"'For instance, do you see this chunk of land, washed on one side by the ocean? Look, it's filling with fire. A war has started there. If you look closer, you'll see the details.'
"Margarita leaned towards the globe and saw the little square of land spread out, get painted in many colors, and turn as it were into a relief map. And then she saw the little ribbon of a river, and some village near it. A little house the size of a pea grow and became the size of a matchbox. Suddenly and noiselessly the roof of this house flew up along with a cloud of black smoke, and the walls collapsed, so that nothing was left of the little two-storey box except a small heap with black smoke pouring from it. Bringing her eye still closer, Margarita made out a small female figure lying on the ground, and next to her, in a pool of blood, a little child with outstretched arms.
"'That's it,' Woland said, smiling, 'he had no time to sin. Abaddon's work is impeccable.... He is of a rare impartiality and sympathizes equally with both sides of the fight. Owing to that, the results are always the same for both sides'," - The Master and Margarita.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
renewal...
Before any renewal can take place, we must first take account of the pseudomorphosis suffered by the Western Church's culture and ethos. This pseudomorphosis is the result of the haphazard introduction of elements alien to it's holistic, realist, anti- rationalist approach to the unity of worship, theological reflection, and practical works in witness to the Kingdom that has come and is yet to come. Just thought I'd mention it...
total war to end all peace...
So, it seems there's an 'Obama Doctrine' by which one can discern whether a given war is or is not justified. Wars, you see, should mean something; they serve lofty moral purposes and advance History toward its fulfillment, or they lack justification. War is, if you will, aspirational. This implies of course that one ought to be reluctant to wage war over oil, water, fishing rights, or anything so pedestrian.
This is a reiteration, and in some ways an expansion, of the doctrine of 'Armed Humanitarianism' that has been orthodoxy since at least the First Gulf War. Recall that we were in a life or death struggle with a tyrant who was 'another Hitler' - one must always fight Hitlers [Stalins get a pass, as do Francos, but pay that no never mind]. What's important is that the conflict was cast in humanitarian terms - a ruthless dictator had given vent to his expansionist fantasies by invading a sovereign, peaceful country, one moreover that was not only smaller physically but possessed of no means of defending itself against such 'naked aggression'. It would fall the to the US and its allies to protect that nascent 'New World Order' aborning in the wake of the Fall Of Communism, by liberating Kuwait.
Recall as well that Bush Sr called on the Iraqi people to rise up and throw off the shackles of oppression. In the doing they would find an ally in the US, an ally moreover with F-14's and stealth bombers and highly skilled special forces at its disposal. Well, the Iraqis rose up, and we abandoned 'em.
Allow me a digression here. I remember hearing that the cease-fire accord worked out between the Coalition and Iraq required the Iraqis to refrain from using 'fixed wing aircraft', while allowing the use of 'rotary winged aircraft' (respectively 'airplanes' and 'helicopters' to the nonelect). This was hilarious inasmuch as we had destroyed most if not all of the 'fixed wing aircraft' the Iraqi military had, in good Old Soviet Style,* more or less buried in fixed bunkers. Even more delightful is the fact that 'rotary wing aircraft' are perfect for suppressing demonstrations and strafing villages and providing air support for mobile infantry and internal police units. Give that a thought. Here ends the digression...
So it was that the Iraqi regime used its rotary wing aircraft and its remaining Republican Guard troops and a rabble of police to suppress and then destroy the opposition. It would take some time to set 'No Fly Zones' over northern and southern Iraq.
I mention that little adventure because it points up the limits of idealism in warfare. There was simply no way we could have intervened in the Iraqi uprisings because, despite their common target - Saddam - the leaders of the various factions were quite at odds with each other, and would have most certainly fought a civil war in the absence of the Brutal Dictator. Thus, we would have found ourselves willy-nilly embroiled in a mess from which there was no escape.**
I also recall that there was then, as now, opposition to our adventures in the Persian Gulf. You could find pockets of protesters all over the campus where I lived and studied. Their most determined argument was that the First Gulf War was no war of liberation at all. Indeed, to these protesters and their sympathizers, all such rhetoric was a cynical ploy. No, this was a war for oil, plain and simple. The geopolitical status quo in the Middle East had to be maintained at all costs: the US had been nearly crippled by the OPEC oil shocks of the 70's, and we were determined that never again would our access to oil be threatened. That it was in this case threatened by a Brutal Dictator was a happy accident, allowing the administration to cast its naked power-grab in the rhetoric of liberation, law, and justice. That we abandoned the Iraqi people to the tender mercies of the Republican Guard once we had 'liberated' Kuwait only confirmed this dire reading of events. All this was summed up in their most common slogan of opposition - 'No Blood For Oil'.
Simple, eh?
It's obvious in hindsight that the First Gulf War was in fact a war about oil, and a war about liberation, and a war about restoring 'National Pride'.*** So it is with most wars, which are largely creations of accident and mixed motives. What's interesting in the context of our current military adventures, and the stir over the 'Obama Doctrine', is the extent to which we've only inflated the humanitarian, idealistic rhetoric with which we define our objectives and our justifications for war, while we grow ever more oblivious to the often sordid reality of actual warfare and its rationalizations. From Bosnia and Serbia, to Somalia, and on to Iraq (again) and now Libya, our wars have been for the most part framed as humanitarian interventions. Especially since the Clinton adminstration, more and more we have made warfare an idealistic venture.
Of course, this is nothing new - consider the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the American Revolution and then the Civil War (which was really a second revolution), World War I and the Russian Civil War. In fact, here we've run against a feature of late modernity in the West. Warfare came to be understood not as a regrettable, but intractable, feature of fallen human life, but as an exceptional evil that could be extirpated once and for all. Most often, the current war was to be the means of finally eliminating all war, either because rational humans would finally see how brutal war was [in order to impress the lesson, we had to wage war without restraint], or because the Elect would finally have eliminated those opposed to History, and thereby eliminated the Cause of Conflict.
Thus the wars of modernity have been exceptionally cruel total wars, lacking all real distinction in theory and in practice between civilian and combatant, torture and interrogation, tactical necessity and vengeance.**** Most of 'em have been civil wars (one could include here even World Wars I and II), and nearly all of 'em have been at least in part driven by an Idealism of one kind or another. What's more, almost all of 'em have been conceived as the Last War, the one which will usher in a secular Peace.
