Three Minute Fiction

Every year NPR has a competition which they call 3 Minute Fiction.  Listeners are encouraged to write a story of no more than 600 words (approximately three minutes when read aloud) using the prompt supplied by NPR.  This year's prompt was: She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. Just for fun I decided to enter the contest this year.  I threw in nods to Fitzgerald (since Gatsby is one of the greatest works of all time), as well as to Nietzsche, Levinas, Heidegger, et al., because such things are never far from my mind.  This was my entry:

Every Present is a Past/ Every Past is a Present

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.  In the morning people would know what she had done. 

                “It doesn’t really matter anymore,” she thought to herself, “Sometimes a person just has to walk away.” Even this thought didn’t overcome her fear, her regrets… her pain. Her past, the smiles and tears alike, seemed to be a mere fiction. She felt the present, as she had never felt it before, this one brief moment, being borne back into the past. She couldn’t help but chuckle with derision… the past. What is the present but that which is continually dying. There is no present but the eternal recurrence of the same. She was suddenly aware that the unnerving feeling of déjà vu was simply due to the fact that no present can escape its own past. The dying away of the present, the ‘now’ which is always already the ‘not anymore’ , this was the only future to which she might look forward.

                Past. Present. Future.  Did these words even have meaning? Perhaps the past was all that is, and all that ever can be.  She thought back over her actions of the past 24 hours, and of her actions over the past 3 months. “He had it coming,” she reminded herself. She had done only what she knew to do. Nobody would fully understand what she had done… nobody could. She didn’t understand. She had been thrown into this situation, but she wasn’t entirely sure how, and couldn’t even contemplate the possibility that there might be a why. Is there ever a why?  We live, we act, occasionally we think. She had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

                With absurdity on her mind, she picked up the book again.  She leafed through the pages with no interest in the words therein. He had been given the book, but refused to read anything that didn’t, in his mind, justify his own stupidity. He was convinced that he was in the right, that the entire world revolved around him. Of course, he couldn’t have admitted this; he couldn’t even have thought it. “He had it coming,” she reminded herself once more. Some people think that a person is like an onion: a person must strip away the outer layers to find the core, the heart of a person, the soul.  She laughed yet again.  Of course, a person is like an onion. Each and every one of us is a series of layers, but, the reality that is tragically ignored is simply that a person has no core.  When the layers of a person, just like those of an onion, are stripped away, nothing remains. Her mind was again dragged to thoughts of the past, whatever that meant.  She saw clearly how each and every decision of her life, each fleeting present, had given her a new layer.

                   She gingerly returned the book to the table, careful not to disturb the quiet of the room. She stood up and walked toward the door.  With one final glance around the room she prepared to leave for good. As the door creaked open she was filled with hope. The present was already passing away;  it would be replaced with a seemingly infinite series of presents in the future. Perhaps the future is not entirely dictated by the past. Even the past was only what she made of it. With a smile she stepped through the door, and, swinging it closed behind her, she said to nobody in particular, “I’m better off right now.”     

On Re-membering

Over the course of the past NFL season, and particularly evidenced tonight, the New England Patriots have been paying homage to Myra Kraft, the recently deceased wife of Pats owner Robert Kraft.  Even during tonight's game, the biggest game of the year, numerous Patriots tapped the patch bearing Myra's initials and pointed to the sky in her honour.  

Many see this as a touching tribute to a woman who more than one player called by some variation of 'mama'.  While I would hate to criticize what was probably a very meaningful gesture from these players, I'd like to briefly consider what it means to truly remember the dead.

Only a few weeks ago I heard a professor say, "The best way to forget about a person is to look at a photograph."  We stare at photographs to remember the past, but in so doing, we merely confine the deceased to the past.  As I sat watching the Patriots give tribute to Mrs. Kraft, I wondered to myself what meaning such tributes might actually have.  Was anything actually accomplished by a bunch of grown men wearing a small MHK patch on their chests for the past few months?  Was the show of pounding the chest and pointing skyward even meaningful to the players, or was it merely a show for the boss?  Could the life of Mrs. Kraft really even have meant that much to these players?  These are merely hypothetical questions.  Far be it from me to criticize the personal observances of these men.  I can't possibly pretend to understand the mourning process of any other person. Keeping that in mind, I would like to argue that a small shoulder patch and a finger upward, while possibly personally meaningful, are not an act of remembrance.  

