tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69970089046494764282024-02-20T22:29:54.227-05:00Moral Exposure: Movies, Music, and MoreAs human beings, we are affected by everything we expose ourselves to, even those things we see as innocuous forms of entertainment. What we put into our heads inevitably makes its way into our hearts. Let's start thinking about the media we love, the media we hate, and be conscious of how we are applying it in our lives. Let's be media connoisseurs rather than media consumers. Let's expose the moral underpinnings of the stories that shape us.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-3822694234880923002014-06-03T15:38:00.001-04:002014-06-03T15:38:33.040-04:00Should "Wiggle" Make Your Conscience Wiggle?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipgh2rbfYik4ioWLSHsciwp7wKjHYCFvguKEA7TEGFMGtLpzrwizNCK99SQBOnKDZR-gYDgQcCw5o4V6EdveynDRlZS5H7kMzHi_WikdqAJHkpzJW6g_ad4GNIaedJc5EhN1hfaXvvbpU/s1600/jason-derulo-wiggle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipgh2rbfYik4ioWLSHsciwp7wKjHYCFvguKEA7TEGFMGtLpzrwizNCK99SQBOnKDZR-gYDgQcCw5o4V6EdveynDRlZS5H7kMzHi_WikdqAJHkpzJW6g_ad4GNIaedJc5EhN1hfaXvvbpU/s1600/jason-derulo-wiggle.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
Yes, most definitely. If your conscience isn't nagged, bothered, made uncomfortable, niggled at, and wiggled by this song, I would suggest that your conscience is malformed and you need to work on that. I can only shake my head in disappointement that Jason Derulo now has, not one, but <a href="http://moralexposure.blogspot.ca/2014/03/whats-so-dirty-about-jason-derulos-talk.html" target="_blank">two</a> singles hovering among the top ten hits which both degrade, objectify, anatomize, and "utilitize" the human person, particularly women. "Wiggle", the fourth single from Derulo's album <i>Talk Dirty</i> (2014), focuses on what you would expect it to: the particular parts of women's bodies that can move in such a way as to sexually arouse their male spectators. It is voyeuristic; it is porn-lite. And if we're concerned about the so-called "rape culture", maybe we had better start analyzing songs like this which encourage it.<br />
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Every lyric in this song is an insult to women, even (and perhaps especially) the line in which Derulo claims that he's "in this club making wedding plans". This line is perhaps the most foul because it is the deepest lie. For one thing, there is no country on earth (as yet, that I'm aware of) that has made it legal to marry only a part of a person's body. The only "wedding plans" Derulo has in mind involve a woman's backside. She is not a person to him; she is not even simply a body. She is nothing but a mound of flesh. Her body can be referred to in the same way we refer to cuts of meat: steak; rib; sirloin; tenderloin; chuck; brisket. It is possible to section her off and only partake of those particular bits that you find the choicest. Derulo has no interest in marrying a person, in being joined for life to a woman he desires, admires, respects, and loves; he just wants to indulge in a little rump roast. This process of depersonification is what makes it easier to objectify a human being, to think of her as not a person with thoughts, feelings, and dignity, who possesses an inherent right to our respect. This is what makes it easier for us to view pornographic images and think that there's nothing wrong with it because the persons involved are "not real". This is what makes it possible for us to degrade sexuality to such a point where it is not a matter of "we", or even "you and I", but simply "me". As Rollo May has remarked in his book <i>Love and Will</i>, modern sexuality tends to shift the classic fig leaf away from the genitals in order to obscure the human face. We obscure the other's face, her person, her dignity, in order to objectify, use, and abuse in "good" conscience. The music video for "Wiggle" encourages this by showing repeated images of an ice sculpture of a woman's nude torso; the head, of course, is completely absent. This is where voyeurism, pornography, misogyny, and "rape culture" originate. And it's a hit single. And we act shocked and scandalized when <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/saint-mary-s-university-frosh-chant-cheers-underage-sex-1.1399616" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">freshmen</a> on college <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ubc-investigates-frosh-chant-promoting-non-consensual-sex-1.1444883" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">campuses</a> dutifully repeat similar refrains en masse. We just as dutifully refuse to make the connection. Please don't take it personally when I say that we are a culture of utter morons.<br />
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This problem extends far beyond the actual physical interactions between men and women. Derulo makes it easy for me to immediately start talking about the problems modern technology causes in perpetuating this kind of abuse against the privacy of a woman's body: "If I take pictures while you do your dance, / I can make you famous on Instagram". Rather than being a place reserved for loving intimacy, a woman's body can now be photographed, videoed, posted, disseminated, shared, liked, tweeted, almost instantly and entirely without her knowledge or permission. Her body becomes a household object, accessible from any device, to be ogled and abused by an infinite number of anonymous "users". If the face is not visible, then the image is of nothing but a body, an impersonal object, a thing to be utilized for the enjoyment of others. Her "fame" has nothing to do with who she is as a person; her value is measured by the amount of pleasure her body parts give to other people. And, again, we act shocked and scandalized when military personnel are charged after secretly <a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/1276669/canadian-soldier-faces-18-new-charges-in-sexual-assault-investigation/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">filming</a> women having sex with them and sharing it as "<a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/10/canadian-forces-major-found-guilty-of-sexual-assault-after-groping-woman-at-remembrance-day-party-in-alberta/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">homemade</a>" porn, or when young girls kill themselves over their appearances in <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/05/woman_19_commits_suicide_after.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pornographic</a> videos on the internet. We're shocked -- until we hear this song playing and say, "Oh wait, I have to dance, I love this song." Unfortunately, Jason Derulo is probably not going to do what the lead singer of <a href="http://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/06/02/singer-of-rock-group-staind-stops-concert-to-demand-audience-members-stop-molesting-teen-crowd-surfer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Staind</a> did to save your dignity during one of his concerts. In fact, he might invite you onstage so he can molest you himself: "Come on, baby, turn around, / You're a star, girl, take a bow". The Derulos of the world are normalizing this kind of behavior so that young men somehow feel that it is okay to publicly grope women at outdoor events. And, through this star-studded encouragement, young women are tricked into believing that <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/beaconsfield-school-sends-teen-home-for-too-short-shorts-1.2659465" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">exposing</a> as much skin as possible and dancing <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/nov/24/miley-cyrus-21-twerk-if-she-wants" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">provocatively</a> is a sign of female power and independence. Again, if we don't see the connection between the two, we are cultural morons.<br />
<br />
To people like Derulo and his rap collaborator Snoop Dogg, the future of every woman is pornography. Every invitation to fame and fortune made by these men is an invitation to the abuse of her body as an object of sexual utility: "You're a star, girl, take a bow"; "I can make you famous"; "Tired of working that 9 to 5? / Oh, baby, let me come and change your life"; "You've got a bright future behind you". This "bright future", as emphasized in the "joke" itself, is one of allowing men to indulge their sexual fantasies. Every well-endowed woman can be proud of the bright future she has dancing, stripping, pornographing, and prostituting for the pleasure of such voyeuristic canines as Snoop Dogg, depicted in "Wiggle"'s music video as watching women's behinds through binoculars. Snoop Dogg's addition to the song explicitly describes such sexual fantasies of oral and anal sex, fantasies that are given greater clarity through pornographic images, and are too often pursued with or without the permission of "real" women, women who in all truthfulness have lost their reality in the deepening abstraction provided by voyeurism and pornography. Women become nothing but a means to an end, a body without a soul, that headless torso with exaggerated body parts. This is what lies at the root of all misogyny: a desire for women actually to be headless, soulless, person-less objects requiring nothing beyond basic functionality, least of all love or respect.<br />
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I've heard people argue that we shouldn't get too worked up about things like this. After all, it's "just a song". And they're right. We shouldn't necessarily start boycotts and revolutions every time we run into something that sends a negative message about who we are and how we relate as human beings. After all, an overabundance of boycotts and revolutions stunts their power to move the general populace. But it's incredibly naive to think that the lyrics, images, and ideologies we expose ourselves to every day have no affect on us. They do. They are affecting all of us all the time in very real ways. We need to stop being shocked about the behavior of our young men and women, and start making ourselves aware of the places where these attitudes start. They're sitting right in front of us. They are assaulting our ears and eyes everyday, out in the open, in the public square, in front of our children, with smiles on their faces and upbeat jangles. When confronted with toxicity, the best thing to do is reduce your exposure. So that's what we should do. When the song comes on the radio, change the station. When the music video comes on the television, change the channel. When it plays at parties, don't dance. Request a song change. Don't buy the album or the song; don't put it on your iPod or your phone. And if someone asks you why you don't want to hear the song, tell them the truth. There are a hundred little ways we can protect ourselves and those around us from imbibing a toxic culture that promotes the use and abuse of women in such an open and shameless way. Let's help put an end to "rape culture" by avoiding and teaching others to avoid those little things that foster its growth in our daily lives.<br />
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<i>If you or someone you know is affected by pornography, I highly recommend Matt Fradd's book </i><a href="http://mattfradddelivered.com/" target="_blank">Delivered</a><i> and his <a href="http://mattfradd.com/category/pornography/" target="_blank">blog</a> as an excellent resource for all things porn-related.</i><br />
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***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-63314922951104391022014-06-01T16:05:00.002-04:002014-06-01T16:05:53.017-04:00"Love's Labor's Lost": Shakespeare and the Doctrine of Justification<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAHdMksavK2Nyy6sv8KrdeQsuz8PapmO4v_-zz4sdUf-R637BwEckkNbWC9cFx9zmYGXyQPl0RZc_ypkCElXhdP6QdQb3913AV5ezkPBn7KgIrryV1cbLPiOcGbpMdVttKuKVRutF9Ss/s1600/LovesLaborGraphic_000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAHdMksavK2Nyy6sv8KrdeQsuz8PapmO4v_-zz4sdUf-R637BwEckkNbWC9cFx9zmYGXyQPl0RZc_ypkCElXhdP6QdQb3913AV5ezkPBn7KgIrryV1cbLPiOcGbpMdVttKuKVRutF9Ss/s1600/LovesLaborGraphic_000.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
A little while ago, I got my hands on a book by author Joseph Pearce called <i>Shakespeare</i> <i>on Love: Seeing the Catholic Presence in </i>Romeo and Juliet, which changed the way I viewed that play in particular, as well as the way I read Shakespeare in general. Pearce has written books on Lewis, Tolkien, Solzhenitsyn, Chesterton, Belloc, and other prominent Catholic/Christian thinkers and writers of the 20th century and beyond. His work on Shakespeare is especially interesting because he makes the argument in both <i>The Quest for Shakespeare</i> and <i>Through Shakespeare's Eyes </i>that Shakespeare was a believing Catholic in a time when Catholicism in England was regarded as treasonous and often ended in martyrdom. Pearce applies this argument for Shakespeare's Catholicism to a reading of his plays; <i>Through Shakespeare's Eyes</i> considers <i>King Lear</i>, <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>, and <i>Hamlet</i>, while <i>Shakespeare on Love</i> tackles <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>. While he didn't allay all of my aggravations about <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, Pearce did allow me to read the play with new eyes and get a better insight into what Shakespeare may have been trying to do with the play. His work inspired me to read through some of the other plays myself and see what I might find if I looked "through Shakespeare's Catholic eyes", as it were. I decided to look at <i>Love's Labor's Lost</i> and see what I could see.<br />
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<i>Love's Labor's Lost </i>is a play full of bawdy humor and witticisms, in which the King of Navarre and his gentlemen (Biron, Dumaine, and Longueville) spar against the Princess of France and her ladies (Rosaline, Catherine, and Maria) in a verbal battle of wisecracks and repartee. The King and his gentlemen have made vows to forsake the pleasures of life, including wooing women, to devote themselves to study. The Princess, however, arrives to conduct some business on behalf of her father. Naturally, the men fall head over heels for the women and break their vows in order to woo them, with much hilarity stemming from their failed attempts. The subplot of the play provides a sort of commentary on both the wit and learning of the gentlefolk by presenting buffoonish characters who make a mockery of both English and academic parlance. Much of this is standard Shakespearean fare, but the ending sets <i>Love's Labor's Lost</i> apart from most of his comedies in that it does not end with a marriage. Rather than eventually agreeing to marry their suitors, the death of the king of France sends the Princess home without making any assured commitments to her suitor. The King and his gentlemen, however, agree to spend themselves for one year in the ascetic life in order to prove their love for their respective ladies, putting themselves in the self-same position they intended to pursue at the play's opening. Personally, I find the play both funny and satisfying, since I disapprove of the King and his gentlemen getting their way in this instance. But are we meant to see anything distinctly Catholic in it?<br />
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Naturally, take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. I've done absolutely zero research into this whatsoever. No postdoctoral fellowships or research grants have gone into the making of this post. All I've done is read the play and thought about it a bit, and here's what I've come up with. There seem to be some hints that a small and implicit commentary is being made on the theological controversy surrounding the Protestant idea of <i>sola fide</i>, or justification through faith alone. According to the proponents of the Reformation, a person would find salvation only through their faith in Christ and not through any good works they might have performed during their earthly life. Catholicism, on the other hand, came to be linked by many of its antagonists with a sort of simoniac behavior towards justification, the idea that salvation could, in a sense, be "earned" or "bought" by a certain amount of charitable works or pieties. This is not the Catholic position, but it is one that has been repeated and perpetuated to the point that even my <i>Norton Shakespeare</i> asserts in a footnote that "Protestants considered it a common 'heresy' ... to think, <b><i>as Catholics did</i></b>, that one could be 'saved by merit'" [emphasis added]. At no time and in no place did the Catholic Church ever believe or teach that a person could be "saved by merit", as the Council of Trent definitively stated in its clarification of the truth of justification: " to those who work well unto the end and trust in God, eternal life is
to be offered, both <i><b>as a grace</b></i> mercifully promised to the sons of God
through Christ Jesus, and <i><b>as a reward</b></i> promised by God himself, to be
faithfully given to their good works and merits" (Ch. XVI). The Catholic position is that <i>both</i> faith and works are necessary for the salvation of souls, along with the grace of God given as a complete gift to the soul through the sacrament of Baptism. One can perform good works without faith, but this will not merit one salvation; likewise, one can have faith without working for one's own sanctification or the sanctification of others, but this will not of necessity grant one eternal life. We must both accept the gift of God's grace in our lives and cooperate with Him in that grace through our actions in order to receive both the gift and the reward of the Beatific Vision.<br />
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<i>Love's Labor's Lost</i>, written fifty years after the Council of Trent's promulgation of the canon containing the official clarification on the matter of justification, could have been used as a small soapbox from which Shakespeare might have quietly made his Catholic faith clearer to his Protestant and Catholic brethren. Of course, this would have to have been done with extreme delicacy, since heresy was punishable by death, and the Catholic position on justification was considered a heresy in Reformation England. Only once in the play is the matter explicitly referred to: the Princess, in a game of witticisms at the expense of the King's poor Forester, purposefully misinterprets the man's words in such a way that it seems that he has claimed she is not beautiful. She gives him money for being honest about her looks, to which he responds that everything she possesses is beautiful. Her response points directly at the theological problem of justification: "See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit! / O heresy in fair, fit for these days -- / A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise." The Princess here mocks the supposed Catholic belief that charity from an unfaithful ("foul") person can merit the praise of heaven. This may seem to put Shakespeare back in the Reformation camp, but, if Pearce is correct in his assertion that Shakespeare was a faithful Catholic who knew his stuff, Shakespeare is well aware that this is decidedly <i>not</i> the true Catholic position. The underlying matter of the play, then, works to put this wrong understanding to rights.<br />
<br />
We can understand the King of Navarre and his gentlemen to be subscribers of <i>sola fide</i> initially: they have decided to reject the pleasures of life -- food, sleep, and sex -- in order to devote themselves to study. They have sworn oaths to live on nothing but faith and, in doing so, lock themselves away from the world and shirk their responsibilities to the rest of humanity. After all, if all that is needed is faith, there is no reason why one should look to the needs and sufferings of those beyond oneself. You believe that Christ suffered and died to save you, and so you have merited it. What else needs to be done? What else is there to live for but to spend your time contemplating (studying) the goodness of God on your behalf until He comes to take you to Himself? The wrongheadedness of this position is quickly revealed when the Princess of France and her ladies arrive in the King's park and are denied admittance or hospitality due to the King's vow not to see women. He insists on lacking in generosity, charity, and hospitality to his guests, forcing them to sleep in tents in his park because his vow (his adherence to the doctrine of <i>sola fide</i>) justifies him in his actions (or lack thereof). The Princess comments on this critically: "I hear your grace has sworn out housekeeping. / 'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord, / And sin to break it." The "deadly sin" that the Princess explicitly refers to is the sin against hospitality, which had been considered a sacred duty since ancient times and which Shakespeare deals with more tragically in <i>Macbeth</i>. The Catholic undercurrent here, however, can be caught in the distinction between "deadly sin" and "sin": it is a "deadly sin", one that cuts the soul off from grace and kills it, to persist in the theological error of <i>sola fide</i>, while it is only "sin", a venial one, to break the oath he has made that causes him to cling to such an error. In the first two acts of the play, justification by faith alone is criticized, questioned, and ultimately discarded.<br />
<br />
The King of Navarre and his gentlemen break their solemn oaths to study, but not in favor of a "Catholic" position in opposition to <i>sola fide</i>. Instead, they embrace a new kind of error at the eloquent insistence of Biron, the most verbose and personable of the King's three gentlemen. Biron resisted making the oath with the others at the play's opening, and is also the first to begin obviously wooing one of the Princess's ladies, Rosaline. He is the first to begin sonneteering, sighing and complaining of the melancholy of love, and he is the one the others turn to in search of justification for breaking their vow. Biron is not, however, the image of the Catholic man. He is, rather, the parody of both the Renaissance courtier and the supposed Catholic position of justification by merit alone. Biron's anthem could be "All You Need Is Love". He claims that the only books worth studying are a lady's eyes, that love will teach one all that is worth knowing, and that the fruits of love are far worthier than the fruits of the long labor of intellectual work. Biron rejects study (faith alone) for love (merit alone). In his monologue justifying the abandonment of their vows, Biron implicitly makes the true argument that it is not enough to be closed up with our faith and that we must come out of ourselves by living our faith in love: "But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, / Lives not alone immured in the brain, / But with the motion of all elements / Courses as swift as thought in every power, / And gives to every power a double power / Above their functions and their offices." Living out the life of charity is what strengthens our souls, perfects us in virtue, and fits us for heaven. As he continues in this vein, Biron compares the glories of love to the glories of the Greek gods and heroes, Bacchus, Hercules, and Apollo, concluding with the statement: "when love speaks, the voice of all the gods / Make heaven drowsy with the harmony."<br />
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This heavenly "drowsiness" that Biron speaks of is where Shakespeare shows how the false doctrine of justification through works dips into heresy. Just as justification through faith <i>alone</i> is a heretical statement about the nature of God's salvific work, justification through works <i>alone</i> is also heretical. The idea that our good acts -- charity towards the poor, brotherly love towards our neighbors, proper moderation in our personal pleasures, and so on -- without knowledge of Christ are enough to lull the justice of God to sleep so that we can slip through the gates of Heaven is just as misguided as the idea that professing Christ as Lord is enough to force the gates of Heaven open. Christ has explicitly spoken against both errors in the Gospels (Mt. 19:16-22; Mk. 10:17-22; Lk. 18:18-27; Mt. 7:21). The King's first vow to devote himself to study at the expense of his duties to others exemplifies loveless faith; Biron's encouragement to abandon their vows to pursue the Princess and her ladies exemplifies faithless love. Neither contains the totality of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Therefore, it is completely fitting that Shakespeare should end his play not with a marriage, as is the standard for romantic comedies, but with separation and the acceptance of new vows, ones that combine faith and love together. As the King and his gentlemen are clumsily wooing the Princess and her ladies, a messenger arrives with news that the King of France has died, making the Princess <i>ipso facto</i> the new Queen of France. The new Queen points to the men's broken oaths and foolish wooing as evidence that they are not serious about their attachments and, allegorically, are not serious about their religious belief. The ladies have interpreted all the men's actions as nothing more than a game, and that there never was any intention of "a world-without-end bargain" on their part. In order to prove their sincerity, the gentlemen are commanded by the ladies to spend the next year living a monastic lifestyle of austerity, fasting, and charity towards the sick. The gentlemen have now come full circle: they now enact those vows which they had promised and broken earlier in the play. The difference is that their faithfulness is now inspired by their love, and their love is made meaningful by their faithfulness.<br />
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There is evidence that Shakespeare also wrote a play entitled <i>Love's Labor's Won</i>, which perhaps might have allowed us to see these lords and ladies reconvene a year later and which might have ended with those hoped-for weddings. Unfortunately, the play seems to be entirely lost and its content completely unknown. The conclusion of <i>Love's Labor's Lost</i> should not be seen as wholly disappointing, however, since it allows us to hope for the future endeavors of the King and his men. It is the picture of the Christian life: the encounter with the Beloved inspires us to chase after Him and devote ourselves to His service, but the reward for such service is not <i>here</i> and <i>now</i>, but <i>there</i> and <i>then</i>. Our love for Him must be proved in lives of faithfulness to His word, and our faith must be lived through love, a truly living charity. This is what our salvation consists of, and we must each work it out in "fear and trembling", as the Council of Trent states, but with constant hope in the mercies of God. In the same way, the King, Biron, and the rest work out their courtship of the beloved ladies in "fear and trembling" at their possible rejection, but also in hope that, by being steadfast in obeying their command to love and serve, their ladies will accept them into the kingdom of their hearts. Is <i>Love's Labor's Lost</i> undeniably about the doctrine of justification? Perhaps not. But this reading does provide some satisfaction for the play's ending and explanation for its possible meaning through Shakespeare's presumably Catholic eyes.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-30174289600259506202014-05-28T14:28:00.000-04:002014-05-28T14:28:02.689-04:00"Love Never Felt So Good"... or Did It?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvc1t1aGBkZ5Ybug3MNz7lM3K8zAClhOrtJZflGWoIzsTGO-inq_hbhs1Fd1ps-XYBHgPmq12Bvn0bOYzqyPIuE_c2AllElmyqSNSGoO_k-C318ZouhvWd2qxK8zdiGI_-tH3JRc1KLwA/s1600/michael-jackson-love-never-felt-so-good.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvc1t1aGBkZ5Ybug3MNz7lM3K8zAClhOrtJZflGWoIzsTGO-inq_hbhs1Fd1ps-XYBHgPmq12Bvn0bOYzqyPIuE_c2AllElmyqSNSGoO_k-C318ZouhvWd2qxK8zdiGI_-tH3JRc1KLwA/s1600/michael-jackson-love-never-felt-so-good.png" height="214" width="320" /></a>When I saw that Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson were making their way up the charts with their duet "Love Never Felt So Good", my first thought was, "Hey...
