the reader, not the text itself.
Regarding problem (c): I deny all metaphysical reality in the strict sense. I consider all attempts at metaphysics, at least in the classic Western tradition, to be pernicious avoidances of the human question(s).
Regarding problem (d): hmm, hermeneutical obligations. Consciously constructing interpretations of texts in such a way that marginalized persons/groups are "read back in" comes to mind.
Is the problem of the author truly a metaphysical one? I fail to see how it must be, although I understand how it could be made to appear so. It seems a more or less straightforwardly hermeneutical problem to me. As far as external reality is concerned, I don't think that we'll disagree much over the independent existence of the material universe. Of course there is a correlation between the external object and the noetic process; it is only the significance attached to the external object that is a construction.
Mirabile dictu or not, these questions are much older than the Enlightenment. Gorgias comes to mind.
I believe, my friend, that in your "counterstroke" you have conflated "meaning" with "univocity." My claim is not that there is no shared sphere in which language games can take place; my claim is that entrance into the language games entails the equivocity innate in the disparate natures of multiple minds. You seem to understand "meaning" as a hermetically sealed unit that can be shuttled back and forth between minds without contamination. Of course your words have meaning; there is a phonetic sequence that you have produced which signifies something. That particular something which is signified, though, is almost certainly different for both of us: not utterly different, for then we would have no communication, but substantially different, or otherwise we would have identical minds.
Take, for instance, your use of "Luddite." "Luddite" is at the present moment most commonly used as a pejorative against those who distrust technology. You seem to use the term to mean a person who avows archaic beliefs. So we share the term "Luddite," it has a referent for both of us, but that referent is substantially different in both cases-though this does not preclude discourse. It only precludes a univocal meaning for your term.
So I deny that I assume "meaning" in your sense when I write to you. I assume a shared exercise in arbitrariness, which we call "language," I assume that you are reading this as English prose and not as numerology, but I do not assume that these words will mean precisely to you what they do to me. My words, in your mind, will be different entities from what they are in mine. In particular, my dear Promotor, because you have no access to the intentionality which produced these words. You understand this text as it enters your mental matrix, not as it proceeds from mine. And this is not the death of meaning, as you claim. It is rather the birth of meaning. For the blood of univocity is the seed of infinite meanings.
I will pass by your Steiner quotation, as it seems rather far-fetched for recognition. I obviously deny the charge, as would most of your compatriots in orthodoxy. There are fideists, and there are those who have fallen off the edge of fideism. Your proposed ally appears to be one of the latter.
Promotor, you might better comprehend if you attempted to understand language, not as something inviolable which was dropped out of the sky by the gods on a particularly beneficent day, but as itself a construction of "humankind." Language is a game, its rules are arbitrary and constantly subject to change-except for the rule that there can be no teams.
Entertaining as all this has been, I repeat the untouched (by you) original pronouncement: the author is dead, and no amount of nostalgia for univocity is going to resuscitate him.
Kind regards,
Advocatus Diaboli
Saturday, July 08, 2006
My Belly Button Is Really Deep
It's not often that I read a book written in the last half-century, and it's quite uncommon that I spend my precious commuting time on a new release. But, occasionally, I feel that I ought to have some contact with the present, so I read a book published in the calendar year in which I happen to be living. (Parenthetically, C.S. Lewis' advice about giving a volume at least 30 years from publication before deciding its worth seems wiser and wiser as I read more.)
I bought Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz for my wife after it got a good review in the New York Times. Supposedly it was a true crime story, written by the victim, which included reflections on her own experience and the phenomenon of violence in America. I hadn't intended to read it, but life in Bay Ridge started to get hectic, so I set aside Nick Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse for Strange Piece of Paradise, just to give my brain a break.
Terri Jentz was bicycling across the country with a friend from Yale in the summer of 1977 when, at a roadside park in Oregon where the girls had camped for the night, the two were run over in their tent by a pickup truck and subsequently axed-nearly to death. Their attacker was never apprehended, and the statute of limitations on attempted murder in Oregon at that time was 3 years. However, 15 years after the event, Jentz felt that she needed to solve the crime herself in order to experience closure, so the bulk of the book deals with her amateur detective work on her own attempted murder, and her psychological ordeal in trying to get past the event.
