Cross-Posted on Wondering Fair

“I don’t know how it is, my brothers and sisters, but the spirit of the person who actually hands something to a poor man experiences a kind of sympathy with common humanity and infirmity, when the hand of the one who has it actually placed in the hand of the one who is in need. Although the one is giving, the other receiving, the one being attended to and the one attending are being joined in a real relationship.” (from Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 259.5)

The word charity has accumulated connotations over years past such that today doubts swirl around its use: Can we really give to another selflessly? Is charity really just a superficial way to ease my conscience and in the end enable someone else’s self-destructive habits? Given some of these doubts I’ve heard it said many times that we must accept that humans are driven towards self-maintenance and shape our good intentions around this reality.

Like many discussions in modern moral philosophy, this one ends up being circular. As long as you start with the conviction that we are creatures primarily driven by survival instincts, then it is reasonable to conclude that we must organise our societies and communities around the protection of mutual self-interest. As Augustine suggests in the quote I’ve opened with, however, we need not begin with this conviction. This is precisely the legacy of the long history of Christian moral philosophy, which is driven by another starting conviction – that we are made to give and receive love. It is no accident that the Latin word for “love,”  “caritas”… is the same root that gave us “charity”.

We cannot rehabilitate this way of talking about how people might live together while relying on a soporific version of love, however. What is required here is something more robust, a sort of loving that, as Augustine points out is inherently reciprocal and self-involving. Giving in love requires that we enter into another person’s experience in empathy. If we do not allow ourselves the chance to feel the suffering (and joy!) of our neighbour, then we may not actually be experiencing “true love.” The long-term consequence of this love is a mutual relationship.

For Augustine and other Christians reflecting in this tradition, it must be noted, this way of approaching our conduct did not apply exclusively to one’s personal life. This same sort of mutually involving Love could be expected to drive the interaction between societies as well. As we have seen over past decades, efficient calculations of mutual self-interest do not necessarily lead to more healthy societies or offer us the tools to truly confront the defining moral issues of our time – including the environmental crisis in which we now find ourselves. An ethic of love provides us a starting point which pursues not mere survival but a principle of self-giving which can seek to help across borders and across generations. This is surely a complicated matter, but it is nonetheless crucial to affirm a starting point by which we can expect to reliably guide our interactions, and the Christian tradition offers us exactly that.

Jeremy Kidwell

Cross-posted on Wondering Fair

As the millionth bus drove past me with an advertisement for the latest installation of the Twilight saga (though this term seems generous as “saga” might usually imply a sustained plot line with a broad scope), my thoughts this morning turned to our recent obsession with vampires. Perhaps in contrast to some, I’m not all that opposed to the so-called Goth movement. I think that there is a great deal of honesty in people’s, often teens, dissatisfaction with this generation’s superficial notions of beauty and substance. What I’m not quite so sure about is the new flood of gothic romance novels (and now movies) which seem to have exploded on the shelves of my local bookstore.

This 21st century focus on ‘gothic’ fashion and sensibilities parallels some aspects of the earlier movement in 18-19th century modern literature which brought us such classics as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Following the new ‘Romantic ‘ focus on emotion, feeling, and the potential that we might find some glimpse of the sublime in the extremes of feeling, these authors sought to explore the contours of terror. Strangely enough, John Muir’s appreciation of the experience of standing before the extreme majesty of a mountain range arose out of the same basic interest which compelled the writers of gothic fiction to imagine the horrors of ghosts, phantasms, and monsters.

Yet there is a contrast to be found, at least with respect to Frankenstein, in the posture towards monstrosity. Monsters in the earlier gothic sense were hazy and impressionistic. Frankenstein was the name of the inventor who made the horrible creature which bore no name. Our monsters now seem rather less monstrous and much more human. In a strange way, the two categories (human and monster) which the gothic writers mobilised with such success have begun to converge in the contemporary imagination. While those 19th century writers sought to produce an extreme state of fear, (which was thought to have a positive result in the long run) these contemporary monsters seem so much more pathetic and lonely. This sort of monstrosity offers a mirror by which we can look at ourselves, though the extremes of violence and capacity which they represent are not in the end extremes at all.

This is where I wonder whether the contemporary gothic movement might do with a bit more careful construal of its purposes. To be sure, false impressions of beauty are horribly deceptive, and deserve unmasking. Similarly, monstrosity can be a useful trope by which to examine our own capabilities and proclivities. But have our societies just grown comfortable with the fact that we’re monstrous on some level, and given up acting in protest against the violence, brutality, and ugliness which lies at the heart of monstrosity? This seems to me to be some of the more sinister message behind the characters’ persistent quest to sleep with a Vampire. Isn’t the purpose, at least as those older gothic writers saw it, to unmask monstrosity? To identify its otherness?

Cross-posted on Wondering Fair

An accident unravelled before my eyes a few weeks ago. As I was walking down a quiet street with a busy intersection, it struck my ears first, which caught the unexpected combined sounds of a screech, thud, and then a weak cry. As I turned, my eyes found a sweet older woman lying in the middle of the street, next to her bicycle, cycle-basket and purse contents strewn across the road.