isn't Michael Jackson dead?" Modern technology then caught up with my
momentary confusion (and fear of zombies) to inform me that the song is
featured on Jackson's second posthumous album <i>Xscape</i> (2014); a remixed version has also been released with Timberlake adding his vocals to the track. The song was first written and recorded by Jackson and Paul Anka back in 1983 as a demo, but was never officially released under Jackson's name. So now, as a tribute to Jackson's impact on modern pop music, we have this song in its present form. I'm not a Michael Jackson fan, so I can't speak to the song's faithfulness to his legacy or anything else. What I <i>can</i> say something about is the content of the song, which seems somewhat paradoxical and yet completely stereotypical of the modern approach to love, and the increasing emphasis on the feeling of being in love rather than the essence of love itself.<br />
<br />
The song's title carries with it a certain assumption about its meaning: when we hear the phrase "love never felt so good", we tend to complete it mentally with a temporal phrase, such as "until I met you; until I experienced your love". We have a tendency to assume that what is meant by this phrase is that love was never fully appreciated or experienced until the current beloved came into the lover's life and opened new vistas of love for him. Now, in the arms of this beloved, the goodness of love is truly felt and enjoyed. However, this interpretation is dead wrong in the context of the lyrical construction of this song. Rather than the beloved enhancing or perfecting the experience of love for the lover, the beloved is actually being held in opposition to love: "Baby, love never felt so good / And I doubt if it ever could / Not like you hold me". The message being conveyed here is not "you perfect love", but "you are better than love; I prefer you to love". In all likelihood, the pleasure of love could never give to one the same type of "goodness" that this other person is able to offer. The "goodness" that exists between the two is explicitly <i>not</i> love; it is something else, something better. But what exactly do the poet and the subject of his song share together? It is described in the lyrics as holding one another, spending nights together, and, oddly enough, loving each other. All of this appears to be a contradiction in terms: how can you prefer the beloved to love itself? How can your experience of the beloved be both love and not love at the same time? How is it possible to separate the two?<br />
<br />
The truth is you can't, really. As human beings, we were built to love and be loved. It's everything we desire to receive from others and everything we truly want to give to others. To say we don't want love or that we want something better than love is to lie to ourselves about what we really are. There's no shame in desiring to be loved; it's part of what it means to be human. But we do need to understand the nature of love itself properly before we can fully understand what we truly desire when we want to be loved. As we are all well aware, loving and being loved are complicated matters. And the examples and experiences of love that we are privy to tend to mix that deepest desire of our hearts with a lot of other things that are not so desirable. As Josef Pieper comments in his essay "On Love", "we need only leaf
through a few magazines at the barber's to want not to let the word
'love' cross our lips for a good long time". Sentimentalism and commercialism and sexualism, cheating and abuse, breakups and makeups and divorce and remarriage, pills and <i>Playboy</i> and prostitution and <i>Cosmo</i>, rape and abortion and cohabitation and commitment, almost everything surrounding the idea of love between the sexes serves to scare people away from love entirely. In the face of all of this, people have a tendency to want to boil things down to the basics and strip away anything else that seems extraneous. In the case of love, many people ask themselves: what do I like about being in love? And the answer usually runs something like this: the good feelings I get from it. Therefore, in order to avoid the bother and responsibility and even trauma that comes with the experience of love, a person may try to isolate those good feelings and work only to perpetuate them. In this case, the so-called lover and beloved will only come together in order to perpetuate good feelings with one another. All of the other nuisances and responsibilities that come with loving and being loved by another person are neatly avoided. One only keeps "the good stuff".<br />
<br />
It's perfectly acceptable that the poet should make a distinction between what he experiences with his beloved in this song and what love actually is. It is true that what the two are doing together is not anyone's definition of "love". What's interesting to me in the chorus of this song is the evidence that, despite our insistence that the "good feelings" separated from the responsibilities of love is really what we want, we can't really fool the deepest desires of our hearts. The chorus of the song says this: "Baby, every time I love you / It's in and out of my life / In, out, baby / Tell me if you really love me / It's in and out my life / Drivin' me crazy". Is this the best songwriting the world has ever seen? Definitely not. (And they accuse Justin Bieber of being unoriginal.) But it does express something inherent to our human desire for love: we can't escape it. No matter how good the setup seems to be -- a beloved who provides a maximum experience of pleasure for a minimum amount of effort seems ideal -- the human heart will constantly clamor for more. "Good feelings" are actually not good enough. Erotic love desires permanence, commitment, and, yes, responsibility. We don't actually want the good things of our lives to flit in and out, to be here one moment and gone the next. We don't really want the beloved to be nothing more than a call-girl (or boy), an instrument of pleasure that we bring out of the closet when we're feeling down and put away again once we feel better. We actually want to relate to other people; we want the beloved to truly love us, to be a permanent part of our existence, to care for us in all aspects of our lives and not just physical stimulation. We want to know that we are valued as persons, that we are loved for who we are, that we are indispensable to someone. This is what the human heart truly longs for; this is what is driving the poet crazy.<br />
<br />
The poet wants the beloved to "tell me if you really love me". This admission in a certain sense undoes everything that is said in the previous stanzas: there is nothing actually better than love, even if it doesn't always "feel so good". Our true happiness does not consist of a maximization of pleasure and a minimization of pain. Our true happiness consists of being affirmed by the true love of another, of abiding in that love with the assurance of permanence, and upholding that love in responsible reciprocity. Nothing truly feels as good as being secure in the love of the ones we love. This is a human truth that, no matter how much we twist and turn to try to get around it, and no matter how much we mangle the reality under a commercialized, sexualized, utilitarian mentality, will always rise to the surface, driving us crazy and making us restless until we seek it out and find it.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-31319017478632770762014-05-26T18:26:00.002-04:002014-05-26T19:02:31.868-04:00Is Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" Really All That Fancy?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7t15EB_BRb1D-unDkB2xlYXbC1Fjv0FG9f3OiW7zWWyJl2BtPTxF4i1yR_E4yPWLbFEDDiGvU5NopLwcGY82-WzDeUQIxmDlzE_VJfOoNdPQKl5BmFEuyfzmENvVZBb5pP0pTVQh1OIs/s1600/Fancy,_single_cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7t15EB_BRb1D-unDkB2xlYXbC1Fjv0FG9f3OiW7zWWyJl2BtPTxF4i1yR_E4yPWLbFEDDiGvU5NopLwcGY82-WzDeUQIxmDlzE_VJfOoNdPQKl5BmFEuyfzmENvVZBb5pP0pTVQh1OIs/s1600/Fancy,_single_cover.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a>When I was initially introduced to the musical stylings of Iggy Azalea, I thought, "Interesting, a <br />
female Eminem." Listening to "Fancy", from Azalea's debut album <i>The New Classic</i> (2014),
however, I started to change my mind: she's more like a modern
incarnation of Gwen Stefani. Picking through the lyrics to "Fancy"
changed my mind once more: no, no, she's just another media doll who is
willing to sell her talent in exchange for fast cash and
splash-in-the-pan fame. It's a shame, really. I think she could be a
really refreshing voice if she took the time to rap on some poignant and
original topics, but no, it's just sex and money pretty much 24/7.
B-o-r-i-n-g, I-g-g-y. And this is a real shame, not just because it
means that our culture continues to be pummeled with nothing but
egotistical smash-and-grabs instead of true art. That's a travesty in
itself, of course, but the real-life tragedy is in Azalea herself:
rather than taking the opportunity to truly set herself apart in the rap
world, she chooses to squander her talent in the same cesspool as Jason
Derulo and Chris Brown, which, in my opinion, is a pretty sad place to
be. Azalea may be able to buy all the fancy things the name brands have
to offer her with all the money she's after, but it can't buy her -- or
any of us -- meaning or integrity.<br />
<br />
Azalea's "Fancy"
spends most of its time -- I mean, most of its time that isn't spent in
self-aggrandizement -- harping on the same tired tropes you'll find in
any female party song, from Ke$ha to Lady Gaga to Nicki Minaj to Miley
Cyrus. All of the necessary chants in favor of one's own world status
and Venusian power over men are present to make clear just how much of a
goddess one is: "Film star, yeah, I'm deluxe, / Classic, expensive, you
don't get to touch". The demands for first-class treatment and prestige
are trotted out with due process: "Swagger on super, I can't shop at no
department". And of course, it is made abundantly clear to everyone
what kind of alcohol is being consumed (necessarily expensive), and that
it is being drunk excessively: "Cup of Ace, cup of Goose, cup of Cris /
... Takin' all the liquor straight, never chase that / ... Champagne
spilling, you should taste that". Because nothing says "fancy" like
spilling your drink. Or wasting good alcohol just because you can. And,
of course, nothing says "class" like flaunting your heedless waste and
excess, especially for our environmentally-challenged, first-world
lifestyle of decadence and opulence. Add a trashed hotel room to the
alcohol abuse (classic "fancy" behavior, naturally), as well as some
overtly expensive status symbols ("somethin' worth half a ticket on my
wrist"), and you pretty much have the recipe for modern "me-generation"
disaster. Recessions, and "global warming", and first-world poverty, and
pretty much every other buzzword you can think of has its roots in this
pattern of behavior.<br />
<br />
I'm not trying to put the blame
on poor Iggy. After all, this modern mess is over a century in the
making, and Azalea is just as much a symptom of it as recession. But her
example is a very effective way to hold a mirror up to ourselves and to
see our own individual and social problems. Perhaps the most disturbing
trend exhibited here is Azalea's obsession with money: "So get my money
on time, if they not money, decline / ... Put that paper over all... /
Never turn down money". She basically admits in this song that she is
willing to do anything for money, suffer any degradation, give up any
sort of integrity: the money is priority. Money is god. It is money that
she worships, that she works for, that she chases after, that she lusts
after. It is telling that the line "Never turn down money" occurs
immediately after she has been tantalizing a supposed male with her
desirability: the desire for money above all else almost instantly
degenerates into prostitution. The lust for money is so all-encompassing
that even the integrity of the body, the dignity of one's own person,
can be sacrificed to it in a heartbeat. None of us are immune to this
threat. Whether it's our bodies, our time, our talents, our families,
even our opinions, everything about us can be sacrificed on the altar of
money if we are willing to "put that paper over all". And the modern
world tells us that we should do exactly that. Men and women should give
up their ability to serve their spouses and raise their children
properly in order to chase the almighty dollar. Young people should
sacrifice their true talents and desires in order to pursue lucrative
career paths they neither desire nor enjoy. Our governments are willing
to cater to the whims of wealthy lobbyists rather than pursue the common
good in order to maintain an exorbitant status quo. This is a pervasive
problem; it starts with the fear and selfishness of the individual and
spreads to affect the entire population. Intense individualistic greed
is at the heart of the breakdown in our culture.<br />
<br />
The
more modern problem with our wealth -- at least, compared to how these
problems appeared sixty years ago -- is that their destructive aspects
are more evident and more consequential. Practically speaking, money
cannot be an end in itself. We cannot really "put that paper above all".
Money is just a symbol, a sign for other things. Our wealth has to be
directed to some sort of end: the maintenance of a family, investment in
societal goods, charitable work, and so on. The problem for most modern
people is that their focus on money has no end goal. It has become an
end in itself, and, when its uselessness is perceived by those who
acquire it, its end tends to become destructive -- self-destructive
first, and then socially destructive. Young starlets, like Iggy Azalea
and Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus and whoever else, end up in trouble
precisely because they have money without purpose. The media tells us that happiness lies in money because money can get you things.
We are subjected to a veritable onslaught of advertising that convinces
us to dump our money into alcohol, fashion, cars, technological gizmos,
and whatever else, but even these things lack a purpose in our lives. <i>Why</i>
do we want these things? The makers of "stuff" can't really tell us
that. They can't give us purpose. Things can't give us purpose. And the
frustration of wasting all of our time and effort on purposeless things
tends to drive us to destructive ends. We try to tell ourselves that the
end of alcohol is fun (which is true), but fun becomes drunkenness,
debauchery, and destruction, none of which are really any fun and are
harmful to both ourselves and others. Fashion and cars and gizmos,
purposeless in and of themselves, take on a role as status symbols; they
become a way for us to bring others down and build ourselves up. Azalea
uses her "fancy" status symbols, her wealth and her fame, to put down
other people: men are not good enough to have her, and women are not
good enough to compare with her. Azalea, of course, is not unique in
this; almost all pop music caters to this mentality. More importantly, <i>we</i>
cater to this mentality. We want to be envied. We want others to see
what we have and think we're somehow better because of it. We think that
wealth and influence over others we will gives us meaning and purpose.
We think that, as Azalea's rap collaborator Charli XCX says, it "feels
so good getting what I want", so that must be what the goal of life is.
But it's not. And persisting in this misconception is what is destroying
our world, our culture, our relationships, and ourselves.<br />
<br />
So
what can we do about this? I think a good first step would be to
rethink our priorities in life: what is truly important? What do we
truly want out of life? What truly makes us happy in this world? What is
a reasonable and balanced way of achieving that? And perhaps a good
second step would be to put our desire for money in its proper context,
remembering that money is a means to an end and not an end in itself.
Earning money must be for a purpose, and we should have an awareness of
what that purpose is in our own lives. Finally, rather than encouraging
individual wealth and success in our culture as the entire measure of
our lives, we should really be encouraging personal integrity and social
responsibility if we plan on living in a civilized society in the next
century. Selfish individualism is a cultural dead-end. It's time to take
a cue from the "fancy" lifestyle of Azalea and the rest, and make an
about-face before we become the indentured slaves of the dollar bill.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-57685750011306296562014-05-23T01:16:00.003-04:002014-05-26T19:10:48.967-04:00300: What Does Sacrifice Actually Mean?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCO7tbrrBCOQKwxZBnBr8FZuRTEs6KoPqOSuNQl7INt4GnpLGqzeg2ILDA1ehA9yZm5J42GoqM-IphmcFPupqwFkPtLlHica27rlR6sJmFcEpPtb0U8TPm7Ug1qa2WL5yUS3WzSxLCj0/s1600/movieposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCO7tbrrBCOQKwxZBnBr8FZuRTEs6KoPqOSuNQl7INt4GnpLGqzeg2ILDA1ehA9yZm5J42GoqM-IphmcFPupqwFkPtLlHica27rlR6sJmFcEpPtb0U8TPm7Ug1qa2WL5yUS3WzSxLCj0/s1600/movieposter.jpg" height="320" width="222" /></a></div>
Zack Snyder's <i>300</i> (2006), an adaptation of Frank Miller's comic series of the same name, is one of my favorite films. From that, and from my previous post on <a href="http://moralexposure.blogspot.ca/2014/03/should-we-fight-for-fight-club.html" target="_blank"><i>Fight Club</i></a> (1999), you are perhaps already forming an idea of what kind of moviegoer I am. I like epic films. I like brain-twisters. I like a lot of bloody carnage. But what I really like in these films -- something that is often absent or co-opted in other films -- is their sense of heroism and self-sacrifice. In some films (like <i>Fight Club</i> and <i>300</i>), this can be difficult to see and often can be overshadowed by things like multiple personality disorders and CGI-enhanced abdominal muscles. I find it unfortunate and rather bizarre that the first thing many people say to me when I express my admiration for this film is, "You know their abs are fake, right?" It bothers me that many people can't seem to get past the superficial elements of the film in order to see the strength of the story being told beneath them. Underneath the CGI are real characters, not empty husks, and underneath the slow-motion action sequences and suspended globules of blood is a story that tackles head-on the question of what sacrifice really means.<br />
<br />
There are two ideas of sacrifice being used throughout the narrative that are, in a sense, directly opposed to one another. On the one hand, there is the "sacrifice" required or recommended by the villainous or cowardly characters, such as Xerxes, Theron, Ephialtes, and the Ephors (those creepy old men who divine the will of the gods through drugged dancing girls). The notion of sacrifice proposed by these characters is one that undermines the true meaning of sacrifice by using the language of heroism to promote a form of moral slavery. It is in the "best interest" of Leonidas, king of the Spartans, to give Xerxes what he desires. It is "heroic" of him to allow Xerxes to conquer them without bloodshed, to put his own desire to fight aside in favor of "protecting" his people from certain death. Xerxes and Ephialtes tell Leonidas that it is in his own interest, as well as that of his comrades and nation, to join Xerxes; he and his loved ones will receive wealth, power, prestige, and reward beyond measure. Isn't that what a good leader should provide for his people? Isn't that what a good husband, father, king should choose for those he loves? Is it not a kind of sacrifice, a heroic sacrifice, to put aside his own pride in order to protect his family from the pain of losing him and his people from the horror of Xerxes' merciless army?<br />
<br />
This notion of "sacrifice" is deeply flawed in two important ways. The first is in the means: it is never acceptable to make concessions to moral evil for the sake of a supposed good. The ends never justify the means. Leonidas desires to protect his nation from Xerxes' army, yes, and he could do so by simply agreeing to allow Xerxes to "oversee" Sparta and paying a tax. Bowing to Xerxes would allow his people to live in peace and avoid bloodshed. But this act has serious consequences attached to it. Xerxes' world is one built on slavery, and not just the kind that subjugates a person's physical body to the will of another: the slavery of Xerxes is a spiritual bondage. It is slavery to money. It is slavery to pleasure. It is slavery to ambition. The Ephors, Ephialtes, and Theron all make this abundantly clear through their words and actions throughout the film as they encourage Leonidas to capitulate to Xerxes' demands. In bowing to Xerxes, Leonidas must bow to all that he represents; he must bow to evil, yield to it, make concessions, and every concession is another step down the road to eternal bondage. There is no deal we can make with the devil that does not end in hell. When confronted with evil, there is no accord that can be struck, no truce to be made. The only proper response to evil is to fight it.<br />
<br />
The second flaw in the villains' notion of "sacrifice" is the idea that one can demand the sacrifice of others for some vague notion of the "common good". Theron encourages Leonidas to use his power as king to make the decision to sacrifice the freedom of his people in exchange for their lives. Ephialtes asks Leonidas to sacrifice the safety of his men to satiate Ephialtes' own desires for glory and perhaps to strike a blow for equality. In both cases, Leonidas is asked to make others into a sacrifice on behalf of larger goals. This can be a very tempting idea, but it denies the reality of what a sacrifice truly is. A sacrifice must be a denial of self to oneself and a gift of self to others. No one can make the decision on behalf of others to sacrifice anything. No world leader anywhere can ever justly say, for example, "My people are going to make the sacrifice to never eat fast food again in order to ease the strain on our health care system", and then enforce that sacrifice on them. This is immediately not a sacrifice on anyone's part, but a slip into totalitarianism that denies the inviolability of the free will of every individual human person. It is true sometimes that "sacrifices must be made", but they can only be made on the individual level by the free choice of the person making the sacrificial gift of themselves on behalf of others. This is exactly what Leonidas and his three hundred do. Leonidas is careful to stress the importance of freedom in going to face Xerxes. He chooses to do it himself, and the men who come with him are each willing to sacrifice themselves to help stop the threat to their homeland. By telling the political leaders of his kingdom that he is merely "taking a walk", Leonidas strives to ensure that his sacrificial actions do not impinge on their freedom to make sacrificial choices of their own. This is what lies at the heart of all heroic sacrifice: the courage to make a sacrifice of oneself in freedom and out of love.<br />
<br />
This second point is intrinsically connected to a third: we cannot sacrifice what is not ours to give. If the reality of sacrifice is a denial of the self in order to give of the self in love on behalf of others, then it stands to reason that the thing we must deny ourselves and the thing we must give of ourselves must actually be <i>ours</i>. And this is where <i>300</i> runs into a nasty little problem. Leonidas' queen Gorgo also attempts to make of herself a sacrifice in order to support her husband's heroic stand against evil, but her sacrifice falls short of its aims, both in the plot and in principle. Gorgo believes that she needs Theron's support in the senate in order to move the politicians to support open war against Xerxes; she agrees to give him whatever he wants in order to obtain his support. Naturally, as an ambitious and vicious character, Theron desires the queen's body in exchange for his voice. Gorgo agrees to this and, in doing so, betrays everything her husband is fighting for: freedom, integrity, reason, virtue. Her end goal of helping her husband does not justify the moral evil of adultery, regardless of the circumstances. While Leonidas has gone to war to protect his wife and the wives of his comrades from the rape and pillage of the Persian army, Gorgo enacts the very thing he fights and dies to shield her from. Rather than giving freedom to herself or others, Gorgo's submission to Theron's demands, her act of bowing to evil, makes her a slave to his word when he accuses her before the senate and works to set the politicians even more ardently against her. It may be argued that, regardless of the outcome of her actions, Gorgo's choice was indeed sacrificial because she subjected herself to something she did not want in order to give of herself to help the husband she loved. However, this idea does not take into account the reality of marriage, in which two people give completely of themselves to the other and receive the other in return as a gift. Gorgo's marital relationship with Leonidas means that her sexuality is absolutely something she<i> cannot</i> offer as a sacrifice for the war effort. Her sexual gift is something she has already given to Leonidas through their marriage and cannot be offered to anyone else while that marriage lasts. In effect, her sexual gift is not something that belongs solely to her and, therefore, cannot be sacrificed without denying Leonidas the freedom to make the sacrifice as well. She does not ask him if he is willing to make this sacrifice, nor does she have the opportunity to do so, but I have a strong suspicion that, even if she did, he would say no. Her actions, no matter what good she hoped to gain from it, cannot be considered truly sacrificial because they make concessions to evil and sacrifice what cannot be freely sacrificed.<br />
<br />
It might be argued that Gorgo's and Leonidas' actions are symbolic of male and female sacrifice: a male yields his body up to physical death, while a woman yields her body up to a kind of sexual death. However, both men and women are called to the same kind of heroism, a heroism that does not make distinctions based on gender: that of the martyr. Martyrdom, the most perfect form of sacrifice, requires that the integrity of the soul remain unbroken. Martyrdom demands that one endure any sort of physical evil before one would dare to commit or participate in a moral evil. Martyrdom means that one acknowledges the good of the spiritual life as far above and beyond any good the physical life has to offer. For the martyr, the temptations of Xerxes fall on deaf ears, for the temptations to wealth, sex, and power have no hold on their hearts and are seen as the fleeting vanities that they are. It is the martyr who truly hopes for the good of all mankind when he is able to stand firm in the midst of the deepest trials and not crumble beneath the onslaught of evil. It is the martyr, the one who understands what true sacrifice consists of, who is able to "fight in the shade", to stand firm even when the sky is darkened with countless arrows: "You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day" (Ps. 91:5). This is the highest example of heroic sacrifice, and it is also the true glory of which Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans could only imagine.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away! <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-68744850076486029972014-05-16T18:10:00.001-04:002014-05-16T18:10:58.715-04:00"YOLO": You Only Live Once or You Oughta Look Out?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqlB8yIpfSVbx63o3RkGnqGM3pW1GYa2xDCzzOzcIPOxAoYZL-0XQDsNtzW2bm3Aym2nQrIDWA9t3W6rJOqW-0Jt1n0sJYKR3V3vwQfVd4IQwiUTJk_KGyqc9Xel5sFfkVKdCB072DtbA/s1600/The-Lonely-Island-YOLO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqlB8yIpfSVbx63o3RkGnqGM3pW1GYa2xDCzzOzcIPOxAoYZL-0XQDsNtzW2bm3Aym2nQrIDWA9t3W6rJOqW-0Jt1n0sJYKR3V3vwQfVd4IQwiUTJk_KGyqc9Xel5sFfkVKdCB072DtbA/s1600/The-Lonely-Island-YOLO.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
Before I even start talking about the infamous acronym popularized by Canadian rapper Drake's song "The Motto", you have to watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Otla5157c" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this music video</a> for the song "YOLO" (2013) by the comedy musical group The Lonely Island, featuring Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamar.<br />
<br />
Did you watch it? No, you have to watch it first. Go watch it.<br />
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Okay, now that you've watched it, I hope you were as entertained as I was. The song was first released on an episode of <i>Saturday Night Live</i> last year, and provides an impressive and important counterpoint to the popular meaning of the phrase "You only live once". Most often, the phrase is used to justify or excuse dangerous, irresponsible, or immature behavior. The idea is that, since we only have one chance to experience everything in this world, we are completely justified in any sort of reckless behavior we may choose to indulge in. As long as we are gaining new experiences, it makes no difference whether these experiences have positive or negative effects on the totality of one's life. This motto is closely linked to the idea of "living without regrets", which most people understand to mean doing whatever one would like and not regretting doing it, regardless of what negative effects our choices might have on our lives. Although these mottoes purport to believe that "you only live once", in practice
they actually deny the reality of human mortality and mutability, and
naively assume that nothing we undergo has the power to destroy or diminish us in any way, shape, or form. This leads to a false belief about what it means to be a human person, which leads to choices that damage us both physically and spiritually. Both YOLO and "No regrets" have been manipulated by our culture's adolescent mentality to justify infantile behavior and a life philosophy of instant gratification, which have been incredibly damaging to the youth of our culture and, hence, to the future of culture itself.<br />
