"I respond although I will be changed." This was the motto of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, a German-Jewish-turned-Christian intellectual who emigrated to America when Adolf started hooking up the utilities. Rosenstock-Huessy, one of those sloppy second-rate thinkers in whose works one intermittently finds ravishingly interesting ideas, focused most of his energies on language-or rather speech. Speech and Reality, one of his works, gives away the scheme by nearly intoning that speech=reality. I know this makes your Wittgensteinercounter click at a very high rate, but Eugen didn't find Wittgensteinian language-games very entertaining. He was rather more interested in transmuting a somewhat traditionally Christian universe into the modern age by understanding the reality of both in terms of speech-and he was doing this before Austin and Searle.
While Rosenstock-Huessy's "Jesus-as-nearly-superhuman-human" theology is less than inspiring, I find in his motto the living pulse of any vital conservatism, especially any repristinary (if I may engage in the manufacture of neologisms) variety. I would contrast repristinary conservatism with tradition-sensitive progressivism; in the Reformed camp, John Murray was an example of repristination, while Abraham Kuyper indulged in progressivism.
Reinvigoration of an existing tradition requires response to detractors, and it dutifully accepts the inevitable transformation involved in response, but true conservatism, repristinary conservatism, is marked by the wistfulness implicit in the motto. "Would that I should not be changed, but respond I must; therefore changed I shall be." This, it occurs to me, is the way that reformata semper reformandum is supposed to play out: not with the gleefulness of reckless innovation, but with the care occasioned by affection.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Christianity for the American Left
Over the Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I visited Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's childhood home in Portland, ME. Curiously well-preserved by Henry's obsessive little sister, this is an unusual peek into the life of an American family in the first half of the 19th century. Of course, any historic domicile can give you that feeling of trans-historical voyeurism, but Anne Longfellow Pierce had so devoted herself to maintaining everything precisely as her parents and brothers knew it that this house seemed like a candid snapshot, rather than the usual posed family portrait.
One striking feature of the Longfellow house is the inhabitants' apparent infatuation with George Washington. Not only did they post a large engraved portrait of General Washington over the fireplace in the drawing room, they also displayed "The Apotheosis of Washington" in the corner of the same room. Henry even rented and eventually owned a home in Cambridge, MA, which Washington had once used as his headquarters. And the Longfellow's Washington was not a a mere abstraction: Henry's maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, who built the Portland house, had served as an officer with Washington in the War for Independence.
The obvious admiration and affection which the Longfellow family cherished for George Washington struck me as odd, since that type of rock star adulation is today usually reserved for, well, rock stars. I wondered what it would have been like to have lived in an America where bourgeois families actively idolized military and political heroes. I decided that I had no concept of what that would look like.
As the Longfellows were Unitarian by conviction, I also started wondering why the American liberal elite do not utilize the rationalistic religiosity of some of America's founders to their advantage. It wasn't too long ago that Arthur Schlesinger opined in the New York Times that it would behoove the politically active segment of American Christianity to rediscover Reinhold Niehbur. And the Democratic Party is trying to re-brand itself in '06 and '08 as "the other religious party." Intellectuals, pundits, and politicians have all been united recently in sermonizing on the virtues of an inclusive, tolerant, universalistic sort of Christianity. So why don't they start peddling a "21st-century John Adams Protestantism"? It's American, it's scientistic [sic], it's rationalistic (America's elites being on the whole still stuck in modernity), and it's eminently marketable. Maybe Arthur Schlesinger and Howard Dean should add Jefferson's letters to their summer reading lists?
Gallantly, I do hereby freely offer the Left full marketing privileges to the Founders' Christianity, with only one stipulation: an official confession that the Right wins the Culture War on the Founding Viewpoint front.
One striking feature of the Longfellow house is the inhabitants' apparent infatuation with George Washington. Not only did they post a large engraved portrait of General Washington over the fireplace in the drawing room, they also displayed "The Apotheosis of Washington" in the corner of the same room. Henry even rented and eventually owned a home in Cambridge, MA, which Washington had once used as his headquarters. And the Longfellow's Washington was not a a mere abstraction: Henry's maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, who built the Portland house, had served as an officer with Washington in the War for Independence.