Playing off an admittedly over-used philosophical trick, we can get a much stronger understanding of 'remembrance' by throwing a hyphen into the word.  'Remembering', at its strongest form, is nothing less than re-membering.  Re-membering, is an act of intentional embodiment.  To re-member, is not to think happy thoughts about the events of the past (even if sugar-coating the negative).  Rather, re-membering is to recognize what was important to a person, and to again put flesh to those motivations.  Myra Kraft, for example, was by all public accounts a pretty impressive person.  She was a great philanthropist and supported a number of great causes.  She was not actively involved in her husband's work as owner of the Patriots, but when she found out that a recent draft pick had a continuing history of violence toward women she demanded that he be released immediately.  As it turned out he was released even before training camp had started.  It would seem that Myra Kraft is a woman who deserves to be re-membered.  Yet, this re-membrance cannot come from a simple expression.  If Patriots players truly wanted to re-member Mrs. Kraft, they could best do so by living the life that she is no longer able to live.  To re-member Mrs. Kraft would be to demonstrate a life of committed engagement.  This is not a simple act of mimicry, but a meaningful demonstration of intentional embodiment.  

Gilles Deleuze spoke at great length about the concept of memory, and, citing the literature of Marcel Proust, profoundly spoke of memory as "time regained."  Memory, claimed Deleuze, is related to a past that has never been present.  The active performance of memory, what has here been called 'remembering', is an act of repetition, or of eternal return in Deleuze's Nietzschean terminology.  Yet, this repetition, is an enacting, not a reenacting.  In memory time is regained because it allows the bringing to present of things past.  The Remembrance of Things Past, thus, is ultimately the becoming of something.  

In the end, re-membrance is not a complicated idea, much less a complicated practice.  While weeping for the lost can be a meaningful part of the grieving process, it is not a meaningful remembrance.  While it can be fun to look at pictures of those we loved who have passed on, it is not a meaningful remembrance.  Remembering, re-membering, is to live a life that would make the re-membered proud.  Re-membering is to see the footsteps of the deceased, and to continue on in the direction in which they lead.  This is not the act of 'following in' the footsteps, but of placing value upon the footsteps themselves by moving beyond them.  Remembrance is not an act of grief, not an act of looking to the past, but an act of intentionally moving into the future. To live well is the greatest remembrance. We remember by re-membering the remembered.    

On the (Im?)Possibility of Justice

As I was driving home recently I heard a fascinating interview (on Fresh Air) with a legal scholar named Michelle Alexander (Jim Crow Still Exists in America).  I highly recommend listening to this interview (which I will not rehash here).  What particularly struck me about this interview was the interaction between Alexander and the work of another prominent academic.  This other individual claimed that, after having spent a great deal of time studying people in various positions within law enforcement, he could not reasonably believe that the criminal justice system is inherently racist.  Alexander's response, in part, was simply that,"I think it's very easy to brush off the notion that the system operates much like a caste system, if in fact you are not trapped within it."  Without having the legal background of Alexander, I'm not especially interested in the legal arguments as such.  Rather, the reason that this particular statement struck me is because she names so clearly the existence of what many ethicists would call structural evil.  I'm certainly not doing anything new by pointing to the possibility that structural evil is a reality in the world.  In fact, much of what I have to say on the matter was said (with significantly more insight) by Reinhold Niebuhr in his classic, Moral Man and Immoral Society, 80 years ago.  Although I disagree with much of what Niebuhr has to say in that text, I think that the very title of the book offers a thought-provoking critique of any sort of societal ethics.

I once heard it said, I know not where, though it's been in my head for a long time, that, "A person can be smart, but people will always be dumb." (OK, upon a quick googling I have found that this is a quote from the film, Men in Black... not the sort of high-minded result I had hoped for, but so it goes...)  While I do not share as high of a view of the individual with Niebuhr (or of Men in Black apparently), I do believe that this little saying is onto something.  Alexander is right to point out that it is nigh well impossible to fully recognize the systems in which we are enmeshed.  While I recognize the slight absurdity of making this claim while simultaneously trying to discuss the very systems in which I am, we are, entrapped, I also recognize that there is power to be found simply in naming the system as such.  If I could presume to put words in Alexander's mouth, I'm fairly certain that she would agree that many, perhaps most, law enforcement officials (and likewise individuals generally) are not intentionally racist.  Most of us ( I hope) who did not live through the civil rights movements shudder at the horrendous bigotry and hatred that used to be at the forefront of our society.  I, at least, can scarcely imagine living in such a world.  Nevertheless, if we listen to Alexander we learn that African-Americans are imprisoned for drug crimes at a vastly greater rate than Caucasians even though, statistically, they are both equally likely to possess and distribute illegal drugs.   Even if those individuals charged with enforcing our nation's drug laws are not intentionally seeking out individuals of a particular 'race', they are, even if inadvertently, helping to perpetuate a broken system.