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The Lonely Island, well known for their parodic themes in all of their music, latch on to this infantile idea of YOLO and turn it on its head. Instead of justifying reckless and immature behavior, "YOLO" encourages people to take seriously the fact that we really do have only one life to live, and that the choices we make in this life will have a lasting impact on how this life turns out. To that end, The Lonely Island advises (humorously, of course) that we do everything within our power to protect and extend that life by avoiding dangerous behaviors, looking to our financial future, and basically avoiding any life experience whatsoever. The obsessive nature of this kind of self-preservation eventually devolves, in the video, into phobias, neuroses, and paranoia. The one life we have to live is constantly threatened by death and nothingness. Rather than supporting the recklessness that denies the mortality of the human person, this opposing idea of "you only live once" sees human existence as a one-time, fragile, ultimately meaningless thing that has no life or import beyond the temporal confines of the living body. The physical death of the body is seen as the end of all human activity and the end of our opportunities to gather up any enjoyment for ourselves; yet, in the process of this desperate struggle to store up joys, the joy of life is altogether sucked away. What The Lonely Island expresses in a humorous way is another unfortunate misconception about the human person as inexorably degenerating into nothingness. As with the misconception of immortality, the misconception of nothingness leads to errors in judgement about human life that has damaging effects on us both physically and spiritually.<br />
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What we're missing out on in both of these polarizing viewpoints is the pilgrim nature of the human person. Yes, in some ways we are poised between being and nothingness, but nothingness is not inexorable by any means and eternal being is far from assured. The frantic clawing for security in wealth, career, health, or any other area of life is a cover for the deep-seated despair in our lives that believes there is no way to escape the devastation of nothingness, but is desperate to hold it off for as long as possible. The reckless YOLO experience that is heedless of personal danger is guilty of another kind of sin, that of presumption, and a particularly Lutheran presumption at that. Luther believed that our faith in Christ saved us, and our personal acts, regardless of their moral merit or demerit, had no bearing whatsoever on our ultimate fate. In this sense, for Luther, after baptism and the solemn profession of faith in Christ, you are free to do whatever you want. In the same way, the YOLO lifestyle presumes that eternal being has already been bestowed on us and that personal actions are inconsequential to who we ultimately become or to how our actions effect others. Both ways of "only living once" are narrow and selfish, denying the reality of humanity and maintaining a staunch individualism that denies the intrinsic value of the other, as well.<br />
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The true way to live once for all requires us to find a mean between these two radical and false views of the human person and its place in the world. We must reaffirm the fact that our existence is a true good, that we were created out of love, and that all things that are set in motion or put into being are meant to stay in motion or in being. We are meant to be, really and truly. The first moment of our existence in the womb of our mothers propelled us forward into being, and we perpetually gravitate towards the Source of all being by nature. We are meant to continue in existence, and this reality must give us, first, the hope and, second, the courage to live our lives to the fullest, to seek after the good in all things, and to fully actualize all the potentialities of our being. This is the answer to the desperate despair of the paranoid neurotic within all of us that is desperate to build a fortress around itself in an attempt to cheat death: hope and courage. At the same time, we must combat the presumption that eternal being is already within our grasp. As long as we exist in this world, nothingness is still a reality for us. It is not inexorable and it by no means has an equal pull on us with the Source of our being. However, we always have the ability to make a free choice for nothingness rather than being. We can choose to deny our nature and aim ourselves towards nothing. This is always within our power. Because of this, we must be on our guard and act with prudence in all our decisions, making informed and wise choices for our good. In this, as well, we are required to hope that, in accordance with our choices for being, we may be granted that eternal being we desire from the core of our very selves.<br />
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Yes, it is true that we only live once. But what we decide to do with this one life is of the utmost importance. Courage, prudence, hope: these are the key ingredients for living life to the fullest. We must have the courage to go out into the world and make our mark, to use our talents as best we can, and, through our interactions with others and the experiences we accrue, to become the best person we can possibly be. This is an enormous task and requires great courage. But courage alone is foolhardy; it must be tempered by prudence. We must make choices every moment of our lives, and these choices <i>will</i> affect us in every imaginable way. We must be discerning so that we can make choices for our good, choices that continue to propel us toward being, and avoid those choices that will whittle us away to nothing. Prudence is required to temper courage and direct our lives to their ultimate ends. And, before everything and after, we must hope. Without hope, we cannot be courageous. Without hope, prudence is a false veneer. Hope is necessary to drive us forward and stir in us the fires of ingenuity, passion, creativity, and redemption.<br />
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So, YOLO? Yes, YOLO. But, as in all things, it's a matter of quality over quantity. You only live once, so you had better make this the best life you could possibly live.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-32703591727492494122014-05-12T22:43:00.001-04:002014-05-12T22:48:23.739-04:00Is There a Problem with Ariana Grande's "Problem"?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK8YwrGw30-2fqZHuyKMuN-XMQO-RigEm85qZ6bCG8Iqaa90bWRuhUINu9llWgR-m6AaPHynsY7tUck4jxlzLZgkc0Seks30LafvQfIfljblbI-srTfChaoBe9NjLKYeztxhFkKL0b94E/s1600/ariana-grande-problem.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK8YwrGw30-2fqZHuyKMuN-XMQO-RigEm85qZ6bCG8Iqaa90bWRuhUINu9llWgR-m6AaPHynsY7tUck4jxlzLZgkc0Seks30LafvQfIfljblbI-srTfChaoBe9NjLKYeztxhFkKL0b94E/s1600/ariana-grande-problem.png" height="305" width="320" /></a>Well, sure, there are a few. But none of them are really to her detriment. The problem she faces is humanity's problem, one we can all be sympathetic to in one way or another. "Problem" (2014), the debut single from Ariana Grande's upcoming and as yet untitled second album, is catchy and will have you toe-tapping along in no time. Although it makes use of one of my least favorite instruments, the sax, in the worst possible way (see Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty" for another horrible example, as well as Jennifer Lopez's 2005 single "Get Right"), the song itself is enjoyable enough. The idea behind the lyrics relates an experience rather than an opinion, which leaves room for the listener to deliver the final judgement on what to do in this particular situation. The problem in "Problem" is what to do when you know intellectually that a relationship isn't right for you, but your emotional connection to the person makes it difficult for you to truly cut ties and move on. The experience is common enough, and "Problem" hits on all of the inconsistencies of the will that make firm resolutions largely untenable. I plan to highlight just a few points from the song's theme that I think shed some light on the problem of being resolute in our relationships with others, but also in our relationship with ourselves.<br />
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First of all, I guess I should make that judgement which, I think, "Problem" allows its audience to make: Go cold turkey. We are all well aware -- intellectually, at any rate -- that the best way to overcome an addiction is to remove the source of the addiction from your life completely. If you're trying to quit smoking, the best way is to get rid of your cigarettes and not buy any more. If you're trying to quit drinking, get rid of all your alcohol and don't buy any more. Don't even go into the liquor store. Avoid places where you know people will be drinking. We know these things. Of course, I wouldn't go so far as to say that we have "addictions" to our significant others and, if we break up with them, that we are trying to overcome an "addiction" necessarily. But there is a sense in which we truly are trying to "kick the habit", so to speak. Being in a relationship does create certain good feelings in us which, once they are removed, can cause us to feel empty and lonely. We go into a state of "withdrawal" in which we find it very difficult to be happy without those good feelings being fed to us by the significant other. The easiest way to fix that, it often seems, is simply to reestablish the relationship, just like the easiest way to kill the craving for a cigarette is just to have one. If the relationship is not a healthy one, then getting back into it is just like taking up our bad habit again: we satisfy our craving, but we continue to make ourselves unhealthy and make it more difficult for ourselves to make a clean break. In relationships, we have the added problem of the other person, as well. If we have said, in the words of Taylor Swift, that "we are never, ever, ever getting back together", but then we give in to the other's entreaties to satisfy our own cravings for good feelings, or even simply out of a misplaced sympathy, we do damage to the other person by setting up false hopes and do damage to ourselves by making our word something that can be manipulated and ignored. This is what leads to increasingly messy break-ups and severely damaged hearts. We need to make firm acts of the will in these cases and truly make an end of things.<br />
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Acts of the will are extremely difficult things for us. Our wills have been weakened by original sin and our bad habits. We can't say no to extra desserts and large sizes, so we're obese. We can't say no to sexual urges, so we fund a billion-dollar porn industry. We can't say no to alcohol, so we're intoxicated every weekend. We can't say no to Netflix and video games, so we waste hours and days of our lives doing nothing constructive. We can't say no to gossip, so the magazine racks, and even the newspapers, are filled with salacious headlines to tempt our curiosity. We can't say no to sales racks, so we buy cartloads of things we'll never need. Why can't we say no? Partially, I think, because no one asks us to. Our culture thrives -- if we can call it that -- on the mantra, "If it feels good, do it". Self-control is frowned upon by the consumerist mentality and laughed at by the corporate billionaires. Don't stop feeding your face, or you'll stop funding our bank accounts! Don't stop getting more of what you want, or you'll be missing out on the good things of life! You're only really living if other things control your life! The truth is that self-control, largely, keeps the rich from getting richer, and they don't want that. That's what advertising is all about. It feeds "addictions", weakens the will, and provides us with excuses to become more and more a slave to things rather than to become their masters. The truth is we can only be the masters of things once we are the masters of ourselves.<br />
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So how do we do that? How do we learn to master ourselves so that we can truly be free to make the best decisions for our health and well-being, both physical and spiritual? Well, self-control is a virtue and, like any virtue, it is only attained through exercise. Our wills must be exercised in order to make them stronger. Virtue is a habit and habits are built up through constant practice. So we can build up our willpower in the same way that we might build up muscle: start small with something you can handle, but also something that challenges you, like giving up one of your four coffees a day to try to reduce your dependency on caffeine. Refrain from getting large sizes of things at fast food places to gain mastery over your eating habits. Try getting up fifteen minutes earlier than you normally would on the weekends to gain mastery over your sleeping habits. Allot yourself only two hours of TV-watching or game-playing per day and stick to it. Traditional Catholic discipline stemming from the Desert Fathers and Mothers has always taught that exhibiting constant mastery over the desires of the body in small ways helps us to be steadfast when faced with stronger temptations to self-indulgence in both the physical and spiritual realms. Being able to deny one's stomach its inordinate desire for excess food, for instance, enables one to deny one's sexual drive its inordinate desire for gratification. Even more so, making a habit of denying the body makes it easier and more natural to be able to deny oneself in spiritual matters, such as the desire for fame and undue praise, the desire to be right at the expense of charity, or the desire even to receive the pleasures of God's presence in one's prayer life. The dry seasons of the soul are overcome much more readily by the person who is familiar with imposing "dry seasons" on his body.<br />
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All of this comes back around (finally) to Ariana Grande's "Problem". Her problem is a problem of the will and, as much as it relates to the problem of setting aside a bad relationship for good, it also relates to the much greater problem of our cultural lack of self-control. Grande's line, "I shouldn't want it / But I gotta have it", describes us all. We all need to wrestle with our willpower so that we can not only know what's best for us, but also have the ability -- the will -- to do it. This requires effort, it requires practice, it requires exercise in order to build a habit. It can be an arduous task, but it is within our reach and could be the answer to so many of our problems. Wouldn't it be nice to say, along with Grande's rap collaborator Iggy Azalea via rap artist Jay-Z, "I got 99 problems, but my will ain't one"?<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-57469468569209523482014-05-10T23:23:00.001-04:002014-05-10T23:23:03.427-04:00Finding Hope in the Dark Wood of Dante's Inferno<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopfBN8EQcIIwyJYbeLccBR1qw6iKcn5z5u08RWpxfaaxSVMmymD__Uv-wuljP7bmFgDDKpoy9lW6Pdu9sEnAdGogJ2nBcWRVVeZrdLdetYCo8pFEg8g0WBlCcQvODVUou-um2xYUW2HE/s1600/dante.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopfBN8EQcIIwyJYbeLccBR1qw6iKcn5z5u08RWpxfaaxSVMmymD__Uv-wuljP7bmFgDDKpoy9lW6Pdu9sEnAdGogJ2nBcWRVVeZrdLdetYCo8pFEg8g0WBlCcQvODVUou-um2xYUW2HE/s1600/dante.jpg" height="259" width="320" /></a>A couple of weeks ago, I read a lovely little <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-dante-saved-my-life/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">story</a> about how Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i> helped the author overcome his midlife crisis. It was a beautiful testament to the way literature -- and art in general -- can reach beyond time and culture and language to have a substantial impact on our personal lives in the here and now. The story created through the brilliant mind of a 13th-century Italian poet of traveling through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven on a quest to rediscover his beloved Beatrice may seem like it could not possibly have anything to do with us, here and now, in the progressive 21st century with our enlightened minds which are no longer imprisoned by the "superstitions" of the Middle Ages. And yet, no matter how often we insist that we are somehow substantially "different" from our historical predecessors, we are reminded over and over again through literature that we are still very much the same. In fact, the same questions, experiences, emotions, and contemplations have stuck with us throughout our long history because, as long as we continue to exist as human beings in this world, we will always be on a pilgrimage, a journey, a search for the answers to the inmost questions and longings of our spirits. This is an integral part of our being and cannot be removed. We will not be able to "evolve" away from this. We will always be searching through our own personal Hells, Purgatories, and Heavens to find a way to finally soothe our mental unrest. Dante, as one of humanity's most moving authors, gives us a handbook on how to do just that with his <i>magnum opus</i>, the <i>Divine Comedy</i>.<br />
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The <i>Divine Comedy</i> is too great a work to ever do justice to in any one blog post, and I don't intend to do so here. Instead, I'd like to just wander through a few moments in the text and muse on their possible applications to us. What does Dante's treatment of the Lustful tell us about the sin itself and our relationship to it? How about the Blasphemers? What can we learn about our own journeys towards perfection from the Proud in Purgatory? Or the Envious? What can we learn from Dante's conversations with St. Thomas Aquinas or St. James in Heaven that may inform our behavior or inspire us with a new fervor for beatitude? This questions will hopefully be tackled over time. In this post, however, I will just wander briefly with Dante through the dark wood in which his story begins and make my way with him to the gates of Hell, upon which is written those famous lines: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here".<br />
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At the beginning of Canto 1, we find Dante lost and alone in a dark wood. His description of the wood is an allegory for the state of his soul during his own midlife crisis, his "dark night" of the soul: "Midway this way of life we're bound upon, / I woke to find myself in a dark wood, / Where the right road was wholly lost and gone. // Ay me! how hard to speak of it -- that rude / And rough and stubborn forest! the mere breath of memory / Stirs the old fear in the blood". Rude, rough, and stubborn: these qualities speak to the three types of sin which make up the circles of Hell in Dante's epic, namely, the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious. Dante here realizes that he is a lost soul, bereft of grace, and doesn't know where to turn. He says he was "so heavy and full of sleep" that he lost his way; it is through sloth, inattentiveness to the needs of his own soul, that he has drifted from the state of grace almost without realizing it. His defenses were down and sin crept in. How often does this happen to us! Too often I find myself growing tired and lazy, no longer willing to meet the expectations of my life, allowing things to slip further and further out of control, until I one day look around me and am shocked at what my life has become. How did I wander so far off the path? When did I stop paying attention? It can take much effort to shake the sleep from our eyes, stand up, and work ourselves back towards the right road, but we can do it. However, we can't do it alone.<br />
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Dante first attempts to "do it alone", to find his own path to his goals without the help of any other power. He attempts to climb a mountain to get out of the dark wood, the mountain of Purgatory. However, he is prevented from climbing it by three creatures: the Leopard, the Lion, and the She-Wolf. These animals, like the description of the dark wood, are emblematic of the three main levels of sinfulness in Hell. When faced with these three hindrances, Dante is completely overwhelmed by his inability to overcome them and falls into despair: "at that dread sight a blank / Despair and whelming terror pinned me fast, / Until all hope to scale the mountain sank." He despairs of ever escaping the darkness and climbing the mountain; he despairs of ever escaping the darkness of his own soul and making the climb to purgation. Despite our many affirmations that we can "do whatever we set our mind to", or that our will is capable of conquering anything set before us, this is not the case when it comes to conquering sin. We are not capable of simply willing sin out of our lives. We cannot will ourselves into Heaven, and neither can Dante. Dante needs help to find salvation and, in his time of need, he finds Virgil -- or rather, Virgil finds him.<br />
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Virgil, for Dante, is the poet of all poets; he is Dante's inspiration. He is also considered by Dante to be a philosopher and natural scientist, a vast reservoir of knowledge about the world and man, possessing all of the wisdom of the ancient world of Greece and Rome. Encompassing both aspects of the human mind, creative and analytic, poet and philosopher, Virgil represents allegorically the height of intellectual and moral virtue that human reason can attain without the aid of supernatural grace. It is through the wisdom, virtue, and beauty of man before grace that Dante will discover himself and discover the path to salvation. This recalls the personal experiences of many great saints, the greatest perhaps being St. Augustine of Hippo, who approached the salvation of Christ first through the works of the Greek philosophers. Discovering the need for salvation, the need for grace, is something that is within the reach of human reason. Our first step back on the path of our earthly pilgrimage is to seek after the truth wholeheartedly and recognize our own insufficiency in bringing about our own happiness.<br />
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Virgil tells Dante that he can't just climb up the mountain: they must go through Hell and come out at the other side of Mount Purgatory. In other words, Dante must come to a full understanding of sin, and then a purgation of those sins, before he can find Beatrice and, through her, the Beatific Vision. Virgil, of course, cannot lead Dante all the way to Heaven because he had not received the light of grace in his life on earth; in the same way, human reason and human effort alone are not enough to bring us to God. It is only through Christ and, in the beautiful participation of all humanity in the Divine Plan, through the intercession of His servants that each of us attains the grace of God. In Dante's case, Beatrice will be the faithful servant and intercessor who brings Dante to Christ.<br />
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Dante wavers on whether he should follow Virgil into Hell or not. He compares himself to both Virgil's hero Aeneas and to St. Paul to prove his inability to commit to such a journey: "But how should <i>I</i> go there? Who says so? Why? / I'm not Aeneas, and I am not Paul! / Who thinks me fit? Not others. And not I." Dante expresses what might be considered his humility in protesting against undertaking such an epic journey with so prestigious a guide. Who could think themselves worthy and not be guilty of some kind of pride? However, Dante's reluctance is not humility but the remnant of the slothful attitude that got him into this spiritual trouble in the first place. Allegorically, this is the figure of the human soul's difficulty in choosing to set aside its own selfish desires to follow in the footsteps of Christ. It's so much easier to just remain as we are. This is what C. S. Lewis is referring to in the title of his book <i>The Weight of Glory</i>: being called to spiritual greatness, to sainthood, to the inheritance of the Eternal Kingdom, is a great responsibility. It requires much of us. It is a burden that, in some ways, our lazy souls wish that God had not called us to. It would be so much easier to be mediocre. But Virgil -- or reason -- can help us overcome our doubts and fears and unwillingness. Reason argues with the will, urging it to make the choice. Virgil urges Dante to follow, to make the choice to come out of the darkness.<br />
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Virgil uses the imagery of courtly love, the same courtly love for which Dante had been a fervent adherent to and poet of in his youth, to cajole Dante into continuing: "What ails thee then? Why, why this dull delay? / Why bring so white a liver to the deed? / Why canst thou find no manhood to display / When three such blessed ladies deign to plead / Thy cause at that supreme assize of right". How can Dante dare to lack the courage to continue when three worthy women -- Beatrice, St. Lucy, and the Blessed Virgin -- are interceding for him, waiting for him, asking for him to please them? He <i>must</i> show courage and do as they ask! It is this hope for Beatrice's favor, as well as Virgil's application of reason, that gives Dante the courage to continue and the ability to hope for his eternal beatitude. With reason bolstering us to follow our good intentions and the gift of hope being infused into our souls, we are able to bear the weight of glory, to dare to approach the throne of God as His true children, and to lay claim to all the spiritual treasures Christ has won for us. Without hope, we have already lost everything. When we give up on the possibility of achieving Paradise through the grace of God and our willing response to that grace in our lives, we deny God's power to save and willfully refuse to allow His grace to transform us. We refuse to be all that we were created to be. And, when we do that, we truly do enter those forbidding gates that read: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". The damned can no longer hope that anything will turn out right for them again; they have refused all chance at bliss and have embraced their own self-defined futility.<br />
<br />
When Virgil and Dante reach the gates of Hell, Dante is struck with fear at the inscription written on the gates: "'Sir, / This sentence is right hard for me,' I cried." Virgil comforts and reassures him that all will be well, taking him by the hand and leading him into Hell's caverns. In this moment, we are shown the difference between hope and presumption. As despair abolishes the virtue of hope by negating its very possibility, presumption abolishes hope by presuming that those things hoped for are already assured. By being afraid at the gates of Hell, even despite the special grace being accorded him by God, Dante shows that he does not assume that Heaven is already the assured destination of his pilgrimage. He recognizes the very real possibility of losing grace through sin and losing Heaven in Hell. As long as we are pilgrims in time, we are always capable of denying our true fulfillment by turning away from the path of life and losing ourselves in the dark wood. There is never one moment in our lives on this earth where we can say with absolute certainty that we possess the Kingdom of Heaven. We always and only can possess it here insofar as we possess it in the hope of Christ's promise. The virtue of hope allows us to fully appreciate the fact that we are required to "work out our salvation in fear and trembling", but also to recognize that Christ has given us all the tools we need to find our way to Him, even when the way seems most hellish. Dante will not be trapped in Hell with the damned souls because Virgil has renewed hope in his heart; he is just passing through.<br />
<br />
In the first three cantos of the <i>Divine Comedy</i>, Dante has already laid out for us the prerequisites for a true conversion of heart: we must recognize our need for salvation and hope that we will attain it. It is this hope that gives us the courage to move forward in faith and love, to respond generously to the call of God. Rather than abandoning hope, we must abandon despair and presumption, and trust in the mercies of God. Our pilgrimage through this life towards eternal Being begins when we acknowledge the very "ground of our Being", as Josef Pieper says, and walk our path through hell or high water towards perfect union with Him in the Beatific Vision of Paradise.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-10040679619910583942014-05-08T23:36:00.003-04:002014-05-08T23:36:59.168-04:00Is There Revolution in Lana Del Rey's "West Coast"?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge8ayVLVGY5-xsADM537qEmPYL9l7ooZhTFqOTgNYITiiJ_3rt0cgw16_gcrZpmicJjUEtjL2pjBEUY-shx5bsh5ztyJx0_fuacbM6HGaL3UBOASrfc4op8Hbfaw0nl-lk-qRfWnAPkyw/s1600/Lana_Del_Rey_-_West_Coast.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge8ayVLVGY5-xsADM537qEmPYL9l7ooZhTFqOTgNYITiiJ_3rt0cgw16_gcrZpmicJjUEtjL2pjBEUY-shx5bsh5ztyJx0_fuacbM6HGaL3UBOASrfc4op8Hbfaw0nl-lk-qRfWnAPkyw/s1600/Lana_Del_Rey_-_West_Coast.png" /></a>Lana Del Rey's newest single "West Coast", from her upcoming album <i>Ultraviolence</i> (2014), is not the most accessible song in the world lyric-wise. Listening to it for the first time, however, I felt like she was trying to convey some sort of message about political revolution underneath the breathy vocals and surf-rock composition. Despite its summer-festival sound and laid-back vibe, there seemed to be something more poignant brewing underneath. So I decided to take a closer look to see if there really was some kind of revolution going on in Del Rey's new album. Its title -- <i>Ultraviolence</i> -- seemed promising, referring as it does to the disturbingly "revolutionary" ideas bantered about by the character of Alex in Anthony Burgess's novel <i>A Clockwork Orange. </i>Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed with the outcome of my close reading: revolution turns into a form of "selling out" as the poetess embraces the glamor of Hollywood as an escape rather than working to change the political situation her people suffer under.<br />
<br />
I guess what first made me feel like maybe this was a "revolution" song was the underlying story of two Cuban lovebirds trying to escape their oppressive political reality. The poetess makes mention of their nationality in the chorus with the Spanish phrase "Y Cubano como yo", which translates to "and Cuban like me". And then there's the other line from the oft-repeated chorus: "His Parliament's on fire and his hands are up / On the balcony". This made it seem like the song may be advocating for political upheaval in Cuba, and maybe it really is. However, the revolutionary aspect is undercut by being subsumed into the experience of a concert. The young man's actions of "swaying" and holding his hands up become mere dance movements to the poetess's music. The "Parliament" that is on fire can be seen now as simply a metaphor for the man's rational mind, perhaps, or his pragmatic judgement. While listening to the poetess's music, the man is freed from his analytic mind and allowed to experience an emotional pleasure, supposedly free from the constraints of the practical world. Music has the power to make peace, not war, by allowing us to stop thinking about our problems and drift away on the hypnotic waves of island jams. Peace and love, glory, hallelujah.<br />