The obvious admiration and affection which the Longfellow family cherished for George Washington struck me as odd, since that type of rock star adulation is today usually reserved for, well, rock stars. I wondered what it would have been like to have lived in an America where bourgeois families actively idolized military and political heroes. I decided that I had no concept of what that would look like.
As the Longfellows were Unitarian by conviction, I also started wondering why the American liberal elite do not utilize the rationalistic religiosity of some of America's founders to their advantage. It wasn't too long ago that Arthur Schlesinger opined in the New York Times that it would behoove the politically active segment of American Christianity to rediscover Reinhold Niehbur. And the Democratic Party is trying to re-brand itself in '06 and '08 as "the other religious party." Intellectuals, pundits, and politicians have all been united recently in sermonizing on the virtues of an inclusive, tolerant, universalistic sort of Christianity. So why don't they start peddling a "21st-century John Adams Protestantism"? It's American, it's scientistic [sic], it's rationalistic (America's elites being on the whole still stuck in modernity), and it's eminently marketable. Maybe Arthur Schlesinger and Howard Dean should add Jefferson's letters to their summer reading lists?
Gallantly, I do hereby freely offer the Left full marketing privileges to the Founders' Christianity, with only one stipulation: an official confession that the Right wins the Culture War on the Founding Viewpoint front.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Thrownness Grabs a Frisbee: Part I
Part of the purpose of this blog is the launching of a project which I have had in mind for a few years: contemporizing the Scottish Presbyterianism of the 1630s and 1640s. That's an ambitious goal, I know (or possibly an insane one). I've been pondering precisely how to do it for a long time, and at this point I'm entirely sure that I do not know how. But I do have some ideas on the manner in which it should be done. Here are some reasons for desiring its accomplishment, a tentative model for its method, and some preconditions for its success.
I. Who Gives a Rodent's Posterior?
Why bother? Aren't we surrounded by the droppings of dead white guys anyway? Haven't there been any advances in Christendom since the 1640s? What makes the theology of a bunch of backwater European late medieval/early modern pastors in funny collars special? Wasn't the Reformed movement international in its scope and bicentennial in its span?
First, I am a member of a Presbyterian church, and the sworn creed of that church happens to be the Westminster Standards, which happens to have been the brainchild of-you guessed it!-those Scottish guys. If I have any inclination to take my church's confession seriously, I need to know (a) what that confession says and (b) what that confession means. A subset of (b) is the meaning of that group of documents in the situatedness of my present time. (I'm going to skip over hermeneutical considerations at this point and assume that, to some extent, this scheme is epistemically feasible.) Note that both (a) and (b) are also vitally important for polity considerations, i.e. it is impossible to govern a confessional church which is ignorant of the content and significance of its confession.
Second, I believe that there is something inherently valuable in the achievements of the Scottish Second Reformation (same white dudes). This is one of the great Protestant traditions, and, simply from an aesthetic perspective, it deserves to be sustained; it certainly does not merit a death from neglect (unlike, say, Moravianism). Presbyterianism is one of the distinct incarnations of the Reformation, said Reformation never having had any real existence outside of its various bodily forms. What I am saying is that there has never been a generic "I'm just Reformed" option-except in the post-World War II world. The post-war option, having always been devoid of a genuine referent, is steadily losing any meaningful content.
Third, and most importantly, I believe that the Scottish Second Reformation represents, at least seminally, the church's most acute understanding of the Holy Scriptures. Ever. Which explains why I'm a Presbyterian instead of a Campbellite. But this proposition has a lot more luggage than T.U.L.I.P. and infant baptism. To borrow from Nicholas Wolterstorff, there is a world behind the work. (And contra Doug Wilson, James Jordan, et al., the world behind the Presbyterian work is not an Anglican or a Lutheran one.)
There is a Frisbee from the 17th century that is worth catching. There are those of us who are ecclesiastically committed to catching it. Our thrownness makes that difficult. So what should our technique be?
To be continued....
I. Who Gives a Rodent's Posterior?
Why bother? Aren't we surrounded by the droppings of dead white guys anyway? Haven't there been any advances in Christendom since the 1640s? What makes the theology of a bunch of backwater European late medieval/early modern pastors in funny collars special? Wasn't the Reformed movement international in its scope and bicentennial in its span?
