Yesterday, I read this essay by N.T. Wright. My initial response was to dismiss it as hogwash, but he strikes a blow against Kantian dualism, so it can't be all bad. You can wade through it, but if you're okay with a synopsis and commentary, keep reading this post.
Basically, he doesn't believe in the soul as a separate entity from the physical body. The concept of each individual human possessing an immortal soul, he says, only cropped up during the late Middle Ages, and only reached fruition in the thought of Descartes and Kant. No, says Bishop Tom, the corruptible body we know now is inextricably linked to the life force within us, our distinctly human element.
Wright's chief concern is that the idea of a personal soul detracts from the all-important doctrine of the resurrection. If the soul keeps right on living after we die, then what is the significance of the resurrection? All men are given once to die; if we die, but don't really die, how do we explain that?
The problems with this article are many. It verges on incoherent, evidences a misreading of key philosophical texts, and forces a complex subject to fit a synthetic if-then formula. More importantly, Wright consistently refers to Paul as a "good Jew," seemingly ignoring this profound distinction: Paul was not a good Jew, he was a Christian theologian and evangelist. What happened to Paul's avowal that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek?
I can agree that Hellenistic dualism is a pernicious and un-Christian idea. I am also willing to accept on Wright's authority that the Jews had no corollary concept, that for them the objective substance of physical existence was primary. What I cannot accept is that, if we reject pagan Greek ideas about the nature of the human soul, we must therefore revert to the Judaic view, whatever that might have been.
Certainly, the doctrine of the Resurrection (both Christ's and ours) is central to the Christian message; and definitely, I reject modernistic and ancient forms of dualism alike. We are a unity, whole persons that exists bodily as well as spiritually. And no, I don't know what happens when we die (though I was glad to see Wright rejects the doctrine of Purgatory). I'm pretty sure, though, that there is a disjunction between Jewish doctrine and Christian doctrine.
There were other problems with the article, but this one struck me most. Inasmuch as Wright espouses borderline New Perspective sentiments, it's not hard to see how he'd come to the conclusions he does about the human soul, especially if what he presents is an accurate summary of Jewish dogma on the matter. I like a lot of what Wright says, but not this. Christ is the center of our faith, and I couldn't care less what first century Jews thought if it doesn't match the doctrines of Scripture. Didn't Our Lord spend much of His earthly life making exactly that point?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Dust in the wind.
The great fear of conscientious bloggers is that their words will go unread.
Don't they realize nothing survives? Especially in the capricious streams of the Internet, there is nothing permanent. Even something as established as The Iliad or the complete works of Shakespeare is bound someday to disintegrate in the interminable flames of Time.
So why write a blog at all? Is it merely self-justified self-expression? Is it a frantic grab for fleeting Web fame? Is it to lend a sense of accomplishment to an otherwise defeated life?
I can't speak for everyone, and I can't even be sure some of those reasons aren't in the back of my own mind, but I can posit a more durable reason for typing for the benefit of an Internet readership, however small: to honor Christ. We're Americans, and we engage culture willingly and unwillingly all day every day (unless you live in Wyoming or some off-grid commune in the Midwest); the only way I can see to put all that engagement to good use is subjecting it to the rigors of biblical analysis and judging all things, whether they be pure, true, etc.
Beyond that, whether my blog is read or not isn't that important. Of course I want it to be, but what I'd prefer is for God's people to show themselves a nation apart, a body able to discern between what honors Jesus Christ and what doesn't. My blog is a meager contribution in that direction.
Don't they realize nothing survives? Especially in the capricious streams of the Internet, there is nothing permanent. Even something as established as The Iliad or the complete works of Shakespeare is bound someday to disintegrate in the interminable flames of Time.
So why write a blog at all? Is it merely self-justified self-expression? Is it a frantic grab for fleeting Web fame? Is it to lend a sense of accomplishment to an otherwise defeated life?
I can't speak for everyone, and I can't even be sure some of those reasons aren't in the back of my own mind, but I can posit a more durable reason for typing for the benefit of an Internet readership, however small: to honor Christ. We're Americans, and we engage culture willingly and unwillingly all day every day (unless you live in Wyoming or some off-grid commune in the Midwest); the only way I can see to put all that engagement to good use is subjecting it to the rigors of biblical analysis and judging all things, whether they be pure, true, etc.