What my friends with their posters denouncing 'Blood for Oil' didn't see, and couldn't see without this historical perspective, is that it's actually far better to fight a war for oil than it is to fight one for some lofty idealism, whether the goal is the liberation of the oppressed or to creation of a Perpetual Peace. A war for oil, or some other tangible thing over which there is a dispute, can end, you see. A war waged for the sake of peace, or justice, or some other intangible ideal, will, by definition, never end. There are always enemies of the ideal who refuse the call of History, and it's all to easy to go from a humanitarian mission (defending civilians, for instance), to a full-blown massacre of those who refuse to be saved.
To return to the 'Obama Doctrine' - in requiring that wars 'mean something', that they serve lofty moral ends, our dear leader has simply been the latest to give voice to the ideal of Total War to End All War. That he has further expanded the executive power to wage war without congressional oversight is only logical - the Leader, as a manifestation of the Will of History, must have unfettered freedom to wage war for the sake of peace anywhere at any time.
So it is that we have come to a rather odd and horrible impasse. Whatever our particular pieties, for us war is not a rather pedestrian part of fallen life, to be at best ameliorated and limited through law and religious obligation, which would imply prudential reasoning and public debate and quaint formalities like declarations of war and the like. No, for us war is at once an absolute evil and the means to its own elimination. We are trapped in this contradiction, and possibly doomed to total war without end. How, or even if, we can get out of it, remains to be seen. If we do free ourselves from it, I suspect that a first step will be to realize that war is not a means to liberation, justice, or universal peace, but is merely a manifestation of fallen human violence, to be restrained, regulated, and if need be endured, this side of the Final Resurrection.*****
*Does anyone remember that the lighting ground war of 1991, was a miniature version of that great Apocalyptic Battle on the eastern European plain between Soviet and NATO forces which had long excited the fantasies of generals and game theorists on both sides of the Iron Curtain? For what it's worth, it proved that NATO would have beaten the Warsaw Pact in any conventional conflict, but that's another story for another day...
**Sound familiar? Indeed, from the wars in the Balkans to Iraq to, now, Libya, we have more and more entangled ourselves in civil wars. Of course we take sides. To decide which 'side' to support, we seem to rely on some sort of divination that allows our Leader to ride the Dialectic of History...
***A local television station loudly proclaimed that we had won our Greatest Victory and had exorcised the Ghosts of Vietnam.
****This has much to do also with the expanding totalism of the Modern State, but that's a topic for another day. Furthermore, let no one imagine that I conjure here a golden age of peace - people found yet cunning reasons to kill one another. I do assert, however, that there was a greater sense of realism regarding war before the modern era - a counterintuitive theorem to be sure, the proof of which I leave as an exercise for the reader.
*****This is why those who truly practice nonviolence are also realistic about the persistence of war as a feature of fallen history - by their refusal to fight, coupled with an acceptance of martyrdom if needs be, they are signs of the Kingdom that has come and is yet to come. At the same time, there is a way of warfare that has been all but forgotten, one that can often be in defense of the widow, the orphan, the oppressed. Consider the fatally flawed film Tears of the Sun, wherein a Navy Seal commander makes a sudden decision to stay and protect a ragtag gaggle of refugees who would otherwise be killed in their land's fratricidal civil war. This is not an act moved by idealism, or a desire to rid the world of war - this man has seen enough to know that is impossible. Of course, there is a massive air strike at the end and American helicopters come to the rescue, and we also find that they have unintentionally defended the 'rightful' president of the war-torn African nation, all of which undermines the moral center of the story.
This is a reiteration, and in some ways an expansion, of the doctrine of 'Armed Humanitarianism' that has been orthodoxy since at least the First Gulf War. Recall that we were in a life or death struggle with a tyrant who was 'another Hitler' - one must always fight Hitlers [Stalins get a pass, as do Francos, but pay that no never mind]. What's important is that the conflict was cast in humanitarian terms - a ruthless dictator had given vent to his expansionist fantasies by invading a sovereign, peaceful country, one moreover that was not only smaller physically but possessed of no means of defending itself against such 'naked aggression'. It would fall the to the US and its allies to protect that nascent 'New World Order' aborning in the wake of the Fall Of Communism, by liberating Kuwait.
Recall as well that Bush Sr called on the Iraqi people to rise up and throw off the shackles of oppression. In the doing they would find an ally in the US, an ally moreover with F-14's and stealth bombers and highly skilled special forces at its disposal. Well, the Iraqis rose up, and we abandoned 'em.
Allow me a digression here. I remember hearing that the cease-fire accord worked out between the Coalition and Iraq required the Iraqis to refrain from using 'fixed wing aircraft', while allowing the use of 'rotary winged aircraft' (respectively 'airplanes' and 'helicopters' to the nonelect). This was hilarious inasmuch as we had destroyed most if not all of the 'fixed wing aircraft' the Iraqi military had, in good Old Soviet Style,* more or less buried in fixed bunkers. Even more delightful is the fact that 'rotary wing aircraft' are perfect for suppressing demonstrations and strafing villages and providing air support for mobile infantry and internal police units. Give that a thought. Here ends the digression...
So it was that the Iraqi regime used its rotary wing aircraft and its remaining Republican Guard troops and a rabble of police to suppress and then destroy the opposition. It would take some time to set 'No Fly Zones' over northern and southern Iraq.
I mention that little adventure because it points up the limits of idealism in warfare. There was simply no way we could have intervened in the Iraqi uprisings because, despite their common target - Saddam - the leaders of the various factions were quite at odds with each other, and would have most certainly fought a civil war in the absence of the Brutal Dictator. Thus, we would have found ourselves willy-nilly embroiled in a mess from which there was no escape.**
I also recall that there was then, as now, opposition to our adventures in the Persian Gulf. You could find pockets of protesters all over the campus where I lived and studied. Their most determined argument was that the First Gulf War was no war of liberation at all. Indeed, to these protesters and their sympathizers, all such rhetoric was a cynical ploy. No, this was a war for oil, plain and simple. The geopolitical status quo in the Middle East had to be maintained at all costs: the US had been nearly crippled by the OPEC oil shocks of the 70's, and we were determined that never again would our access to oil be threatened. That it was in this case threatened by a Brutal Dictator was a happy accident, allowing the administration to cast its naked power-grab in the rhetoric of liberation, law, and justice. That we abandoned the Iraqi people to the tender mercies of the Republican Guard once we had 'liberated' Kuwait only confirmed this dire reading of events. All this was summed up in their most common slogan of opposition - 'No Blood For Oil'.
Simple, eh?