First, I am a member of a Presbyterian church, and the sworn creed of that church happens to be the Westminster Standards, which happens to have been the brainchild of-you guessed it!-those Scottish guys. If I have any inclination to take my church's confession seriously, I need to know (a) what that confession says and (b) what that confession means. A subset of (b) is the meaning of that group of documents in the situatedness of my present time. (I'm going to skip over hermeneutical considerations at this point and assume that, to some extent, this scheme is epistemically feasible.) Note that both (a) and (b) are also vitally important for polity considerations, i.e. it is impossible to govern a confessional church which is ignorant of the content and significance of its confession.
Second, I believe that there is something inherently valuable in the achievements of the Scottish Second Reformation (same white dudes). This is one of the great Protestant traditions, and, simply from an aesthetic perspective, it deserves to be sustained; it certainly does not merit a death from neglect (unlike, say, Moravianism). Presbyterianism is one of the distinct incarnations of the Reformation, said Reformation never having had any real existence outside of its various bodily forms. What I am saying is that there has never been a generic "I'm just Reformed" option-except in the post-World War II world. The post-war option, having always been devoid of a genuine referent, is steadily losing any meaningful content.
Third, and most importantly, I believe that the Scottish Second Reformation represents, at least seminally, the church's most acute understanding of the Holy Scriptures. Ever. Which explains why I'm a Presbyterian instead of a Campbellite. But this proposition has a lot more luggage than T.U.L.I.P. and infant baptism. To borrow from Nicholas Wolterstorff, there is a world behind the work. (And contra Doug Wilson, James Jordan, et al., the world behind the Presbyterian work is not an Anglican or a Lutheran one.)
There is a Frisbee from the 17th century that is worth catching. There are those of us who are ecclesiastically committed to catching it. Our thrownness makes that difficult. So what should our technique be?
To be continued....
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
System Failure
Due to a system failure, I was not able to post today. Which is a shame, because I had typed out a once-for-all solution to the problem of interaction, and now my post is lost, and I can't seem to reformulate the key point in my argument.
Creative Orthodoxy: Part I
Orthodoxy is not often considered in conjunction with creativity; in fact, orthodoxy and originality are frequently taken to be inimical. It is my contention, however, that the two should kiss and make up, as justice and mercy do.
The reason that doctrinal/practical fidelity is thought to be at odds with innovation is simply this: in almost all known cases, innovation leads to the rejection of fidelity. The church has struggled to resist error since the time of the apostles, most or all of that error being the result of creative thinking on the part of its proponents.
Another cause for the suspicion of originality is the desire to maintain a particular tradition. Even if those who seek to rejuvenate orthodoxy do so within the boundaries of accepted Christianity, they tend to be borrowers from other strains of dogma or praxis. Hence many well-meaning Christians within the Presbyterian tradition are currently seeking to remedy, to pick an example, the deplorable state of worship in our day by appropriating Anglican or Lutheran perspectives and branding them as "really-really Reformed."
Presbyterian orthodoxy is in need of rejuvenation, I agree. I do not believe, however, that heterodoxy or the injection of alien traditions is what we need, because either of those options results in the transformation of Presbyterianism into something else.
Neither do I agree that hard-nosed conservatism is the answer. When both heterodoxy and alien traditions are rejected, the option of a tradition's conservators seems to be limited to simply resisting change, at least to a degree.
I believe that there is a fourth way. Many times in the West we have seen rejuvenation occur as the result of a group digging deep into its own past, exhuming the ancestral corpse of founding concepts, and bringing it back to life. The Shakespearean sonnet can show us how to do this.
To be continued...
The reason that doctrinal/practical fidelity is thought to be at odds with innovation is simply this: in almost all known cases, innovation leads to the rejection of fidelity. The church has struggled to resist error since the time of the apostles, most or all of that error being the result of creative thinking on the part of its proponents.
Another cause for the suspicion of originality is the desire to maintain a particular tradition. Even if those who seek to rejuvenate orthodoxy do so within the boundaries of accepted Christianity, they tend to be borrowers from other strains of dogma or praxis. Hence many well-meaning Christians within the Presbyterian tradition are currently seeking to remedy, to pick an example, the deplorable state of worship in our day by appropriating Anglican or Lutheran perspectives and branding them as "really-really Reformed."
Presbyterian orthodoxy is in need of rejuvenation, I agree. I do not believe, however, that heterodoxy or the injection of alien traditions is what we need, because either of those options results in the transformation of Presbyterianism into something else.