Beyond that, whether my blog is read or not isn't that important. Of course I want it to be, but what I'd prefer is for God's people to show themselves a nation apart, a body able to discern between what honors Jesus Christ and what doesn't. My blog is a meager contribution in that direction.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
What does it all mean?
An old episode of The Twilight Zone called "Third from the Sun" involves two scared scientists and their families commandeering a spaceship and escaping just before their planet is destroyed by nuclear holocaust. For all intents and purposes these are Earth people; they look like Earth people, live in houses and drive cars that resemble those on Earth, speak the same version of the English language we do, and observe the same customs kept by Americans.
Turns out they aren't from Earth at all, and the inhabited planet toward which their spaceship is aimed is, in fact, the third planet from the Sun. Surprise, surprise.
Watching the episode for the first time (sorry to those for whom this is a spoiler), I had a sense of satisfaction at the twist ending. Then I thought about it, and realized there was nothing to be satisfied about, because nothing of consequence had happened in the 25-minute plot. It was like an O. Henry story—fun while it lasts, but useless for describing or illuminating real life.
So what if the characters are from another planet? Does that help us understand anything about our existence, here? No, it's just an entertainment, and a pretty shallow one at that.
Which is exactly what must be said about the majority of TV shows and movies popular today. They score high in the cleverness department, but what good are they? They're often well-made, but are they worth our time?
A lot of people look back on the 1950s as some kind of wholesome period between the debauchery of the '20s and the chaos of the '60s and '70s. The Twilight Zone is about as 1950s as it gets, complete with married couples sleeping in separate twin beds and references to God Almighty, prayer, and the Laws of Heaven. It's also as postmodern as Seinfeld, with its empty plots good for a thrill or raised eyebrows, but ultimately as formless and void as your brain after an episode of American Idol. Maybe not that bad, but then you can't get much worse than a bunch of no-talent people embarrassing themselves in front of judges who can't judge and aren't witty. But that's another post altogether.
Turns out they aren't from Earth at all, and the inhabited planet toward which their spaceship is aimed is, in fact, the third planet from the Sun. Surprise, surprise.
Watching the episode for the first time (sorry to those for whom this is a spoiler), I had a sense of satisfaction at the twist ending. Then I thought about it, and realized there was nothing to be satisfied about, because nothing of consequence had happened in the 25-minute plot. It was like an O. Henry story—fun while it lasts, but useless for describing or illuminating real life.
So what if the characters are from another planet? Does that help us understand anything about our existence, here? No, it's just an entertainment, and a pretty shallow one at that.
Which is exactly what must be said about the majority of TV shows and movies popular today. They score high in the cleverness department, but what good are they? They're often well-made, but are they worth our time?
A lot of people look back on the 1950s as some kind of wholesome period between the debauchery of the '20s and the chaos of the '60s and '70s. The Twilight Zone is about as 1950s as it gets, complete with married couples sleeping in separate twin beds and references to God Almighty, prayer, and the Laws of Heaven. It's also as postmodern as Seinfeld, with its empty plots good for a thrill or raised eyebrows, but ultimately as formless and void as your brain after an episode of American Idol. Maybe not that bad, but then you can't get much worse than a bunch of no-talent people embarrassing themselves in front of judges who can't judge and aren't witty. But that's another post altogether.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Edward vs. Eichmann
Until I read Twilight I never understood the phrase, "I wish I'd written that!" If you'd written a great story you'd never have the joy of reading it for the first time....both reasons I found myself wishing I'd written Stephenie Meyer's novel. A) My version might have been great, and B) I would never have read it for the first time.
Also, there's this: A lot of second-rate lit is clearly the work of professional hacks, writers good at recycling stock characters and plots to appeal to a very specific readership. Twilight was clearly the work of a sub-amateur hack who had a few free weekends. Anyone could have churned it out in a few days, and still made the bazillions Meyer is now enjoying. I wish it had been me.
Although, taking for subject a non-threatening bat boy who accessorizes at Claire's and falls for a nondescript Indigo Girls-listening Goth wannabe wouldn't earn me any kind of props in the masculinity department. Which is why it's probably best a woman wrote these books, and which is why it would definitely be even more bester if no one had written a single word concerning Bella and Clan Cullen.