Paradise is at least twice as long as it needs to be. Not only that, but its author seems to think that the fact that she graduated from Yale means that anything that strikes her as profound actually is so. This is obsessive introspection paraded as insight on a 542-page scale. In addition to this, coincidence is invested with significance in ways that seem like caricature-except that there is no humor in this book. The book is driven by obsession and neediness in such a way that one is not likely to sympathize with the author; one rather sympathizes with the other girl, who was more seriously injured but learned to live past the crime. "Shayna Weiss," as she is named in Paradise, refuses insistently to play the game that Jentz is so keen on. "Weiss" fades out of Jentz's life, with an occasional admonition to Jentz to seek professional help.
The limpness of this book is increased by the fact that, although Jentz devotes 8 years to the investigation, she never confronts the suspect, and never amasses enough evidence to be damning (though she thinks she does). To me, Jentz's effort is intriguing only as a display of a phenomenon which Kierkegaard noted in The Book on Adler: absolutely anything can seem profound if one ruminates on it enough. Kierkegaard considered that Magister Adler's writings were quite banal; the only thing that kept Adler from noticing this is that he had repeated his thoughts to himself with such studiousness that they appeared impenetrably deep. Jentz, I think, is guilty of the same crime. Sustained navel-gazing can present one with the illusion that one's belly button is incredibly profound; poking a tape measure in there usually produces a different conclusion.
I bought Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz for my wife after it got a good review in the New York Times. Supposedly it was a true crime story, written by the victim, which included reflections on her own experience and the phenomenon of violence in America. I hadn't intended to read it, but life in Bay Ridge started to get hectic, so I set aside Nick Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse for Strange Piece of Paradise, just to give my brain a break.
Terri Jentz was bicycling across the country with a friend from Yale in the summer of 1977 when, at a roadside park in Oregon where the girls had camped for the night, the two were run over in their tent by a pickup truck and subsequently axed-nearly to death. Their attacker was never apprehended, and the statute of limitations on attempted murder in Oregon at that time was 3 years. However, 15 years after the event, Jentz felt that she needed to solve the crime herself in order to experience closure, so the bulk of the book deals with her amateur detective work on her own attempted murder, and her psychological ordeal in trying to get past the event.
Paradise is at least twice as long as it needs to be. Not only that, but its author seems to think that the fact that she graduated from Yale means that anything that strikes her as profound actually is so. This is obsessive introspection paraded as insight on a 542-page scale. In addition to this, coincidence is invested with significance in ways that seem like caricature-except that there is no humor in this book. The book is driven by obsession and neediness in such a way that one is not likely to sympathize with the author; one rather sympathizes with the other girl, who was more seriously injured but learned to live past the crime. "Shayna Weiss," as she is named in Paradise, refuses insistently to play the game that Jentz is so keen on. "Weiss" fades out of Jentz's life, with an occasional admonition to Jentz to seek professional help.
The limpness of this book is increased by the fact that, although Jentz devotes 8 years to the investigation, she never confronts the suspect, and never amasses enough evidence to be damning (though she thinks she does). To me, Jentz's effort is intriguing only as a display of a phenomenon which Kierkegaard noted in The Book on Adler: absolutely anything can seem profound if one ruminates on it enough. Kierkegaard considered that Magister Adler's writings were quite banal; the only thing that kept Adler from noticing this is that he had repeated his thoughts to himself with such studiousness that they appeared impenetrably deep. Jentz, I think, is guilty of the same crime. Sustained navel-gazing can present one with the illusion that one's belly button is incredibly profound; poking a tape measure in there usually produces a different conclusion.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Ignorance Is Bliss
"...Eve erred in not regulating the measure of her knowledge by the will of God. And we all daily suffer under the same disease, because we desire to know more than is right, and more than God allows; whereas the principal point of wisdom is a well-regulated sobriety in obedience to God."
-Calvin, Commentary on Genesis III.5
It's Thursday morning, I'm walking the regular route from Herald Square to 8th Avenue while indulging in a well-worn daydream: I'm wishing that I had the raw brainpower, not to mention the training, to solve at least one of the festering questions that has always plagued Christianity. (My innermost secret is that I would like to have developed a rigorous and completely new argument for the existence of God; but you didn't hear that from me.) I've thought for a while that I would like to generate a compelling solution to the problem of interaction; double agency would be okay, too. Theodicy is for amateurs.