Neither do I agree that hard-nosed conservatism is the answer. When both heterodoxy and alien traditions are rejected, the option of a tradition's conservators seems to be limited to simply resisting change, at least to a degree.
I believe that there is a fourth way. Many times in the West we have seen rejuvenation occur as the result of a group digging deep into its own past, exhuming the ancestral corpse of founding concepts, and bringing it back to life. The Shakespearean sonnet can show us how to do this.
To be continued...
Monday, May 22, 2006
Conical Hats in Our Genes
"Discrimination" being such a vice in this society, one has to wonder that no-one experiences guilt over the treatment which the Puritans routinely receive from the New World's current inhabitants. The vitriol with which Nathaniel Hawthorne attacked his not-so-distant ancestors in, for example, The Scarlet Letter, has permanently set the tone for American reference to those hapless 17th-century settlers. But (to switch Hawthorne novels), like the ghosts of the Pyncheons, they still wreak their vengeance, for everyone born and raised in the United States has conical hats in his genes.
America is a place where a fastidious, albeit highly selective, moralism is a nearly universal trait, like individualism. And this fastidious moralism, the ghost of the Puritans' rigorous Christianity, has proved to be incorrigibly trans-generational. When one looks at abolition, or prohibition, or the current anti-smoking or anti-obesity craze, one sees the conical hats making their tour again. One could even argue that the contours of the pro-abortion movement have something of a conical shape to them.
The strange thing about these hat genes is that, subsequent to the Puritans, our rigid moralizing tends to concern itself with something that is, in the larger scope of things, rather silly. Consider prohibition, for example. Here you have multitudes of people concerned enough with their neighbors' consumption of alcohol to pass a constitutional amendment against it. And you'd better exhale quick if you want a last puff before somebody tries the same thing with smoking-or maybe french fries.
Another peculiarity of the American conscience is how specific (selective?) it is. It is specifically alcohol, rather than alcohol and opiates and tobacco and coffee, that captures the national imagination. Also, note the inflexibility of the American rule: it is not that sales of alcohol shall be limited to 2 ounces per person, but that no-one shall ever have any alcohol at all.
What can Christians make of this impulse, other than instigating or supporting whatever flippant manifestations it may currently take? I would suggest the following: knowing of our national propensity for Puritanical rule-making, why not present a meaningful issue for its consumption? Why could we not, for instance, tailor our defense of chastity to fit the fitful body of the American public? Calvinists in particular should remind themselves that we do (at least officially) believe in such a thing as civic righteousness, and we have surrounding us a country full of people who find themselves genetically predisposed to the proposal and enforcement of moralisms. Try on those conical hats; they're not so outdated after all.
America is a place where a fastidious, albeit highly selective, moralism is a nearly universal trait, like individualism. And this fastidious moralism, the ghost of the Puritans' rigorous Christianity, has proved to be incorrigibly trans-generational. When one looks at abolition, or prohibition, or the current anti-smoking or anti-obesity craze, one sees the conical hats making their tour again. One could even argue that the contours of the pro-abortion movement have something of a conical shape to them.
The strange thing about these hat genes is that, subsequent to the Puritans, our rigid moralizing tends to concern itself with something that is, in the larger scope of things, rather silly. Consider prohibition, for example. Here you have multitudes of people concerned enough with their neighbors' consumption of alcohol to pass a constitutional amendment against it. And you'd better exhale quick if you want a last puff before somebody tries the same thing with smoking-or maybe french fries.
Another peculiarity of the American conscience is how specific (selective?) it is. It is specifically alcohol, rather than alcohol and opiates and tobacco and coffee, that captures the national imagination. Also, note the inflexibility of the American rule: it is not that sales of alcohol shall be limited to 2 ounces per person, but that no-one shall ever have any alcohol at all.