It's obvious in hindsight that the First Gulf War was in fact a war about oil, and a war about liberation, and a war about restoring 'National Pride'.*** So it is with most wars, which are largely creations of accident and mixed motives. What's interesting in the context of our current military adventures, and the stir over the 'Obama Doctrine', is the extent to which we've only inflated the humanitarian, idealistic rhetoric with which we define our objectives and our justifications for war, while we grow ever more oblivious to the often sordid reality of actual warfare and its rationalizations. From Bosnia and Serbia, to Somalia, and on to Iraq (again) and now Libya, our wars have been for the most part framed as humanitarian interventions. Especially since the Clinton adminstration, more and more we have made warfare an idealistic venture.
Of course, this is nothing new - consider the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the American Revolution and then the Civil War (which was really a second revolution), World War I and the Russian Civil War. In fact, here we've run against a feature of late modernity in the West. Warfare came to be understood not as a regrettable, but intractable, feature of fallen human life, but as an exceptional evil that could be extirpated once and for all. Most often, the current war was to be the means of finally eliminating all war, either because rational humans would finally see how brutal war was [in order to impress the lesson, we had to wage war without restraint], or because the Elect would finally have eliminated those opposed to History, and thereby eliminated the Cause of Conflict.
Thus the wars of modernity have been exceptionally cruel total wars, lacking all real distinction in theory and in practice between civilian and combatant, torture and interrogation, tactical necessity and vengeance.**** Most of 'em have been civil wars (one could include here even World Wars I and II), and nearly all of 'em have been at least in part driven by an Idealism of one kind or another. What's more, almost all of 'em have been conceived as the Last War, the one which will usher in a secular Peace.
What my friends with their posters denouncing 'Blood for Oil' didn't see, and couldn't see without this historical perspective, is that it's actually far better to fight a war for oil than it is to fight one for some lofty idealism, whether the goal is the liberation of the oppressed or to creation of a Perpetual Peace. A war for oil, or some other tangible thing over which there is a dispute, can end, you see. A war waged for the sake of peace, or justice, or some other intangible ideal, will, by definition, never end. There are always enemies of the ideal who refuse the call of History, and it's all to easy to go from a humanitarian mission (defending civilians, for instance), to a full-blown massacre of those who refuse to be saved.
To return to the 'Obama Doctrine' - in requiring that wars 'mean something', that they serve lofty moral ends, our dear leader has simply been the latest to give voice to the ideal of Total War to End All War. That he has further expanded the executive power to wage war without congressional oversight is only logical - the Leader, as a manifestation of the Will of History, must have unfettered freedom to wage war for the sake of peace anywhere at any time.
So it is that we have come to a rather odd and horrible impasse. Whatever our particular pieties, for us war is not a rather pedestrian part of fallen life, to be at best ameliorated and limited through law and religious obligation, which would imply prudential reasoning and public debate and quaint formalities like declarations of war and the like. No, for us war is at once an absolute evil and the means to its own elimination. We are trapped in this contradiction, and possibly doomed to total war without end. How, or even if, we can get out of it, remains to be seen. If we do free ourselves from it, I suspect that a first step will be to realize that war is not a means to liberation, justice, or universal peace, but is merely a manifestation of fallen human violence, to be restrained, regulated, and if need be endured, this side of the Final Resurrection.*****
*Does anyone remember that the lighting ground war of 1991, was a miniature version of that great Apocalyptic Battle on the eastern European plain between Soviet and NATO forces which had long excited the fantasies of generals and game theorists on both sides of the Iron Curtain? For what it's worth, it proved that NATO would have beaten the Warsaw Pact in any conventional conflict, but that's another story for another day...
**Sound familiar? Indeed, from the wars in the Balkans to Iraq to, now, Libya, we have more and more entangled ourselves in civil wars. Of course we take sides. To decide which 'side' to support, we seem to rely on some sort of divination that allows our Leader to ride the Dialectic of History...
***A local television station loudly proclaimed that we had won our Greatest Victory and had exorcised the Ghosts of Vietnam.
****This has much to do also with the expanding totalism of the Modern State, but that's a topic for another day. Furthermore, let no one imagine that I conjure here a golden age of peace - people found yet cunning reasons to kill one another. I do assert, however, that there was a greater sense of realism regarding war before the modern era - a counterintuitive theorem to be sure, the proof of which I leave as an exercise for the reader.
*****This is why those who truly practice nonviolence are also realistic about the persistence of war as a feature of fallen history - by their refusal to fight, coupled with an acceptance of martyrdom if needs be, they are signs of the Kingdom that has come and is yet to come. At the same time, there is a way of warfare that has been all but forgotten, one that can often be in defense of the widow, the orphan, the oppressed. Consider the fatally flawed film Tears of the Sun, wherein a Navy Seal commander makes a sudden decision to stay and protect a ragtag gaggle of refugees who would otherwise be killed in their land's fratricidal civil war. This is not an act moved by idealism, or a desire to rid the world of war - this man has seen enough to know that is impossible. Of course, there is a massive air strike at the end and American helicopters come to the rescue, and we also find that they have unintentionally defended the 'rightful' president of the war-torn African nation, all of which undermines the moral center of the story.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
something from Soren...
'The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. ...My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible....'
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
the best american poems you say...
Jay Parini offers his accounting of the ten best American poems [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/mar/11/best-american-poems]. Gave me pause, it did, so I had to come up with my own. As you'll see, we agree on Whitman, Stevens, Bishop, and Williams, though I had the good sense to include the latter in my official list. I've also decided not to limit myself to just ten poems, though I will try not to cram too much into this. So, here goes, some of the best American poems according to little ol' me, in no particular order I might add.
Yes, Whitman's Song of MyselfAnd yes, 'The Idea of Order at Key West' by Wallace Stevens, along with The Man with the Blue Guitar
Yet again with a yes to 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop, and I would include 'A Miracle for Breakfast' and 'Sestina'
Trumbull Stickney's 'Mnemosyne'
Edwin Arlington Robinson's 'Eros Turannos', 'Sonnet', George Crabbe', and...hell, all of the sonnets, and 'Rembrandt to Rembrandt'
I include Frederick Goddard Tuckerman's Sonnets as a unified work
Asphodel, that Greeny Flower, by William Carlos Williams
'The Fear', 'The Oven Bird', 'Never Again Would Birds' Song be the Same', 'Design', 'After Apple Picking', 'Home Burial', 'The Silken Tent', 'Star in a Stone Boat', 'The Need of Being Versed in Country Things', by Robert Frost
'Lying', 'Mayflies', 'A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra', 'Thyme Flowering among Rocks', by Richard Wilbur
Louis Zukofsky's A
The Venetian Vespers, 'Terms', 'Death Sauntering About', Anthony Hecht
I'll stop now.
