Sunday, April 27, 2008
On romance and passion
People will continue to differ on this issue, but lately I've come to the mind that romantic relationships are not merely "friends+". We have our friends, and there comes a time when we hunger for a connection which is not only more intimate, but essentially different from the "bowling team". There is a post on this blog--as yet unpublished--which looks into the nature of loneliness. There I suggest that loneliness is a hunger which can be fed equally well by deep friendships as with romance, just as physical hunger can be sated by salads as well as steaks. Thus, celibacy is not a sexual starvation as it is a relational vegetarianism. But now I wonder whether this does not oversimplify the matter. Passion is more than meat. It goes beyond being a powerful salve for loneliness. Combined with the interpersonal joys of supreme acceptance, welcome, and appreciation is something more, a sort of supreme liberation; an expansive frontier for the self; a new mystery, a new world. For the introvert especially, whose introspection has exhausted itself, the discovery of an other mystery that makes itself open and welcoming is a cool drink in the desert. Now, mystery and wonder are given a face. Now, welcoming itself can take my hand in hers. Now, the faintest taste of the promises of salvation reach out of the darkness and shatter the boundary of my self from the outside. And yet only a taste--and one which is only a model, burdened as she is with her own impermanence, finitude, and (like me) corruption. Two closed systems cannot, by combining, save themselves from the law of entropy. But in meeting they give one-another a hint of the infinite openness available to them from beyond.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
More on politics
I've never taken a class in political philosophy, but I would like to think that I am not completely unaware of the structure of politics or how the history of human thought has affected public and private human life. The absence of a formal background leaves me to flounder with abstract and non-standard terms, and I probably have significant blind-spots. That said, I know what I believe, and why, so it is relatively easy for me to explain why I vote for a particular candidate--or why voting is difficult in certain instances.
I took a "political compass" test to remind myself of where I stand. Here is the result:
By this chart alone, you would believe that I was left-middle economically, and socially very centrist. However this chart is uninformative on two counts. First, it presents the fallacy of the absolute middle. Any good postmodern thinker will recognize a certain arbitrariness to where the central lines are drawn, especially if the authors of the test do not reveal precise rationales.
Second, the chart falls into the fallacy of spectrum thinking. The validity of spectrum models itself lies on a spectrum, and I would suggest that that validity decreases the most sharply in proportion to the number of ideas and positions the authors attempt to represent in a single spectrum.
The first problem can be assuaged somewhat by presenting my dot in relative position to other dots. It so happens that the website provides for us a chart of famous figures, including, happily, Pope Benedict XVI:
It is perhaps not surprising that I am economically closely aligned with Pope Benedict, given that my strongest influence in this area is perhaps the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which is unavoidably left-center in its basic values as regards a government's responsibility to preserve basic human rights. Also, perhaps the fact that I am more libertinist than the Pope reflects some Americanism on my part. Mea culpa.
However, even as such, the chart fails to provide meaningful information about what I believe and why. For example, no one could guess from this chart that, while I am relatively libertinist on many issues, I am relatively extremely authoritarian where sexual matters are concerned, as I am strongly opposed to fundamental doctrines of the sexual revolution. I think a basic, non-scientific empiricism exposes the strong link between private sexual misbehavior and the collapse of public pillars of civilization, which in turn has led to epidemics of mental illness, crime, drugs, general unhappiness and a drag on education, social intelligence, and culture.
Thus a look at my political standpoint will not be accurate until it is broken down into a hierarchical structure of values and disvalues. See if the following personal doctrines are consistent with the location of my "dot" on the spectrum above:
Obviously this is not meant to be comprehensive. I wanted to highlight beliefs of mine which might be unusual and needed elaboration. But it shows something of the hierarchy of my political beliefs.
I took a "political compass" test to remind myself of where I stand. Here is the result:
By this chart alone, you would believe that I was left-middle economically, and socially very centrist. However this chart is uninformative on two counts. First, it presents the fallacy of the absolute middle. Any good postmodern thinker will recognize a certain arbitrariness to where the central lines are drawn, especially if the authors of the test do not reveal precise rationales.
Second, the chart falls into the fallacy of spectrum thinking. The validity of spectrum models itself lies on a spectrum, and I would suggest that that validity decreases the most sharply in proportion to the number of ideas and positions the authors attempt to represent in a single spectrum.
The first problem can be assuaged somewhat by presenting my dot in relative position to other dots. It so happens that the website provides for us a chart of famous figures, including, happily, Pope Benedict XVI:
It is perhaps not surprising that I am economically closely aligned with Pope Benedict, given that my strongest influence in this area is perhaps the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which is unavoidably left-center in its basic values as regards a government's responsibility to preserve basic human rights. Also, perhaps the fact that I am more libertinist than the Pope reflects some Americanism on my part. Mea culpa.
However, even as such, the chart fails to provide meaningful information about what I believe and why. For example, no one could guess from this chart that, while I am relatively libertinist on many issues, I am relatively extremely authoritarian where sexual matters are concerned, as I am strongly opposed to fundamental doctrines of the sexual revolution. I think a basic, non-scientific empiricism exposes the strong link between private sexual misbehavior and the collapse of public pillars of civilization, which in turn has led to epidemics of mental illness, crime, drugs, general unhappiness and a drag on education, social intelligence, and culture.
Thus a look at my political standpoint will not be accurate until it is broken down into a hierarchical structure of values and disvalues. See if the following personal doctrines are consistent with the location of my "dot" on the spectrum above:
- The theistic presumption. It is not necessary for an individual's moral framework that one believe in the Objective Ultimate as a metaphysical origin of Being and the ground of goodness as objective, universally binding, and thereby sanctioning a government's aligning itself toward the Good as a real yet mysterious truth. But the just state requires this presupposition as the linchpin of its existence and direction. Even were an atheist to be a head of the state, even as a dictator, the state fails its purpose unless the dictator presupposes his/her service to the Good as reality larger than the State and larger than him/herself, knowable (in part) by the full use of human reason, and Real. No just state, no matter the system of governance, can be founded in ideological relativism. All subsequent points flow from this theistic presumption.