What can Christians make of this impulse, other than instigating or supporting whatever flippant manifestations it may currently take? I would suggest the following: knowing of our national propensity for Puritanical rule-making, why not present a meaningful issue for its consumption? Why could we not, for instance, tailor our defense of chastity to fit the fitful body of the American public? Calvinists in particular should remind themselves that we do (at least officially) believe in such a thing as civic righteousness, and we have surrounding us a country full of people who find themselves genetically predisposed to the proposal and enforcement of moralisms. Try on those conical hats; they're not so outdated after all.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Sympathy for the Marginalized
If postmodernism has taught us anything, it is that anyone on the margins of of reified society's page has a deontological claim to pity. "Sympathy for the marginalized" has become a staple of whatever public discourse we still possess, and a demonstration that a person or group has been pushed to the edge of cultural life provokes an automatic response from those of us fortunate enough to have been conditioned in a postmodern way. This conditioned response combines empathy with anger to produce action on behalf of the oppressed person or group.
As an American, I have been conditioned to think in this manner, and I champion (oops, too martial a metaphor) the appropriateness of this response. However, it has come to my attention that in our focus on racial and gender oppression in this country and epidemics on other continents, we have not paid sufficient attention to a group whose very name has become the ultimate political pejorative: fascists.
The presidency of George W. Bush has brought this term back into public parlance. Back when Communism wasn't just for third-world fratricides and American college professors, the term "fascist" was bandied about with a real referent at hand. Though bona fide fascists are a little hard to find these days, they may still exist somewhere. And if they still do exist, how do you think they feel when they hear Democrats and Republicans alike use their convictions' designation as the political equivalent of "nigger"?
Let me remind all of you that the United States is a pluralistic democracy where each person has an equal right to her own opinion, no matter how outlandish. We can never again descend to the degradation of our forebears, who made oppressive statements such as "We hold these truths to be self-evident." We must celebrate all the colors of the rainbow, and more: we should celebrate brown, too.
As an American, I have been conditioned to think in this manner, and I champion (oops, too martial a metaphor) the appropriateness of this response. However, it has come to my attention that in our focus on racial and gender oppression in this country and epidemics on other continents, we have not paid sufficient attention to a group whose very name has become the ultimate political pejorative: fascists.
The presidency of George W. Bush has brought this term back into public parlance. Back when Communism wasn't just for third-world fratricides and American college professors, the term "fascist" was bandied about with a real referent at hand. Though bona fide fascists are a little hard to find these days, they may still exist somewhere. And if they still do exist, how do you think they feel when they hear Democrats and Republicans alike use their convictions' designation as the political equivalent of "nigger"?
Let me remind all of you that the United States is a pluralistic democracy where each person has an equal right to her own opinion, no matter how outlandish. We can never again descend to the degradation of our forebears, who made oppressive statements such as "We hold these truths to be self-evident." We must celebrate all the colors of the rainbow, and more: we should celebrate brown, too.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Free at Last! Thank the Divine Feminine, I Am Free at Last!
I saw "The Da Vinci Code" on Friday night. I have finally seen Christianity for what it has always been, an elaborate hoax designed to oppress the multitudes, especially those of us not equipped with phalluses. I now recant my orthodoxy, and recant my phallus, and I recant the rather WASP-y connotations of my name. I now feel free to not assert anything except the One Great Commandment, "Thou shalt not make any absolute statements (except this one)."
Let me just say that if this mediocre movie poses any kind of a threat to Christianity, the public consciousness is even more infantile than any of us had imagined.
On the other hand, I think Ron Howard and company have done all of us a favor by making anti-Christian sentiment appear so ludicrous. I hope that Elaine Pagels' opinions routinely become indistinguishable from Dr. Teabing's. Oh, wait; they already are.
Let me just say that if this mediocre movie poses any kind of a threat to Christianity, the public consciousness is even more infantile than any of us had imagined.
On the other hand, I think Ron Howard and company have done all of us a favor by making anti-Christian sentiment appear so ludicrous. I hope that Elaine Pagels' opinions routinely become indistinguishable from Dr. Teabing's. Oh, wait; they already are.
Friday, May 19, 2006
The Man Can Dance, But He Can't Hit
I'm currently reading Michael Horton's "Covenant and Eschatology," which is a sort of "Prolegomena to Any Future Systematics." It's an intriguing book, especially if one happens to be both Reformed and orthodox. Horton seeks to go behind the standard topics of a typical prolegomena in order to discuss the basic possibilities of doing theology in the current intellectual milieu. His thesis: the viable way to do theology now is to recast orthodoxy in the mould of the redemptive-historical approach. Horton believes that a redemptive-historical orthodoxy, where redemptive action in history is understood in terms of a cosmic drama, can re-invigorate the schizophrenic and decrepit corpus of current theological reflection. (At least that's what I've gotten from the first half of the book.)