Yes, Whitman's Song of MyselfAnd yes, 'The Idea of Order at Key West' by Wallace Stevens, along with The Man with the Blue Guitar
Yet again with a yes to 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop, and I would include 'A Miracle for Breakfast' and 'Sestina'
Trumbull Stickney's 'Mnemosyne'
Edwin Arlington Robinson's 'Eros Turannos', 'Sonnet', George Crabbe', and...hell, all of the sonnets, and 'Rembrandt to Rembrandt'
I include Frederick Goddard Tuckerman's Sonnets as a unified work
Asphodel, that Greeny Flower, by William Carlos Williams
'The Fear', 'The Oven Bird', 'Never Again Would Birds' Song be the Same', 'Design', 'After Apple Picking', 'Home Burial', 'The Silken Tent', 'Star in a Stone Boat', 'The Need of Being Versed in Country Things', by Robert Frost
'Lying', 'Mayflies', 'A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra', 'Thyme Flowering among Rocks', by Richard Wilbur
Louis Zukofsky's A
The Venetian Vespers, 'Terms', 'Death Sauntering About', Anthony Hecht
I'll stop now.
Monday, March 21, 2011
incoherent thoughts on the little war in Libya...
Seems a scattered uprising against Ghaddaffi [Qadafi, Gadaffi, Ghadaphi, whatever], led in a rather haphazard way by a gaggle of folks divided in their aims and their loyalties, grew into a civil war as military units in eastern Libya and elsewhere defected and took up arms against their former master. So far so good. Yet, there's something amiss here - we really don't seem to know what the hell is happening in Libya, and the reason I think is that we have no means of reflecting in any depth on the mind at work in Tripoli. This, along with what is obviously a lack of tactical and strategic wit, will doom any military intervention in Libya, even if such intervention is legitimate.
To begin. The revolutionary fervor sweeping across north Africa and into Arab nations like Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, has taken many forms in its protean growth, and in this way this regional unrest resembles somewhat Europe in 1848. Consider the differences between Egypt and Libya. Libya is a 'nation' cobbled together from two lopsided halves, and eastern Libya has never sat easy with the much larger western region. Instead of a unified people with a shared history or ideology, what we have is a loosely tied gaggle of tribes and a swirling current of interests often at odds. In fact, it's safe to say that in western and central Libya, the Maximum Leader enjoys considerable support for any of a number of reasons. This is why the larger success of the rebel forces have been concentrated in the east, and why moreover those successes have not included any advance through conquest of territory.
What's more, Ghadafi has more or less systematically destroyed every mediating institution that could stand between him and 'his people'. Not even the military is unified. It has a weak officer corps, and there seems to be an uneven connection between the military and people it supposedly serves. This is all simply consistent with Kadafi's radical ideology. To his mind, his will is the immediate manifestation of the General Will of The People. When he says therefore that 'The People' love him, he means it quite literally - how could they not love the Leader who incarnates their universal, general will, and thus rules with justice and a sure hand?
How different Libya is from Egypt. The latter has, for instance, a unified military with a strong officer corps, a military moreover that commands the respect and even, it seems, the love of the people as a whole. And Egypt itself is a land with a long, complicated, often contradictory history, but one the Egyptian people claim with pride. Just think of how often we heard about the 'four thousand years of history' as the early movements of their revolution unfolded. Finally, whatever one may say of Mobarak, he did not spend decades dismantling every mediating institution in the country so that there would be nothing and no one between him and the Egyptian people. Indeed, it seems that one of the problems in Egypt was and is that many of those institutions may just be too sclerotic and thus in need of radical overhaul. For these and other reasons, it's safe to say that while the Egyptian revolution is far from over, it will always be a far different affair from the civil war in Libya.
Note that I call it a civil war. As soon as the first shots were fired, and troops defected and brought their artillery units and fighter jets along, the uprising in Libya became a civil war - it's just that simple. So, we and other nations are intervening in a civil war, which by definition is a vicious fratricidal struggle, even when the various factions barely recognize each other as belonging to the same nation. To take up arms and wade into a civil war is - again, by definition - to take sides.
Yet we steadfastly deny this reality. Thus we have embarked on a venture that is muddled from the start. Consider - the supposed mandate of this action is to 'protect civilians', but who are the civilians in this case? How do you distinguish between those who are protesting and thus applying pressure through civil disobedience, and the rebel forces that provide the force to back up that political pressure? Those marching and gathering in city squares, and those firing artillery and strafing loyalist positions are two sides of the same movement. When Gadaffi attacks either one of 'em, he attacks the same movement. Do we only bomb his forces when they are attacking the protesters, but not when the attack the rebel armies? Whatever the impossible answer to that intractable question, it's irrelevant in a way since we have mounted concerted aerial and missle bombardments designed to 'degrade Libyan command and control abilities', which is tantamount to helping rebel forces destroy the official Libyan military and thus overthrow the regime.
What's more, the tactics used in this baffling engagement are incoherent. Cruise missiles, strategic bombers, and strike fighter-bombers are impressive and powerful, and they certainly allow 'allied forces' to deliver massive firepower efficiently, but I hardly think they are the best tools at hand if the goal is the protection of civilians, even if one wishes to protect 'em while helping one side win the civil war. They make a notoriously blunt instrument, and inevitably kill civilians, often in large numbers. As soon as the first civilian casualties are counted, especially if they are in loyalist strongholds like Tripoli, the veneer of 'legitimacy' will come right off this thing. Far better would have been the use of such close air support aircraft as the A10, the C130 gunship, and various attack helicopters, all of which could take out loyalist armor and artillery and troops, while allowing their pilots greater precision. Fighter-bombers could then be restricted to engagements with their like numbers in the loyalist air force.
Of course, to take such action would require that we come clean and, as I've said ad nauseum, admit that we've intervened in a civil war within a sovereign, if criminal, nation, and that we're determined that one side prevail over the other. The allied air power would in that case constitute the de facto air force of the rebel forces.