- As against "atheizing" official documents and declarations of the United States, including the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, anthems, and the Pledge of Alleigance*.
- *Not requiring individuals, even heads of the state, to personally endorse theism.
- *Not requiring individuals, even heads of the state, to personally endorse theism.
- As against "atheizing" official documents and declarations of the United States, including the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, anthems, and the Pledge of Alleigance*.
- The sanctity and dignity of the human individual life is based exclusively one's being, and not upon any contingent realities--whether age, stage of development, history, location, citizenship, gender, health, or state of mind.
- As absolutely against abortion, euthanasia*, capital punishment, embryonic experimentation, and cloning.
- *Not requiring "extraordinary treatment", i.e., artificial extension of the life of patients whose condition directly implies immanent and inevitable death, or whose burden is not proportional to the good of the patient, which is not first and foremost physical, but spiritual.
- *Not requiring "extraordinary treatment", i.e., artificial extension of the life of patients whose condition directly implies immanent and inevitable death, or whose burden is not proportional to the good of the patient, which is not first and foremost physical, but spiritual.
- As against the prioritizing of any organization, theory, program, entity, plan, abstract value, structure, national identity, or law over and against the sanctity and dignity of individual human life.
- As for actively and proportionately guarding and encouraging, with all available resources legitimately obtained, the dignity, safety, health, freedom, and (opportunities for) prosperity of each individual in our boundaries.
- As for the official recognition and public privilege of family (organized not only by interpersonal choices by also by common biology as represented in heterosexual monogamy) as a public fact, a natural and necessary element of human life, having vital direct consequences for the physical and mental health of individuals and the health of civilization.
- As against frivolous divorce, all forms of the "marriage tax", public recognition or privilege granted to unmarried or homosexual unions, and indoctrination by public or non-profit agencies in sexual license.
- As for a preference granted to homes organized by heterosexual monogamy (among other obvious requirements) for the adoption of (especially young) children.
- As against frivolous divorce, all forms of the "marriage tax", public recognition or privilege granted to unmarried or homosexual unions, and indoctrination by public or non-profit agencies in sexual license.
- As for the official recognition and public privilege of family (organized not only by interpersonal choices by also by common biology as represented in heterosexual monogamy) as a public fact, a natural and necessary element of human life, having vital direct consequences for the physical and mental health of individuals and the health of civilization.
- As against all coercion not necessary to fulfill the previous.
- As for the advancement of culture, thought, technology, and the whole human heritage--in a word, civilization.
- As absolutely against abortion, euthanasia*, capital punishment, embryonic experimentation, and cloning.
Obviously this is not meant to be comprehensive. I wanted to highlight beliefs of mine which might be unusual and needed elaboration. But it shows something of the hierarchy of my political beliefs.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Good news in the computer world.
Recently, Microsoft issued a statement saying that they would continue the availability of XP Home for a class of computers they have dubbed "ULCPCs", or ultra low-cost PCs. What is great about this news is not so much that Windows XP has a new lease on life, but the official recognition of a new class of computers by Microsoft.
The presence, popularity, and recognition of ULCPCs marks the first time the PC industry has acknowledged what many people already knew: that computer technology advances have moved far beyond what most people need, and the inflation of hardware requirements for software is scarcely more than a ploy to keep computer prices high.
So now they have created a legitimate place for old hardware to reside as a class of its own. Now we can buy new computers with relatively old technology for a fraction of the cost of new computers, and what is more, they will be useful for 90% of what the top of the line computers are actually used for.
My only thought, then, is that while this can only be good for the market, I wonder what would happen if everyone "caught on" and saw the ULCPC as the only kind of computer that most people need. Has the industry unwittingly poked an unfixable hole in the illusion that computer hardware upgrades are in any sense "necessary"?
I hope so.
The presence, popularity, and recognition of ULCPCs marks the first time the PC industry has acknowledged what many people already knew: that computer technology advances have moved far beyond what most people need, and the inflation of hardware requirements for software is scarcely more than a ploy to keep computer prices high.
So now they have created a legitimate place for old hardware to reside as a class of its own. Now we can buy new computers with relatively old technology for a fraction of the cost of new computers, and what is more, they will be useful for 90% of what the top of the line computers are actually used for.
My only thought, then, is that while this can only be good for the market, I wonder what would happen if everyone "caught on" and saw the ULCPC as the only kind of computer that most people need. Has the industry unwittingly poked an unfixable hole in the illusion that computer hardware upgrades are in any sense "necessary"?
I hope so.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
A game's story analysis
Lately, I have revisited a old video game published in 1998: "Final Fantasy Tactics". Recently, Square-Enix released a remake of the game for Sony's portable system, which includes a slight graphical face-lift, some extra features, but most importantly an improved translation of the story. The original game comes from a time when Square (a Japanese company) bought localization on the cheap, resulting in some of the most sadly hilarious "Engrish" foisted on American audiences.
But nevermind. One of the reasons I continue to play this ten-year-old game (besides being unable to afford newer ones) is that the story is a work of art. It has moral and spiritual implications worthy of a much more respected medium than it now occupies--moreso even than Square's other works, which are known for their headiness.
Here is a breakdown of the story. There is a 15th century-style kingdom called Ivalice; it's a confederation of competing duchies, all paying lip-service to unity and loyalty while still fighting for the biggest piece of the political pie.
You play Ramza, the youngest son of a noble warrior family who discovers gradually that the lofty ideals he was raised with have all but disappeared from a depraved post-war landscape. After a scrape with your duplicitous older brothers, you and your commoner-born best friend part ways. These two characters become emblems of two diverging struggles against the same overwhelming evil. By following two competing protagonists, the game is really examining the ancient question of how one lives well amid a time defined by corruption and cynicism.
In some ways, the story is simplistic--it is a game, after all. Although the story plays with the different shapes that evil can take, it rarely leaves a question as to which is which. At the beginning, the game tackles intolerance and arrogance in the shape of Algus, a platinum-blond-haired snot who tags along with your party until he becomes enemy #1 at the end of the first chapter.