"Covenant" is unusual, especially as an orthodox book, for the extent of its author's familiarity with post-modern and modern theologies. Horton's erudition is massive (and sometimes excessively displayed), but the man knows who his opponents are, and what he's up against in the form of inimical ideas. He also manages to find some very interesting allies (Paul Riceour stands out as an example).
I got very excited at the beginning of the book. Here's a guy who's now the professor of both theology and apologetics at a major Reformed seminary (Westminster in Escondido, CA) who's obviously intellectually intimate with anybody who's anybody in the last 150 years of Western thought. He's taking everybody on, and not just in general: he wants to take out the fine soil of particular ideas, mix in the water of current developments, and then mud-wrestle with Bultmann, Pannenberg, G.E. Wright, and Lindbeck, not to mention Hegel and Nietzche. Rock on!
Though Horton definitely makes some good points along the way, his argued objections to competitor systems tend to be limited to the reductio. Some of his less happy moments make me think I'm reading Rushdoony or Francis Schaeffer. Are there any other orthodox people in the universe who are tired of hearing contempory ideas condemned for "guilt by similarity" to ancient heresies or discredited philosophies? Guilt by association is not a legitimate tool for dismantling an opponent's viewpoint. That said, Horton does a fairly good job of showing up faults in major non-orthodox approaches.
Though Horton can bob and weave to avoid the left hook of modernist theologies and the uppercut of postmodernist narratives, he hits like a girl when it comes to offering his own propositions. He scarcely gets beyond stating his proffered alternatives; he barely even mentions why he thinks they are superior. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he makes a comeback in the second round of the book, but right now it looks like he needs to be sent back to the gym.
"Covenant" is unusual, especially as an orthodox book, for the extent of its author's familiarity with post-modern and modern theologies. Horton's erudition is massive (and sometimes excessively displayed), but the man knows who his opponents are, and what he's up against in the form of inimical ideas. He also manages to find some very interesting allies (Paul Riceour stands out as an example).
I got very excited at the beginning of the book. Here's a guy who's now the professor of both theology and apologetics at a major Reformed seminary (Westminster in Escondido, CA) who's obviously intellectually intimate with anybody who's anybody in the last 150 years of Western thought. He's taking everybody on, and not just in general: he wants to take out the fine soil of particular ideas, mix in the water of current developments, and then mud-wrestle with Bultmann, Pannenberg, G.E. Wright, and Lindbeck, not to mention Hegel and Nietzche. Rock on!
Though Horton definitely makes some good points along the way, his argued objections to competitor systems tend to be limited to the reductio. Some of his less happy moments make me think I'm reading Rushdoony or Francis Schaeffer. Are there any other orthodox people in the universe who are tired of hearing contempory ideas condemned for "guilt by similarity" to ancient heresies or discredited philosophies? Guilt by association is not a legitimate tool for dismantling an opponent's viewpoint. That said, Horton does a fairly good job of showing up faults in major non-orthodox approaches.
Though Horton can bob and weave to avoid the left hook of modernist theologies and the uppercut of postmodernist narratives, he hits like a girl when it comes to offering his own propositions. He scarcely gets beyond stating his proffered alternatives; he barely even mentions why he thinks they are superior. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he makes a comeback in the second round of the book, but right now it looks like he needs to be sent back to the gym.
Grissom Needs a Clue
My wife is an undying fan of CBS' "CSI" program. So much so, in fact, that I found it impossible to dissuade her from bringing her television with her when we got married (I had not owned a television previously). So now I watch "CSI" every week, although I have managed to maintain a ban on all other programs.
I can't truthfully say that I don't enjoy "CSI." I had trouble admitting this until I found out that Quentin Tarantino directed last year's season finale; I figured that if Tarantino approved of the show, I could do the same without losing excessive amounts of respect for myself. Which is not to say that I find the program particularly ingenious or the characters especially memorable. I do find, however, that the show is consistently entertaining, and that the staggering improbabilities which are a staple of the plots are usually well-concealed--which is more than can be said for most television programs.