Lest it seem as though I am merely interested in castigating others, I must admit that I am equally culpable, albeit it in differing ways.  The point of this blog post is not to point fingers, but to wrestle with what it means to speak of systemic/structural evil.  Is it true that, even with good intentions, we, as individuals which form a society, can be enmeshed in a system by which human dignity is rejected?  Although Alexander's focus on drug convictions is an interesting case study of systemic racism, it is by no means the only example that could be given.  Moreover, although 'racism' is certainly one form by which this structural evil is made manifest, it is certainly not the only one.  Bigotry and ignorance are all too often the public face of human societies.  Rather than simply give a list of -isms, it would perhaps be prudent to rather ask what might be done in the face of structural evil.  Is there hope in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, or might it be better to simply give in to the systems of power without rocking the boat?  If the battle with structural evil begins and ends with the individual, then I dare say it is hopeless.  Yet, the individual must still play a role.  What is needed is for individuals who have been intentionally shaping/being shaped by communities of virtue to stand up against systems of power.  Last week we celebrated MLK day.  Yet, it was not MLK the man (per se), but MLK the organizer who has earned a day of remembrance.  MLK would not have been MLK were it not for the communities in which he was raised and the communities in which he shared life with others.  The only way for 'moral' individuals to continue to have hope in the face of immoral societies is through what Bonhoeffer called simply "life together."  Only through intentional living, through the recognition and naming of systems of power, of structural evil, through the resistance of a community, can unjust systems of power be overcome.

Yet, lest I sound too much like an optimist, it should be stated that even IF such communities of virtue are possible, these communities, too, will enact their own unjust systems of power.  Ever newer recognitions and intentionalities will always be necessary; the fight for justice is never complete.

Ponderings on the "soul"

     When I was in college I read an interesting book called, "Whatever Happened to the Soul."  Some professor (probably Scott Daniels) referenced this text in class, and it sounded interesting enough that I bought it and read it.  Although there are a number of different essays in this book, the overarching thesis of the book is that the Platonic notion of the soul (what some might think to be the 'traditional' understanding of a soul that is separate from, but interacting with, the body) is, at present, scientifically and philosophically untenable (n.b. I use the term 'scientific' loosely as the editors of this book are a psychologist and a philosopher).  Rather, the authours argue, it makes more sense to speak of 'soulishness'.  Simply put, they mean that there is something that is definitive of a human being, a quality that is absent in all other forms of life, yet, this quality is inherently infleshed.  Thus, what they take issue with is the idea of a disembodied soul.  Theologically this would put a much greater emphasis on the Hebrew notion of the resurrection of the dead than on a belief in the immortality of the soul.  

   

      Recently I was reading a novel, "The Art of Fielding," which called to mind my college readings.  As a sort of eulogy, one of the characters in the novel says, "You told me once that a soul isn't something a person is born with but something that must be built, by effort and error, study and love.  And you did that with more dedication than most, that work of building a soul- not for your own benefit but for the benefit of those who knew you."  I have recently been thinking a lot about the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (whom I believe I also referenced in my last post).  In particular, I am interested in his claim that a person only gains subjectivity when (s)he becomes subject to an other.  Subjectivity is only available to subjects.  This is a very different idea than the modernist idea that subjectivity and autonomy are necessary correlates each of the other.   According to Kant, the only rational, and therefore moral decision, is the decision that is made autonomously.  Levinas, on the other hand, argues that it is only when one enters into a relationship as a subject to a sovereign that one truly becomes a human.  Levinas is particularly interested in inter-human relationships, and thus, given the prior definition of the soul as that which is becoming of humanity, one might argue that, for Levinas, subjectivity as subjecthood is 'the soul', or 'soulishness'.  