But I'm a good Calvinist, and I'm familiar with Moses: I know that the secret things are private property, no trespassing allowed. But if we could just reframe the nagging issues...just put a new spin on an old concept...if there were only some crowbar we could stick in the door of academia, or at least of the mainstream media. Machen got a tip of the hat from Mencken; can you imagine Thomas Friedman doing that for R.C. Sproul? The theologian has gone the way of the poet-maybe never to return, in this culture. Slam goes the office door.
But then, on lunch, I break out the Hendrix Publishers copy of Calvin's Commentary on Genesis, which I keep in a drawer, ostensibly for the purposes of regular reading. And I remember, as I encounter one of Calvin's most characteristic sentiments, that the thorniness of the much-touted difficulties is evidence, not of the problematic nature of Christian theism, but of the wickedness of man's heart. The conundrums are man's problem, the problem of boundless pride, of rebellion against the "but" following "of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat." So I let my best buddy Johnny remind me that ignorance is sometimes bliss, and, as I step outside on the last minutes of my break, feeling better, I wonder what a solution to the problem of interaction would even look like.
-Calvin, Commentary on Genesis III.5
It's Thursday morning, I'm walking the regular route from Herald Square to 8th Avenue while indulging in a well-worn daydream: I'm wishing that I had the raw brainpower, not to mention the training, to solve at least one of the festering questions that has always plagued Christianity. (My innermost secret is that I would like to have developed a rigorous and completely new argument for the existence of God; but you didn't hear that from me.) I've thought for a while that I would like to generate a compelling solution to the problem of interaction; double agency would be okay, too. Theodicy is for amateurs.
But I'm a good Calvinist, and I'm familiar with Moses: I know that the secret things are private property, no trespassing allowed. But if we could just reframe the nagging issues...just put a new spin on an old concept...if there were only some crowbar we could stick in the door of academia, or at least of the mainstream media. Machen got a tip of the hat from Mencken; can you imagine Thomas Friedman doing that for R.C. Sproul? The theologian has gone the way of the poet-maybe never to return, in this culture. Slam goes the office door.
But then, on lunch, I break out the Hendrix Publishers copy of Calvin's Commentary on Genesis, which I keep in a drawer, ostensibly for the purposes of regular reading. And I remember, as I encounter one of Calvin's most characteristic sentiments, that the thorniness of the much-touted difficulties is evidence, not of the problematic nature of Christian theism, but of the wickedness of man's heart. The conundrums are man's problem, the problem of boundless pride, of rebellion against the "but" following "of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat." So I let my best buddy Johnny remind me that ignorance is sometimes bliss, and, as I step outside on the last minutes of my break, feeling better, I wonder what a solution to the problem of interaction would even look like.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Historical Taxonomy via Email: The Scotch Helped
This is a follow-up via email on a conversation topic at a friend's house.
Svenski,
I've been thinking about our conversation re "What are we now if we're post-everything?" I was mulling over the common designations of Western History A.D., and it occurred to me that labeling something as "after" another defining moment is standard: e.g. the Middle/Dark Ages. Standard divisions were devised by those in the Renaissance & Enlightenment who saw the period between the Classical World and the Humanist World as regressive downtime. So the "after something really important" motif isn't new. However, what if we tried to rethink the classifications along Christian lines? We would start the History of the West at the Incarnation, of course, but then we could possibly continue along the lines of the following:
I. The First Age: The Age of Faith. This would begin with Christ and the Apostles and continue to, say, Anselm and the beginning of Scholasticism (a watershed change in my mind). We could call these people Patristics or Primitive Christians.
II. The Second Age: The Age of Faith and Reason. This would catch what was going on in Scholasticism, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. We could call them Medievals, to avoid confusion.
III. The Third Age: The Age of Reason. This would be the period normally called Modern, and we could call these people Moderns, simply because we don't like them.
IV. The Fourth Age: The Age of the Absurd. I would start this in the mid-Twentieth century sometime, probably with Sartre and Camus. The designation of this Age as "Absurd" accounts both for the Existentialism that it spawned and popularized (e.g. Camus in particular refers to the Absurd), but it would also refer to the Death of Reason, i.e. the inherent absurdity and insecurity and arbitrariness of reasoning in a post-everything world. I think that "absurd" accurately characterizes a lot of contemporary phenomena: multi-culturalism, the supremacy of the welfare-state, the end of the nuclear family, infinite genders, depth psychology, etc. We could call the people in this Age....Absurds? We can't call them Absurdists, as that's already taken, and Absurdites sounds like a sect of Coptic Christians. T said Absurdians, but somehow that reminds me of Abelard and retributive castration.