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But is this what we really want from the arts? Do we really want music that is going to lull us into submission by washing away our sincere worries and cares in fuzzy feelings? Is the role of music, and art in general, to be just a form of entertainment, an emotional massage to knead out the stress of the work day, an anesthetic for the mind that drains thought away and replaces it with ephemeral feelings? I don't think it is. Art should be entertaining and enjoyable, I agree, but, if that's all it is, it becomes nothing but a form of pablum to feed intellectual and emotional children. In fact, we tend to become children by exposing ourselves to it. I found it interesting that one of the lines of "West Coast" says, "I guess that no one ever made me feel I'm a child". The poetess is referring to the man's love for her in this line, but it fits nonetheless. There is a danger, in both our desire for entertainment and our desire for love, to feel like we deserve to be coddled, to be given only the fuzzy feelings. In both scenarios, we are reduced in maturity. Someone who is treated like a child in love will not learn to reciprocate that love as a mature person; art and entertainment that treats us as children who need to be mindlessly amused works to make us mindless. In a sense, art -- and love -- should inspire within us some kind of revolution, whether it be on a political/economic/social level or a personal/psychological/spiritual level. The power that art -- and love -- has to touch us on a deeply emotional and spiritual level should not be uncoupled from its ability to speak to our minds and inform our decisions. Both should strive to make us better people who are able to make better decisions for ourselves, those close to us, and the world at large.<br />
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But how did we get to here? How did the poetess get from this artistic chance at revolution to a sedate swaying to the theme of fuzzy feelings? Where did the fire go? Well, in large part, it was wholly misdirected. The verses of "West Coast" deal largely with the separation of the two Cuban lovebirds: the poetess, although her love for her man is undoubtedly passionate, has chosen to leave him (and Cuba presumably?) to pursue her music career on the West Coast of the United States. She leaves her lover -- and the revolution -- to seek out fame and fortune in Hollywood: "Down on the West Coast / I get this feeling / Like it all could happen / That's why I'm leaving / You for the moment". It seems to be the classic tale of leaving the homeland in order to find a better life in the "land of opportunity". Once the poetess has made her dream a reality, she will undoubtedly enable her lover to join her. But the poetess knows that what she's really doing is selling out. She knows that the glamor of Hollywood is almost a cultish phenomenon in which she will have to make sacrifices in order to succeed: "Down on the West Coast, they got their icons, / Their silver starlets and Queens of Saigon / ... Down on the West Coast, they love their movies, / Their golden gods and rock-and-roll groupies". She will have to fit herself into one of these molds, to allow herself to be fashioned into a queen, a god, a groupie, or some hybrid combination of all three. Despite the fact that "you've got the music in you", the exterior must be covered in gold and silver before the inside will be allowed to come forth. She'll have to "fake it till she makes it", as the saying goes; in order to succeed in Hollywood, she will have to be fashioned in their image before she can contribute her own. But in doing so, does she not lose that passionate fire that she seemed to possess back home in Cuba? Did not the glamor of Hollywood cause her music to lose something of that passion and instead become nothing more than an emotional drug to soothe away thoughts of real revolution? In her attempts to be "free", the poetess seems to be regurgitating that same cloying pablum that renders her art nothing more than glitter and fluff. The substance has been sucked out of it in favor of mindless pleasure.<br />
<br />
Rather than revolution, perhaps "West Coast" should be taken as a warning. If you have the music in you, if you have the passion and power to create true art, then let it be revolutionary. Let it wake people up and shake them out of their complacency. Call them to action and encourage them to take sides, to take a stand, to make up their minds, come to decisions, and act. Art should not be a passive experience, but a dynamic and life-changing interaction. This is what is worth creating. This is what is worth suffering for. This is what is worth risking revolution for.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-50482411774970597092014-05-07T00:45:00.002-04:002014-05-07T00:46:52.320-04:00Who's Our Brother in Avicii's "Hey Brother"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1q1Cg_U6CNCM_FLkDRvTfAYhqxQvFqsfYMwjc8ZUxcvrN3xYG6l7MPTaPvlhZlW6qLMh6-AAVZckqtMzXDx-8srp5ornme1w0ypYuYaF7DQEgJyKoBTU5WH1RjYlUR3jF-A9W8m0cjM/s1600/Avicii_Hey_Brother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1q1Cg_U6CNCM_FLkDRvTfAYhqxQvFqsfYMwjc8ZUxcvrN3xYG6l7MPTaPvlhZlW6qLMh6-AAVZckqtMzXDx-8srp5ornme1w0ypYuYaF7DQEgJyKoBTU5WH1RjYlUR3jF-A9W8m0cjM/s1600/Avicii_Hey_Brother.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
Swedish DJ Avicii's "Hey Brother", from his debut album <i>True</i> (2013), is a weird panoply of dance/electronic beats and mixing, with a bluegrass vocal overlay that lends the song a strange, haunting quality despite its upbeat rhythm. The lyrics tend to point towards the sense of loyalty between siblings who will always be there for each other, regardless of the disappointments life may throw their way. The music video for the song takes this in a different direction by depicting the relationship of two brothers, later revealed to be father and son, and the pain at being separated through war and death. In this sense, the idea of brotherhood is taken to a more universal level, pointing to the brotherhood of those who are not only related by blood, but by nationality, by causes, and by strife. Although Avicii's song does not necessarily subscribe to this, the lyrics can also be taken to an increasingly universal level by making the song about the brotherhood of all mankind, and, with a Christian interpolation, about the enduring faithfulness of Christ, our Brother, on our behalf.<br />
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The lyrics lend themselves to a Christological interpretation because they are in their very nature redemptive. The brother and sister referred to in the lyrics are "far from home" and afraid they may "lose it all". They are faced with undefined but obviously tempestuous events in their lives. They are perhaps at a turning point. The poet says in the first stanza: "Hey brother / There's an endless road to rediscover / Hey sister / know the water's sweet but blood is thicker". The fact that the brother needs to "rediscover" the road and the sister is coming to an understanding of the difference between water and blood signifies that they have come to certain turning points in their lives from which they are uncertain of where to go. They have come to a crisis and the future is unclear. The poet offers his support and love to his brother and sister in their time of trial, signifying his undying fidelity and his willingness to do whatever it takes to help them: "If the sky falls down for you / There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do".<br />
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Christ approaches fallen and troubled humanity in the same way. When our own plans fall apart and the path we have chosen to take results in a dead end, Christ calls us to the "endless road" of Himself so that we may travel to eternal happiness. He is the Way by which we all may attain the joys of Heaven; in following Him, in walking His road, we are able to rediscover our purpose and our end, our <i>telos</i>. The events of our life begin to fit together in a new way and we are able to see with more clarity the road before us into our future. Similarly, Christ calls us away from the "sweetness" of water to something deeper and more lasting: the "blood". Christ's blood is the family tie that remains stronger and more integral to our existence than any other fleeting attraction to any worldly thing, be it success, pleasure, fame, wealth, or even a beloved person. The new covenant that has been ratified in His blood is a stronger bond than anything else we can experience in our lives. There is no tie on earth that can demand our submission or obedience like this bond can. And yet, He does not demand it of us; He invites, He calls, He reminds, He urges, He persuades. But He does not force our response to this love. Instead, like the poet, He uses the language of love and fidelity to encourage us to respond to Him with a return of that same love and fidelity: "If the sky falls down for you / There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do". When we are in danger of losing everything, of having our world cave in upon us, there is nothing Christ would not do to save us. He has already done everything necessary to save us. His incarnation as man, His passion, death, and resurrection, the entire process from womb to manger, from Egypt to Nazareth, from Galilee to Jerusalem, from the cross to the tomb to the right hand of the Father, is one great outpouring of love and fidelity on our behalf, not only to hold the sky up so that it doesn't crush us, but to remove the sky entirely so that there will be no limit to our flight after Him.<br />
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The question of interpersonal relations becomes important in the second stanza, in which the brother and sister are asked: "Do you still believe in one another / ...Do you still believe in love, I wonder". When our relationship with Christ, the ground of our being, is weakened, so too is our relationship with others. We often cease "believing" in one another in many senses. Primarily, we lose the conviction of the inherent goodness of each and every individual; we no longer "believe" that we are capable of goodness or virtue, and these things begin to be seen as alien concepts, almost unnatural to what it means to be human. As our belief in our inherent goodness begins to wane, so too does our trust in one another as brothers and sisters in a human community. We become strangers to each other, suspect creatures who may rob us of our happiness, and the Hobbesian "state of nature" begins to look like a very realistic view of humanity. In this sort of atmosphere, it is almost impossible for love to exist. If we do not believe that there is anything inherently good in another person, then there cannot be anything there for us to love. We can only love those things that we perceive to be lovable, or "good"; without a certain belief in the goodness of humanity, we become essentially unlovable creatures. Under these conditions, "love" becomes a veneer for personal wish fulfillment. We "love" others only in order to serve ourselves. We become little Freudian monsters who see our interpersonal relationships as nothing more than means to the end of the goals of our id: sex. Freud even goes so far as to say that any "love" that is non-sexual is actually just "goal-inhibited" love; it is "love" waiting to achieve its end of self-fulfillment. Our interpersonal relationships break down in the worst way when our essential goodness and, therefore, lovability are denied.<br />
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It is only through Christ that these basic concepts of our humanity can be fully integrated and upheld. It is in the union of the perfect Divine love of the Trinity with the humanity of the person of Christ that the fullness of our human potential for goodness, love, and happiness is actualized. And it is when we turn to Him in love and faith that we can truly love both ourselves and others. This can be a difficult hurdle for many people, but the third stanza of the song brings out beautifully the response of Christ to all our misgivings about choosing to follow Him. The brother and sister make response to the poet with questions: "What if I'm far from home? / ... What if I lose it all?" The poet responds with his unconditional fidelity: "... I will hear your call / ... I will help you out". No matter how far we travel away from Christ, the moment we turn to Him in faith, He is with us. No matter how difficult our lives become, no matter how low we sink, He is ready to lend us His strength and shoulder the burden of our crosses for us. This is the love with which He is willing to love us, a love that does not criticize or reject, but a love that is willing to give everything of itself in order to bring the beloved to perfect bliss. The repeated phrase, "There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do", becomes a constant reminder that there is nothing that can be too much for Him who has taken on the sin of the entire world and wrestled it, even unto death. The loyalty of Christ to us, his fickle and fallen brothers and sisters, is beyond anything our sisters and brothers of this world can hope to offer, however sincere their love for us. Only Christ can say with complete certainty that He has done and will do everything possible for our good. All we need do is desire it of Him.<br />
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Naturally, this interpretation of the song is entirely my own. I'm not necessarily trying to promote Avicii's "Hey Brother" as a definitively Christian song in any way. But the song itself brings these thoughts to my mind and stirs up a religious connotation for me, so that's what I'm sharing with you. If the song is now a "Christian" song for you because you've read this, I hope it improves the song for you. If not, it's still a decent song without any Christological associations whatsoever. Enjoy it for what it is to you.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-30858103927246378132014-05-04T13:18:00.000-04:002014-05-04T13:18:43.187-04:00"Mulan": Feminism with a Twist<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOdi6adVph3RxNWuaBg9TsyLm4fYsDW-t6t90lX7ELTMiVtMiWHMWjz8JSxlkrfZ5hoHJX9hFADt7OxNF5EENJhtbp85zS1hiUnQF0_DjS-5uOmnLYG0cuY14hLORjW7S3GUb9gQAhfRQ/s1600/fccc64972a9468a11f125cadb090e89e_500x735.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOdi6adVph3RxNWuaBg9TsyLm4fYsDW-t6t90lX7ELTMiVtMiWHMWjz8JSxlkrfZ5hoHJX9hFADt7OxNF5EENJhtbp85zS1hiUnQF0_DjS-5uOmnLYG0cuY14hLORjW7S3GUb9gQAhfRQ/s1600/fccc64972a9468a11f125cadb090e89e_500x735.jpg" height="320" width="217" /></a>Sixteen years before <i>Frozen</i>'s Elsa and Anna were being touted as the only Disney princesses who didn't need a man to save them, Mulan was saving a military general's son and all of China with nothing more than a shoe and some fireworks. While she may not technically be a princess (but, let's face it, neither are Cinderella, Belle, or Tiana), Mulan has stood in almost unnoticed opposition to the all-too-common complaint that Disney heroines are stereotypically helpless beauty queens. So why has she been forgotten or ignored by the majority of female Disney fans who have apparently been dying for a heroine that could stand up for herself against her male counterparts? I think there are two reasons for this: 1) she's not power-hungry enough to satisfy the neo-feminists; 2) she's not boy-crazy enough to satisfy the girly-girls. Mulan is not out to prove that women are equal to or better than men;
she's not out to impress the guys and win their undying admiration, either. Despite all the gender-bending possibilities presented by a heroine who dresses as a boy and Chinese warriors who dress as girls to save the Emperor from Hun invaders, <i>Mulan </i>is a film principally about the relationship between a father and his daughter. It's about the difficulty of not knowing your place in the world and feeling like you are letting down the people you love most. It's about loving someone so much that you'd be willing to risk a shameful death for him, and being so committed to your ideals that you'd defy anyone to uphold them. It's about discovering your inner strength and accepting yourself for who you are. Apparently, none of this really counts as being an image of a strong female figure to modern Disney acolytes; what matters most is being able to punch one guy in the face, while kissing the next.<br />
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Mulan's experience with the matchmaker in the beginning of the film set the tone for what is principally important to her. As her mother and grandmother prepare her for the meeting in which a husband will be prescribed for her, Mulan (in song, of course) prays to her ancestors for help in this matter: "Ancestors, / Hear my plea, / Help me not to make a fool of me, / And to not uproot my family tree, / Keep my father standing tall". Her three desires are intrinsically linked to each other: her love for her father encourages her to want to love what he loves and uphold what he upholds, specifically, the honor of her family's name and history. In order for her to uphold the family's honor, she must fulfill her societal role worthily by making a good match with an honorable man, being a model wife for him, and bearing sons to carry on the family's honor and to serve the Emperor. None of these things are necessarily bad; it's not a bad thing to marry an honorable man, nor to be a good wife, nor to have children. What is problematic, especially in Mulan's case, is that the societal definition of femininity is so extremely limiting: "Men want girls / With good taste, / Calm, obedient, / Who work fast-paced. / With good breeding / And a tiny waist, / You'll bring honor to us all". Other words used to describe the perfect, honorable, match-worthy woman are: "soft", "pale", "serenity", "balance", "beauty", "cultured pearls", "silk purse", "perfect porcelain doll". Mulan herself at the beginning of the film lists off the necessary female virtues: "Quiet and demure, graceful, polite, delicate, refined, poised". The matchmaker adds to these: "To please your future in-laws, you must demonstrate a sense of dignity and refinement. You must also be poised ... and silent." None of these traits are bad things in and of themselves -- politeness and obedience are actually very valuable things -- but, when they become the only acceptable features of femininity, social acceptance and honor become things near impossible for women with outgoing, gregarious, confident, and assertive personalities to obtain. Mulan, who possesses most of these latter qualities and few of the former, is deemed unfit for any of the eligible matches and is sent home from the matchmaker in disgrace.<br />
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It is not this disgrace, however, that drives her to dress as a man and join the Chinese army. Although Mulan is ashamed of disappointing her family, especially her father, his reaction is to remind her that she is still young and still has time to discover her true talents and abilities. Using an analogy to cherry blossoms, Fa Zhou points to a late bloomer and predicts that, "when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all". Far from encouraging Mulan to seek out fame in battle as an alternative form of honor for her family, her father encourages her to allow herself time to discover herself and find her place in life. Mulan is content to do this until Fa Zhou is conscripted into the army to fight the Huns. Having already fought in many battles and having retired due to a war injury, there is little hope that he will survive. It is this love for her father that spurs Mulan into action by taking her father's armor and conscription notice in order to take his place. Suddenly, Mulan's story becomes one of of self-sacrifice instead of self-discovery. Rather than running away in order to prove that she is a valuable member of society, or closing in on herself and rejecting the demands of society, Mulan's aims are for the good of others and are steeped in self-giving, though impetuous, love. This is what makes Mulan stand out as a Disney heroine: her aim is not to prove that she can best the boys at their own game; her aim is to preserve the life of those she loves regardless of the cost to herself. Although her father insists on following the social norms for honor and encourages Mulan to understand her place within those norms, Mulan's love defies place, time, norms, culture, and gender, declaring dramatically that the law of love is more binding than any other human imposition.<br />
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It cannot be denied that, after joining the other recruits at the Moo-Shung camp, Mulan does feel the need to prove herself to her fellow soldiers, especially to Captain Li Shang. However, despite her own reflections on her reasons for joining the army after it is discovered that she is a woman, gender equality is never the first thing that is on her mind. Instead, Mulan draws on a heated conversation with her father before her decision to take his place in the army. Mulan argues vehemently for all of the very understandable reasons why her father should not have to fight: he has already fought for China and done his duty, he has an injury, and there are plenty of young men to fight for China. Fa Zhou responds that it is an honor to fight for his country and his family, and Mulan is outraged that he will die for something like honor. Her father responds with one of the most integral lines in the film: "I will die doing what's right". Despite the fact that this line is uttered in a heated argument between father and daughter, this is what is at the heart of all Mulan's actions. She leaves to join the military, and risks death and dishonor for doing so, in order to do what is right for her father. Mulan stops Shan Yu's army in the Tung Chow Pass, not for her own honor or to strike a blow for equality, but to protect the comrades she has come to know and love. She flies to the Imperial City to warn the Emperor of Shan Yu's impending attack, not in order to receive any reward or so that women will be recognized for anything more than wives, but because it is the right thing to do. She reveals herself to Shan Yu as the soldier who took away his victory in the Tung Chow Pass, not because she wanted to show that women could be successful military leaders or so that everyone would recognize her personally for her deeds, but in order to save Li Shang from the Hun's wrath. Mulan does not stand any more chance against Shan Yu than Shang does; she just happens to have a dragon guardian and a lucky cricket helping her get things done. In all of Mulan's actions, what is emphasized is that doing what is right and just, like love, are also actions that transcend time, place, laws, cultures, and genders. No one has a monopoly on love, justice, or goodness; we are all called to uphold these virtues and live them out in all aspects of our lives.<br />
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The film does promote the right of women to have their voices heard in equal proportion to that of men. Mulan is told multiple times to remain silent, when she speaks out in favor of her father and when she tries to warn the army of the imminent attack on Imperial City. Chi Fu, the misogynistic chief advisor to the Emperor, interrupts Mulan's plea on behalf of her father and encourages Fa Zhou to teach her to "hold her tongue in a man's presence". Li Shang, hurt, angry, and most likely embarrassed over the discovery that his friend Ping is actually a girl, refuses to listen to Mulan's warning about the Huns because her lie about her gender proves her to be untrustworthy. Even though Mulan insists that she and Ping are the same person and both worthy of trust, Shang tell her that she doesn't belong there and to go home. When Mulan tries to warn the male citizens of the Imperial City, none of them will listen to her because of her gender. At the end of the film, the Emperor strikes a blow in favor of equality by bowing to Mulan in gratitude for saving the city, offering her a position on his council, including Chi Fu's own job as chief advisor, and grants her gifts acknowledging her service to the Emperor and to China. What might make many neo-feminists squirm in their seats is Mulan's refusal of a place of political and social power in favor of simply going home to her family. One could argue that Mulan denies herself the opportunity to give other Chinese women a voice in the political and social realms of her nation, thereby keeping women trapped within the same roles that originally caused her so much distress herself. But Mulan's aim has never been to fight for gender equality; her aim was to preserve the father she loved. She has done that, and so she can return home to that father in peace. Mulan's actions have never been self-serving, but have constantly been other-oriented; her entire work as a soldier and hero of China has been a true labor of love.<br />
<br />
The question of where Mulan fits in her family and in her social circles is left open-ended; despite all of her accomplishments, she is still on the road to self-discovery. Mulan's return home to face her father is one of uncertainty. She is the young girl again, rather than the warrior, afraid of her father's disappointment and anger at her dishonorable actions. She approaches him hesitantly and, when he sees her, throws herself at his feet and offers the Emperor's gifts to him, seeking his approval. In this most beautiful moment in the film, Fa Zhou pushes the Emperor's honors aside and takes his daughter in his arms, saying: "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter". Mulan and Fa Zhou both come to understand that it is not our social status, our political connections, or our reputations that make us valuable. It is our very persons. The fact that we are human persons, capable of loving and being loved, is what makes us intrinsically valuable and worthy of honor. Of course, Mulan's gendered societal honor is still greatly assured, as Captain Li Shang follows her home and gets an invitation to dinner, signifying the beginning of a romantic courtship. But what is most important for Mulan, as a character and as a film, is the universal importance of doing what is right, even in the face of untold opposition.<br />
<br />
<i>Mulan</i> stands out from almost all the other Disney films that purport to make a statement to girls about the value of being girls in that its focus is on the girl herself. Rather than watching supposedly strong heroines get sidetracked by one romantic affair after another, the story of <i>Mulan</i> remains firmly rooted in the heroine's own motivations and self-reflections. She has purpose and motivation outside of those of the principal male; she acts on her own initiative and for her own initiatives; and most, if not all, of her actions are rooted in objective virtues. She is also the only heroine who presents a positive and maturing relationship with her father, something that is desperately needed by this generation of women. But she doesn't get to rule a kingdom in the end or kiss a boy, so I guess she has little value as a prominent female role model.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-19116507853474208432014-05-02T15:34:00.000-04:002014-05-02T15:34:25.676-04:00Should We Play "Play It Again" Again?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today I embark on my first serious consideration of a country song. This is a big moment for me because the only thing worse than country music, to my mind, is nails on a chalkboard. So getting into Luke Bryan's "Play It Again" from the album <i>Crash My Party</i> (2013) was an enormous feat. Lyrics to country songs can be more uplifting and meaningful than most pop songs, but modern country music suffers from the golden bug of fast cash as much as anybody else, so many of their songs suffer from the same drunk 'n' debauched content as the rest of the mass media. Their love ballads can also be so syrupy-sweet that they make you want to gag, despite the often positive messages about love, marriage, and family. Bryan's song is a little bit of everything, but not so much of anything that you feel too overwhelmed by it. So I plan to pull out some of the elements I truly enjoyed in this song and try not to be too negative about its eye-rollers. This is a song that essentially gets the early evolution of a loving relationship mostly right, so I want to give it the nod it deserves.<br />
<br />
The development of the relationship between the poet and his beloved is, in many senses, everything that most modern club-pop songs are not. First of all, the poet's narrative begins with an affirmation of circumstances outside of the self and its desires. When the poet sets eyes on the woman he becomes enamored with, his first thought is to her relationships with others: "I was lookin' for her boyfriend / Thinkin', no way she ain't got one". The poet does not exist in a navel-gazing world of the mind in which the only thing that matters is himself. When the poet recognizes the beauty and value of the woman before him, he also recognizes that he is not the only one who may have noticed these qualities. In fact, the woman's value is considered so great to the poet that he thinks it must be impossible for no one else to have noticed and attempted to make himself part of her life. Of course, we can be more pragmatic and see this as nothing more than the mental calculations of a man "looking to score" (boyfriend present = no chance, boyfriend absent = less chance, boyfriend non-existent = good chance), but we shouldn't be too quick to hop on board the jaded train. This kind of pragmatism does not preclude the idealism of the loving relationship. In order for any loving relationship to establish itself, both parties must have the ability to give freely of themselves. And any honorable person, male or female, should acknowledge and respect the relationships of others by avoiding becoming a stumbling-block or a source of temptation for the other. This is the kind of mature, loving self-control that shapes us into great men and women instead of overgrown toddlers.<br />
<br />