Okay, but what's really wrong with the books? (And yes, I did read all four, and no, I did not lose any of my prodigious chest hairs in the process.) It's not just a wimpy vampire kid or a conflicted werewolf, either, though for fans of Dark Shadows that's another problem altogether.
To understand the travesty Meyer has perpetrated, we need to go back a few decades, to a war crimes tribunal in Jerusalem. The defendant: Adolf Eichmann, ex-Nazi and SS officer largely responsible for the Final Solution. He was as close to pure evil as humans get. Yet what affected Hannah Arendt most was his banal attitude and placid demeanor. She wrote a book about it called Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
The concept of the banality of evil is one of the most terrifying ever conceived, yet it has profoundly affected modern society. But instead of taking Arendt's observations as they were intended, as profound warnings, modern man has instead accepted that evil is banal, and that surrender to it is the only way to survive. What Arendt meant by the banality of evil is that egregious wrongdoing is often done by perfectly sane people who accept or adopt certain imposed premises that make the wrongdoing seem necessary and normal. What her phrase has come to mean, however, is that evil is normal, and, being normal, ceases to be evil.
Which is what Stephenie Meyer seems to believe. Traditionally, vampires are symbols of evil. They're soulless and demonic and perpetrate bestial acts without remorse or reason. They're chaotic and terrifying, and evil. In Twilight, vampires are simply people like ourselves with slightly more issues to deal with (angst not least among them, apparently). In short, vampires are just as capable as humans of becoming sympathetic characters. For Meyer's purposes, they must be sympathetic.
Edward Cullen, the hero, is the epitome of banality. Urbane, witty, handsome, selfless, yada yada yada, he wins Bella's heart and a bunch of impressionable readers' as well. But he's a vampire. Vampires suck blood, and that's essential to the vampire mythology because for most cultures nothing is more transgressive than drinking blood, especially if the one doing the sipping is himself already dead. The act and the actor makes the trespass doubly unclean.
Twilight is trash fiction of the worst kind. It's not just that Meyer is a terrible writer (she is), but her worldview is such that good and evil are indistinguishable. Some may argue that humans are all fallen, and Meyer's twist simply reflects that predicament. That excuse might work if she hadn't deliberately chosen the most heinous perpetrators of evil in the Western tradition for heroes. At least she failed miserably when she tried to make them cool.
Also, there's this: A lot of second-rate lit is clearly the work of professional hacks, writers good at recycling stock characters and plots to appeal to a very specific readership. Twilight was clearly the work of a sub-amateur hack who had a few free weekends. Anyone could have churned it out in a few days, and still made the bazillions Meyer is now enjoying. I wish it had been me.
Although, taking for subject a non-threatening bat boy who accessorizes at Claire's and falls for a nondescript Indigo Girls-listening Goth wannabe wouldn't earn me any kind of props in the masculinity department. Which is why it's probably best a woman wrote these books, and which is why it would definitely be even more bester if no one had written a single word concerning Bella and Clan Cullen.
Okay, but what's really wrong with the books? (And yes, I did read all four, and no, I did not lose any of my prodigious chest hairs in the process.) It's not just a wimpy vampire kid or a conflicted werewolf, either, though for fans of Dark Shadows that's another problem altogether.
To understand the travesty Meyer has perpetrated, we need to go back a few decades, to a war crimes tribunal in Jerusalem. The defendant: Adolf Eichmann, ex-Nazi and SS officer largely responsible for the Final Solution. He was as close to pure evil as humans get. Yet what affected Hannah Arendt most was his banal attitude and placid demeanor. She wrote a book about it called Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
The concept of the banality of evil is one of the most terrifying ever conceived, yet it has profoundly affected modern society. But instead of taking Arendt's observations as they were intended, as profound warnings, modern man has instead accepted that evil is banal, and that surrender to it is the only way to survive. What Arendt meant by the banality of evil is that egregious wrongdoing is often done by perfectly sane people who accept or adopt certain imposed premises that make the wrongdoing seem necessary and normal. What her phrase has come to mean, however, is that evil is normal, and, being normal, ceases to be evil.