Now, I offer no brief in support of such intervention. I find it dangerous and futile. It is dangerous for several reasons. We really don't know who if anybody is really leading the rebel forces, and thus we have no one to talk to and treat with as the war comes to an end, if indeed we know what the 'end' of such a civil war might look like. [What does 'winning' look like if you have no unified opposition?] We can understand this by way of contrast - consider that whatever one thinks of the Confederacy, a Confederate victory would have been as clear as that of the Union, because the Confederacy was a unified political body. We can't tell what the hell the opposition in Libya really is, or what they really want, apart from their well-justified loathing for Qadaphi. So, such intervention is dangerous. It is futile for all the reasons already given: the ambiguity of the objective given the nature of the opposition, the poor tactics reflecting poor strategic thinking, and so on.
Still, if we are going to do it, the let's at least do it right. To do so, however, would expose pilots to immediate risk - they could be captured or killed, as they would be vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. It would be politically unpalatable, as much amongst the Arab League and here in the US. Finally, to intelligently and effectively intervene in such a civil war would require the kind of strategic and tactical, as well as political, reflection that no one in Washington, London, France, or anywhere else among the 'allied nations', is capable of. The only real strategic thinking manifest in the whole affair has been among the Russians and the Chinese - let that terrify you as it may. The result is that we do not get a coherent military and political intervention in a messy civil war, but we get instead a half-assed 'no fly zone', historically the costliest and most pointless response to a regime's dastardly deeds. I don't see how any good can come from this.
To begin. The revolutionary fervor sweeping across north Africa and into Arab nations like Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, has taken many forms in its protean growth, and in this way this regional unrest resembles somewhat Europe in 1848. Consider the differences between Egypt and Libya. Libya is a 'nation' cobbled together from two lopsided halves, and eastern Libya has never sat easy with the much larger western region. Instead of a unified people with a shared history or ideology, what we have is a loosely tied gaggle of tribes and a swirling current of interests often at odds. In fact, it's safe to say that in western and central Libya, the Maximum Leader enjoys considerable support for any of a number of reasons. This is why the larger success of the rebel forces have been concentrated in the east, and why moreover those successes have not included any advance through conquest of territory.
What's more, Ghadafi has more or less systematically destroyed every mediating institution that could stand between him and 'his people'. Not even the military is unified. It has a weak officer corps, and there seems to be an uneven connection between the military and people it supposedly serves. This is all simply consistent with Kadafi's radical ideology. To his mind, his will is the immediate manifestation of the General Will of The People. When he says therefore that 'The People' love him, he means it quite literally - how could they not love the Leader who incarnates their universal, general will, and thus rules with justice and a sure hand?
How different Libya is from Egypt. The latter has, for instance, a unified military with a strong officer corps, a military moreover that commands the respect and even, it seems, the love of the people as a whole. And Egypt itself is a land with a long, complicated, often contradictory history, but one the Egyptian people claim with pride. Just think of how often we heard about the 'four thousand years of history' as the early movements of their revolution unfolded. Finally, whatever one may say of Mobarak, he did not spend decades dismantling every mediating institution in the country so that there would be nothing and no one between him and the Egyptian people. Indeed, it seems that one of the problems in Egypt was and is that many of those institutions may just be too sclerotic and thus in need of radical overhaul. For these and other reasons, it's safe to say that while the Egyptian revolution is far from over, it will always be a far different affair from the civil war in Libya.
Note that I call it a civil war. As soon as the first shots were fired, and troops defected and brought their artillery units and fighter jets along, the uprising in Libya became a civil war - it's just that simple. So, we and other nations are intervening in a civil war, which by definition is a vicious fratricidal struggle, even when the various factions barely recognize each other as belonging to the same nation. To take up arms and wade into a civil war is - again, by definition - to take sides.
Yet we steadfastly deny this reality. Thus we have embarked on a venture that is muddled from the start. Consider - the supposed mandate of this action is to 'protect civilians', but who are the civilians in this case? How do you distinguish between those who are protesting and thus applying pressure through civil disobedience, and the rebel forces that provide the force to back up that political pressure? Those marching and gathering in city squares, and those firing artillery and strafing loyalist positions are two sides of the same movement. When Gadaffi attacks either one of 'em, he attacks the same movement. Do we only bomb his forces when they are attacking the protesters, but not when the attack the rebel armies? Whatever the impossible answer to that intractable question, it's irrelevant in a way since we have mounted concerted aerial and missle bombardments designed to 'degrade Libyan command and control abilities', which is tantamount to helping rebel forces destroy the official Libyan military and thus overthrow the regime.
What's more, the tactics used in this baffling engagement are incoherent. Cruise missiles, strategic bombers, and strike fighter-bombers are impressive and powerful, and they certainly allow 'allied forces' to deliver massive firepower efficiently, but I hardly think they are the best tools at hand if the goal is the protection of civilians, even if one wishes to protect 'em while helping one side win the civil war. They make a notoriously blunt instrument, and inevitably kill civilians, often in large numbers. As soon as the first civilian casualties are counted, especially if they are in loyalist strongholds like Tripoli, the veneer of 'legitimacy' will come right off this thing. Far better would have been the use of such close air support aircraft as the A10, the C130 gunship, and various attack helicopters, all of which could take out loyalist armor and artillery and troops, while allowing their pilots greater precision. Fighter-bombers could then be restricted to engagements with their like numbers in the loyalist air force.
Of course, to take such action would require that we come clean and, as I've said ad nauseum, admit that we've intervened in a civil war within a sovereign, if criminal, nation, and that we're determined that one side prevail over the other. The allied air power would in that case constitute the de facto air force of the rebel forces.
Now, I offer no brief in support of such intervention. I find it dangerous and futile. It is dangerous for several reasons. We really don't know who if anybody is really leading the rebel forces, and thus we have no one to talk to and treat with as the war comes to an end, if indeed we know what the 'end' of such a civil war might look like. [What does 'winning' look like if you have no unified opposition?] We can understand this by way of contrast - consider that whatever one thinks of the Confederacy, a Confederate victory would have been as clear as that of the Union, because the Confederacy was a unified political body. We can't tell what the hell the opposition in Libya really is, or what they really want, apart from their well-justified loathing for Qadaphi. So, such intervention is dangerous. It is futile for all the reasons already given: the ambiguity of the objective given the nature of the opposition, the poor tactics reflecting poor strategic thinking, and so on.
Still, if we are going to do it, the let's at least do it right. To do so, however, would expose pilots to immediate risk - they could be captured or killed, as they would be vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. It would be politically unpalatable, as much amongst the Arab League and here in the US. Finally, to intelligently and effectively intervene in such a civil war would require the kind of strategic and tactical, as well as political, reflection that no one in Washington, London, France, or anywhere else among the 'allied nations', is capable of. The only real strategic thinking manifest in the whole affair has been among the Russians and the Chinese - let that terrify you as it may. The result is that we do not get a coherent military and political intervention in a messy civil war, but we get instead a half-assed 'no fly zone', historically the costliest and most pointless response to a regime's dastardly deeds. I don't see how any good can come from this.
something from David Bentley Hart...