But the real moral hub around which the story revolves is not equality (or equitable distribution of resources), nor peace, nor faith, nor many other issues which, in the end, wind up being red-herrings. Rather, the central issue becomes the question of honor and integrity, and the degree to which these are held (or compromised) in the pursuit of all the other goals.
Thus, while the game leaves no question as to who the "bad guy" is, it nevertheless gradually places ever loftier goals in the lips of those enemies. Thus you find yourself pitted against men and women fighting, now for equality, now for peace, now for even the right to live. The only common denominator in your opponents is their willingness to engage in self-contradiction as a means to achieve their ends.
This is the running theme up to a point. After a certain juncture, however, it becomes clear that there are now four distinct "camps" of morality. There is, of course, Ramza, who seems to have a very clear order of priorities: (1) his own honor and integrity; (2) the lives of those dear to him; (3) the honor and integrity of the ruling class; and lastly his own life. This makes Ramza a very simple and easy character to like.
Meanwhile, the game provides us with a camp that is very easy to hate: the "Lucavi", the demons who lurk behind the scenes of Ramza's other opposed parties. If Ramza is the only non-duplicitous good, they are the non-duplicitous evil, wholly unabashed in their love of suffering and death.
Of note is the story's implication that, though among human beings there is rarely pure evil, nevertheless even the most moderately selfish desires are a participation--a dipping of the toe--in supreme evil. Human beings in the game leave themselves open to the influence of (and possession by) devils in the degree that they allow their honor to be compromised. Notably, it is those with the greatest goals and the greatest genius who the devils choose to corrupt completely.
Between your honorable protagonist and the nefarious demons, however, there are yet two parties of note. The first, we might term the "pawns"--those who make up the vast majority of characters in the game, including most of the pitiable non-story characters you mow over from battle to battle. At one stage of the game, a lord tries to interfere in the greater struggle for personal gain; he is demolished by your enemies without you yourself even having to fight him. There is here expressed, I think, a commonly held disdain (held equally by those on the side of evil and righteousness) for those whose vision is so narrow that they can't help by be manipulated and tossed about by forces beyond their ken. There is even something vaguely scriptural in this sentiment--these are the luke warm, doomed to be spat out.
Yet I think it would be hasty to suggest that, by this story's reckoning, one must be a visionary to matter. On the contrary, it is an explicit part of Ramza's "honor code" that one should not need to be a "visionary"--to be privy to esoteric justifications for heinous evils--to have the right to live. Ramza has a moment of guilt after his troup is forced to kill, in self-defence, a band of desperate army deserters.
The key to the story's sense of justice, it seems, is that the more meager and beast-like one's motivations, the more likely one will fall into a meager category of people.
The last of these four "parties" is an individual: Delita, the commoner-born friend from the beginning of the story. Delita is a fascinating character study, and his presence in the story is what makes me sorry that it remains trapped in the obscurity of popular culture.
Delita is not as good a person as Ramza; that much is not left to question by the story. But neither is he sidelined into the ranks of your enemies or the pawns. Delita seems to be the writers' attempt to explore a question: is it really true that it is *always* wrong to lie, to assassinate, and to manipulate? What if one does so while having the breadth of vision to avoid being manipulated by others? What if one does so in only the subtlest of ways, so that history will declare them a righteous hero? What if one does so, at last, successfully toward the end of a peaceful, equal, righteous society?
It is in Delita that the story actually puts its own moralism to the test. It is as if the narrators are saying: "Yes, all of the 'bad guys' are falling at your feet. But here is someone who is not much different than they are; only he is your friend; he shares your goals; and he is supremely good at the bad things that he does. If he is successful, who could blame him?"
Most dramas, especially American-made dramas, obey strict laws of karma-inspired dramatic justice. The "bad guy" always loses. Even independent films are sometimes superficial in the way they try to contradict that tendency by sometimes letting the "bad guy" win.
This story goes a step further by challenging whether the "bad guy" is really bad, and but putting to question whether he has really "won" or "lost". At the end of the story, your own character disappears into obscurity, only to have his righteous deeds discovered in writing hundreds of years after his death. Delita, on the other hand, winds up the King of Ivalice--the ultimate "rags to riches" story; success in every sense of the word. And on top of it all, he is a really nice guy.
But the story, delightfully, takes even its own self-questioning to task. After the credits, King Delita's queen--the woman he fnagled onto the throne through intrigue and deception (and who he honestly loved)--attempted to kill him; and he, in turn, killed her. In a final moment of lucidity, he asks the wind, "Ramza, what did you get, on your end? I got this..."
[Little note: I recall reading in a 'fundamental theology' textbook that the deepest human desire is to be loved by the one I love. If that is true, Delita's fate here is all the more pathetic--to be murdered by the one he loved; and worse, to survive it, and so dwell on it.]
The grand finale puts a final, crowning twist on the game's thesis of the good life. Again it's final note is biblical: the wages of sin are death. There is an echo, too, of C.S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce" - there can be no felicitous marriage of good and evil; there can be no lasting harmony between the two. One cannot indefinitely escape the fruits of corruption, no matter how brilliant they are, how good their goals, or how successful their deceits.
The two diverging paths established early in the game end in two opposite ways: Ramza's life is only superficially tragic, though more deeply he achieves something like dramatic immortality. Delita's life is superficially sparkling, though his is the real tragedy.
But nevermind. One of the reasons I continue to play this ten-year-old game (besides being unable to afford newer ones) is that the story is a work of art. It has moral and spiritual implications worthy of a much more respected medium than it now occupies--moreso even than Square's other works, which are known for their headiness.
Here is a breakdown of the story. There is a 15th century-style kingdom called Ivalice; it's a confederation of competing duchies, all paying lip-service to unity and loyalty while still fighting for the biggest piece of the political pie.
You play Ramza, the youngest son of a noble warrior family who discovers gradually that the lofty ideals he was raised with have all but disappeared from a depraved post-war landscape. After a scrape with your duplicitous older brothers, you and your commoner-born best friend part ways. These two characters become emblems of two diverging struggles against the same overwhelming evil. By following two competing protagonists, the game is really examining the ancient question of how one lives well amid a time defined by corruption and cynicism.