Which is what Stephenie Meyer seems to believe. Traditionally, vampires are symbols of evil. They're soulless and demonic and perpetrate bestial acts without remorse or reason. They're chaotic and terrifying, and evil. In Twilight, vampires are simply people like ourselves with slightly more issues to deal with (angst not least among them, apparently). In short, vampires are just as capable as humans of becoming sympathetic characters. For Meyer's purposes, they must be sympathetic.
Edward Cullen, the hero, is the epitome of banality. Urbane, witty, handsome, selfless, yada yada yada, he wins Bella's heart and a bunch of impressionable readers' as well. But he's a vampire. Vampires suck blood, and that's essential to the vampire mythology because for most cultures nothing is more transgressive than drinking blood, especially if the one doing the sipping is himself already dead. The act and the actor makes the trespass doubly unclean.
Twilight is trash fiction of the worst kind. It's not just that Meyer is a terrible writer (she is), but her worldview is such that good and evil are indistinguishable. Some may argue that humans are all fallen, and Meyer's twist simply reflects that predicament. That excuse might work if she hadn't deliberately chosen the most heinous perpetrators of evil in the Western tradition for heroes. At least she failed miserably when she tried to make them cool.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Rumble Fish, by Francis Ford Coppola
I'm not sure why you'd watch this movie. Coppola is a fantastic director, and he does a fine job here, filming in black and white to a quirky Stewart Copeland soundtrack. It's just too perfect.
Hinton was drafted to co-write the screenplay, and the script is a nearly word-for-word mirroring of the book's text. The action is, too, except the sordid details Hinton glosses in the book are blatant. Which isn't the main reason not to see Rumble Fish; the main reason is that Ford merely mimics onscreen what Hinton accomplishes so masterfully in her book.
And really, you can read the book in as much time as it takes to watch the film.
The one bonus about the movie: released in 1983, it includes a cast of up-and-comers like Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Nicolas Cage, Laurence (then Larry) Fishburne, and even Tom Waits, gloriously supplemented by a fine performance from Dennis Hopper as the drunk dad.
But seriously, don't bother. Read the book and watch some other movie by Coppola; The Conversation is always a good choice.
Hinton was drafted to co-write the screenplay, and the script is a nearly word-for-word mirroring of the book's text. The action is, too, except the sordid details Hinton glosses in the book are blatant. Which isn't the main reason not to see Rumble Fish; the main reason is that Ford merely mimics onscreen what Hinton accomplishes so masterfully in her book.
And really, you can read the book in as much time as it takes to watch the film.
The one bonus about the movie: released in 1983, it includes a cast of up-and-comers like Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Nicolas Cage, Laurence (then Larry) Fishburne, and even Tom Waits, gloriously supplemented by a fine performance from Dennis Hopper as the drunk dad.
But seriously, don't bother. Read the book and watch some other movie by Coppola; The Conversation is always a good choice.
Rumble Fish, by S.E. Hinton
This is frankly one of the best novels I've read.
Hinton first achieved fame with The Outsiders, written when she was 16 years old. It's good; Rumble Fish is brilliant.
It reads with the simplicity of a Greek epic, and carries the same themes—the young hero, a scrappy punk named Rusty-James, spends most of his time looking for home, whatever that may look like. To him, it looks like the Motorcycle Boy, his older brother, who is in the words of a black pool hustler "royalty in exile." He's too cool.
Or, as their drunkard father says, "He was born....with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do."
Or, as Rusty-James remembers, the Motorcycle Boy was the president of the gang and the toughest cat on the street.
To say the Motorcycle Boy is Rusty-James' idyll of home isn't quite right; he's the kid's version of perfection, everything Rusty-James wants to be, a god. So what if he's color blind and goes deaf sometimes? The bubble that occasionally envelopes him is part of the mystique.
Which is in turn the novel's greatest irony. Rusty-James eventually gets his wish. He becomes the Motorcycle Boy, but only then does he realize it's not what he wanted, that the Motorcycle Boy wasn't what Rusty-James imagined him to be at all, and probably only partly the man everyone else imagined him to be.
Hinton's novel is a street-tough, anti-hero adventure story. Rusty-James serves as narrator and protagonist, leading us through 1960s Tulsa with its gang rivalries, dope addicts, adult theaters, and violence. If that's all it was, it wouldn't be worth reading.