I've been a bit hard on David Hart of late, but he still writes a good book. Here's something from his polemic Atheist Delusions, wherein he makes a cogent point that, in my reading of the evidence, is obviously true if only one gives it some thought:
'In truth, the rise of modern science and the early modern obsession with sorcery were not merely contemporaneous currents within Western society but were two closely allied manifestations of the development of a new post-Christian sense of human mastery over the world. There is nothing especially outrageous in such a claim. After all, magic is essentially a species of materialism; if it envokes any agencies beyond the visible sphere, they are not supernatural—in the theological sense of “transcendent”—but at most preternatural: they are merely, that is to say, subtler, more potent aspects of the physical cosmos. Hermetic magic and modern science (in its most Baconian form at least) are both concerned with hidden forces within the material order, forces that are largely impersonal and morally neutral, which one can learn to manipulate, and which may be turned to ends fair or foul; both, that is to say, are concerned with domination of the physical cosmos, the instrumental subjection of nature to humanity, and the constant increase of human power. Hence, there was not really any late modern triumph of science over magic, so much as there was a natural dissolution of the latter into the former, as the power of science to accomplish what magic could only adumbrate became progressively more obvious. Or, rather, “magic” and “science” in the modern period are distinguishable only retrospectively, according to relative degrees of efficacy. There never was, however, an antagonism between the two: metaphysically, morally, and conceptually, they belonged to a single continuum.'
Give some thought to, say, the use of nuclear fission to produce massive amounts of energy - whether controlled for power production, or uncontrolled for the destruction of cities and their inhabitants - in light of Hart's argument.
'In truth, the rise of modern science and the early modern obsession with sorcery were not merely contemporaneous currents within Western society but were two closely allied manifestations of the development of a new post-Christian sense of human mastery over the world. There is nothing especially outrageous in such a claim. After all, magic is essentially a species of materialism; if it envokes any agencies beyond the visible sphere, they are not supernatural—in the theological sense of “transcendent”—but at most preternatural: they are merely, that is to say, subtler, more potent aspects of the physical cosmos. Hermetic magic and modern science (in its most Baconian form at least) are both concerned with hidden forces within the material order, forces that are largely impersonal and morally neutral, which one can learn to manipulate, and which may be turned to ends fair or foul; both, that is to say, are concerned with domination of the physical cosmos, the instrumental subjection of nature to humanity, and the constant increase of human power. Hence, there was not really any late modern triumph of science over magic, so much as there was a natural dissolution of the latter into the former, as the power of science to accomplish what magic could only adumbrate became progressively more obvious. Or, rather, “magic” and “science” in the modern period are distinguishable only retrospectively, according to relative degrees of efficacy. There never was, however, an antagonism between the two: metaphysically, morally, and conceptually, they belonged to a single continuum.'
Give some thought to, say, the use of nuclear fission to produce massive amounts of energy - whether controlled for power production, or uncontrolled for the destruction of cities and their inhabitants - in light of Hart's argument.
Friday, March 18, 2011
annoyed isn't the word...
So, here I am in my home office of a sunny nearly Spring day, trying to work with the window open. This forces me to ask, in all charity, why the hell we all have to listen to the radio blaring from my asshole neighbor's garage. Just wondering....
Friday, March 4, 2011
You may notice Whitman graces our masthead here at ER. Well, I give you The Whitman Archive. Do go and have a read...
Thursday, March 3, 2011
what does it matter?
Of course, there is nothing more petty, more boring, than pondering the divides between putative liberals and conservatives...I would rather work, read, make poems and such, and receive such consolations on the way as are sent along...to chant slogans in the public square, to pretend such things are important, would be slavery...
a poem by Milton...
It just seems apt to the day...
I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs
By the known rules of antient libertie,
When strait a barbarous noise environs me
Of Owles and Cuckoes, Asses, Apes and Doggs.
As when those Hinds that were transform'd to Froggs
Raild at Latona's twin-born progenie
Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee.
But this is got by casting Pearl to Hoggs;
That bawle for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry libertie;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they roave we see
For all this wast of wealth, and loss of blood.
By the known rules of antient libertie,
When strait a barbarous noise environs me
Of Owles and Cuckoes, Asses, Apes and Doggs.
As when those Hinds that were transform'd to Froggs
Raild at Latona's twin-born progenie
Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee.
But this is got by casting Pearl to Hoggs;
That bawle for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry libertie;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they roave we see
For all this wast of wealth, and loss of blood.
what's a liberal...
For a long time I thought of myself as a 'conservative'. Then it occurred to me that the word has been corrupted beyond salvaging - those who pass as 'conservatives' don't want to conserve anything of value. They just want to keep their noses stuck in a ledger and count their pennies as they lumber past the graveyard. So, by current lights, I'm not a 'conservative'.
So, am I a 'Liberal'? It's tempting - I have a thing for Adam Smith, and think quite highly of suspect characters like Milton and Hume. Still, we face the same problem: 'Liberal' has been likewise corrupted. 'Liberals' nowadays care nothing about justice and truth, liberality and generosity. No, they'll go along with any corrupt, authoritarian political machine as long as they get two things - lots of swag on the public dime, and the license to kill children deemed inferior or otherwise unwanted.
What's a middle-aged business owner who writes poetry and loves classical theology to do?
So, am I a 'Liberal'? It's tempting - I have a thing for Adam Smith, and think quite highly of suspect characters like Milton and Hume. Still, we face the same problem: 'Liberal' has been likewise corrupted. 'Liberals' nowadays care nothing about justice and truth, liberality and generosity. No, they'll go along with any corrupt, authoritarian political machine as long as they get two things - lots of swag on the public dime, and the license to kill children deemed inferior or otherwise unwanted.
What's a middle-aged business owner who writes poetry and loves classical theology to do?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
another revised poem...
Anniversary
Laughing I grasp familiar grief
as you hold fast; to laugh with me
you hold fast so a rustling leaf
won't frighten us along this road.
You intimate the light I'd see
as in an image far too brief,
reflected in a mirrored sea.
So long ago, see stars explode -
laughing I hope to find us free
to love even as all comes to grief.
Laughing I grasp familiar grief
as you hold fast; to laugh with me
you hold fast so a rustling leaf
won't frighten us along this road.