Once it is established that the beloved is in a position to freely give of herself to the loving relationship, the poet engages her in conversation. Although the only hint as to the content of this conversation is expressed as "Tryin' to pour a little sugar in her Dixie cup", which could consist of nothing more than the standard type of sweet-talking one might find anywhere, at least this is where he starts. And the conversation continues in the second stanza, in which the couple are sitting in the poet's truck after he has driven her home. I'm assuming, of course, that they weren't sitting in the truck in silence, and they obviously weren't smooching or anything since the poet is so desperate to find the song she likes so that he will get a kiss from her. So the only natural thing they might be doing in the truck is talking. The emphasis on conversation -- in some sense, regardless of its actual content -- shows how the loving relationship evolves primarily through a deeper appreciation of the person of the beloved and not through physical intimacy. Physical intimacy can only tell you things about a body, and even that is severely limited in scope (do you know what hand she writes with? do you know what blood type she has? do you know if she had her wisdom teeth out? has she ever had surgery? ever broken a bone? does she like to have her back scratched? what's her natural hair color? does she wear contacts? did she ever have braces? does she have allergies?). The only way to truly know a person, and to know her intimately, is through the commitment of time and attention. This is how loving relationships are formed and fostered. And, at least from what we can tell, this is what the poet does.<br />
<br />
The final stanza brings in another element that strikes me as being inherent in the development of a loving relationship. The beloved's attachment to a particular song inspires the poet to learn to play it on the guitar so that she will be able to hear it whenever she wants. She won't have to wait for the DJ or the radio to choose to play it (apparently, the girl hasn't invested in digital music, or even a CD player); now she can hear it whenever she wants to by asking the poet to play it for her. Obviously, for the poet, this results in two immediate benefits: he becomes the instrument of joy for the beloved, and his presence is required to facilitate her joy. (The third immediate benefit is that he will receive her kisses, but we'll look at that element separately.) The fact that the poet willingly engages in activities that will make her happy, that he devotes the time and attention to learning to play the song she likes, regardless of whether or not he enjoys the song, shows an element of self-sacrifice that, while not completely devoid of its immediate rewards, is integral to the development of a truly loving relationship. The desire to make the other happy and the will to sacrifice for the other are at the heart of happiness between all persons, and especially between the sexes. This is what love, marriage, and family are rooted in and cannot be successful without.<br />
<br />
The only issue I might have with this song (and it's pretty major, since it's the entirety of the repeated chorus) is the kisses. After hearing her song and dancing with the poet to it, the beloved bestows a kiss on him. This is all the encouragement the poet needs to do everything in his power to make that song play for her as often as possible; his ultimate desire is to receive kisses from her. This tends to play back into the idea of seeing the beloved as nothing more than an instrument of physical pleasure. Just as the lover becomes the instrument of the beloved's pleasure by bringing the song to her, the beloved becomes nothing more than an instrument of the satisfaction of desire. Now, maybe that's being a bit harsh. A kiss is, perhaps, not too much to desire from a beloved person outside of marriage, and is a far cry from the more obvious demands for intimacy from most modern pop music. Of course, we also may be suffering from a cultural blindness as to the symbolic (and perhaps almost sacramental) nature of the kiss as an image of intimacy between two persons. It's not for no reason that the kiss is seen as the symbol of consummated love in most marriage ceremonies. So perhaps there is something a bit too free about the behavior of the beloved that leads the lover to desire a more physical encounter with her, especially considering that this is their first twenty minutes together. Of course again, we shouldn't forget that romantic love is not meant to be a completely altruistic affair in which the lover gives everything of himself to the beloved with no thought to receiving anything in return. If that were the case, there would be far fewer babies in the world. Romantic love, the complete and free giving of oneself to the beloved, does by its nature deserve its reward in the complete and free giving of the beloved back to the lover. In some sense, perhaps, learning to play the beloved's favorite song out of love for her truly does merit the reward of a kiss. Can that return of love for love be demanded? No. And the natural end of all this giving and receiving of love should confine itself to the circumstances of marriage, in which the free and complete giving of self is most perfectly upheld, fostered, and protected. So perhaps this smaller exchange of loving tokens between lover and beloved is also part of that evolutionary process by which the romantic relationship grows towards its ultimate end.<br />
<br />
Although the freedom with kisses may cause me some uneasy contention, "Play It Again" generally reveals both a realistic and idealistic picture of the growth and development of a solid loving relationship, at least in its initial stages. Where it might go after the beloved gets bored of her song may require some deeper soul-searching and discernment on both their parts. But a better foundation is being laid here than in most modern music.<br />
<br />
<i>NB: If you have an aversion to blasphemy (which I do), you might want to avoid this song. The chorus starts with "OMG, this is my song" and is extremely catchy. I've had it in my head for days now, and the only alternative that springs to mind is "Oh hot damn, this is my jam" (thank you, Flo Rida and Will.i.am...), which only really serves to make me chuckle in the midst of my annoyance. Consider yourselves forewarned.</i><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-13454713559126037682014-04-30T22:12:00.000-04:002014-04-30T22:12:57.019-04:00Is "Sing" Really Something to Sing About?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Will I ever get tired of pointing out the fallacies about love and relationships in modern pop music? Probably not. Our ideas of love are integral to our understanding of
who we are as human beings, as individuals, couples, families, and
communities. In that light, cultivating a proper understanding of love
is one of the most important evangelical missions of the 21st century,
as emphasized by Pope Saint John Paul II in his extensive work on the
"theology of the body". (Isn't it nice to be able to officially call him
"saint"? I couldn't resist the opportunity.) This is why I was
disappointed with Ed Sheeran's newest single "Sing" (2014), from his
upcoming album<i> x</i>, especially after the beautiful honesty and simplicity of his song "Lego House". On a musical level, I was sadly surprised to hear Sheeran abandon his folk-pop sound for the more R&B music stylings of Justin Timberlake. Rather than developing and embracing his signature sound, Sheeran has opted to make himself a musical carbon copy of artists who have already defined and diluted over a decade's worth of pop music. This seems to me to be a musical step backwards, but I don't know anything about music so my opinion is probably moot. What is more troublesome to me is the parallel descent in lyrical content that seems to accompany the musical backsliding. Rather than continuing to explore the depth and intricacy of loving relationships, Sheeran chooses to rehash the same club drivel as everyone else; the only twist is that he's honest about the dancing: "All the guys in here don't really want to dance".<br />
<br />
The poet's romantic notions stumble all over the place as he relates his attempts to convince a woman he has met in a club to "love" him. In this case, the word "love" can pretty much be defined as "engage in sexual intercourse with". Opportunities for intellectual, emotional, or personal intimacy are almost non-existent, and the emphasis is on the narcissistic attitude of the poet's sexual desire. The two meet in the back of a club (or maybe a homegrown rave; for simplicity's sake, I'm going to just say "club") where the woman is sitting and drinking tequila from a water bottle. The poet, perhaps humorously, states that he knew she was "the one" because of her generosity in sharing the tequila with him after only just learning his name. Sharing tequila may be the basis for many sexual liaisons, but I doubt it's the secret formula for discovering long-lasting relationships built on mutual respect. The poet then decides to shirk all of his responsibilities (he is supposed to remain sober enough to drive himself home) in order to sit with this woman and wait for her to begin feeding his sexual desire, which happens in due course: "One thing led to another / And now she's kissing my mouth". Of course, the "one thing" that led to "another" was not scintillating conversation, the discovery of likeness in another human being, a frank discussion of life goals and dreams, an invitation to develop the relationship further in different contexts with a mind to futurity and permanence. No, the "one thing" that led to "another" was alcohol. The song's lyrics could read: "We got drunk enough that, if I just sat and waited, your lack of inhibition would eventually give me sexual satisfaction." That would be honest lyric-writing, and be just as distasteful as this entire situation actually is.<br />
<br />
Did the lyrics have to go this way? Does the thumping bass-line need to be overwrought with sexy, heavy breathing and falsetto "oohs" and "ahs"? Did this song need to be about sex? It had actually given itself the opportunity to be about something deeper. The poet finds the woman sitting alone in the back of the club, hiding with her tequila, avoiding the dancing that would be expected of her in such an environment. The poet could have asked her why she has removed herself from the spotlight, why she chooses to sit alone. He could have engaged her in a conversation in which they might have discovered something deep about each other and developed a friendship based on like-minded attitudes that may have even inspired a romance. Instead, the poet sits with her either in awkward silence or spouting meaningless one-liners: "I don't really know what I'm supposed to say / But I can just figure it out and hope and pray". Hope and pray for what? That he'll somehow hit on the magic conjunction of syllables that will grant him access to her body? The poet says that "we got nothing to say and nothing to know". How can this be possible? Wouldn't the true lover be hungry to know everything about the beloved? Would he not cherish every word she speaks and desire to tell her everything about himself, what he thinks and feels and dreams about? Instead, the poet reveals his only intentions when he says: "I don't wanna know / If you're getting ahead of the program / I just want you to be mine, lady / To hold your body close". He has no desire to know what she thinks or feels; he doesn't even want to know if she is on board with his plan for the evening or not. She, as a thinking, feeling individual, does not matter to him at all. All he desires is her body.<br />
<br />
There is nothing more going on in the poet's mind than the fulfillment of sexual desire, a desire he knows is extremely limited in scope: "This love is a blaze / I saw flames from the side of the stage / And the fire brigade comes in a couple of days". The "love" of sexual desire that the poet experiences will be quenched in a short amount of time, in "a couple of days" at most. His desire for this particular woman will be extinguished, regardless of whether he has sex with her or not. Rather than attempt to squelch his selfish desire to use this woman as a tool for his transitory pleasure and allow time to drown the flames of his sexual drive, he purposely distances himself from her person, keeping her at arm's length spiritually while encouraging her to get closer physically. He demands her to prove her "love" by getting "involved" with him, but the poet doesn't desire her love or personal involvement with him at all. He desires her to feel the rush of sexual desire and to allow their bodies to be intimately "involved" with each other for a brief space of time that night. This is what he is asking her for, this is what he is demanding of her ("If you love me, come on, get involved"), and he co-opts the words of love and relationship in order to do so. It's no wonder so many of us are jaded about the idea of "love". With this kind of rhetoric being employed in order to use other human beings as instruments of sexual stimulation, any idea of romance is bound to become tainted.<br />
<br />
This is not a particularly modern or North American endemic, of course. It is part of the fallen human condition that we subject ourselves to our passions and often work toward selfish fulfillment at the expense of others. It is a part of our condition that we have to make a conscious effort to struggle against in order to live a truly fulfilling and fully human life. The abuse of love will always be a part of our human experience in the world, but it is important that we are aware of it and constantly push back against that urge in ourselves and in others. Ironically, the poet himself gives perhaps the best advice possible to the object of his desire: "Take another step into the no-man's land". Although I'm sure this isn't what he meant, stepping into a land free from the negative influence of this man in particular, or even just putting oneself into a frame of mind free from the selfish priorities of either side, is exactly the kind of movement that would put an end to the foolishness being perpetuated in this song.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-16087787428254341492014-04-28T20:28:00.000-04:002014-04-28T20:28:34.532-04:00"Beowulf": the Virtues of Kingship<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Kings play an important role in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem known as <i>Beowulf</i>, the only extant copy of which exists in a late 10th-century manuscript popularly known as the Nowell codex. There are at least seventeen kings mentioned in the poem, covering a wide range of Scandinavian and Germanic tribes and traditions, but only three are given the epithet of <i>g</i><span class="c7"><i>ód cyning</i>, or</span>"good king": Shield Sheafson, Hrothgar of the Danes, and Beowulf. It may not be much of a surprise to readers to discover that the eponymous hero of the poem is named "good king" along with these two lesser -- and somewhat less impressive -- characters, but Beowulf's good kingship is at first far from assured, and his heroic end in the fight against the dragon still generates much controversy as to whether his kingship deserves the title of "good". Much of the early part of Beowulf's story is concerned with teaching him what it means to be a good king, what it means to lead, to protect, to provide, and essentially to father an entire people, through the positive and negative examples provided him in the leadership of other kings. The discussion of the virtues inherent in kingship in <i>Beowulf</i> points to an entire philosophy of leadership that is as poignant today as it has ever been.<br />
<br />
The first king given the title "good" is Shield Sheafson (<i>Scyld Scefing</i>), the mysterious founder of the Danish dynasty which will one day be plagued by the attacks of the monster Grendel. The source of Shield's "goodness" as a king can be found in the very meaning of his name: his first name, Shield, denotes his role as protector of his people, while his second name, "son of the sheaf", symbolically points to his ability to provide for his people's needs. Protection and providence are two necessary ingredients of good leadership. A king must be a protector: he must defend his people from all sorts of evil, whether it is from enemy attacks, monsters, civil wars, or feuds. He must also be a provider: he must ensure the prosperity of his people by distributing wealth, putting resources to good use, making just laws, and providing stability for the nation. Shield accomplishes this primarily through his strength of arms and his prowess in battle: "There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, / a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes. / ... In the end each clan on the outlying coasts / beyond the whale-road had to yield to him / and began to pay tribute. That was one good king." Through war, Shield is able to force the surrounding tribes to serve him and his people through the payment of tribute, and a stable peace is formed through Shield's dominance over others. Although to the modern mind his tactics might seem barbaric, Shield is a good king because he ensures both the protection and prosperity of his people. By fathering a son, Shield also works to ensure stability for his people by providing them with a future leader who will follow in his father's footsteps to ensure peace and prosperity. Shield can die in peace, knowing that he has done all that could be asked of him for his people.<br />
<br />
Hrothgar (<i>Hro<span class="c7">ðgar</span></i><span class="c7">) is Shield's great-grandson and heir to the responsibility of protecting and providing for the Danish people. Hrothgar, however, does not rely primarily on feats of strength to accomplish this; instead, Hrothgar adds a new dimension to the quality of kingship by using wisdom and prudence as his tools for enacting responsible leadership. Although Hrothgar does not lack military capabilities and is a renowned warrior in his youth, he prefers to end hostilities without causing undue bloodshed by using the wealth of his nation as a method of keeping the peace. The Germanic tribes follow a scheme of blood-payment that often led to outbursts of internecine violence and generational feuding; in order to stave off such forms of instability, Hrothgar would pay a <i>wergild</i> or "man-price" to satiate the family of a murdered man. He does this most significantly for Beowulf's father Ecgtheow (<i>Ecg</i></span><i><span class="c7">þ</span><span class="c7"></span></i><span class="c7"><i><span class="c7"><span class="c7"></span>eow</span></i><span class="c7">)</span>, who, even though he is a member of a different Germanic tribe known as Geats, finds sanctuary in the hall of Hrothgar and is saved from certain death by the generosity of this good king. This generosity proves itself to be both wise and prudent on Hrothgar's part when it is out of a sense of gratitude that Beowulf himself will come to save Hrothgar from the threat of Grendel. Wisdom and prudence, then, become the second tier in the structure of good leadership. Protection and providence provide the foundation upon which both wisdom and prudence can foster positive growth and stability within the nation. Even though Hrothgar is unable to defeat Grendel by his own strength and must rely on the physical prowess of the hero Beowulf, his great wisdom ensures that "there was no laying of blame on their lord, / the noble Hrothgar; he was a good king".</span><br />
<span class="c7"><br /></span>
<span class="c7">Before looking into the characteristics of the "good" kingship of Beowulf himself, it is important to also examine the one king who is considered definitively <i>bad</i>. Hrothgar warns Beowulf about the bad kingship and evil end of the king Heremod, who is betrayed, ambushed, and killed by the will of his own people for his mistreatment of them. The bard who sings of the great deeds of the hero Sigemund as an encomium for Beowulf's defeat of Grendel also mentions Heremod and speaks ominously of him with the final phrase: "evil entered into Heremod" (<i>hine fyren onw</i></span><span class="c7"><i><span class="c7">ód</span></i><span class="c7">). This almost echoes the language used regarding Judas Iscariot in the Gospel of John: "then Satan entered into him" (<i>tunc introivit in illum Satanas</i>). In a sense, King Heremod becomes the traitor to his kingship and to his people through his evil actions, his lack of care for his people, and particularly his selfishness. Hrothgar tells Beowulf: "He vented his rage on men he caroused with, / killed his own comrades, a pariah king / who cut himself off from his own kind, / even though Almighty God had made him / eminent and powerful and marked him from the start / for a happy life. But a change happened, / he grew bloodthirsty, gave no more rings / to honour the Danes. He suffered in the end / for having plagued his people for so long: / his life lost happiness." Heremod had every opportunity to be a good king, it seems, but he traded wisdom and prudence for drunkenness and anger; he forgot the protection and prosperity he was meant to uphold, instead being a scourge to his own nation and denying them their rightful goods. King Heremod is the description of the perfect tyrant, the one who uses his kingship not for the good of others, but for the good of himself. His greed for individual wealth and dominance leads to his loss of happiness and, ultimately, his life. The spiritual dimension is also implied, as "evil entered into him" and he "cut himself off from his own kind". He is no longer living a human life, but a demonic one.</span></span><br />
<span class="c7"><span class="c7"><br /></span></span>
<span class="c7"><span class="c7">Thus Beowulf's kingship will assert itself in the shadows of these three kings, two good and one bad. Shield's kingship rests on protection and providence, and Hrothgar's builds on that with wisdom and prudence, while Heremod falls into ruin through impetuous anger, greed, and the lust for dominance. Beowulf's kingdom, in order to incorporate the virtues of the good kings and avoid the vices of the bad, will be a kingdom built on the principle of self-sacrifice. Beowulf establishes the protection of his people firstly through his defeat of Onela the Swede, a king who has been a principal instigator of the Swedish-Geatish wars and had been responsible for the death of the young king Heardred, son of Beowulf's lord and predecessor of Beowulf himself. Despite the fact that Heardred's death made it possible for Beowulf to claim the throne, the hero recognizes the danger of Onela's kingship and helps to end it. The next fifty years of Beowulf's reign are peaceful due to his reputation as the man who single-handedly defeated both Grendel and Grendel's mother. Through his heroic deeds as a young man, Beowulf is able to promote peace and demand tribute from other nations without having to resort to any more violence, neatly combining the lessons learned from both Shield and Hrothgar. He learns from the story of Heremod to be a blessing to his people rather than a plague: "Thus Beowulf bore himself with valour; / he was formidable in battle yet behaved with honour / and took no advantage; never cut down / a comrade who was drunk, kept his temper / and, warrior that he was, watched and controlled / his God-sent strength and his outstanding / natural powers." He devotes himself to developing a deep habit of self-control that allows him to give his best for others, rather than give in to the urge to dominate others through his natural strength and ability. Rather than letting evil enter him, as Heremod did, Beowulf acts solely for the good of others. It is this self-denial that allows him to generously exchange his life for the runaway slave who steals a cup from a sleeping dragon and wakes its fury; in order to end the dragon's destruction, Beowulf goes to meet it and "settle the feud", to take the punishment meant for the slave onto himself. His defeat of the dragon ensures that his people will prosper from the treasure freed from the dragon's barrow. In his death, Beowulf can say with confidence: "I took what came, / cared for and stood by things in my keeping, / never fomented quarrels, never / swore to a lie. All this consoles me, / doomed as I am and sickening for death; / because of my right ways, the Ruler of mankind / need never blame me when the breath leaves my body / for murder of kinsmen."</span></span><br />
<span class="c7"><span class="c7"><br /></span></span>
<span class="c7"><span class="c7">Protection, providence, wisdom, prudence, and self-sacrifice: each of these virtues works to build up a vision of kingship on which historical leaders could model themselves. The vicious behavior and ignoble end of Heremod serve as a warning to the logical outcomes of abusing the power of the king through greed and violence. Ultimately, the power of the king is a mode of service through which the community is given peace, prosperity, and stability through the self-giving work of the man called to take upon himself the mantle of such authority. It would be a decent lesson for modern man, in whatever leadership position he might have or aspire to, to consider the role of such kings in order to "understand true values", as Hrothgar says. Imagine what society might look like if world leaders, CEOs, teachers, and parents all embraced this understanding! As a favorite authority figure of mine once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." <i>Beowulf </i>teaches us that leadership is first and foremost a service, only secondarily a path to glory, and never a means of self-aggrandizement.</span></span><br />
<span class="c7"><span class="c7"><br /></span></span>
<span class="c7"><span class="c7">***</span></span><br />
<br />The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-512952348776807322014-04-27T01:59:00.002-04:002014-04-27T01:59:55.876-04:00Is "Not a Bad Thing" a Bad Thing?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lVi_-mYMjL2HX18v5r7IKHwPtIPQqMrMwVIOjm132BtXXZ3O_T8WBk5q7_DkpEKVyqsfBracqQPWhKJJrt6KLNY0KBJJ-P-OC7mLLlsughf7w2ACMNM2fs6-vbv4O7hRwyd-i7Qt5PY/s1600/Justin-Timberlake-Not-A-Bad-Thing-Single-Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lVi_-mYMjL2HX18v5r7IKHwPtIPQqMrMwVIOjm132BtXXZ3O_T8WBk5q7_DkpEKVyqsfBracqQPWhKJJrt6KLNY0KBJJ-P-OC7mLLlsughf7w2ACMNM2fs6-vbv4O7hRwyd-i7Qt5PY/s1600/Justin-Timberlake-Not-A-Bad-Thing-Single-Cover.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a>Justin Timberlake's song "Not a Bad Thing", from his 2013 album <i>The 20/20 Experience -- 2 of 2</i>, is perhaps gaining more fame through its use as the backdrop to a documentary journey in which filmmakers search for a couple who apparently got engaged to the song on a train to New York. Honestly, I got bored, so I stopped watching the video, but one thing that stood out to me from it was one of the first statements from the filmmakers, who claimed that the love shown between these two mysterious people on the train just doesn't happen: "You never see that!" Obviously, they have never looked up any surprise engagement videos on Youtube. If they had, they would realize that the whole internet community gets to see this all the time. I'm not trying to belittle the couple on the train in any way; they're in love, they got engaged, and it was a beautiful moment for them and for those on the train who got to share it with them. However, this idea that we "never see" people in love with each other is a rather silly statement. I get to see that my parents and grandparents are very much in love with each other all the time; my sister and brother-in-law are very much in love; I see couples of all shapes and sizes and ages every day holding hands, sharing kisses, sharing food, doing little acts of kindness for the other, exchanging looks and smiles that exude love. Is it really that we "never see" love, or is that we're just not looking for it?<br />
<br />
Maybe the truth is that we purposefully put blinders on our eyes so that we don't have to witness the joy of others. In our modern world of easy hookups and speed dating and one-night stands, our hearts have suffered from an unconscionable amount of disappointment, distress, and brokenness. At an earlier and earlier age, young people are discovering the downside of love, the pain and heartache that comes when you realize that the person who was the source of your joy has left an irreparable hole in your life. We spend so much of our lives trying to seal that wound shut with other people, but the hole becomes more and more ragged as those people continue to tear themselves away. Our hearts get heavier, weighed down with the baggage of the past and the fears of the future, oozing suspicion, pessimism, and regret. We begin to despair of ever finding love and experiencing the joy that is its fruit. We become afraid of getting too attached for fear of being hurt; we avoid labels like "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" so that, when things fall apart, we can comfort ourselves by saying there wasn't really a "thing" there to begin with; we date for years on end, afraid to take the plunge into marriage in case that other shoe just happens to drop. We become jaded and bitter, berating the opposite sex for not living up to our expectations, and vilifying fairy tales for building up those expectations to apparently insurmountable heights. We conclude that love is an illusion, as much a fairy tale as princesses and dragons, and that the only constants are the sexual drive and the economic system. Love is nothing more than an instinctual mating call wrapped in roses, diamonds, and candlelight to make us feel better about its emptiness.<br />
<br />
No wonder we can't seem to "see" love anywhere. In an effort to protect ourselves, we've gouged our eyes out.<br />
<br />
In a world where we hesitate to even say "I love you" for fear of crossing that sacred threshold that will make us both vulnerable to and responsible for another person, that word "love" has almost become a negative moniker, a thing to be sneered at and derided, a state of mind only indulged in by the young and naive, the foolish and unenlightened. Falling in love is a bad thing because it makes your happiness dependent on another person; dependency can only be a bad thing, subjecting you to the whims of another. To be an autonomous island who is responsible for nothing and no one but oneself, so the thinking goes, is the only way to exist contentedly. And I guess that's true, if "content" is all you want to be in this life. But what about being overjoyed? What about overflowing with happiness? What about dancing in the streets and singing in the rain? What about getting engaged on trains, and being so happy you can't help but burst into tears? Is "content" all we really want to be? Or do we want to be fully, deeply, and passionately alive, in love with the world and everyone in it, embracing this one life we have on earth for all that it has to offer, regardless of the vulnerability or the pain? Isn't that the only kind of life that's really worth living?<br />
<br />