I have noticed a peculiarity in William Petersen's character, though. "Gil Grissom" seems intended to be a sort of "in-the-trenches" intellectual, a guru of the cop-show universe. Petersen succeeds in his role, I think, to an extent: the encyclopedic knowledge, the corny jokes, the personal idiosyncracies mesh well in his performance, creating a believable "sage of law enforcement melodrama." Grissom is normally the character who offers whatever commentary the show's writers wish to provide on the larger implications of each program's events. The amusing thing, though, is that Grissom's outlook is that of scientific positivism.
This was evident in one of Grissom's sentiments, aired in the 2005-2006 season: "The evidence never lies." I found this very funny; it seemed as if Rudolf Carnap had been reincarnated as a character on broadcast television. Grissom consistently utters aphorisms that reveal the perspective of a naive species of scientific materialism that was discredited 50 years ago; I mean to say that he sounds like a logical positivist. This point of view is not really taken seriously today, except by scientists who ignore the philosophy of science, as well as by 99% of "Popular Mechanics" subscribers.
So, I would like to take up Grissom's challenge, aired repeatedly on the ads for the season's last shows ("There's always a clue: can you find it?") and give it back to him: "There's always an interpetive framework: can you find one that has been credible within recent memory?"
I can't truthfully say that I don't enjoy "CSI." I had trouble admitting this until I found out that Quentin Tarantino directed last year's season finale; I figured that if Tarantino approved of the show, I could do the same without losing excessive amounts of respect for myself. Which is not to say that I find the program particularly ingenious or the characters especially memorable. I do find, however, that the show is consistently entertaining, and that the staggering improbabilities which are a staple of the plots are usually well-concealed--which is more than can be said for most television programs.
I have noticed a peculiarity in William Petersen's character, though. "Gil Grissom" seems intended to be a sort of "in-the-trenches" intellectual, a guru of the cop-show universe. Petersen succeeds in his role, I think, to an extent: the encyclopedic knowledge, the corny jokes, the personal idiosyncracies mesh well in his performance, creating a believable "sage of law enforcement melodrama." Grissom is normally the character who offers whatever commentary the show's writers wish to provide on the larger implications of each program's events. The amusing thing, though, is that Grissom's outlook is that of scientific positivism.
This was evident in one of Grissom's sentiments, aired in the 2005-2006 season: "The evidence never lies." I found this very funny; it seemed as if Rudolf Carnap had been reincarnated as a character on broadcast television. Grissom consistently utters aphorisms that reveal the perspective of a naive species of scientific materialism that was discredited 50 years ago; I mean to say that he sounds like a logical positivist. This point of view is not really taken seriously today, except by scientists who ignore the philosophy of science, as well as by 99% of "Popular Mechanics" subscribers.
So, I would like to take up Grissom's challenge, aired repeatedly on the ads for the season's last shows ("There's always a clue: can you find it?") and give it back to him: "There's always an interpetive framework: can you find one that has been credible within recent memory?"
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Principium
Launching a personal blog is not a particularly momentous event in 2006, either for an individual or for a community; rather the opposite. However, as cyberspace is par excellence the realm of fantasy, I will indulge my own sense that I am accomplishing something significant by beginning my very own blog, and comment on my motivation for doing so.
I have serious reservations about blogging. Overall, blogging seems to exacerbate that trivialization of everything that is so endemic in the current cultural climate. As if talking heads and blaring I-pods weren't enough, now we have half-digested opinions being vomited forth by the very Gorgon of information that was already turning our hearts to stone. Okay, so I'm being melodramatic, but the advent of blogging seems to portend more damage to public discourse in the 21st century than otherwise. The freedom with which many offer their opinions, and the significance which they attach to them, not to mention the deplorably poor manner in which those opinions are usually expressed, all would appear to have an adverse effect on the discussion of, well, anything. (Nota bene: I do appreciate the irony involved in my expression of these thoughts.)
But then there is the additional fact that forums for public discourse really don't exist anymore. Even if we knew what a town meeting was, we wouldn't know how to conduct one now. And interpersonal discussion on a private level is usually limited by the fact that everyone seems to be so damnably busy these days. Electronic communication is generally more successful than other forms, but a sustained conversation is still surprisingly difficult to come by.
My dilemma is this: I have things I want to say, and I have nowhere to say them. So I suppose that I will join the other shards of my fragmented society and start opinionating on the Internet.
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