   

    I am very drawn to the idea that the 'soul' is something that must be built.  I am very drawn to the idea that the hard work of building a soul, of becoming human, ought to be something that is done for the benefit of those whom one knows.  While feminist thinkers (among others) like Valerie Saiving (also among others) remind us of the potential dangers of only focusing on the other to the detriment of the self, I tend to believe that selfishness is a greater issue than detrimental selflessness for most of us.  Thus, for many, the effort of building a soul, through error, study, and love, takes the form of living for another (an other).  The soul, thus built, offers forth true humanity by denying the possibility of perfect autonomy.  Contrary to Kant's philosophy, then, moral decisions are not made in a 'rational' vacuum, but in the actually lived, embodied, world.  The morality of a decision is based not on a universally valid 'law', but upon the interactions of one with another.  This understanding of moral philosophy helps us to understand the nature of humanity.  People can no longer claim to be a 'good person' while doing 'bad things' (Of course, one should keep in mind that the soul is built upon effort and error just as it is built upon study and love).  Rather, we need to recognize that we simply are what we do.  It is our actions that determine our humanity, our 'soul'.  When we disrespect others, we disrespect ourselves.  The face of the other serves as a mirror of either the destruction or juvenation of our 'souls'.  We cannot claim to love another while only demonstrating love for ourselves.  Neither can we hope to be fully human unless we recognize the humanity (even if only potential) of others.  The nature of the 'soul' depends on this: that we love our neighbours as ourselves.  

    

   Obviously a well-developed moral theory would need to account for more than merely the inter-human relationship, but that will have to wait for another time.  I mean... come on... this is only a blog...

The Muppets

Did anybody else see this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl6ekkvWnOE ?  In case you are too disinterested to watch it, which, frankly, you probably should be, here is a long story made short: the "newsman" from Fox Business Channel makes the following claim about The Muppets film which is out in theatres now, "Liberal Hollywood [is] using class warfare to brainwash our kids... where are we, communist China?"  In truth, it was hearing this claim, and seeing this movie, that really convinced me to start blogging.  I get so overwhelmingly disturbed when people spout nonsense under the guise of 'news' (even if it is something like an 'editorial').

In case you haven't seen it, which you really should, here is the general plot of The Muppets:  It has been many years since the muppets last performed together at the famed Muppets Studios.  The intervening years have not been entirely kind to all of the Muppets (although several of them have found themselves with big, well-paying jobs).  A Texas oil man (to be fair, I think the antagonist of every movie should be a Texan) named Tex Richman is trying to buy the Muppets Studios in order to tear it down and drill for oil (although he claims to be buying it in order to build a museum).  When the muppets learn of his nefarious intentions they must come together in order to make the money needed to buy the studios before Tex Richman can turn the whole place into an oil field.  The Muppets- in a nutshell.

So, Foxy Newsman ( I'll give him a clever pseudonym rather than slander his character because my mom is very bothered by name-calling) believes that this movie is promoting 'class warfare' because it shows a rich person to be 'the bad guy'.  As a Christian theologian it seems very silly to call this 'class warfare'.  Is it not the biblical record that Jesus said something like, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God?"  And of course in the book of Timothy we hear it said that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."  This is to say nothing about Jesus' admonition to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and to care for the widow, the orphan, and the (illegal?) alien in your midst.  The biblical story is bursting with illustrations of precisely why the Christian life is called to be one of responsibility to the other, as much (if not at times more) than responsibility to oneself.  The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas claims that the face of The Other makes a demand on the self, a demand which the self cannot ultimately confirm or deny, but simply must live with (and perhaps live into).  The demand is always already present when two or more are face-to-face.  Perhaps in Christian circles we would speak not of the face, per se, but of the imago Dei- the image of God, as that which places a demand on our lives.  Of course, the image of God is left indelibly on all of creation, not merely in its 'political' form evidenced through the 'rationality' of humanity, and, thus, the demand on our lives is not only to live well with The (human) Other, but is a call to a very specific way of being-in-the-world.

This, of course, is merely a very basic description of the biblical narrative, a narrative which, to my knowledge, Foxy Newsman holds no public allegiance to.  Thus, it would behoove us to move beyond the 'merely' Christian, and look at his claims at another level.  There is a very real history of class warfare evidenced in the history of China's transformation to communism, but the Chinese cultural revolution was drastically different villainizing a villain.  You see, the problem with Tex Richman is not that he is rich, successful, or even ambitious.  The problem with Tex Richman, as The Muppets wants to demonstrate, is that he considers fiscal success to be the highest good.  In a capitalist society it is easy to follow a person like Ayn Rand (who, incidentally, was a fabulous writer) in claiming that the best action is always to act in one's own self interest (an ethical theory known as egoism). Rand detested the idea of altruism as destructive and vile.  It is no surprise that with the rise of various political 'tea parties' came a (rather poorly made) film version of Rand's classic novel, Atlas Shrugged.