Timberlake's song "Not a Bad Thing" works to convince the beloved to discard the negative ideas surrounding love in order to remember that love is a good, in fact, the highest good. True love is the most beautiful and joyous thing that exists anywhere at any time. It is the thing that makes us worthy of immortality, of eternal life, of eternal joy. And the poet reminds the beloved of this by pointing to that very idea of "forever" that is inherent in any idea of true love. True love must be forever. The words "break up" or "divorce" cannot exist in the vocabulary of true love. The poet tells the beloved: "all I want from you is to see you tomorrow / And every tomorrow ... / ... is it too much to ask for every Sunday / And while we're at it, throw in every other day". Permanence is an essential part of love that cannot be abrogated or denied. The poet attempts to persuade the beloved that love is something she can trust in, that she can depend on. The poet's love will be true and reliable; his promises will not be broken. The only thing the poet desires is the beloved's person; the only thing the beloved need do is accept this freely given love.<br />
<br />
"Not a Bad Thing" emphasizes the fact that love is essentially an act of faith. Just like with religious faith, there is no quantifiable, scientific, material proof that can be offered to assure the beloved that the poet's love is a factual thing. The only way that the beloved can know that the poet's love exists is, first, by hearing his words of love to her and, second, by choosing to trust him, by believing that what he says is true. In the same way that the secular world has denied faith as something that can legitimately be demanded of a person in the realm of supernatural relations, it has also denied that exact same possibility in the realm of human relations. No one can be trusted; no one can be believed. Love is impossible. The only way this can be overcome is by making ourselves vulnerable again, by choosing to trust and to believe that love is a possibility, that it is not something we "never see". In this case, as in the case for religion, seeing can never be believing; believing is the only way by which we can see.<br />
<br />
Justin Timberlake's song has been compared to his earlier work with boy band 'N Sync because of its almost syrupy-sweet, bubblegum pop quality. The song is reminiscent of love ballads like "This I Promise You" and "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You", which tends almost to give it less credibility in many people's eyes. But these are exactly the kind of songs we need to start taking seriously. These are the songs that reveal to us the essence of love, the reality of it that goes beyond our personal insecurities, failures, and letdowns. These songs remind us to take the blinders off, turn our hearts of stone back into hearts of flesh, and take that leap of faith that is needed to truly see that true love can never be a bad thing.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-57716942420746180322014-04-24T14:37:00.000-04:002014-04-24T22:25:23.333-04:00Does "Loyal" Have Anything to do with Loyalty?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Hss8ah6kvFxYtSFL_rdEjmsmLhO6opOkrIN6VVTQdMuojQXquYHC-ajA7uxs5APSbJX8PSY7EDMS-eVXfOlq-17e07mU29lxRSDt0i3A4I9xswON74VUVYgX0GyMdYbcxVO5bE_sQGQ/s1600/Chris-Brown-Loyal-East-Coast-Version-2013-1500x1500.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Hss8ah6kvFxYtSFL_rdEjmsmLhO6opOkrIN6VVTQdMuojQXquYHC-ajA7uxs5APSbJX8PSY7EDMS-eVXfOlq-17e07mU29lxRSDt0i3A4I9xswON74VUVYgX0GyMdYbcxVO5bE_sQGQ/s1600/Chris-Brown-Loyal-East-Coast-Version-2013-1500x1500.png" height="320" width="320" /></a>Chris Brown's single "Loyal" (2013), from the upcoming album <i>X</i> (2014), is a horrendous <br />
collaboration of colorful language -- racist, misogynistic, degrading, and indecent -- bemoaning the fact that it's impossible to trust women to remain loyal when there are always better offers out there. Along with the added lyrics offered by Lil Wayne and French Montana (East Coast version; there are two other versions of the song featuring other artists), I don't feel comfortable even quoting the majority of the song in this post, so I'll be paraphrasing to get their points across. One may wonder why, if the song is so offensive, I would bother devoting so much time and energy to it. Wouldn't it be better to just ignore it and move on, rather than give it the attention it doesn't deserve? Well, I guess I believe that we can learn important lessons even from the painful and degrading dregs of our human experience -- even Chris Brown's. So let's dive into this waste heap of toxic humanity and see what we can find, shall we?<br />
<br />
I think the first thing we should establish is that this song has nothing whatsoever to do with Chris Brown's onetime relationship with Rhianna. After all, it took <i><b>sixteen</b></i> writers to bring this lyrical behemoth to birth, and Chris Brown only ranks third in the list of contributors, making it highly unlikely that this song was initially inspired by anything Rhianna may or may not have done in their relationship. Besides, the lyrics to the song vociferously claim that poor women cannot be trusted to be loyal in their relationships because of their desire to gain financial security through wealthy men. I think it's safe to say that Rhianna is not being alluded to here, since I'm pretty sure she is perfectly capable of independently funding each and every one of her worldly desires herself. I would bet Rhianna is not suffering in any financial way, shape, or form from being a single woman. Now that we've got that misconception out of the way, let's look seriously at the lack of loyalty the artists involved in this song are whining and complaining about.<br />
<br />
But perhaps a second misconception needs to be debunked before we can really attack the heart of the problem being wrestled with in "Loyal". We may need to let go of the idea that this song has anything to do with loyalty as such. In order to make any claims to loyalty in an intimate relationship between a man and a woman, the idea of love must necessarily be conceived of as a true and complete gift of self. If the relationship between man and woman lacks this idea of love, there can be no foundation for mutual loyalty within the relationship. If the intimacy between man and woman is considered nothing more than an exchange of goods, the woman exchanging access to her body for increased social status and financial gain, and the man exchanging his wealth for sexual satisfaction, then neither party can make any "loyalty" claims on the other. When sexual satisfaction ends, so does the exchange; when social or financial status declines, so does the exchange. The only "loyalty" that is demanded in this conception of intimate relationships is that between business partners: as long as the relationship is mutually beneficial, it will be respected. As soon as it stops being beneficial for either party, neither are obliged to keep it. Since this is exactly the kind of relationship the poet is referring to, the idea that loyalty is something he can legitimately demand on these terms is nonsensical.<br />
<br />
This conception of the relationship between men and women is far from a modern phenomenon. It hovers in the background of every one of Jane Austen's novels and shows itself blatantly in Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale", and the Greeks were certainly familiar with it if <i>Lysistrata</i> holds any weight. The degradation of the marital union into an exchange of <i>things</i> instead of a gift of <i>persons</i> has been a longstanding enemy of true love between the sexes since the dawn of time, and has brought many abuses of love to birth in adultery, divorce, pornography, prostitution, and rape. In this light, "Loyal" stops having anything to do with loyalty as such within the marital relationship and everything to do with the way we view each other as men and women. As long as we keep viewing the other as a business partner and not the beloved, true intimacy and security in the marital relationship will be impossible to achieve. As long as love is rendered part of an "economy", it will always be subject to the ebb and flow of "market values". As long as this system stands, every woman will be nothing more than a prostitute, and every man nothing more than a john. Rather than addressing this issue and crying out for real love, the poet chooses to sulk like a child and lash out with an inherently misogynistic tirade that only serves to entrench more deeply the very abuse of love that causes the poet's complaint in the first place. Rather than rejecting the consumerist view of sexual intimacy, the poet chooses to throw away marriage, fidelity, dignity, and love altogether in favor of an openly hostile environment of objectification and power struggles that Nietzsche would be proud of. The poet embraces his objectification as nothing more than a source of cash for money-hungry women, and in turn promotes the objectification of women as nothing more than prostitutes.<br />
<br />
The objectification on both sides leads to resentment and outright hatred for the opposite sex, which is evident in almost every line of this train wreck as women are referred to in the most degrading of terms. Despite all the macho posturing and flaunting of wealth referred to in these lyrics (Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Dolce and Gabbana, mink coats, the wealthy Bay area of San Francisco, bottle service, and a lot of marijuana), what is revealed in the heart of this song is a deep-seated fear of being inadequate and a resentment against women for making men feel this way. Rather than finding security in his accumulated personal property, the poet reinforces his misogyny by using his money to buy the so-called loyalty of married women. All three of the collaborators in this song make mention of women taking off their rings or disregarding them in order to allow rich men to have intimate access to them. Lil Wayne says that "she ain't have her ringer or her ring on last night", which allowed him to take the place of the absent husband because of his greater wealth and sexual prowess. Chris Brown scolds women for bringing their husbands with them to the club where he is since he has a lot of money to throw around in exchange for their dancing, a euphemism that quickly dissolves into sexual access. He throws the symbolic fidelity of the wedding ring in the husband's face by tell him that his investment in it was worthless; he has been replaced by someone who can give her more expensive rings. The husband's personal investment in their marital relationship means nothing. French Montana makes the degradation of the "economic exchange" most obvious when, after having been intimate with a woman, he takes back his own property by putting his mink coat back on, while telling the woman to "put a ring back on". The relationship based on economic exchange always devolves into use and abuse; the woman does not gain her financial security despite giving herself. The man has received all he wanted and the contract is broken. She can "put her ring back on" and renew her previous contract with a less satisfying partner. Just as her former contract was easily broken when a better prospect came along, the poet's current contract is broken when he no longer requires the services rendered. When men and women stop being persons in each other's eyes, when the beloved becomes an object, there can be no love but self-love.<br />
<br />
The end result of this mess is a generation of men who abuse women out of a fear of being abused in turn. The fear of being inadequate, of being hurt by the beloved, causes the poet to close himself off from any true intimacy or personal investment. A gift of self requires vulnerability, and this personal vulnerability is too risky. It's a bad investment. Lil Wayne asks why he should give his heart to a woman who would rather have money, or why he should involve himself physically with a woman who will willingly be seduced by the very next virile male to come along. He makes a good point: men shouldn't give their hearts away to women who are not willing to make a reciprocal gift of themselves; they shouldn't get involved sexually with women who are not willing to commit themselves totally to the marital union. However, instead of removing himself from the objectification game, he chooses instead to remain within it and objectify in turn. He will continue to participate in these relationships with women, but he will leave his heart out of it; he will assume that the woman will be unfaithful from the get-go and resist any personal attachment to anything about her outside of coitus. French Montana shows where this initial decision leads in the end: "No relation, I don't chase 'em, I replace 'em". The sexual act becomes a faceless interchange of muscle spasms; men and women are relegated to bodies rather than persons, replaced as easily as cell phones; complete apathy takes the place of any notion of real erotic passion. In the end, the insistence on a lack of relationships in intrinsically relational beings brings out the worst in humanity, to the point that the poet says he doesn't know whether he will have sex with women or insult them, which in this case pretty much amounts to the same thing. Love and hate have become indistinguishable. The next logical step from here is violence.<br />
<br />
So what does all this say to us? Ultimately, it reveals the complete wrongheadedness of thinking that any economic model for relationships between the sexes can be implemented with positive consequences. Forming relationships solely based on the goods to be exchanged can only lead to degradation and breakdown on the personal and interpersonal level, as the beloved is reduced to a mere object. Only the true and complete gift of self to the other as a beloved person can set the standard for fidelity in marriage and maintain the inherent dignity of both sexes. Otherwise, you'll turn out like Chris Brown. And that's a scary thought.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-44738003938643660642014-04-22T15:41:00.000-04:002014-04-22T15:41:27.286-04:00Guest Post! "Gilmore Girls: Choice and Wantedness"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wdBDKcVbAiXZJVDyd_e9CO3wb_YdV4rN1g97tO3QA0SWyO3SmNrewmcpaWKilRl09T-HuA6MkRB3kQOJhVIKeLtlikNS1yrjjsxHC50lkun5AzIugIS-nMzhbAeT4vEZE-xxMG5Gcm8/s1600/gilmore_girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wdBDKcVbAiXZJVDyd_e9CO3wb_YdV4rN1g97tO3QA0SWyO3SmNrewmcpaWKilRl09T-HuA6MkRB3kQOJhVIKeLtlikNS1yrjjsxHC50lkun5AzIugIS-nMzhbAeT4vEZE-xxMG5Gcm8/s1600/gilmore_girls.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
I'm not exactly a television-show-type person. I don't own a TV and I don't have Netflix. I don't own the DVD collection of any television show -- except for the late 90s animated show <br />
<i>Batman Beyond</i> because it was amazing, and I have a couple of episodes on DVD of <i>Transformers Prime</i>, a more recent animated wonder. I also own the <i>He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special</i>. I am also an overgrown child. So, when it comes to "big people" TV shows, I'm a little behind the times. However, some people are not. So I thought it would be a nice opportunity to talk about TV shows and feature one of my favorite people in a blog post. So here is Rebecca Procure's take on an element of the show <i>Gilmore Girls</i>, re-posted with permission from her blog <i>Catholic Ginger</i>:<br />
<br />
<i>GILMORE GIRLS</i>: CHOICE AND WANTEDNESS<br />
<br />
<i>Gilmore Girls</i> is probably my favorite show. It premiered in 2000 and went off the air in 2007. On average, I re-watch all seven seasons once a year. Apparently, it is honesty hour on this here blog. Carrying on...<br />
<br />
That is a weird way to start a post, I realize, but just go with me.<br />
<br />
If you have never seen the show, it is about a mother, Lorelai, and her daughter, Rory, who are making their way in the small, eccentric community of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Lorelai had Rory when she was 16. And even though it was 1985, and even though it is a full 12 years or so since the American <i>Roe v. Wade</i> decision legalizing abortion, Lorelai chose to keep her baby. She chose to keep the baby even with enormous pressure, and she chose to keep the baby and raise it on her own, without the help of her wealthy parents.<br />
<br />
And she and Rory thrived.<br />
<br />
Christopher's parents, Rory's paternal grandparents, were unsupportive. They blamed Lorelai for getting pregnant and they suggested the best option would be an abortion. Not once did they express disappointment with Christopher impregnating Lorelai. Not once did they encourage him to own up to his responsibility. They blamed Lorelai and they encouraged her to abort.<br />
<br />
In a flashback scene, Emily (Lorelai's mother) and Straub (Christopher's father) go toe-to-toe on the subject:<br />
<br />
EMILY: Christopher is just as much to blame as Lorelai is.<br />
STRAUB: Like hell he is.<br />
EMILY: They are in this together.<br />
STRAUB: I don't see why. Why should Christopher sacrifice everything we've planned for him just because --<br />
EMILY: Choose your words extremely carefully, Straub.<br />
FRANCINE: Emily, you know we love Lorelai, you know that. But Christopher's so young, he's a baby.<br />
EMILY: Well, Lorelai's not exactly collecting social security.<br />
STRAUB: Why doesn't she get rid of it?<br />
EMILY: What?<br />
FRANCINE: Straub.<br />
STRAUB: It's an option.<br />
EMILY: It certainly is not an option.<br />
STRAUB: Why not?<br />
EMILY: Because I say so. (<i>Gilmore Girls</i>, Sn. 3, Ep. 13: "Dear Emily and Richard")<br />
<br />
And, although Lorelai isn't directly part of this conversation, her opinion is no different:<br />
<br />
LORELAI: I know we're all upset here, folks, but maybe we should ask the kids what they think. Lorelai, Christopher, anything to add here?<br />
CHRISTOPHER: Quiet, they'll hear you.<br />
LORELAI: Not likely. I don't know how much longer I can just sit here like this.<br />
CHRISTOPHER: It's okay, let them talk.<br />
LORELAI: They're talking about us.<br />
CHRISTOPHER: They're trying to figure out what to do.<br />
LORELAI: What to do with our lives -- <i>our lives! Yours, mine, and... its</i>." [<i>Emphasis mine</i>]<br />
<br />
Both Lorelai and Emily recognized the inherent personhood of Lorelai's unborn child. Rory, although unplanned and inconvenient, was still a person worthy of life in both their eyes.<br />
<br />
In a different episode, Season 1, Episode 15: "Christopher Returns", when we first meet Christopher and his parents, Straub and Francine, the following exchange takes place:<br />
<br />
STRAUB: If you had attended university as your parents had planned and as we had planned in vain for Christopher, you might have aspired to something more than a blue collar position. [<i>In reference to Lorelai stating she runs an inn and is happy in how her life turned out</i>]<br />
CHRISTOPHER: Don't do this.<br />
STRAUB: And I wouldn't give a damn about you derailing your life if you hadn't swept my son along with you.<br />
LORELAI: [to Rory] Honey, go into the next room. Go, go.<br />
RICHARD: I'm going to have to echo Christopher's call for civility here. A mutual mistake was made many years ago by these two, but they have come a long way since.<br />
STRAUB: A mutual mistake, Richard? This whole evening is ridiculous. We're supposed to sit here like one big, happy family and pretend that the damage that was done is over, gone? I don't care about how good a student you say that girl is --<br />
LORELAI: Hey!<br />
STRAUB: Our son was bound for Princeton. Every Hayden male attended Princeton, including myself, but it all stopped with Christopher. It's a humiliation we've had to live with every day, all because you seduced him into ruining his life. She had that baby and ended his future.<br />
<br />
Again we are seeing Christopher's parents, who, even 16 years later, are still blaming Lorelai and Rory for how Christopher's life turned out. They view Rory as unwanted and don't acknowledge that Christopher, as it is alluded to over the course of the show, was hardly in Rory's life. Christopher's parents are looking to blame someone and don't hold their own son accountable, even though he wasn't in Rory's life, so Rory did not prevent him from going to Princeton.<br />
<br />
But I have strayed off the point. In the "Christopher Returns" episode, we see Rory's existence reaffirmed by both her mother and grandmother. They confirm her wantedness:<br />
<br />
EMILY: None of this means anything, Rory.<br />
RORY: Oh, I know.<br />
EMILY: ... Rory, I know you heard a lot of talk about various disappointments this evening, and I know you've heard a lot of talk about it in the past. But I want to make this very clear: you, young lady, your person and your existence have never, ever been -- not even for a second -- included in that list. Do you understand me?<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
RORY: They don't even want to know me, do they?<br />
LORELAI: That is not true. They are just so full of anger and stupid pride that stands in the way of them realizing how much they want to know you.<br />
RORY: Yeah.<br />
LORELAI: Their loss, and it's a pretty big one.<br />
RORY: I'm going to bed now.<br />
LORELAI: Hey. No regrets -- from me or your dad.<br />
<br />
Lorelai chose life for Rory because she was wanted. Lorelai acknowledged her personhood from the beginning and, even though it was inconvenient and the pressure from Christopher's parents was loud, and even though her own parents were disappointed, she wanted Rory, so she kept her.<br />
<br />
But does that really define a fetus? Is an unborn child only a person if they are wanted? Why does a wanted child have more rights than an unwanted, unborn child? Even Abby Johnson, in her book <i>Unplanned</i>, reflected on the difference. While working at Planned Parenthood, she referred to unborn children as fetuses and medical waste, but, while she herself was pregnant, Abby referred to her fetus as a baby.<br />
<br />
But fetuses are all the same. A fetus is always an unborn child. From the moment of conception, the only potential that fetus has is whether or not it becomes a female child or a male child. But it always is and always will be human.<br />
<br />
Whether or not a child is wanted doesn't affect its inherent dignity and its indisputable personhood.<br />
<br />
This is why abortion is such a travesty. It kills innocent children. That is all it does. Abortion kills.<br />
<br />
Anyone who looks can find a person who would turn an unwanted child to a wanted child through adoption. Adoption is a hard choice, but there are far less complications and risks with adoption than with abortion. And adoption always brings joy to the people who choose it.<br />
<br />
The real "war on choice" comes from people who dismiss adoption as a viable option.<br />
<br />
The real "war on choice" comes from people who dismiss science, evidence, and growing public opinion that life begins at conception. Who arbitrarily decide that a person is only a person if it is wanted, or only if it was conceived in ideal circumstances.<br />
<br />
Adoption is a real choice. It is a loving, selfless choice; it is everything abortion isn't. It creates wanted children because every child <i>is</i> a wanted child. Sometimes a family is not made by blood, but by choice.<br />
<br />
Choosing life creates families; choosing abortion kills them.<br />
<br />
<i>View the original post @ catholicginger.wordpress.com</i><br />
<br />
<i>***</i><br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<i></i><br />
<i><br /></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-85275718370697876162014-04-20T11:56:00.000-04:002014-04-20T11:56:10.338-04:00Is "Best Day of My Life" Really the Best?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Best Day of My Life", from the debut album <i>Oh, What a Life</i> (2013) by American Authors, is an upbeat, catchy indie song that provides a lyrical basis for what might be considered a "best day" for any young person or aspiring rock band: dreams coming true, spending time with friends, staying out all night. You get the idea. It's nothing very new or radical. What interested me about this song was the strange combination of images: monsters and the moon and dreams, on the one hand, and the sun, the soul, and epiphanies on the other. It's a strange gamut of symbols, and the audience isn't quite sure whether they're supposed to be set in opposition to each other or work together somehow. Is the sun the enemy to the monsters and the howling at the moon, or is it a friend who stays up till midnight to party with all the other stars? Is the idea of dreaming an attempt to escape from reality or is the reality of life so good that it's being likened to a dream? The lyrics puzzled me, so I thought I'd take a closer look.<br />
<br />
I was first interested in the use of monster imagery. As I'm sure we're all aware, the supernatural and the unnatural have been taking up a rather large portion of the pop culture imagination over the past decade or so, from the increased interest in the fantasy and superhero genres to the vampires, werewolves, zombies, and dragons we see cropping up around every corner. Even the supernatural imagery of the Bible, via blockbuster films like <i>Noah</i> (2014) and the forthcoming <i>Exodus</i> (2014), is feeding this popular desire for something beyond the merely normal and rational, beyond the urban and mundane. There is a current within the human imagination that is searching after something beyond us, and not only beyond us. We are searching for something beyond us that surges through us and sweeps us up into its otherworldly existence. Bella is the object of desire of both vampires and werewolves; she is their center. Magic courses through the veins of seemingly "normal" Muggles who turn out to be wizards. Seemingly ordinary Hobbits "carry the fate of us all". Supernatural abilities are bestowed on Peter Parker, Steve Rogers, and Hal Jordan; Clark Kent discovers he is Superman; Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark become more than merely human; mutants are born. Even the horror of zombies involves a fascination with being "the survivor", the one who beats the odds, the super-man. In amongst the fascination with the supernatural is a desire to be the focus of all the supernatural activity. The Force flows through <i>you.</i><br />
<br />
Why the interest in the supernatural, in the monstrous? Why do we "stretch our hands out to the sky" for the aliens, the heroes, the monsters to come and take us? Why do we desire to "dance with monsters through the night" and "howl at the moon with friends"? We are creatures ordered towards something beyond ourselves, something great and mysterious, ultimately, to God. Whether we acknowledge it or not, as human beings we are hardwired for religion, for worship, for contact with the Divine. In our secular, materialistic world, we are not provided many opportunities for fulfilling this part of ourselves, this longing for participation in mystery. Stories of magic and gods and heroes and monsters that willingly interact with us, for better or for worse, aims to put something into that empty space inside us that God should fill. We are searching for the mystery of God; we respond to the mystery of the unnatural or supernatural. We desire it, as well as the things that stand for it, like the night and the moon. These images are much more mysterious because they are shrouded in darkness, in veils of the unknown; thus, we enter into mystery. Every act of cultic behavior is a response to our natural desire to be in communion with something beyond ourselves and beyond the natural scope of reality.<br />
<br />
What I found most interesting about the way this idea is portrayed in "Best Day of My Life" is the development of the theme throughout the stanzas. The first stanza initiates the theme of dreaming. It is in the dream rather than the reality that the poet "jumped so high I touched the clouds"; he leaves the earth, the natural world, behind to enter into a different landscape, a different mode of reality. This is where the poet can meet with monsters: "I stretched my hands out to the sky / I danced with monsters through the night". In looking up and out beyond the confines of nature, the poet can meet with the supernatural and "dance" with them, form a communion with them. This is the dream from which the poet does not want to be woken, this mystic experience of participation in something beyond the self, beyond the natural. This is the best day of his life.<br />
<br />
Something interesting happens in the second stanza, however. As the poet "howled at the moon with friends", "the sun came crashing in". The idea of howling at the moon tends to take on two different meanings in our idiomatic language. On the one hand, to "howl at the moon" can mean "to enjoy oneself without restraint". According to this definition, the sun can be seen as an enemy of the pleasures of the night. When the sun imposes itself on us, when the daylight of reality comes back into our lives, the dream is over, the fun is over, and the humdrum world comes back into focus. On the other hand, another idiomatic use of "howling at the moon" is to chase after something unattainable, to cry out to something that has no capability of answering. In this sense, the sun crashing in puts an end to the useless crying to something that cannot answer; it puts an end to chasing after the unattainable. In this sense, the sun itself provides something attainable and responsive. The brightness of the moon, after all, is only a reflection of the radiance of the sun. According to this rendering of the idiom, the poet was only chasing after a reflection of the true mystic experience in his dances with monsters and his communion with the night. The true mystical presence is experienced when the Sun comes crashing in. The poet seems to support this last reading of the lyrics with the following lines: "But all the possibilities / No limits, just epiphanies". The sun does not render the cultic impulse null and void; it does not impose limits on the unrestrained joy of the poet. In fact, it provides "epiphanies" that the moon and the night did not. An epiphany can refer to any sudden insight or revelation, but most specifically it refers to the manifestation of a deity. In an epiphany, God makes Himself manifest, He reveals Himself to humanity. In this sense, the sudden appearance of the Sun, the "crashing" into our lives of God Himself, is a moment of epiphany. In amongst all the longing for communion with the supernatural in all of the cultic impulses in all places throughout the world, even in our post-modern, materialist, secularist, rational, 21st century urban center of the universe, God reveals Himself in answer to our desire for Him. When it is time to wake from the dream, the reality will be even better than we could have imagined.<br />
<br />