In some ways, the story is simplistic--it is a game, after all. Although the story plays with the different shapes that evil can take, it rarely leaves a question as to which is which. At the beginning, the game tackles intolerance and arrogance in the shape of Algus, a platinum-blond-haired snot who tags along with your party until he becomes enemy #1 at the end of the first chapter.
But the real moral hub around which the story revolves is not equality (or equitable distribution of resources), nor peace, nor faith, nor many other issues which, in the end, wind up being red-herrings. Rather, the central issue becomes the question of honor and integrity, and the degree to which these are held (or compromised) in the pursuit of all the other goals.
Thus, while the game leaves no question as to who the "bad guy" is, it nevertheless gradually places ever loftier goals in the lips of those enemies. Thus you find yourself pitted against men and women fighting, now for equality, now for peace, now for even the right to live. The only common denominator in your opponents is their willingness to engage in self-contradiction as a means to achieve their ends.
This is the running theme up to a point. After a certain juncture, however, it becomes clear that there are now four distinct "camps" of morality. There is, of course, Ramza, who seems to have a very clear order of priorities: (1) his own honor and integrity; (2) the lives of those dear to him; (3) the honor and integrity of the ruling class; and lastly his own life. This makes Ramza a very simple and easy character to like.
Meanwhile, the game provides us with a camp that is very easy to hate: the "Lucavi", the demons who lurk behind the scenes of Ramza's other opposed parties. If Ramza is the only non-duplicitous good, they are the non-duplicitous evil, wholly unabashed in their love of suffering and death.
Of note is the story's implication that, though among human beings there is rarely pure evil, nevertheless even the most moderately selfish desires are a participation--a dipping of the toe--in supreme evil. Human beings in the game leave themselves open to the influence of (and possession by) devils in the degree that they allow their honor to be compromised. Notably, it is those with the greatest goals and the greatest genius who the devils choose to corrupt completely.
Between your honorable protagonist and the nefarious demons, however, there are yet two parties of note. The first, we might term the "pawns"--those who make up the vast majority of characters in the game, including most of the pitiable non-story characters you mow over from battle to battle. At one stage of the game, a lord tries to interfere in the greater struggle for personal gain; he is demolished by your enemies without you yourself even having to fight him. There is here expressed, I think, a commonly held disdain (held equally by those on the side of evil and righteousness) for those whose vision is so narrow that they can't help by be manipulated and tossed about by forces beyond their ken. There is even something vaguely scriptural in this sentiment--these are the luke warm, doomed to be spat out.
Yet I think it would be hasty to suggest that, by this story's reckoning, one must be a visionary to matter. On the contrary, it is an explicit part of Ramza's "honor code" that one should not need to be a "visionary"--to be privy to esoteric justifications for heinous evils--to have the right to live. Ramza has a moment of guilt after his troup is forced to kill, in self-defence, a band of desperate army deserters.
The key to the story's sense of justice, it seems, is that the more meager and beast-like one's motivations, the more likely one will fall into a meager category of people.
The last of these four "parties" is an individual: Delita, the commoner-born friend from the beginning of the story. Delita is a fascinating character study, and his presence in the story is what makes me sorry that it remains trapped in the obscurity of popular culture.
Delita is not as good a person as Ramza; that much is not left to question by the story. But neither is he sidelined into the ranks of your enemies or the pawns. Delita seems to be the writers' attempt to explore a question: is it really true that it is *always* wrong to lie, to assassinate, and to manipulate? What if one does so while having the breadth of vision to avoid being manipulated by others? What if one does so in only the subtlest of ways, so that history will declare them a righteous hero? What if one does so, at last, successfully toward the end of a peaceful, equal, righteous society?
It is in Delita that the story actually puts its own moralism to the test. It is as if the narrators are saying: "Yes, all of the 'bad guys' are falling at your feet. But here is someone who is not much different than they are; only he is your friend; he shares your goals; and he is supremely good at the bad things that he does. If he is successful, who could blame him?"
Most dramas, especially American-made dramas, obey strict laws of karma-inspired dramatic justice. The "bad guy" always loses. Even independent films are sometimes superficial in the way they try to contradict that tendency by sometimes letting the "bad guy" win.
This story goes a step further by challenging whether the "bad guy" is really bad, and but putting to question whether he has really "won" or "lost". At the end of the story, your own character disappears into obscurity, only to have his righteous deeds discovered in writing hundreds of years after his death. Delita, on the other hand, winds up the King of Ivalice--the ultimate "rags to riches" story; success in every sense of the word. And on top of it all, he is a really nice guy.
But the story, delightfully, takes even its own self-questioning to task. After the credits, King Delita's queen--the woman he fnagled onto the throne through intrigue and deception (and who he honestly loved)--attempted to kill him; and he, in turn, killed her. In a final moment of lucidity, he asks the wind, "Ramza, what did you get, on your end? I got this..."
[Little note: I recall reading in a 'fundamental theology' textbook that the deepest human desire is to be loved by the one I love. If that is true, Delita's fate here is all the more pathetic--to be murdered by the one he loved; and worse, to survive it, and so dwell on it.]
The grand finale puts a final, crowning twist on the game's thesis of the good life. Again it's final note is biblical: the wages of sin are death. There is an echo, too, of C.S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce" - there can be no felicitous marriage of good and evil; there can be no lasting harmony between the two. One cannot indefinitely escape the fruits of corruption, no matter how brilliant they are, how good their goals, or how successful their deceits.
The two diverging paths established early in the game end in two opposite ways: Ramza's life is only superficially tragic, though more deeply he achieves something like dramatic immortality. Delita's life is superficially sparkling, though his is the real tragedy.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Dear souls,
I write to you desiring to strike a new mutual understanding between us. Perhaps, for some time, we lived under the happy expectation that I would join the ranks of your pastors; that I would engage, in a very direct way, in your care; that both generally and individually, I would administer to your needs as you are--as souls--and perhaps be a reservoir of grace in the service of your salvation and my own as well.