You intimate the light I'd see
as in an image far too brief,
reflected in a mirrored sea.
So long ago, see stars explode -
laughing I hope to find us free
to love even as all comes to grief.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
a revision of an older poem...
As the Last Birdsong Fades
Heart gladdened with wine, I caress
a sanctuary of stone, its frieze half-hidden in shadow.
See Mary carved from that stone, her child cruciform in her lap.
There also his suppliant saints and apostles press,
barely eroded these many years:
here’s a garden of stone and green trees, growing
shadow, coming night, beyond time to find at last my way home
as the last birdsong fades.
Heart gladdened with wine, I caress
a sanctuary of stone, its frieze half-hidden in shadow.
See Mary carved from that stone, her child cruciform in her lap.
There also his suppliant saints and apostles press,
barely eroded these many years:
here’s a garden of stone and green trees, growing
shadow, coming night, beyond time to find at last my way home
as the last birdsong fades.
on the other hand...
I don't know what to make of this story of US backing of a pro-democracy movement in Egypt. It bears more scrutiny, and, if true, more thought...
austere beauty...
Getting this picture of Lake Michigan took ten years off my life, but it was worth it. revolution whether we like it or not...
I hesitate to write anything about the political upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt - my ignorance prevents me from waxing confidently about the future. It does seem to me however that we are witnessing something on the scale of the collapse of Communist power in eastern Europe. Just one more slight push, and the Egyptian regime will fall, to be replaced by who knows what...that's the great unknown. All is contingent; no empire, no system is flawless and permanent. For thirty years, Mubarak's regime has seemed a fixed point in our dream of a stable - that is, America friendly - Middle East. That is now revealed as an illusion. Even if this revolution fails, it will have so destabilized Egypt that it's fall will come sooner rather than later, and what passes for our Grand Strategy in the region will fall with it.
Of course, our Grand Strategy is no strategy at all. We go with the wind, supporting any strongman who will promise 'stability' in the region, until, at the last, they outlive their usefulness. Our only point of principle is support for Israel, which also allows us to use whatever leverage we have at any moment to reign them in when they want to unleash their air force. [Yes, I think Israel would be far more aggressive and expansionist without our involvement.] Beyond 'Support Israel', based too often on dubious reasons having more to do with apocalyptic fantasies than realistic policy, we really have no carefully thought out approach to the region. Hence our panic in the face of Mubarak's possible fall. We just don't know what the hell to do with such contingency; such, well, history right in our faces.
Now I for one fear that certain more utopian factions might take over the rather inchoate uprisings. That's never good for the real people who tend to get mowed under as necessary sacrifices for the Great Utopia That Is Coming. If that happens, it's likely that the Copts and other Christians in the country will be in grave danger; but, then again, so will just about everyone else.
Then again, my fears could be unfounded. This could lead to a freer Egypt, though just what the particulars of that would be is anybody's guess. That's the point - we just don't know what's going on, let alone what will happen.
What I do know is that this is one more blow to our dreams of hegemony. I also wouldn't be surprised if this results in even greater crackdowns here in the US on air and rail travel as well as subversive speech. We are a terrified people, you see, and so obsessed with security that the chaos and contingency erupting out of the Mediterranean could finally scare us into embracing a fully formed soft fascism. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I'm not really that hopeful about our future as a civil nation.
Last night I had a fascinating conversation with a fellow from Northern Ireland who said he felt that State power was greater, and more threatening, than at any time he's known. He said that we should start worrying when we hear folks say, 'If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of', as a justification for the ever-tightening security net in this country. Well, I hear that all the time. Pay no never mind to the fact that more and more we're criminalizing basic human behavior, and allowing ourselves to be monitored and searched as though we were all suspects and not citizens - as long as you do no wrong, you don't have anything to worry about, until, that is, we decide that what you're doing is wrong.
So you see, the revolutionary unrest in Egypt and other far away lands could have serious, and subtle, effects on our daily lives. We wring our hands over the price of oil - 'What about the Suez canal?' - and fail to see all around us the tightening noose of a Security State. Again, I worry that this process will only accelerate as we panic over the spectre of uncontrollable contingency - i.e., history - spilling over once again into our happy kingdom of order and prosperity. This horror at history accounts for our dull-witted policy in the Middle East, and thus our muddled response to the revolution unfolding before us. We are, it would seem, about to lose our innocence once again, as we learn, perhaps for the last time, that history has not in fact come to an end.
Of course, our Grand Strategy is no strategy at all. We go with the wind, supporting any strongman who will promise 'stability' in the region, until, at the last, they outlive their usefulness. Our only point of principle is support for Israel, which also allows us to use whatever leverage we have at any moment to reign them in when they want to unleash their air force. [Yes, I think Israel would be far more aggressive and expansionist without our involvement.] Beyond 'Support Israel', based too often on dubious reasons having more to do with apocalyptic fantasies than realistic policy, we really have no carefully thought out approach to the region. Hence our panic in the face of Mubarak's possible fall. We just don't know what the hell to do with such contingency; such, well, history right in our faces.
Now I for one fear that certain more utopian factions might take over the rather inchoate uprisings. That's never good for the real people who tend to get mowed under as necessary sacrifices for the Great Utopia That Is Coming. If that happens, it's likely that the Copts and other Christians in the country will be in grave danger; but, then again, so will just about everyone else.
Then again, my fears could be unfounded. This could lead to a freer Egypt, though just what the particulars of that would be is anybody's guess. That's the point - we just don't know what's going on, let alone what will happen.
What I do know is that this is one more blow to our dreams of hegemony. I also wouldn't be surprised if this results in even greater crackdowns here in the US on air and rail travel as well as subversive speech. We are a terrified people, you see, and so obsessed with security that the chaos and contingency erupting out of the Mediterranean could finally scare us into embracing a fully formed soft fascism. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I'm not really that hopeful about our future as a civil nation.
Last night I had a fascinating conversation with a fellow from Northern Ireland who said he felt that State power was greater, and more threatening, than at any time he's known. He said that we should start worrying when we hear folks say, 'If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of', as a justification for the ever-tightening security net in this country. Well, I hear that all the time. Pay no never mind to the fact that more and more we're criminalizing basic human behavior, and allowing ourselves to be monitored and searched as though we were all suspects and not citizens - as long as you do no wrong, you don't have anything to worry about, until, that is, we decide that what you're doing is wrong.