Rusty-James isn't an anti-hero in the traditional sense, however. He isn't some dark brooding figure who does right despite (or because of) his inner demons. He's an anti-hero because he doesn't want to be a hero, because he isn't a hero. He's just a confused kid who thinks he wants something everyone tells him he can't have, and only finds he doesn't want once he has it. It's anti-heroic, tragedy without the benefit of glory or pathos.
It would be easy to provide too many trashy details in a novel like this. Hinton doesn't. She offers just enough color for mature readers to know exactly what's going on, and more innocent ones to follow the story without difficulty. It's as near a perfect novel as I've ever read. I can't recommend it more highly.
Hinton first achieved fame with The Outsiders, written when she was 16 years old. It's good; Rumble Fish is brilliant.
It reads with the simplicity of a Greek epic, and carries the same themes—the young hero, a scrappy punk named Rusty-James, spends most of his time looking for home, whatever that may look like. To him, it looks like the Motorcycle Boy, his older brother, who is in the words of a black pool hustler "royalty in exile." He's too cool.
Or, as their drunkard father says, "He was born....with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do."
Or, as Rusty-James remembers, the Motorcycle Boy was the president of the gang and the toughest cat on the street.
To say the Motorcycle Boy is Rusty-James' idyll of home isn't quite right; he's the kid's version of perfection, everything Rusty-James wants to be, a god. So what if he's color blind and goes deaf sometimes? The bubble that occasionally envelopes him is part of the mystique.
Which is in turn the novel's greatest irony. Rusty-James eventually gets his wish. He becomes the Motorcycle Boy, but only then does he realize it's not what he wanted, that the Motorcycle Boy wasn't what Rusty-James imagined him to be at all, and probably only partly the man everyone else imagined him to be.
Hinton's novel is a street-tough, anti-hero adventure story. Rusty-James serves as narrator and protagonist, leading us through 1960s Tulsa with its gang rivalries, dope addicts, adult theaters, and violence. If that's all it was, it wouldn't be worth reading.
Rusty-James isn't an anti-hero in the traditional sense, however. He isn't some dark brooding figure who does right despite (or because of) his inner demons. He's an anti-hero because he doesn't want to be a hero, because he isn't a hero. He's just a confused kid who thinks he wants something everyone tells him he can't have, and only finds he doesn't want once he has it. It's anti-heroic, tragedy without the benefit of glory or pathos.
It would be easy to provide too many trashy details in a novel like this. Hinton doesn't. She offers just enough color for mature readers to know exactly what's going on, and more innocent ones to follow the story without difficulty. It's as near a perfect novel as I've ever read. I can't recommend it more highly.
Ancient Modernism
Dr. Johnson said only a blockhead writes for anything but money. I do write for money, but I write in my spare time, too. I'm not sure what this makes me other than obsessed.
There's a blog-littered wake behind me, mostly comprised of self-aggrandising posts and premature failure. This one had better stick. I think it will.
As to the title, there are also movies you need to watch and albums you need to listen to.
Finally, the title of this post: My philosophy. Christ told His followers to be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. The cynicism of modern man has its good points, but only as far as it is tempered by the life-embracing, rambunctious naivete of the ancients. I am a Reformed Christian, fully aware the Church is always in need of renewal, yet rooted deeply and irrevocably in the past. My approach to culture is an attempt to bridge the gap between past and present, to show things as simply as they may be rendered yet to understand the "sophistication" of our contemporaries without misrepresentation or unwarranted mockery. If mockery is deserved, however, may God grant me the insight of Kierkegaard and the wit of Chesterton.
There's a blog-littered wake behind me, mostly comprised of self-aggrandising posts and premature failure. This one had better stick. I think it will.
As to the title, there are also movies you need to watch and albums you need to listen to.
Finally, the title of this post: My philosophy. Christ told His followers to be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. The cynicism of modern man has its good points, but only as far as it is tempered by the life-embracing, rambunctious naivete of the ancients. I am a Reformed Christian, fully aware the Church is always in need of renewal, yet rooted deeply and irrevocably in the past. My approach to culture is an attempt to bridge the gap between past and present, to show things as simply as they may be rendered yet to understand the "sophistication" of our contemporaries without misrepresentation or unwarranted mockery. If mockery is deserved, however, may God grant me the insight of Kierkegaard and the wit of Chesterton.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)