That expectation was, I should not like to say destroyed, but rather transformed. Souls, please understand, I never lost my desire or my care for you. In truth, I lately discover that it is you I care about above any of the accessories you carry about you. My reasons for leaving the track that would lead me into an official position of responsibility for you, are not that I discovered a lack of love for you. Let us think of it instead in these terms. In the short course of my years, as much as I have learned about your inner movements, your most important concerns, your longings, your thrills, your sadnesses, and your loves--this much have I lost regard for the games you play on the outside. So much distaste have I developed for those games--especially where they contradict you--you souls--and where they serve only to increase your sadness, that the games now terrify me with their ugliness. I flee them wherever I encounter them.
And so I ceased long ago to develop skills that would aid me in playing your games effectively. For that reason I confess, I am not able to command or politick or schmooze; I cannot lead, organize, empower, or otherwise motivate. I cannot administer, govern, delegate, compromise, or bargain. One great irony of my life is that, while I am no stranger to public speaking--an art I continue to enjoy--it is precisely the public I loathe. You, you souls, you I love. The public I hate. The priest must preach, he must teach, and he must govern. He must macro-manage; he must maintain a social machine, oiling the gears, cleaning the debris, preserving appearances and customs. He must carefully guard his own soul from all while you bare yourself to him... but ever so selectively. All is safe, all is appearances, all is proper, all is routine. A priest no doubt cares for souls. But he is ever more the custodian of calcified public images; cardboard cutouts of "okayness" that come to life only to thrash those men reluctant to preserve them unchanged.
Souls, I hope you do not misunderstand me. I do not criticize public religion nor public service. God created us as social spirits, and because of sin our societies need order--public order. This is a mercy, and one we may celebrate. But why do some personalities (like my own) feel justly more alone in a room full of people than with one or two? Is there not something even mildly sinister in how little honesty, transparency, humility can survive the group setting? That here, I am no longer in a room with many souls (many of you), but with only so many strategically programmed automations, deployed for survival in hostile territory, with all defenses go?
[post-script insert: the liturgy is an entirely different entity than this!]
And so, souls, I have retreated, not from you, not away, but toward you. Yes, I have pulled away from the allergens that I never developed the ability to tolerate; I have receded indoors, into air-conditioned space, protected from the pollen, as it were, within the deep underground floors of libraries and acadamia. I have done so for three reasons, here in order from least to greatest. Number one, for myself, because the games have become painful to me. Number two, for you, so that when you, too, tire of being other than what you are, you can find some comfort in my company, without judgment or reprisal. Number three, in service to truth.
A note on that last. Our salvation is fulfilled in the grace of charity which has its source from God via the sacraments. No book learning is necessary. But the professor and the priest serve complimentary roles in the Church's mission to bring Christ's salvation to all. In analogous ways both offer Christ to people in Word and Sacrament; the priest in persona Cristi; the professor as a minister to the unfolding of the written Word. The professor is the technician to the priest; he is the Q to the priest's 007--ever vital, ever ancillary, ever developing further the instruments by which the priest can accomplish his task.
And yet, souls, please do not think that by taking this path I place between you and me the priest as a buffer; that I seek to insulate myself from you behind the security of book-laden walls. It is here where I find that you are easier to reach than within the parish offices and halls; where what is really you rises to the surface, both in the words of men who knew you better than I, and in your own words responding back, ever new, ever completing the picture.
Thus I hope we have a new mutual understanding. I am not, I think, your pastor, but I can be a friend, perhaps, or a counselor, for it is in the heart-to-heart that I serve in my element. Let us learn from one another, and let that learning serve the Church in whatever way is fitting.
That expectation was, I should not like to say destroyed, but rather transformed. Souls, please understand, I never lost my desire or my care for you. In truth, I lately discover that it is you I care about above any of the accessories you carry about you. My reasons for leaving the track that would lead me into an official position of responsibility for you, are not that I discovered a lack of love for you. Let us think of it instead in these terms. In the short course of my years, as much as I have learned about your inner movements, your most important concerns, your longings, your thrills, your sadnesses, and your loves--this much have I lost regard for the games you play on the outside. So much distaste have I developed for those games--especially where they contradict you--you souls--and where they serve only to increase your sadness, that the games now terrify me with their ugliness. I flee them wherever I encounter them.
And so I ceased long ago to develop skills that would aid me in playing your games effectively. For that reason I confess, I am not able to command or politick or schmooze; I cannot lead, organize, empower, or otherwise motivate. I cannot administer, govern, delegate, compromise, or bargain. One great irony of my life is that, while I am no stranger to public speaking--an art I continue to enjoy--it is precisely the public I loathe. You, you souls, you I love. The public I hate. The priest must preach, he must teach, and he must govern. He must macro-manage; he must maintain a social machine, oiling the gears, cleaning the debris, preserving appearances and customs. He must carefully guard his own soul from all while you bare yourself to him... but ever so selectively. All is safe, all is appearances, all is proper, all is routine. A priest no doubt cares for souls. But he is ever more the custodian of calcified public images; cardboard cutouts of "okayness" that come to life only to thrash those men reluctant to preserve them unchanged.
Souls, I hope you do not misunderstand me. I do not criticize public religion nor public service. God created us as social spirits, and because of sin our societies need order--public order. This is a mercy, and one we may celebrate. But why do some personalities (like my own) feel justly more alone in a room full of people than with one or two? Is there not something even mildly sinister in how little honesty, transparency, humility can survive the group setting? That here, I am no longer in a room with many souls (many of you), but with only so many strategically programmed automations, deployed for survival in hostile territory, with all defenses go?
[post-script insert: the liturgy is an entirely different entity than this!]
And so, souls, I have retreated, not from you, not away, but toward you. Yes, I have pulled away from the allergens that I never developed the ability to tolerate; I have receded indoors, into air-conditioned space, protected from the pollen, as it were, within the deep underground floors of libraries and acadamia. I have done so for three reasons, here in order from least to greatest. Number one, for myself, because the games have become painful to me. Number two, for you, so that when you, too, tire of being other than what you are, you can find some comfort in my company, without judgment or reprisal. Number three, in service to truth.