The final stanza brings this spiritual dimension into play: "I hear it calling outside my window / I feel it in my soul". It is no longer the poet who searches for divinity, who reaches his hands up to the sky to pull mystery down to himself. Mystery and Divinity have come to him, are calling to him, are tugging at that empty space inside his soul, longing to fill it. It is now God Himself who invites the poet to communion, who says, "Come and dance with Me." The natural world has been changed, infused with the mystery of the supernatural: "The stars were burning so bright / The sun was out 'til midnight". The sun and stars are visible together; the light of epiphany and the darkness of mystery have met. And the poet's response to this is: "I say we lose control". When faced with the glory of Divinity, humanity loses itself in the dizzying joy of being swept up into the dance. We "lose control" over our lives and our destinies in the sense that we give over our entire beings to the One who, as Dante says at the end of his <i>Divine Comedy</i>, where he experiences himself the ecstasy of the Beatific Vision, "moves the sun and other stars". In the same way as Dante felt "my desire and my will / were being turned like a wheel", the poet feels his own human idea of self-will being given over to the One whose will is all. When the joy of the Divine Love is discovered, how can one do anything else but give up everything to chase after Him and join the dance?<br />
<br />
Of course, this is just one interpolation of the lyrics to this song. And, according to that reading, it is definitely the "best day of my life". Naturally, this song could also just be about the excitement of achieving success as musicians in the modern music market. It could also simply describe the natural joys provided by the pleasures of this world in the presence of those friends who make life so worthwhile. Neither of these interpretations of the song would be inappropriate or "bad", to say the least. However, I wouldn't call them the "best" either.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-45396334267467300542014-04-18T14:13:00.002-04:002014-04-19T15:33:58.597-04:00Should We Turn Down "Turn Down for What"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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Do you mind if I take this opportunity to complain a little bit about music and lyrics? You don't? Okay, good, because I want to comment briefly on DJ Snake and Lil Jon's single "Turn Down for What" (2013). At first, I wasn't even going to bother with it because, let's face it, I'm interested in what people have to say and this song doesn't say anything, really. If you're interested in the lyrics, I'll post them here for you: "Fire up that loud / Another round of shots / Turn down for what". That's it. No joke. And I'm acting like I'm going to write a post about its meaning.<br />
<br />
In all fairness, maybe I should point out that this song falls into the electronic/dance genre, so the argument may be made that the main point of the music is primarily dancing and not necessarily sending verbal messages. Its focus is on encouraging physical movement via the musical impetus provided by DJ Snake, so Lil Jon's addition via the lyrics is really just there as an added instrument and not as an appeal to any sort of rational communication. And I will admit openly that I have no appreciation for or comprehension of electronic, dance, dub, "trap", or any other other kind of music out there that emphasizes bass beats and whatever else is involved in producing the seething, sweating behemoth of modern clubs and after-hours raves. I am in many ways musically challenged, and I have off-beat, eclectic tastes, and I primarily enjoy individual songs for their lyrical content rather than for their musical qualities. So, if DJ Snake's music is good to dance to for those people who enjoy that kind of thing, that's wonderful. I guess my question is, if you just want to dance, then why do these kinds of songs need any lyrics whatsoever? If it's "all about the music", why don't you just let the music speak for itself? Classical music is "all about the music", and it gets along just fine without any lyrics whatsoever. Why can't this sort of electronic music do the same?<br />
<br />
If we really want to look at the lyrics to "Turn Down for What", it is possible to actually say a couple of brief things about it. Before Lil Jon joined DJ Snake on this project, the only lyrical addition was the phrase "bang the underground". I'll leave it to your own interpretive skills to uncover the meaning of that one. Lil Jon, however, said that he wanted to make the song "hip and current", and the phrase "turn down for what" was what came to mind. With a few additional lyrics, the song had become "hip and current". So what is "hip and current" to Lil Jon's mind? Well, turning music up really loud and drinking a round of shots, that's what. And they'll turn down for what? ..... Nothing. The answer is nothing. They'll turn down for nothing. Nothing and nobody is going to make them turn the music down. Music and drinking is what is hip and current nowadays. It's not that different from what's been hip and current since the ancient Greeks, really. What might be a little bit different, however, is exactly that Nothing obliquely referred to by Lil Jon. The nothingness of the lyrics reflects the nothingness of what's hip and current, the nothingness of the kind of lifestyle that revolves around loud music and drinking, the nothingness of the kind of lifestyle that refuses to live for anything else. There is a great, big Nothing at the center of this song that reveals itself in the lack of meaning in the lyrics themselves. There is a stubborn desire to leave rationality and responsibility and reality behind in favor of the thoughtless, euphoric, chaotic lifestyle that is measured in individual experiences of pleasure rather than a unified life ordered to a purposive end. There is an escapist mentality that truly wants to believe that "nothing matters", that our actions can be separated from their natural consequences, that our lives can be freely shaped from moment to moment as we please, that doing what satisfies the senses is enough to satisfy the whole person. This is truly what is "current" and "hip" nowadays, and it is one of the most dangerous states of apathy one can possibly get into. As Josef Pieper brings out so profoundly in his essay on love, "The true antithesis of love is not hate but despairing indifference, the feeling that nothing is important. ... The radical attitude of 'not giving a damn' in fact is in some way related to the state of mind of the damned." This escapist fantasy, this wishful thinking that wants to reduce to "nothing" the most profound and meaningful created thing in existence, namely, the human person, treads on the path to damnation, where, in fact, this fantasy will become a reality. In Hell, you can truly become Nothing.<br />
<br />
This isn't to say that electronic music is inherently bad or anything of the sort. But we do need to recognize that many genres of music -- pop, rap, rock, country, punk, even classical -- tend to get attached to a certain lifestyle. All of them create and promote and maintain an ideological lifestyle that many listeners, especially the young, identify with in the same way that they identify with the musical genre. The music becomes a mode of personal self-expression, and the lifestyle publicly reinforces it. This is a far from unfamiliar experience for most people, myself included. I've been a punk rock fan since high school, and I wore the black eyeliner and studs and chains and safety pins and combat boots. It was a means of identifying with what moved me emotionally, and publicly attached me to the music I listened to. In fact, most of the time nowadays when I receive comments such as "I wouldn't have thought you were a punk rock fan", what people really mean is "You're not dressed or you don't act like someone who listens to punk rock". For me, the clothing was a mostly harmless phase, but there are a lot of other less harmless ideologies and lifestyle choices attached to punk rock that could have landed me in a world of hurt if I had chosen to pursue them. I'm sure you can think of a genre or two on your own, regardless of their musical merit, that have claimed their fair share of both bodies and souls.<br />
<br />
Are the musicians that produce this music responsible for their fans' actions or the lifestyles that are created around them? Not necessarily. But it is important, both as musicians and listeners, to be self-reflective when it comes to the music that we feel defines us. Our lives are not nothing; the things we do really matter. Are your musical tastes and influences shaping you into the fullest human person you can be, or are they relegating you to the base, the animalistic, and the escapist? Then you can decide whether you should be turning down for something.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-38044464850489352622014-04-16T14:26:00.000-04:002014-04-16T14:27:21.404-04:00"The Ruin": Seeing the Beginning in the End<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Anglo-Saxon poem "The Ruin" is found in the <i>Exeter Book</i>, which was compiled during the later tenth century as part of the English Benedictine revival under the bishopric of St. Dunstan. It is the largest extant collection of Anglo-Saxon works, and its contents can be split into three major genres: religious poetry, gnomic poetry or riddles, and elegies. "The Ruin" is considered one of these elegies, as it expresses a mournful lament over the loss and deterioration of, not just one particular ruined city, but for all life in all times and places. All things must change and know decay. The poet, as he regards the ruined stones of what was once a great city, feels this keenly and laments that it must be so.<br />
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The poet moves back and forth between lamenting the state of the ruined city as he gazes upon it, to praising the builders of it and the greatness it must have had when it was at the height of its glory. Throughout the poem, we see this dual motion, back and forth between the present decay and the past decadence. The poet allows us to experience this kind of double-vision effect in which we can see at the same time the ruins he sees with his physical eye and the bright city he sees with the eye of his mind or his imagination. We are given this kind of overlay effect in which the image of a bustling, lively city is laid over its ruined foundations. The poet uses this to marvelous effect, because what are ruins if you have no knowledge of what they once represented? Without the knowledge of the past, ruins are just a heap of rocks stacked together. But, if you are aware somehow of the original purpose of the ruin, the people who lived there, how they lived there , what their lives were like before, you are given some sort of connection with the place itself and it becomes so much more than a pile of rocks. It becomes instead a monument. Those stacked stones become a memorial of a people, a culture, a human connection that stirs our own humanity to reach out across time and greet our ancestors, the past members of our human family.<br />
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I felt this very strongly when I was in England myself; I was really able to feel the difference between those two states of mind at certain sites of ruins. I had no interest in Stonehenge. Stonehenge, to me, was nothing but stacked rocks. They may be impressive to look at, but they meant nothing to me. I couldn't tell what they were for, why anyone would have built them, or what kind of function they were supposed to have in people's lives. I couldn't find any human connection to them, so I felt no interest in seeing them. When I went to visit the ruins of Whitby Abbey, however, I was overwhelmed by the sense of connection to people from another time. I walked the main aisles of what used to be the chapel of the abbey, and I could look around it and say to myself, "This is where the high altar would have been. And this is where all the monks and nuns would have knelt for prayer. And this is where the chantry would have been. And this is where the dormitories were." In every stone I touched, I felt the very real and very human presence of my brothers and sisters in Christ from over a thousand years ago, saying the same prayers and worshiping in the same way and attending the same Mass. When I touched the stone of a ruined pillar that used to hold the roof of the abbey up, I would think to myself, "Abbess Hild may have touched this exact same stone. And Caedmon may have walked these exact same floors." There was that experience of seeing the abbey come alive before my eyes and watching the Benedictines go about their lives in the 7th or 8th century.<br />
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The poet, too, allows us to experience this sort of imaginative passage through time in which we see the city as it might have looked before it was ruined. We are given images of a bright and prosperous city. Everything is beautiful and well-built: "Bright were the city-houses, many the bathhouses, / high the horn-treasure, great the army-noise" and "many a man, / glad-hearted and gold-bright, adorned in glory, / proud and wine-flushed, his war-gear shone; / he looked on treasure, on silver, on crafted gems, / on riches, on goods, on precious stones, / on this brights city, broad of rule". This is a beautiful and thriving place. But, as the poet relates, there was a plague and all the people died. The poet uses an incredible metaphor to talk about this in which he says that the city was "broken into a barrow": the entire city had been transformed into a grave. These ruins are a monument to the dead. Perhaps a more depressing way of looking at it is that these people built their own tomb.<br />
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There is a type of elegaic writing that is characterized by the Latin phrase <i>ubi sunt?</i> -- where are they now? The <i>ubi sunt</i> elegaic poetry reflects on the splendor of the past and laments its absence in the present, asking where all of these splendid things have gone. Tolkien provides us with a beautiful version of such <i>ubi sunt</i> elegies in the voice of King Theoden in <i>The Two Towers</i> when he recites the poem that begins "Where now are the horse and rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?" In this scene, Theoden is lamenting the glorious past of the Rohirrim, the greatness of his forefathers, and how, if the battle for Helm's Deep goes ill, everything his forefathers worked so hard to create will be lost forever. We see this sentiment also in "The Ruin". The poet reflects on the accomplishments of these great men of the past, but where are they now? They are all dead and everything they built has come to ruin. There is a pragmatic realism in this, although somewhat dreary, because it is impossible to escape the mutability of time and change. It is impossible to escape death and decay. No matter what we build today, we will be gone tomorrow. All that remains are ruins and bones, and eventually even those will disappear. The poet reflects on the temporary nature of greatness, of beauty, and of life: it all must come to an end.<br />
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This poet does not give us any real hope for the future, which is typical of the pagan Anglo-Saxon mindset, in which the best thing you could do with your life is die gloriously so you will be remembered. A glorious memory is the only kind of immortality you can achieve. However, this is also the point where Christianity will step in to bridge the gap between death and triumph by revealing the triumph of Christ over death itself. The glory of the Anglo-Saxon man is no longer to be found in the memory of battle-glory, but in the reality of heavenly glory where he will feast in triumph with his Lord and his ancestors forever. This mentality emerges in many of the Anglo-Saxon elegies, such as "The Sea-Farer", "The Wanderer", and most especially in "The Dream of the Rood".<br />
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In meditating on today's ruins, we are brought back to the glory of the past, of youth, it brightness, its vibrancy, and its hope. In contemplating these memorials of the past, we see the reality of our future: this world is passing away, and so are we. To place our hope in this world is to place our hope in folly. No one can escape the reality of death and decay, no matter how great the civilization they might build for themselves. Even memory is not a good enough guarantor of immortality; after all, no one remembers who built Stonehenge or why. Although the poet of "The Ruin" offers what help he can in immortalizing the people who lived in his ruin through his poetic imagination, it is left to later Christian writers to add a new dimension of supernatural hope to the human question of <i>ubi sunt?</i> -- where are they now?<br />
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***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-48443089425119734772014-04-14T10:54:00.002-04:002014-04-14T10:56:13.151-04:00What Counts in "Counting Stars"?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1mPx8sltYvhCJoM1Uu1yOPm9xYab-RdDxzDY12Y6mi6S-p6psr9hkP3hd4O_l6em_2Y_hZOZcr018wkLTwH8cZXboUdHvDmLPp-5aVbW8i0XQzaojiFK9g0fCMoUrnS4rGspCpPug6UM/s1600/OneRepublic_Counting_Stars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1mPx8sltYvhCJoM1Uu1yOPm9xYab-RdDxzDY12Y6mi6S-p6psr9hkP3hd4O_l6em_2Y_hZOZcr018wkLTwH8cZXboUdHvDmLPp-5aVbW8i0XQzaojiFK9g0fCMoUrnS4rGspCpPug6UM/s1600/OneRepublic_Counting_Stars.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a>"Counting Stars" by OneRepublic, from their third album <i>Native</i> (2013) offers an odd kaleidoscope of thoughts, emotions, decisions, and non-decisions concerning a wide array of issues: consumerism, religion, morality, and the paralysis of youth. I find it interesting that the music video depicts the band playing beneath some sort of Christian revival meeting in which those attending are being revitalized, artistically "slain in the Spirit", and are in some sense rediscovering themselves through the passionate "preaching" of a spiritual leader. Whether this is meant to be a parody of Christian revival practices or not, I think it provides a key to understanding some of what is going on in this song. "Counting Stars" exhibits a common mantra among the young people of this generation who are tired of living a meaningless life and are looking for something deeper and more real to fulfill them.<br />
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The chorus begins the questioning of consumerism with the words: "Said no more counting dollars, / We'll be counting stars". The chorus sets the tone for the entire song in its desire for a more real existence beyond a certain level of economic fulfillment. The poet spends his life earning money so that he can participate in the meaningless collection of goods, but this ultimately leaves him feeling lifeless and empty. The consumerist lifestyle has become the new religion of the 21st century, which the poet expresses in this first stanza: "In my face is flashing signs: / Seek it out and ye shall find". The consumerist mentality has appropriated the words of Christ from Matthew's Gospel to serve its own purposes; rather than searching for God, people are encouraged to search for the answers to their problems in the flashing signs of advertisements for new articles of clothing, new technologies, new foods, new entertainments, and new trinkets. This is the new gospel of the 21st century modern lifestyle: all problems can be solved by earning money and buying things with it. You can fill all voids in your life with "things". Later in the stanza, the poet insists that he doesn't "think the world is sold, / I'm just doing what we're told". There is a sense that people, the youth particularly, don't fully recognize the problems inherent in self-indulgent consumerism. This is the world they have been born and brought up into, and so it seems normal to them. They receive instructions from the media, the television and the radio, billboards and celebrities, on how best to live their lives and how to make the most of this world. They follow along because they are not told any differently. People continue to seek after material possessions as if they held the key to happiness because they haven't been told anything else. No other options have been offered.<br />
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Although all people can find themselves trapped in this consumerist rut, the poet fixes principally on the youth, and I think for a very important reason: youth symbolizes hope and vitality. Unfortunately, hopeful and vital are exactly what modern 21st century youth are not. The poet speaks of being "old" even though he is not old in years; there is a feeling of tiredness and hopelessness that settles upon young people at an earlier and earlier stage in their lives as they come face to face with personal emptiness. They are "young, but not that bold": they lack the vital exuberance owed to youth that is willing to challenge the status quo and seek after true meaning and happiness. Instead, the youth are anxious to please, looking to their peers and celebrities for cues on how to be as happy, popular, and successful as they are, despite the fact that it is obvious they are far from any of those things in any meaningful way. The youth of the modern world are too afraid of missing out on something that might be happiness to take a chance on a road less traveled. The poet refers to life as a "swinging vine", which he desires to grab a hold of and "swing my heart across the line". Whatever line he might be crossing, whether this is a spiritual or physical line, is less important than the fact that the youth of today are too scared to do it. They are too cowed by public opinion to do something as risky as swing on a vine to the other side. There is too much risk involved. How do I know the vine is safe? What if it breaks while I'm swinging across? Are my friends doing it too? Has some celebrity already done it before me and guaranteed that it is a good experience? What if I don't like what's on the other side? What if I can't get back? Youth are paralyzed by self-doubt and an earnest fear of "missing out" in some way, especially when it comes to the big decisions of life. Rather than taking hold of the vine and swinging out into the unknown, full of hope and vitality, the youth of today live in a paralyzed state of permanent indecision. The only choice they can safely make is the economic one: earn money, spend money, repeat.<br />
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The poet encourages young people to make the big decisions with confidence: "Hope is our four-letter word". He encourages the youth to dream about the possibilities of life and all of the potential they possess. There is an incredible world around us, calling out to us to put our unique talents to work within it, asking us to impress our unique personalities onto the lives of others. We are called to a life of love and we know it: "I feel the love / And I feel it burn". We are called to love all those we meet in a truly meaningful and life-giving way; we are built for relationships of love, not economic convenience. The poet admits that he has been "praying hard" to make the choice to leave the chase for economic "freedom" behind in order to count stars, to truly see the beauty in the world around us and passionately chase after it instead. The courage to live life to its fullest comes from prayer, from communication with Being itself, the One who creates all things and sustains them in existence. The source of all Being will give us the courage to seek out true being in our own lives; He will give us courage to truly seek with hope and vitality, and truly find. In this sense, we can understand the repeated words of the song: "I feel something so right by doing the wrong thing / And I feel something so wrong by doing the right thing/ ... Everything that kills me makes me feel alive". We can now hear these words in their proper context: going against the world, doing what is foolish or useless in the eyes of the world, resonates within our souls as doing what is right, while following along with what the world says is wise or useful creates within us a sense of vital wrongness. All those things that seem to be acting against our own self-interest -- giving money to the poor, visiting the infirm or elderly, devoting ourselves to the care of others to our financial detriment, quitting lucrative jobs when they are unjust towards others, giving our lives to love others in marriage, in parenthood, in religious service, in charitable work -- all those things that are instances of self-sacrifice, of little "deaths", are the very things that give us the greatest vitality and bring the deepest meaning to our lives.<br />
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"Counting Stars" asks us to "Take that money / Watch it burn". It asks us to have the courage to grab the swinging vine and cross over to a new way of living in the world. It asks us to enact our being by dying to self. It asks us to dream about all that we could be, and then move to bring that dream into reality with courage and hope, without counting the cost. Instead, we can count the stars.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-76530373187348201782014-04-12T13:27:00.000-04:002014-04-12T13:27:02.040-04:00Should We Stick it to "The Man"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiERdsKoQ6Eysb1MCXsT4ZcXLZitSKamMGYrdZ5E3ZuIvew0SxWd5IQFH_EVZn4Ki9uJYSKGl4C2muS4oO971O7C7YDvLq3T4yGIjjQ_Ej5Jrfr9PvZSMjULhxN2OVuC1ee-bmHCXm8joU/s1600/465960664_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiERdsKoQ6Eysb1MCXsT4ZcXLZitSKamMGYrdZ5E3ZuIvew0SxWd5IQFH_EVZn4Ki9uJYSKGl4C2muS4oO971O7C7YDvLq3T4yGIjjQ_Ej5Jrfr9PvZSMjULhxN2OVuC1ee-bmHCXm8joU/s1600/465960664_640.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
The song "The Man", written by the American singer-songwriter known as Aloe Blacc from his album <i>Lift Your Spirit</i> (2013), is meant to be seen as more than just the usual self-inflated, egotistical display of hubris that most rap and R&B "empowerment" songs generally are. In the music video, Blacc emphasizes this by showing the evolution of the social opportunities of black Americans from the 50s to the present day. What begins with civil rights riots ends with America's first black president. In this context, the song is meant to be interpreted as a voice of empowerment, confidence, and celebration for the accomplishments that have been achieved by fearless black men and women. In the midst of the inner city violence, poverty, and racism that still exist for many American blacks today, Aloe Blacc encourages them to stand tall and be fearless in achieving a life of dignity and justice.<br />
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However, songs exist without their respective videos, and I think the majority of people today still experience music primarily aurally without any sort of visual aid. And I think most people enjoy certain songs for their musical or lyrical quality far more than any sort of visual quality of the videos attached to them. So what does "The Man" have to say beyond the confines of the powerful message the video conveys? What does it say to the world at large? Does it have universal qualities that can make all people, regardless of racial or ethnic background, relate to it on a personal level?<br />
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The poet expresses a sense of personal empowerment in the first stanza by being thankful for the life he has been given and the strength he had to live it out as best he could. Although there is an admission to telling lies and stealing hearts, the poet reveals that, even in these moments of potential failure to live up to his own standards, his intentions were to be the best he could be. He truly believed what he said even though it turned out to be a lie. He may have stolen hearts, but he paid for every one of them afterward. There is a sense of making reparation for all the ways he has failed to be the best man he can be. In this sense, he can truly be proud of the fact that he has not given up on himself and that he has given his best even in the worst situations of his life. He insists that "life is a test"; life is a task to be accomplished, not a series of experiences to enjoy. Life actually has a <i>telos</i>, an end goal, which is "to be a king when kingdom come". He refers here to the final accomplishment of God's plan in the world and the institution of the kingdom of heaven on earth. In order to "be a king when kingdom come", the poet must pass the test provided by life itself; he lives this out by seeking after self-perfection in all of his actions. His ability to do so is attributed to the grace of God: "God made my mold different from the rest, / Then He broke that mold, so I know I'm blessed". God has created the poet in a unique way, given him unique talents and abilities to enable him to pass the test of life. The poet knows that his person and his life on this earth is a blessing from God in the very fact of its uniqueness. This does not necessarily mean that the poet is perfect or is incapable of making mistakes, but that God has given him the grace and ability to overcome all trials and difficulties that life may test him with. If the poet puts his trust in the Lord, there is no obstacle in life that cannot be overcome. If he is able to pass the test of life, through the grace of God, he will become a king, a saint, in the heavenly kingdom. The poet will, in a sense, be able to rejoice and proclaim to everyone that he is "the man", the perfect man that God intended him to be.<br />
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The second stanza seems to revert to a predictable mode of rap hubris in its repetitive insistence on the superiority of the poet to all others: "I got all the answers to your questions / I'll be the teacher, you can be the lesson / I'll be the preacher, you be the confession / I'll be the quick relief to all your stressin'". On first glance, these lines only seem to be the expressions of pride common to such personal empowerment songs. But perhaps we can see this in another light if we add another man to the mixture, "the Man", as it were. If we put these words instead in the mouth of Christ, the God-become-man in whom we are all able to say "I'm the man" if we conform ourselves to Him, then these lines of the song begin to take on a different quality. Through the words of the poet, Christ himself expresses to us His ability to provide answers to our serious questions about life; He is the Teacher who instructs our souls in the lessons they should imitate; He is the holy preacher in whom we confess our faith in His ability to save; He is the divine healer who provides our souls with relief from anxiety, fear, and despair. In this context, the poet allows us a chance to embrace the same God who has broken the mold in the creation of each of His unique children; we are encouraged to recognize both the blessing and the test that our lives are; we are shown how ultimately empowering it is to become "a king at kingdom come". According to the rest of the stanza, only three things are asked of us to pass the test of life: to choose love over hate, to live in the truth rather than in falsity, and to stand firm in the faith. If we can accomplish those things, we will have passed the test, become kings, and can rejoice in the fact that we truly are "the man".<br />