Individualism is hot these days.  Yet, The Muppets constructs for us, not a collectivist, much less Communist, alternative in which the immediate good of any given individual is not always the highest good.  The Muppets demonstrates the simple fact that great wealth is often created upon the (potentially) oppressed backs of the less wealthy.  Tex Richman's great 'sin' is not being a capitalist, but simply being uncaring.  Regardless of one's political leanings (if indeed they are leanings and not full-on falls) it is hard to argue that the cost of indefinite wealth creation is sometimes simply too high.  The United States has never had a purely capitalist economy because even staunch 'conservatives' throughout history have realized that the nation (as a people, not as a disembodied hypothetical entity) has a responsibility to care one for another (to a certain extent of course).  There are very real forces of oppression at work in the world, and these forces are often stronger than the individuals upon which they are predicated.  The Muppets is not making a Communist, nor a Socialist, claim that would, in some way, do away wholly with the notion of the individual.  What The Muppets is arguing is simply that value is not merely an economic/monetary construct.  Value, however that term is understood, is always already present in the arts, in friendship, in the appreciation of history, in love, in finding oneself inexplicably but inextricably connected to an other.  Ethics, according to The Muppets, is, then, a comparative study of values.  In the movie several of the muppets have become independently wealthy through various business endeavours, yet they still realize that life is not entirely contained in those endeavours.  Even from his gated mansion Kermit the Frog wants relationship more than anything else.  This is not Communism (although I really wouldn't expect Foxy Newsman to be able to adequately describe Communism anyway), it isn't even communalism, it is simply the way of things.  Life cannot be lived alone, it is absurd to pretend otherwise.

I originally saw The Muppets nearly a week ago.  Because of travel and various other reasons I hadn't gotten around to fulling compiling my thoughts here until now.  In the week since I saw the film I have been unable to mentally escape the famous muppet song, "The Rainbow Connection," which is sung in the film (here is a version from the 70s era The Muppet Movie:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM).  Anybody who knows me well knows that I am far from an optimist, yet, I find something magical about this song.  This song, which in many ways sums up the message of The Muppets, simply wants us to see the value in living life.  The song's final verse says:

Have you been asleep
and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be...

This seems, to me, to be a pretty impressive example of imaginary eschatology.  When you get behind the fluff and the fun, maybe the muppets are right: it is the lovers and the dreamers who most transform the world in positive ways.  I may not be a dreamer, but I have, nevertheless, been somehow moved by a silly movie.  For that, I am grateful.

On Blogging

On Blogging
Recently I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog.  A few days ago I decided to take the plunge and set one up.  Being honest, I'm still a bit intimidated by the whole notion of a blog.  I have always felt as though I have terribly important things to say.  Unfortunately, the rise of the internet has allowed millions of people who 'feel as though' they have important things to say to share them with the world.  I've never liked the idea of being but a face in the crowd, which, ultimately, is what most blogs turn out to be.  However, I know that I don't get nearly enough practice writing these days, so I believe that rocking out an occasional blog post will be good for me.  Thus, here I am.

Imaginary Eschatology
I don't intend for this blog to be terribly focused, but rather to be a chance to put together my thoughts on whatever is interesting to me at any given moment.  As a Ph.D. student studying theology, philosophy, and cultural theory, I have, for quite some time, had a great interest in the idea of eschatology.  For those uninitiated in this sort of language, eschatology is generally understood to be the study of 'last things'.  In Christian theology, far too often eschatology is focused on a predicted definitive event (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/harold-camping-apologizes-rapture-predictions_n_1069520.html or http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm).  However, in my academic work, and in my personal ponderings, I prefer to think of eschatology not as a definitive time, but as a goal toward which we strive.  I have always been in love with the conclusion of The Great Gatsby, "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And then one fine morning-  So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."  Fitzgerald put into words far better than I could what I mean by 'imaginary eschatology'.  A study of 'the last things' cannot be separated from living in the present as influenced by the past. At the same time, the imagination is the best tool in our arsenal to create actual change.  A 'better' future cannot be created unless it is first imagined.  Imaginary eschatology, then, is nothing more than simply attempting to live well in the world.  Meaningful life is a risk, but it is a risk worth being taken.