A note on that last. Our salvation is fulfilled in the grace of charity which has its source from God via the sacraments. No book learning is necessary. But the professor and the priest serve complimentary roles in the Church's mission to bring Christ's salvation to all. In analogous ways both offer Christ to people in Word and Sacrament; the priest in persona Cristi; the professor as a minister to the unfolding of the written Word. The professor is the technician to the priest; he is the Q to the priest's 007--ever vital, ever ancillary, ever developing further the instruments by which the priest can accomplish his task.
And yet, souls, please do not think that by taking this path I place between you and me the priest as a buffer; that I seek to insulate myself from you behind the security of book-laden walls. It is here where I find that you are easier to reach than within the parish offices and halls; where what is really you rises to the surface, both in the words of men who knew you better than I, and in your own words responding back, ever new, ever completing the picture.
Thus I hope we have a new mutual understanding. I am not, I think, your pastor, but I can be a friend, perhaps, or a counselor, for it is in the heart-to-heart that I serve in my element. Let us learn from one another, and let that learning serve the Church in whatever way is fitting.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Operating systems and faith?
I've switched parishes to a nearby Jesuit-run church; amazingly enough these priests (or at least the community they serve) make the liturgy a priority in the life of the community, with God being a priority for the liturgy. It isn't traditionalist, and it isn't the Brompton Oratory, but it, shall we say, "feels Catholic". One of the best things to happen to me in the last year is that, while I still notice that the altar servers are wearing jeans and sneakers, and that some hymns are sung in the "First Person Divine," that the priest omits the word "men" from the Nicene Creed, and so on, these things do not have their old stinging effect on me. Part of it may be that I sense that these loose threads nevertheless rest atop a bedrock of serious Catholic worship. A prettier Mass would depress me more, if I had reason to believe that its ultimate end was perverted.
The priest who gave tonight's homily is a new associate. He is a Jesuit's Jesuit; a man for whom every fiber in his body seems to exist in order to support that massive, Baroque-styled brain of his. He gave a full-flung extended analogy this evening between faith and--get this--PC operating systems. I was titillated, though I felt somewhat embarrassed that I was likely the only one in the congregation thinking, "I wonder if God uses Linux?" Father is a Windows man himself.
One of my bad listening habits is that I will latch on to something interesting from a homily or a lecture, and interiorly go my own way with it while tuning out everything else completely. If faith is an operating system, which is which? Perhaps Catholicism is Windows, with its centrally controlled, hierarchical structure; its need for periodic reform; and its traditional "Windows 95" interface, akin to the noble Roman rite of the 4th century--simple, but not sloppy; friendly, but not frivolous.
Linux is Protestantism. Sure, when you get right down two it, there's a core, and you can build what you like around the core. But break compatibility with the core, and you forsake the right to call yourself Linux. Of course, that doesn't stop some people, but what are you going to do? Linux is a world that juxtaposes the wildest postmodern bending of truth and reality (and windows) with the most rigorous and unyielding (at times brutally merciless) orthodoxy. Over 300 currently managed Linux distributions and counting.
(You could compare Linux to the Orthodox Church, too; after all, it is rather Byzantine, yuk yuk yuk).
Where does that leave Macintosh? I have to give it to the Mormons. Note that in its current form, MacOS it has similar underpinnings as Linux (see above). And Apple, like the LDS, understanding the difficulty of winning marketshare in its flagship product, has instead extended influence through emissaries of various kinds; one envisions lots of iPhones on bicycles. I think the allegory also sticks where Apple's image is concerned: tightly managed, hanging from every word of Steve Jobs, at the same time beloved for its cultural output and vilified for its lack of transparency and its alien mystique.
The priest who gave tonight's homily is a new associate. He is a Jesuit's Jesuit; a man for whom every fiber in his body seems to exist in order to support that massive, Baroque-styled brain of his. He gave a full-flung extended analogy this evening between faith and--get this--PC operating systems. I was titillated, though I felt somewhat embarrassed that I was likely the only one in the congregation thinking, "I wonder if God uses Linux?" Father is a Windows man himself.
One of my bad listening habits is that I will latch on to something interesting from a homily or a lecture, and interiorly go my own way with it while tuning out everything else completely. If faith is an operating system, which is which? Perhaps Catholicism is Windows, with its centrally controlled, hierarchical structure; its need for periodic reform; and its traditional "Windows 95" interface, akin to the noble Roman rite of the 4th century--simple, but not sloppy; friendly, but not frivolous.
Linux is Protestantism. Sure, when you get right down two it, there's a core, and you can build what you like around the core. But break compatibility with the core, and you forsake the right to call yourself Linux. Of course, that doesn't stop some people, but what are you going to do? Linux is a world that juxtaposes the wildest postmodern bending of truth and reality (and windows) with the most rigorous and unyielding (at times brutally merciless) orthodoxy. Over 300 currently managed Linux distributions and counting.
(You could compare Linux to the Orthodox Church, too; after all, it is rather Byzantine, yuk yuk yuk).
Where does that leave Macintosh? I have to give it to the Mormons. Note that in its current form, MacOS it has similar underpinnings as Linux (see above). And Apple, like the LDS, understanding the difficulty of winning marketshare in its flagship product, has instead extended influence through emissaries of various kinds; one envisions lots of iPhones on bicycles. I think the allegory also sticks where Apple's image is concerned: tightly managed, hanging from every word of Steve Jobs, at the same time beloved for its cultural output and vilified for its lack of transparency and its alien mystique.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
On "Worthiness"
There is an apparent conflict (or at least a tension) within Catholic and Christian life that has its beginnings in Scripture. When am I worthy? Or am I never worthy? Is anybody ever worthy? If not, why are not all people saved or damned equally? Worthiness is an uncomfortable issue because, on the one hand, the Scriptures promise that Christ overturns the world's standards of worthiness, and grace powerfully overcomes the objective unworthiness of all. And yet standards of worthiness (both objective and subjective) still obtain and have real consequences for individuals on their path to salvation.