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Of course, it's entirely possible not to understand this song in the way just described. But, given the options, this interpretation seems to me to allow for the most positive and universal sense of empowerment. Let's all live our lives so as to become kings when kingdom come.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-88624122378216708292014-04-10T11:50:00.001-04:002014-04-10T11:50:35.830-04:00And the Oscar Goes to ... "Wings"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUvvlZXO4JGaPD4jUQUQ2jcD48qkRcpHWZj9Y0aQdDv0pPeJFoKD8YAJUUAXOoLlVCVFqbIh6Z1WdC1F5FKTw2zkDDlBurxqK4yXIR5U0VEg4g8awquSfFhs1_Ocs_o2pF1BMf-YpMFU/s1600/wings-movie-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUvvlZXO4JGaPD4jUQUQ2jcD48qkRcpHWZj9Y0aQdDv0pPeJFoKD8YAJUUAXOoLlVCVFqbIh6Z1WdC1F5FKTw2zkDDlBurxqK4yXIR5U0VEg4g8awquSfFhs1_Ocs_o2pF1BMf-YpMFU/s1600/wings-movie-poster.jpg" height="320" width="262" /></a><i>Wings</i> (1927) has the distinction of being the first film in history to win the Academy Award for Best <br />
Picture. It also has the distinction of being the first silent film I have ever seen. The experience was an interesting one. I was fascinated by how a story could be told in such a way that I could both laugh out loud and be moved to tears while only understanding a fraction of the dialogue between the characters. I'm no historian so I can't say whether director William A. Wellman's portrayal of warfare during the first World War was accurate, but I was impressed by his ability to depict both the glories of victory and valor, as well as the real brutality and senselessness of war. The almost offhand comment from two characters nearing the end of the film -- "That's war!" -- served to set the tone for a world coming out from under the shadow of one of the most horrific moments in human history. You may accidentally be responsible for the death of your best friend -- "That's war!" You may get incredibly drunk on leave in Paris and do things you regret as you try to forget the horrors you've faced -- "That's war!" The unanimous desire by the end of the film is to leave the Great War in the past and move on with hopes for a brighter future. No matter what you've done wrong for the sake of your country, you can leave it behind now that the war is over.<br />
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I found myself questioning this logic throughout the film, particularly as I pondered the actions of the film's major protagonist, Jack Powell. Is it true that all's fair in love and war? Is no one responsible for their actions when they are caught up in the midst of the violence of battle? Should ethical and moral codes be sidelined in favor of "doing what needs to be done"? When Jack returns to America a hero, he brings the medal and teddy bear of his best friend David Armstrong back to David's parents to pay his respects and to apologize. Jack had been unwittingly responsible for David's death and he comes to seek their forgiveness for his actions. David's mother responds: "I wanted to hate you, Jack. But it's not your fault -- it was the war!" Is it the war's fault David died? Maybe so. After all, David was flying a German plane when Jack shot him down. Jack was only doing what the war required of him. But Jack's character is impulsive and selfish, and his ignorance is often self-imposed. At the beginning of the film, Jack expresses his love for Sylvia Lewis despite the fact that it is more than obvious she has bestowed her affections on David. David and Sylvia are sitting on a swing together as she plays music for him, when Jack comes and physically removes Sylvia so he can take her for a ride in his new roadster. He does not apologize for intruding on the couple, he does not ask Sylvia if she would like to ride in his car, and he does not really even offer her a choice. He selfishly assumes that she wants what he wants, and then impulsively forces her to live up to his expectations. Unfortunately, David and Sylvia are both kindhearted and reserved people, so neither make a move to correct Jack. The same thing happens when the two men are making ready to leave for Europe to take part in the Great War as aviators. Sylvia is preparing a locket for David so that he can carry her picture with him into war. Jack arrives before David, intending to ask Sylvia if he might have her picture and assuming that she will say yes. When he sees the locket on her desk, he once again makes the self-centered assumption that the locket is for him and impulsively takes it from her without asking for permission or clarification. Sylvia starts to explain that there's been a misunderstanding, but then David arrives and the antagonism between the two rivals is palpable. Jack leaves with the locket, and Sylvia is left to try to explain to David why she has nothing to give to him but her heart.<br />
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The same behavior continues when Jack and David begin training as war pilots. During a training exercise, Jack repeatedly and maliciously stomps on David's hat while pretending it's only an accident, despite the fact that David has done nothing to him and tells him to stop. Jack is in no way punished for this behavior. In fact, as the two men attempt to settle their differences in a boxing match (again, as part of training), Jack knocks David to the ground three times while barely suffering a blow himself. Along with the triumph of having bested his rival in a feat of strength, the two men immediately become best friends after this. Again, Jack receives no backlash for his self-centered and impulsive behavior. While on leave in Paris, Jack indulges in some stereotypically negative army behavior by getting completely intoxicated and spending the evening in the arms of a flirtatious Parisian woman. When his old next-door neighbor and secret admirer, Mary Preston, arrives to sober him up with the news he must return to the frontlines immediately, it's all she can do to get him away from women and champagne, and into bed to sleep off the effects. While Mary saves Jack from at least one moral danger, she herself is implicated in indecency and is forced to resign her post as a military medical driver. Once again, Jack acts impulsively and selfishly, and other people are forced to suffer punishment on his behalf.<br />
<br />
The final scene of the war contains perhaps the trickiest example of Jack's self-centered behavior. Jack becomes angry with David before their last flight together because David has torn up his picture of Sylvia, which had fallen out of the locket. The reason David does this is because Sylvia had written a love note on the back of the picture to David, and David does not want to hurt Jack by revealing that Sylvia is not really in love with him. When Jack refuses to let David replace the picture in the locket himself, David tears up the photo rather than allow Jack to learn the truth. Jack refuses to speak to David afterwards and takes to the sky angrily. As they meet German opposition in the skies, Jack leaves David to dogfight with three German planes, while Jack attacks the blimps. David does not return from this dogfight, and the Germans claim that they have killed him. Believing his best friend to have died, Jack regrets his former anger and vows revenge against as many German enemies as he can claim. He goes into the last battle in an impetuous rage of vengeance and attacks anyone he can find: foot-soldiers, gunners, balloons, and planes. He abandons his squadron so that he can fly behind enemy lines and attack the Germans head on and alone, feeding his grief and his desire for revenge. Unbeknownst to him, David has survived and has managed to steal a German plane in order to get back to the American lines. Before he can do so, he is spotted by Jack. Despite his urgent cries and waving in hopes that Jack will recognize him, the narrative intertitles specifically note that Jack is "blinded" by his desire for vengeance so that he is unable to recognize his friend. This blindness results in David's death. Once again, Jack faces no consequences for his actions against David beyond his own sorrow and guilt at having been instrumental in his demise. David excuses Jack completely of any fault in the matter, as does the French commander, who blames the war. On his return home, Jack is greeted with accolades and a parade, and even David's parents can say nothing more than that nothing is his fault. Jack doesn't even bother to visit Sylvia to convey his condolences or offer some sort of apology for his behavior. Instead, he finds Mary and apologizes to her for his actions during a drunken night in Paris that he doesn't even really remember. It's the closest thing to an apology that Mary will ever get for the trouble he has put her through, but I guess Jack makes her full reparation in finally giving her his love, which is what she's wanted since the opening scene.<br />
<br />
Mary's response to Jack's apology is to leave the past in the past. David's parents say that nothing is his fault. David himself says that Jack didn't shoot <i>him</i>, but just the German plane. Is anyone going to hold Jack responsible for his actions, for his choices to act maliciously, get drunk, and kill in a blind rage? Were these choices forced on him by the war, or is he morally culpable for these decisions? Even though the film insists that Jack left for war a boy, but has come home a man, there is not very much evidence that his character has improved.<br />
<br />
But perhaps we're viewing this film through the wrong lens. Perhaps this movie is not so much about the building up of a moral character as it is about the capacity for forgiveness despite the most unforgivable of tragedies. War in general provides a myriad of opportunities for this kind of heroic forgiveness; the scars and pain of having to spend one's youth learning to hate a brutal enemy in order to brutalize him in return opens up an infinite gulf of guilt and despair. How can one possibly be forgiven for the atrocities committed in the depths of such darkness? Curiously, the film's one overtly religious moment happens at the very climax of the film as David's broken body and smoking plane crash to the ground in rural France. A woman and her child are depicted praying before a crucifix in a small grotto outside their home. They are forced to take shelter when David's plane crashes directly into their home. His body is taken inside to be cared for, and Jack's plane lands soon after so that he may exult over his kill. It is only when Jack places his hand upon the miraculously undamaged crucifix in order to see the pilot he has killed that he recognizes him as his friend. It is in the shadow of this same crucifix that Jack receives the heroic forgiveness of his friend, who tells him that it was not him he killed but the evil his plane represented. There is an opportunity to make a beautiful parallel between David's words and Christ, the incarnate God who became sin for our sakes so that He could defeat our evil once and for all. Similarly to Jack's unspeakable error, we also had been so blinded by our sins that we could put to death our loving God, a crime that should brook no forgiveness; and yet, it is through this death that we are granted the ultimate forgiveness, the release from sin and death, and the welcome into the heavenly kingdom. In this sense, the forgiveness Jack receives from all those he has harmed reflects the salvific mercy of Christ who, while we were still sinners, was willing to die for us. Even though Jack is still flawed and guilty, those around him are able to put aside their pain, their regret, and their hatred in order to reveal the beauty of mercy.<br />
<br />
As a war movie, <i>Wings</i> offers that same mercy to those still suffering the effects of a war that helped to bring out the worst in so many people. The film offers something like forgiveness to those who feel the weight of their part in the violence; it does not excuse what has been done in the name of freedom and justice, but it does offer a share in that impossible forgiveness that stems from the Cross of Christ by insisting that we leave the bitterness behind and move forward in hope.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-29633560876044838552014-04-08T10:06:00.000-04:002014-04-08T10:06:20.202-04:00Are We on Lorde's "Team"?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji5w0dizL3wFY0qjU4bf0GJ7O4CYpBxJkyrcUwF8VhwHjvqFmTW9Zbs9Z0ycb18Lrdi9FbKGM72loGvxullgK_f-my5TtdKkb8o5ZTmS09szA_fFb05szZIn-O77c45VYsEMVZJuGpyik/s1600/lorde-team.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji5w0dizL3wFY0qjU4bf0GJ7O4CYpBxJkyrcUwF8VhwHjvqFmTW9Zbs9Z0ycb18Lrdi9FbKGM72loGvxullgK_f-my5TtdKkb8o5ZTmS09szA_fFb05szZIn-O77c45VYsEMVZJuGpyik/s1600/lorde-team.png" height="320" width="320" /></a>The New Zealand singer/songwriter known publicly as Lorde has presented the world with a new take on pop music from her powerful yet delicate vocals, poignant lyrics, and minimalist musical arrangements. Lorde's music often dares to challenge the status quo of pop starlets, expressing dissatisfaction with the "good life" of all-night parties, heavy drinking, and bratty behavior. Her hit song "Team" continues the theme first established in her number-one single "Royals", encouraging her audience not to get wrapped up in the world of Hollywood pipe dreams and consequence-free outbursts of immaturity. For Lorde, we all live in the real world where our words and actions will have long-lasting consequences for our lives and the lives of those around us. She calls on her audiences around the world to start thinking about growing up. Although Lorde has said in interviews that "Team" is "a tribute to her friends and country", is "speaking for the minority", and represents her "take on most modern music", these impulses speak to a broader movement that rejects the current industry standard presented by the media and encourages audiences to embrace a simpler and more authentic lifestyle.<br />
<br />
The chorus of the song is where, I think, Lorde would say the tribute to homegrown New Zealand lifestyle is most obviously prevalent. The poetess speaks of living in cities "you'll never see on screen", cities that are humble and normal and lack the media glamor of New York or LA, or the cultural landmarks of London or Paris. In this context, Wellington and Auckland are media nonentities. They don't have the requisite glamor or significance to make them like the cities depicted in the movies, the sexy cities where sexy people spend their time doing sexy things and having a whole lot of fun. She says that the cities that she is familiar with are "not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things". At first glance, this could be seen as a jab at the inner city decay of some of these Hollywood cities; they may be pretty in the movies, but they are horribly mismanaged and ugly on the inside. In this case, the small, unnoticed cities are in a better position to become beautiful because, even though they lack the glamor, they are at least more civilized. However, the next line, "Living in ruins of a palace within my dreams", seems to upset this idyllic depiction of the country town. If the poetess is better off for living in a less media-influenced atmosphere, then why is she living in ruins? I think, despite the claim of being a tribute, this is more likely a critique of the progressive urbanization of smaller cities and country towns as the people who live in them insist more and more on creating a lifestyle for themselves that imitates the glamor of those cities presented by the media. The humble country life is set on converting itself into that sexy city full of sexy people doing sexy things and having a whole lot of fun. In this sense, the comment "we still know how to run things" is an ironic statement, implying that, even though we may not look as pretty as the people in the movies, we still know how to run our lives in the same way that they have given us as a model. We can pull off a pretty decent imitation. Suddenly, the idea of "team" gets confused: whose team are we on? "We're on each other's team", the poetess says, but sides are now conflated. In the context of hometown tribute, the poetess claims that she is on the same team as her New Zealand family and friends, the home crowd, as it were. However, the context of critique puts the small-town community on the same team as the Hollywood media conglomerates, which makes for a much more uncomfortable message.<br />
<br />
This leaves us with the image of the ruined palace. In the sense of critique, how is this to be understood? We can imagine that the palace in the poetess's dreams reflects her glamorized image of what life is like within that elite sphere of sexy people in sexy cities doing sexy things. The image the media gives us of the "good life" is idealized in our minds and becomes an end goal for us. Ultimately, we want to attain happiness in our lives, and happiness is constructed for us in the depiction of Hollywood wealth, prosperity, freedom, beauty, and enjoyment. We want that for ourselves, and so we go out of our way to create the same atmospheres we see on screen in the reality of our own communities. The poetess points to the popularization of the nightclub lifestyle as one of these idealized "palaces" that, when actually lived out, becomes a ruinous place. Her depiction of the nightclub lifestyle is engaging because she is able to merge two idealized notions of the "good life" into one. In the first stanza, she compares the modern nightclub lifestyle with the lifestyle of the eighteenth-century <i>beau monde</i> popularized through the high society depicted in novels such as Jane Austen's. The poetess draws on the similarities between then and now, how we are still attempting to live out these fanciful courtship rituals in our behavior and dress in the nightclub: "Wait till you're announced / We haven't lost all our graces / The hounds will stay in chains / Look upon your greatness", and again "Call all the ladies out / They're in their finery/ ... Now bring the boys in". She creates a sense of the same social graces being enacted today that were enacted in centuries past. Women still parade themselves in their finest array for the men to see, as they wait, like hounds on chains, before they are invited to indulge themselves. The same complex games are being played between men and women now as they have been forever, a game that involves seeking out happiness without getting hurt. We continue to search in each other for the key to our idealized palaces. Our happiness above all, even in the Hollywood version of it, is communion with another, is true intimacy, is love. And we seek it in the places the media tell us we will find it, in the pretty palaces we see on the silver screen. The problem with this, for the poetess, is that this entire framework is built on lies. The media's depictions of happiness are not true. The nightclub lifestyle does not bring intimacy, happiness, and love, but lies, ruin, and brokenness.<br />
<br />
At the end of the first stanza, the poetess insists on the dance as the place where the innocent go to find intimacy, but it is also the place of lies, and the place where people can become comatose: "Dancing around the lies we tell / Dancing around big eyes as well / Even the comatose, they don't dance and tell". The physical action of dancing is compared to the mental metaphor of "dancing" around an issue, of avoiding it. We try to avoid admitting our innocence, our "big eyes" that long for the idealized palace to become a reality. We try to avoid the multiplicity of lies that crop up within the club culture -- feigned interest, feigned impulsivity; feigned desire; feigned honesty; feigned intimacy; feigned love -- by not speaking of them, by letting the dance speak for us. Even then, the dance itself becomes a lie, as two bodies come together when the two minds often couldn't be farther apart. As the idealized palace becomes more and more ruinous due to the failure of the lifestyle to make it a reality, the dance becomes almost a catatonic motion in which both parties go through the steps of the ritual almost by force of habit rather than desire. However, even the most comatose of participants will still laud the lifestyle as the means to happiness.<br />
<br />
The poetess develops this theme in the second stanza as she expresses what the comatose refuse to tell: the nightclub lifestyle, the media-endorsed image of happiness, is a lie. "So all the cups got broke, shards beneath our feet": the cups from which we all tried to drink happiness have fallen to the ground, and we are now stepping on the broken shards. We need to recognize the pain that the false images of happiness have caused us; we need to admit that this dream world is not the proper vehicle for finding happiness and remove ourselves from it. The poetess admits with some defiance that she's "over getting told to throw my hands up in the air". She has lived the life, tasted its fruits, and found it lacking in substance. Her experience has shown her that "revel[ing] without a care" does not bring meaning or communion into one's life, nor is it of any use in building up the ruinous palace. The dream of love and intimacy has been replaced with a reality based on animalistic competition: "everyone's competing for a love they won't receive". Competition does not win love. Being the most beautiful, the most popular, the richest, the sexiest, the most like a Hollywood starlet, is not what achieves true love and intimacy between people. The most this can win is a superficial and unsatisfying brush with sexuality, but beyond that is nothing but ruins and shards. It leads to brokenness. The nightclub lifestyle does not lead to community, but to its exact opposite in competition. The foolishness of it is revealed in the fact that the true prize desired by those who compete -- love -- can never be won in this manner. The poetess suggests that what "this palace wants is release": what our innocent dreams really need is to be freed from their ties to the fantasy created by the media as a living advertisement for happiness. To be truly free is to seek out happiness in true love and intimacy, which is found away from the glitter of deception and competition.<br />
<br />
In this sense of the song, we are on Lorde's team if we get ourselves out of the running, if we leave the competition, and if we focus on building up true community rather than living in the ruins of imperfect dreams. There comes a point where we need to let go of our attachment to what hurts us in order to find the true happiness that is at the heart of the palace.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03300967339013390102noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6997008904649476428.post-58744057172407527002014-04-06T15:21:00.001-04:002014-04-06T15:21:57.573-04:00What Has "Pompeii" to Do with Us?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinbDetPDIqzxvjtwbzMBThCUDqiuK1icM1mfm-eVZnr9zTIMNQT0rJ_KGP-p5lDHIeCSQXoJjAJVN7iHMN9Fdsh2RpjB_wjWVj8ysDi6V3g3POgP2Ic5iAlKVFNvDDirQLjaAWlRnGSHw/s1600/tumblr_mhy7kxjdBw1s235epo1_1360405474_cover-300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinbDetPDIqzxvjtwbzMBThCUDqiuK1icM1mfm-eVZnr9zTIMNQT0rJ_KGP-p5lDHIeCSQXoJjAJVN7iHMN9Fdsh2RpjB_wjWVj8ysDi6V3g3POgP2Ic5iAlKVFNvDDirQLjaAWlRnGSHw/s1600/tumblr_mhy7kxjdBw1s235epo1_1360405474_cover-300x300.jpg" /></a>It would seem that something about the tragic fate of the first-century AD Roman villa Pompeii has struck the imagination of the artistic world, considering the hype surrounding the film <i>Pompeii</i> slated for release this year and the popularity of the song "Pompeii" written by British alternative rock band Bastille for their album <i>Bad Blood</i> (2013). Unlike the film, which, from what I can tell, is some sort of tragic love story set in the shadow of an erupting Mount Vesuvius and borrowing a penchant for violence reminiscent of such films as <i>300 </i>(2006)<i>, Clash of the Titans </i>(2010)<i>, </i>and <i>Immortals</i> (2011), Bastille's "Pompeii" uses the reference to the destroyed city as an allegory for our modern world which seems to thrive on revolutions, uprisings, factions, and protests, but fails to effect any real change in society as a whole. In some sense, the fate of Pompeii is the looming fate of us all who are too complacent or listless to possibly bring about the true change needed to keep ourselves from imminent destruction.<br />
<br />
The poet brings out two senses of both revolution and languor. The first refers to the physical effects of violent revolution, the marches and protests, the revolts and civil wars, the process of tearing down an old regime in order to build up a new one. The poet himself is caught up in a pessimistic listlessness concerning the desire for change in "the city that we love". He says that, when "left to his own devices", he is unable to accomplish anything concrete or to effect any sort of change in his own life. Meanwhile, the revolution is happening around him, "the walls kept tumbling down" and "great clouds roll over the hills". The poet locates his passivity throughout all of this urgent destruction in his own inability to be optimistic about any sort of new regime solving any of society's problems. Despite the optimistic intentions of the revolutionaries, the new structures feel exactly the same as the old. New figures may be in charge, but the inherent problems have not been solved. There are new faces, but the same old game. The poet laments: "But if you close your eyes,/ Does it almost feel like / Nothing changed at all?" The desire for revolution is undermined because the things that truly need to be changed are not being addressed. It is not the superstructures that are the problem, but the underlying attitudes that erected them in the first place. Revolution needs to come from within before it can be effective without.<br />
<br />
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<br />
The poet brings out the second sense of revolution and languor in the second
and third stanzas. Rather than focusing on an exterior need for revolution, the
poet looks to the interior of the human person and focuses on those aspects of
life that cause us the most damage: our sins. The poet says that, even as the
dust of violent revolution settles, "we were caught up and lost in all of
our vices". Humanity continues to make the same interior mistakes
regardless of the change in social structures. The human soul is still
hopelessly caught in its own torpidity, its reluctance to face its own
destructive behaviors and tear them down. It's easier to look outside oneself
and blame the establishment for all of the problems we experience; it's easy to
protest and get angry and attack a faceless structure that is detached from our
personal reality. It's an entirely different thing to honestly face the horrors
of one's own corrupt soul and protest against it, get angry at it, and attack
those things in our lives, in our hearts and minds, that bring us to such
suffering and unrest. In the third stanza, the poet asks, "O, where do we
begin, / The rubble or our sins?" Where do we make a start to bring about
social change? Do we start with the broken bricks of a broken society? Do we
start sifting through the rubble of our superstructures looking for new ways to
build up the human community? Or do we look squarely at our sins, out faults,
our failings, and choose to reject them, uproot them, and never allow space for
them to grow again? For the poet, the revolution must start inside with the
honest and purposeful eradication of those things in us that keep us from
contributing to the building up of a true human community of peace, love, and
joy. Without that inner commitment to not be "part of the problem",
as it were, there is no hope for societal change on any level.<br />
<br />
Seeing with the
clear eyes of the moral artist, the poet asks, "How am I going to be an
optimist about this?" He has seen the uselessness of material revolution, the repetition of corrupt establishments and superstructures, no matter how good the intentions of the revolutionaries themselves. He has experienced his own languor, his own unwillingness to work for change and true revolution in his own heart. If this is the case, how can we be optimistic? How can we have any hope for true change in our broken society? Honestly, optimism may not be possible. We are a species of flawed and fallen creatures who will probably never be able to completely overcome all of the different aspects of suffering that we bring upon ourselves. An optimistic attitude that sees humanity on some sort of eternally positive trajectory, that sees us only improving as time goes on, is bound to disappoint. It is not real. It is not happening. In this case, we'd be better off embracing a realistic perspective that recognizes that we repeat the same mistakes today that we have since the dawn of time, just in new forms with new types of rhetoric to justify them. A thousand years from now, we'll most likely be doing just the same. However, being realistic does not preclude the ability to hope. We can be eternally hopeful about humanity on a personal level in that we are all innately capable of becoming the best people we can be. We all have that opportunity, as "Pompeii" expresses, to face our own sins and work to overcome them. We may not be able to revolutionize the world and solve all its problems in any realistic way, but we can always work to revolutionize ourselves, to improve ourselves a little bit each day, to perfect ourselves in whatever ways we can. If each and every person in the world would honestly work toward that level of individual revolutionizing, we would be much more likely to see positive changes in the world around us.<br />
<br />
The people of Pompeii were suffocated in the ash and pumice spouted from Mount Vesuvius; archeological evidence suggests that they didn't even make a move to escape their fate. Bastille's song encourages us to avoid making the same mistake. We need to recognize the danger of suffocation in the rubble of false revolution and personal slothfulness, and make the move to escape our fate and truly live.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The point of this blog is not to tell anyone what they should or should
not consider entertaining, nor what films, books, lyrics, or television
shows are morally or artistically good or bad. The point is to engage
with the stories that are creating our culture on an intellectual level,
to meet the morals with our minds before they go to our hearts. Once you know what's in the
entertainment you imbibe and you're aware of how it may be shaping your
perceptions of the world around you, well then, imbibe away!<br />
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