I feared the worst, as most likely did the driver involved, who left his car in a great hurry and knelt at her side. From my distance I couldn’t make out his words, and as nearby people seemed to have the situation well in hand, I continued my walk, unsettled but not wanting to be a voyeur. It turned out that I was going the wrong way (my usual me…), and as I returned 20 minutes later, the road was already clear. To my even greater surprise, I found the driver and cyclist standing on the side of the road, speaking, somewhat tenderly. As I watched, the driver gave the cyclist a gentle hug and they went on their way, apparently none the worse for wear.

I share this experience because the unfolding of it caught me by surprise. My thoughts turned to other accidents that I had witnessed and the aftermath that had ensued. Drivers, victims, or both, shouting at one another, each trying to establish fault by decibels. This incident struck me as so dissonant, precisely because the two involved were gracious and tender towards one another.

In the midst of a letter where he writes about freedom, Paul commends exactly this sort of mutually compassionate interaction. He suggests:

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are
thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:9–21 NRSV)

I know nothing about the faith of the two people involved in this accident, but that need not prevent their showing the truly authentic Christian love that Paul is writing about here. An accident has forged friends out of strangers; they not only showed care, but even affection, for one another. The hurt lady, especially, could be enraged by the accident, but, as Paul says, she overcame the evil of the situation with good spirit, and went home smiling instead of grudging, with a story to entertain people at dinner. Very often we write lofty poetry about love, and describes the heights of romantic rapture, but I guess love can be as simple as helping out a stranger, and being kind to those who have been careless and thrown us face down on the road.

Cross-posted on Wondering Fair

Much gets said these days about liberty and freedom across the political spectrum. At the heart of talk about “inalienable rights” is usually the notion of freedom, and in the contemporary context, we find political systems often construed as protectors of personal rights. Yet when the foundation for the notion of justice and right is personal liberty, or “freedom,” problems arise.

Let me give an example. Freedoms can often be pitted against one another: the exercise of one person’s right to free speech can enable the defamation of another person, impinging upon their right to maintain an accurate depiction of their character and reputation. Similarly, my right to affordable food can impinge upon the right of another person to just working conditions in a distant land. Amidst these sorts of troubles, it remains unpopular to suggest that religious faith might offer some sort of a solution, and while this sentiment is deeply rooted in Western history, it is not necessarily productive.

With the rise of Protestantism, the medieval notion of authority came under threat. Long-held convictions regarding the subject of moral authority were questioned, leaving people wondering whether they owed allegiance to the pope, the prince, or neither. After over a century of bloody wars and conflict across Europe over the subject of religion, a treaty was struck and Christian doctrine was sidelined as a unifying factor for the political identities of the emerging European states, at the Peace of Westphalia. Leaders concluded that it would be best to sideline religion for the sake of social stability. Following a few generations after this legacy, the philosopher Immanuel Kant developed a new way of moral thinking that could respect the need for social order but leave faith conviction on the sidelines. The system he imagined has become one of the more enduring philosophical legacies for the succeeding centuries!

Fast-forward to the present day, and it has become clear that, though Kant offered a new sort of “objectivity,” there were losses as well. In order to grant coherence to the concept of duty in this newly secular modern world, objectivity became the new focal point of moral deliberation. And this objectivity comes at a cost, as Plato suggests: “If we are to have clear knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body” (Phaedo). Old theological notions such as justice, were replaced with new secular ones like “fairness” and “equality.” But this brave new world can be bleak at times, as the secular vision for the good life, which was to be achieved through science and engineering, has been frustrated in a wide variety of circumstances, including new wars, Nazi projects in human engineering, and fascist experiments in social engineering. To be fair, this new Scientific society has also brought us refrigeration and disposable toilet cleaners, but one is often left wondering… where is the idea of the “good life”?

In Kant’s vision, created particularities had to be left on the sidelines along with the creator. In privileging our rational faculties for the sake of objectively discerning our duties, Kant also left behind the role of our emotional lives and the unique contours and needs of the social life of neighbourhoods.

I would argue much is to be gained with a re-affirmation that at the true center of freedom lies the notion that we are created, contingent creatures. In the wake of the creeping failure of the modern orientations for the moral life – progress, science, engineering – in some cases people have finally given up on orienting our societies to any sort of purpose at all. And, without an orientation, we are prone to wander. As Augustine observed in another age of violent conflict, “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you [God]” (inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te). I think it is no accident that Augustine puts this in the plural as well. Not only are our personal lives prone to disorientation when we have nothing by which to order them, so too is our common life prone to wander restlessly searching for an orientation which can guide our life together.

1) Information gathering
2) Education
3) Personal commitment
4) Negotiations
5) Direct action
6) Reconciliation

from The King Center http://www.thekingcenter.org/prog/non/6steps.html
Derived from “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” in Dr. King’s book Stride Toward Freedom, Harper & Row, 1958.

From T.S. Eliot: The Wasteland: 1. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers

From T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: Little Gidding, 1

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When thh short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?