There are some easy answers that I am not quite satisfied with yet. Perhaps one may say that Christ did not come to eliminate all standards of worthiness, but only corrupt ones--such as when he compares "weightier matters of justice and the law" to the "tithes of mint and cummin"--the camel and the gnat, as it were. And so Christ effectively substitutes meaningless and empty systems by which human beings stratify themselves for the only one that matters: love, and its public corollary, justice.
But this explanation does not satisfy the Gospel. Both radically egalitarian and hierarchical at once, the Christian must always remember his misery at being born in sin, his dignity as a child of God, his suitability to the demands set upon him by vocation and circumstance, and above all the state of his constant battle to accept grace in the face of disordered appetites. And so, the question of worthiness is different according to the scope, the sphere, the stakes, and where it all fits into God's mercy. If I address this issue again, the main question I hope to address is: which "worthinesses" are the most important, the most ultimate, the most determining for how worthiness plays itself out in human life.
There are some easy answers that I am not quite satisfied with yet. Perhaps one may say that Christ did not come to eliminate all standards of worthiness, but only corrupt ones--such as when he compares "weightier matters of justice and the law" to the "tithes of mint and cummin"--the camel and the gnat, as it were. And so Christ effectively substitutes meaningless and empty systems by which human beings stratify themselves for the only one that matters: love, and its public corollary, justice.
But this explanation does not satisfy the Gospel. Both radically egalitarian and hierarchical at once, the Christian must always remember his misery at being born in sin, his dignity as a child of God, his suitability to the demands set upon him by vocation and circumstance, and above all the state of his constant battle to accept grace in the face of disordered appetites. And so, the question of worthiness is different according to the scope, the sphere, the stakes, and where it all fits into God's mercy. If I address this issue again, the main question I hope to address is: which "worthinesses" are the most important, the most ultimate, the most determining for how worthiness plays itself out in human life.
Friday, March 21, 2008
A continuation of "Blindmen", by me
For the parable, see here.
"It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind..."
And after bitter argument,
The elephant did speak.
Not loud but in a whisper to
one of these men most meek.
"These parts of me are one, you know,
if that is what you seek."
This man was truly stunned to hear
the beast speak thus and so,
though meek he was, he dared to ask
"Why me this truth you show?"
To which the 'phant did give reply,
"To let the others know."
Emboldened by the news he heard,
he sang aloud this call.
"The parts are one, this elephant
is not a tree or wall,
Nor spear nor snake nor fan nor rope
nor any thing at all!"
"He said to me, this elephant,
'I am one beast, it's true,
Now go tell all the others there,'
And so I'm telling you."
Replied a man from Indostan,
"You haven't got a clue."
"Each one of us is blind, you see,
and none can know the facts.
Your confidence is arrogant,
your manner has no tact.
Opinion is what we adore,
for evidence we lack."
Returning to the elephant,
Our prophet was so sad.
The elephant was wise to know
what anger that he had.
"Do not be too discouraged now,
my words will make you glad."
"Those who are blind will sometimes act
as though they cannot hear.
They do not know what joy is had
by listening to the ear.
But time will open up their minds,
So trust me, do not fear!"
"It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind..."
And after bitter argument,
The elephant did speak.
Not loud but in a whisper to
one of these men most meek.
"These parts of me are one, you know,
if that is what you seek."
This man was truly stunned to hear
the beast speak thus and so,
though meek he was, he dared to ask
"Why me this truth you show?"
To which the 'phant did give reply,
"To let the others know."
Emboldened by the news he heard,
he sang aloud this call.
"The parts are one, this elephant
is not a tree or wall,
Nor spear nor snake nor fan nor rope
nor any thing at all!"
"He said to me, this elephant,
'I am one beast, it's true,
Now go tell all the others there,'
And so I'm telling you."
Replied a man from Indostan,
"You haven't got a clue."
"Each one of us is blind, you see,
and none can know the facts.
Your confidence is arrogant,
your manner has no tact.
Opinion is what we adore,
for evidence we lack."
Returning to the elephant,
Our prophet was so sad.
The elephant was wise to know
what anger that he had.
"Do not be too discouraged now,
my words will make you glad."
"Those who are blind will sometimes act
as though they cannot hear.
They do not know what joy is had
by listening to the ear.
But time will open up their minds,
So trust me, do not fear!"
Metareligion
A word like "metareligion" is a red flag that the one who utters it is a charlatan and a sophist, another pseudo-mystic who is convinced he/she has made (for the first time!) the earth-shaking discovery that "OMG, like, all the religions should get together!"--another agnostic in priest's clothing.
Or if not that, then the word should serve as a warning that the speaker is at least pretentious. Guilty as charged.
But if I use the word and suggest that there is such a thing, I don't meant to imply anything really earth-shattering, and certainly not anything like the old modernist ideal of a "natural religion" or an "essential religious experience"--religion qua religion, beyond the trappings of dogma or particularity. No. Christianity is the triumph of the particular, the sanctification of history as particular. A religion of mere generalities is a fundamentally anti-Christian religion.
Now, as I teach about world religions (to myself as much as to others), I see in the great human traditions all of the similarities and differences that reflect the mixture of order and chaos that is everywhere in nature (per the dictum of an old professor of mine, "There are always similarities, and there are always differences.").
Yet along with that basic insight, we are also dealing with ideas; religion, revealed or no, is bound up with ideas; and as long as a religion makes use of any words at all, it shares with all human traditions a partaking in human thought. Postmodernism will never be as successful as it pretends to be in deconstructing the unity of thought, even while it explodes traditional of logic. Destroying models does not destroy the unity of being which serves as the ineffable substrata which allows anything to be intelligible at all.
And so even the remedial student of comparative religions is bound recognize recurring patterns and archetypes. Here, people jump to hasty conclusions. From recurring patterns in religions, we cannot deduce therefore that...
What I mean by metareligion is this: it is the declension of a religion. I mean that in almost precisely the mathematical sense of the word. Now, I failed calculus in college, but I was still fascinated by the process of taking derivatives. A declension preserves something of the form of a function, while losing some of the information in the original. Derivatives are vital for comparing functions. What I discover as a new student of religions is that comparative religion is essentially an exercise in comparing declensions.