Anyway, I know that this is a pretty rough sketch, but let me know what you think.
Your friend,
Hoss
St. Ann, Save Us!
Ann Coulter, whether you find her charming or revolting, is one of the cleverest opinionators in Punditworld. This is a remarkable piece on indicting the New York Times' editorial board for treason.
Link:
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE - When Will NYT Reveal One of al Qaeda's Secret Programs? by Ann Coulter
Link:
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE - When Will NYT Reveal One of al Qaeda's Secret Programs? by Ann Coulter
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
St. Paul Goes to Berkeley, Part 2: Promotor Fidei Asks, "Whence the Gauntlet?"
Dear Advocatus Diaboli,
I shudder to think what Faust would say if he knew to what his hospitality has given rise. But let us press forward boldly.
Being the learned sort, and notwithstanding your rather dim view of things historical, you will no doubt recall the scholastic method known as disputatio. In its Thomistic form, the method entailed a statement of one’s opponent’s view on an issue, followed by a systematic presentation of one’s own view, followed by a reply to opposing arguments. In the opening salvo of our exchange, I hope you will not mind my drawing selectively from this method.
Following your lead, I postpone questions of biblical authenticity, canonicity, and theological oppression, and concentrate presently on what you perceive to be a/the central problem of “my” orthodoxy, viz., the problem of the author. As you define the problem, an author’s “situatedness in his own cultural, historical, linguistic, and personal milieu implies that you cannot access what he meant, what he intended to communicate; you can only access what you yourself at this moment experience as a result of reading his words.”
If I may be so bold, the problem is in fact much more acute than you have stated. A reader/hearer of a text is confronted not only with the problem of how to fuse the “two horizons” of his/her situation and that of the text (author); but also with such philosophical problems as (a) whether the text “contains” or corresponds to any metaphysical reality, (b) if so, whether that reality is independent of the reader/hearer or “constructed” by the reader/hearer, (c) if the latter, whether any metaphysical reality (within or without a text) exists independent of the human mind, (d) whether the human mind and/or its “situation” is/are sufficiently stable to admit of analysis or interpretation (is the “human mind” itself a construct of some sort?), and (d) what, if any, ethical issues are implicated in how one “interprets” or “constructs” meaning/reality. (My debt to Vanhoozer at this point will be obvious.)
To express part of this another way, the problem of the author as it arises in connection with text is one manifestation of a much larger problem: that of reality itself. Does reality exist “out there,” independent of the knower? If so, is there any correlation between that reality and the knowing faculties of the knower? Or if not, is all reality simply a projection of a knower’s own consciousness? The literary problem is, mirabile dictu, a philosophical one. I might add, a very old philosophical one. Dating even from the Enlightenment. Berkeley comes to mind.
What, then, saith orthodoxy? Two things. First, by way of counterstroke, it is profoundly ironic that you will raise such “problems” yet certifiably fail to carry them through while reading this text. You will read my words as if they have meaning, however much you may think him a Luddite who wrote them. And, I doubt not, you would quickly protest if I treated your post as having no meaning whatsoever beyond what I impose upon it.
(Parenthetically, I realize your original question had to do with texts, attributed to St. Paul, which are centuries old. However, the problem of the author does not become a problem simply when the author lived in the first century; it is basic to verbal communication between any two people, even those quite similarly “situated.”)
Let me press the point. You assume the existence of meaning in order to speak about it. If meaning is purely a reader-construct, your “speech” simply floats out into a universe of sounds, which must then be strung together into something definite by whomever happens to find those sounds interesting. You have not “spoken” any more than the person who burps after dinner. You vanish the moment your words are emitted, and they lie like an amorphous blob of sound, waiting to be resurrected and shaped by another. This is the death of communication; it is the reduction of language to sound, and nobody with a brain could take it seriously. Which is no offense to you, because, as I said, you don’t take it seriously. You assume meaning exists. Our correspondence is proof positive of that.
Second, by way of further counterstroke, I wonder how you justify this assumption. George Steiner said in Real Presences, “Any coherent understanding of what language is and how language performs . . . any coherent account of the capacity of human speech to communicate meaning and feeling is, in the final analysis, underwritten by the assumption of God’s presence.” That is precisely the assumption of orthodoxy; but as it is one you don’t share, I wonder how you defend your belief in (a) your own metaphysical existence, (b) my metaphysical existence, (c) the meaningfulness of language, and (d) a correlation between us that makes communication possible, one that goes beyond shared language to a shared metaphysical and/or epistemological structure. You may, of course, deny that you hold these beliefs, but to do so is to render this whole exercise between us nonsensical in the extreme; and I remind you who wrote first.