Suppose that there was another religion that resembled Christianity in almost every way, except that they believed that somebody else was the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, who died for our sins? What would interreligious dialogue between the Catholic Church and this other religion look like? From purely a standpoint of doctrine (which, of course, is only a model) the two faiths would have identical "metareligions".
So far in class, we have looked at the major Judeo-Christian traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (we wrapped up by watching the PBS documentary on the Mormons). One thing that has always struck me is how much formal similarity obtains between Mormonism and Islam, at least in terms of their story of origin. One might say that they have very similar metareligions--however, the comparison falls apart when we look into other features.
I don't pretend to have discovered anything new here. I only think that thinking in terms of "metareligions", or declensions of religions, helps to underscore not only where religions are similar but also where they are most profoundly different.
An example: if you were to interview side-by-side traditional exemplars of Catholicism, classical Protestantism, and Mormonism, and you asked each one what the height of religious action was in their lives, you may get three profoundly different answers. One might guess that the Catholic would say it was the Eucharist; the Protestant would say it was Baptism or else being born again--coming to personal faith. The Mormon would more likely say that it was being married or "sealed" to someone for all eternity. Each of these answers represent profound formal dissimilarities that not only speak to different doctrines, but have profound concrete effects on the daily lives of these people. Investigating the consequences of these differences for belief and life would be an exercise in comparing, not so much religions, but metareligions.
Speaking of metareligion is really nothing more than the methodical presupposition that life-determining human traditions (of which religion is one kind) are, in fact, comparable.
Or if not that, then the word should serve as a warning that the speaker is at least pretentious. Guilty as charged.
But if I use the word and suggest that there is such a thing, I don't meant to imply anything really earth-shattering, and certainly not anything like the old modernist ideal of a "natural religion" or an "essential religious experience"--religion qua religion, beyond the trappings of dogma or particularity. No. Christianity is the triumph of the particular, the sanctification of history as particular. A religion of mere generalities is a fundamentally anti-Christian religion.
Now, as I teach about world religions (to myself as much as to others), I see in the great human traditions all of the similarities and differences that reflect the mixture of order and chaos that is everywhere in nature (per the dictum of an old professor of mine, "There are always similarities, and there are always differences.").
Yet along with that basic insight, we are also dealing with ideas; religion, revealed or no, is bound up with ideas; and as long as a religion makes use of any words at all, it shares with all human traditions a partaking in human thought. Postmodernism will never be as successful as it pretends to be in deconstructing the unity of thought, even while it explodes traditional of logic. Destroying models does not destroy the unity of being which serves as the ineffable substrata which allows anything to be intelligible at all.
And so even the remedial student of comparative religions is bound recognize recurring patterns and archetypes. Here, people jump to hasty conclusions. From recurring patterns in religions, we cannot deduce therefore that...
- "most religions are the same in the most important ways" (and its variants). The most common tendency that I see is for people to be so impressed by the similarities that they imagine that the differences must be of relatively minor importance. There is, of course, an inherently non-religious prejudice in this notion, since non-religious people are less likely to regard any of the concrete details of religions as important. Pluralists are terrible question-beggars.
- "the formal elements that religions have in common are the only important ones". Here we return to the Greek prejudice against the particular in favor of the universal. I once met a man who was so far-gone in this direction that he practically plagiarized Plato without ever having heard of him. It is a testimony to the human experience of alienation that societies again and again fail to reconcile the universal and the particular, and philosophers are always collapsing one into the other, embracing one and rejecting the other, and so on.
- "religion is of merely natural origin because these patterns are rooted in the human organism." I haven't read Carl Jung, so I don't know if this line of thinking comes from him or from his atheistically-inclined disciples. Yes, archetypes repeat; sometimes a religion will borrow from the literature of another; sometimes the repetitions are spontaneous. How this has led some people to believe that, therefore, religion is bunk, I do not completely understand. One would think that it would be a testament to the truth of a religion that it promiscuously embraced and upheld the truths and patterns everywhere outside of it. Only if God were profoundly alien to nature, almost contrary to it (a common enough human prejudice) would the true religion then be marked by absolute uniqueness. Moreover, William James exposes the question-begging of claiming that "because God does not interact with or through nature, therefore what can be shown to have natural causes cannot be of divine origin". This will only be persuasive if you were already at least a deist.
What I mean by metareligion is this: it is the declension of a religion. I mean that in almost precisely the mathematical sense of the word. Now, I failed calculus in college, but I was still fascinated by the process of taking derivatives. A declension preserves something of the form of a function, while losing some of the information in the original. Derivatives are vital for comparing functions. What I discover as a new student of religions is that comparative religion is essentially an exercise in comparing declensions.
Suppose that there was another religion that resembled Christianity in almost every way, except that they believed that somebody else was the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, who died for our sins? What would interreligious dialogue between the Catholic Church and this other religion look like? From purely a standpoint of doctrine (which, of course, is only a model) the two faiths would have identical "metareligions".
So far in class, we have looked at the major Judeo-Christian traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (we wrapped up by watching the PBS documentary on the Mormons). One thing that has always struck me is how much formal similarity obtains between Mormonism and Islam, at least in terms of their story of origin. One might say that they have very similar metareligions--however, the comparison falls apart when we look into other features.
I don't pretend to have discovered anything new here. I only think that thinking in terms of "metareligions", or declensions of religions, helps to underscore not only where religions are similar but also where they are most profoundly different.
An example: if you were to interview side-by-side traditional exemplars of Catholicism, classical Protestantism, and Mormonism, and you asked each one what the height of religious action was in their lives, you may get three profoundly different answers. One might guess that the Catholic would say it was the Eucharist; the Protestant would say it was Baptism or else being born again--coming to personal faith. The Mormon would more likely say that it was being married or "sealed" to someone for all eternity. Each of these answers represent profound formal dissimilarities that not only speak to different doctrines, but have profound concrete effects on the daily lives of these people. Investigating the consequences of these differences for belief and life would be an exercise in comparing, not so much religions, but metareligions.
Speaking of metareligion is really nothing more than the methodical presupposition that life-determining human traditions (of which religion is one kind) are, in fact, comparable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)