To sum up, thus spake orthodoxy: “Great question! Now defend it.”
Sincerely,
Promotor Fidei
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Old Lady Clothes
There they are, those clothes you would only let your teenage daughter wear if you happened to be pimping her out on the side, and they're on a 65 year-old woman. Ahh, summertime in Brooklyn. And in a sudden epiphany, you realize why delis always give you your food in paper bags.
Even for a youth- and sex-obsessed society, isn't this a bit much? How is the image of a retirement-aged woman in a tight, scooped-neck tee supposed to be appealing? You start wondering if there's there's a club for wealthy octogenerian bachelors nearby.
I suppose that we deserve this. Our culture has been saying for a long time now that virile, copulating bodies are only approached in importance by consumer goods, so much so that the "greatest good" now sounds like a bad pun if you say it in Latin. So, we got what we asked for, I guess. Maybe we should have asked for propriety instead.
Even for a youth- and sex-obsessed society, isn't this a bit much? How is the image of a retirement-aged woman in a tight, scooped-neck tee supposed to be appealing? You start wondering if there's there's a club for wealthy octogenerian bachelors nearby.
I suppose that we deserve this. Our culture has been saying for a long time now that virile, copulating bodies are only approached in importance by consumer goods, so much so that the "greatest good" now sounds like a bad pun if you say it in Latin. So, we got what we asked for, I guess. Maybe we should have asked for propriety instead.
Why Egalitarian Democracy Sucks
Pullitzer Prize winner or not, I'm not a big fan of Michiko Kakutani's book reviews. They're predictable, limp, and forgettable. So I wasn't going to read her "nod to Independence Day" review, but I read the blurb and was rendered helpless. It's an interesting article, one that I'm surprised to find in the Times (she even suggests that feminist revisionism might not be the end-all in historical analysis-gasp!).
Of course, Gordon Wood's suggestion (as recorded by Ms. Kakutani-I have not read the book), that egalitarian democracy stifles individual greatness, is nothing new. I suppose if you haven't read Plato's Republic or Nietzche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra you may not be aware of the criticism, but, seriously, how many people can there be in the Information Age who aren't familiar with Plato and Nietzche? Or at least Moses?
Cynicism aside, Wood does make an interesting argument. That the Founders, in creating a democratic Republic dependent on the common man, destroyed the possibility for future leaders of their own stature seems likely. Great men need a hierarchical society in which to grow, and democracy is the government of the midget, by the midget, and for the midget. Or haven't you read Atlas Shrugged recently?
A conclusion that would not likely be published by Mr. Wood or suggested by Ms. Kakutani is that the dwarfing impulses of democracy are such that it should itself be banished. But maybe our loss of great men should cause us to entertain that conclusion as a possibility. The medieval Scholastics are frequently mocked for arguing that feudalism had its basis in the nature of things; maybe they were not so far off the mark after all.
Link:
'Revolutionary Characters,' by Gordon S. Wood - New York Times
Of course, Gordon Wood's suggestion (as recorded by Ms. Kakutani-I have not read the book), that egalitarian democracy stifles individual greatness, is nothing new. I suppose if you haven't read Plato's Republic or Nietzche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra you may not be aware of the criticism, but, seriously, how many people can there be in the Information Age who aren't familiar with Plato and Nietzche? Or at least Moses?
Cynicism aside, Wood does make an interesting argument. That the Founders, in creating a democratic Republic dependent on the common man, destroyed the possibility for future leaders of their own stature seems likely. Great men need a hierarchical society in which to grow, and democracy is the government of the midget, by the midget, and for the midget. Or haven't you read Atlas Shrugged recently?
A conclusion that would not likely be published by Mr. Wood or suggested by Ms. Kakutani is that the dwarfing impulses of democracy are such that it should itself be banished. But maybe our loss of great men should cause us to entertain that conclusion as a possibility. The medieval Scholastics are frequently mocked for arguing that feudalism had its basis in the nature of things; maybe they were not so far off the mark after all.
Link:
'Revolutionary Characters,' by Gordon S. Wood - New York Times
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