So you see, the revolutionary unrest in Egypt and other far away lands could have serious, and subtle, effects on our daily lives. We wring our hands over the price of oil - 'What about the Suez canal?' - and fail to see all around us the tightening noose of a Security State. Again, I worry that this process will only accelerate as we panic over the spectre of uncontrollable contingency - i.e., history - spilling over once again into our happy kingdom of order and prosperity. This horror at history accounts for our dull-witted policy in the Middle East, and thus our muddled response to the revolution unfolding before us. We are, it would seem, about to lose our innocence once again, as we learn, perhaps for the last time, that history has not in fact come to an end.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
ah, blasphemy...
Just thought I'd react rashly to this article about the trial of Geert Wilders. I know little enough about Wilders and his political party, which is to say, I only know what I read from time to time in the news. For that reason, I have nothing intelligent to say about the man or his party. No, I want to say a few words about words, and about Islam. Along the way, I warn you, even the casual reader will find multiple instances of what that religion considers blasphemy. As you will see, dear reader, I've concluded that that is just too damned bad.
Now, I have read the Quran. When I first encountered it, I was in a receptive frame of mind, being at that time a 24 year old student of medieval philosophy and theology kindly disposed to Islamic mysticism and the works of al-Gazali. To my surprise, I found much of it distressing, to say the least, but there were dogmatic, theological reasons for that, reasons which I could at the time barely articulate. What I had realized, without knowing how to say it clearly, was that Islam is, in its core confession, blasphemous.
We'll get to that in a moment. For now, let me say that as you find me, I agree with this, taken from the article: '“No moderate Islam exists,” Jansen said; “moderate Muslims do exist,” but they do not have scripture on their side.'
Why, you might ask, given that I know Muslims who are learned, kind, and open? Well, I'll tell you, it's the simple fact that Islam did come tear-assing out of the Arabian peninsula, and from there conquered by the sword most of Christendom. From that era to the present, the history of Islam has been one of conquest and oppression of Christians when possible, and disgruntled resentment of Christians when not. We're in a transition time, I think, and so Muslims around the world use threats of violence to silence those in the West and elsewhere who might raise a critical point with regard to the Religion of the Prophet. I note, for instance, as does the article, that Wilders public remarks and policy proposals have not resulted in the kind of violence the ridiculous laws governing speech in his country is supposed to prevent, but Wilders and others have received death threats, and some, like Theo van Gogh, have received much worse.
Here I must digress for a moment.
Speech is supposed to be provocative. It's meant to arouse folks, to move 'em. That's the risk inherent in speech - it will inevitably lead to hurt feelings and flared tempers. More dire is the simple fact that any real clash of ideas, confessions, loyalties, is a conflict over Truth. That's just the way it is. And it is just this that a Liberal Democracy can not allow any more than Fascism can - free speech leading to conflict. For the later, this is an existential threat [to use a fashionable phrase] to Leader wielding the Fasces; for the former, it is a threat to the system's procedural neutrality. Such conflicts, again, result from the fact that for the parties so incited, nothing less than Truth is at stake, and it is just this kind of truth that undermines both Liberal Democracy and Fascism.
We'll pick that back up in a moment. For now, let me say that Muslims might take umbrage at my position on relations between Christians and Islam. What is that position? Succinctly put, that Islam is our enemy. We may befriend particular Muslims as the chance arises, but we cannot make nice with Islam itself. Islam, dear reader, is grounded on many interlocking confessions, one of which is of course crucial: God has no Son. This, rather than some silly notion that Allah is a Voluntarist while Yahweh is a Thomist, articulates quite honestly the great divide, for to a Christian of even lukewarm devotion like me, such a confession is nothing less than blasphemy.
Now here's where it gets tricky. Precisely the Christian confession that God simply is the Father begetting the Son in the Holy Spirit in all eternity world without end, and that the Son was born of the Virgin Mary as a very real man in a particular place at a particular time, and that moreover he died a shameful death on the cross to save humanity from sin and death, to be raised again...well, let's say that to a Muslim, that must sound like blasphemy. In fact, it was just this assertion that justified the conquest of Christendom in North Africa, the Levant, Anatolia; other blasphemies exercised 'em in Persia. I say this, not as a good relativist who wants to point out that one man's devout confession is another man's blasphemy. That may indeed be so, but I'm willing to get into serious trouble here - it's too damned bad that Muslims find the Christian confession blasphemous. They should get over it. After all, the Christian confession has the virtue of being true.
To return, then, to what I said about provocative speech, here we see the crux of the confusion many feel when they observe Muslims and Christians in conflict - it is an intractable conflict over ultimate Truth. To many Christians, it is indeed an eschatological conflict, inasmuch as Jesus is the incarnate Son whose crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension have brought on the New Aeon, while Islam is a relic of the Old Aeon fighting its demise. To say this in no way implies that the conflict need be violent, at least on the Christian side. Of course, in the day when outright war was waged on Christendom [Vienna, anyone? Lepanto? Barbary pirates?], folks could exercise the right of self-defense. But never should we indulge in individual acts of violence, because that would be, you know, wrong. We must also welcome those Muslims we know, and not befriend 'em on false pretenses. This imples, of course, that we not lie to 'em about the simple facts of our history, or the simple deception at the heart of their confession. Nor, for that matter, should we expect 'em to lie to us, to hold back to spare our fine feelings.
In short, we must grow up, all of us, and boldly confess the Truth, taking all the risks that implies. The least interesting response to any assertion of Truth is hurt feelings and offense. Argue, accept conflict, and don't look to any kind of procedural neutrality or authoritarian order to ameliorate it. Finally, let us pray that we who claim to be Christians might spend our days in peace and repentance, praying for our enemies that they might become our friends, and reaching out in love to those we fear, all for the sake of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of the living God, who trampled down death by death for the life of the world.
Now, I have read the Quran. When I first encountered it, I was in a receptive frame of mind, being at that time a 24 year old student of medieval philosophy and theology kindly disposed to Islamic mysticism and the works of al-Gazali. To my surprise, I found much of it distressing, to say the least, but there were dogmatic, theological reasons for that, reasons which I could at the time barely articulate. What I had realized, without knowing how to say it clearly, was that Islam is, in its core confession, blasphemous.
We'll get to that in a moment. For now, let me say that as you find me, I agree with this, taken from the article: '“No moderate Islam exists,” Jansen said; “moderate Muslims do exist,” but they do not have scripture on their side.'
Why, you might ask, given that I know Muslims who are learned, kind, and open? Well, I'll tell you, it's the simple fact that Islam did come tear-assing out of the Arabian peninsula, and from there conquered by the sword most of Christendom. From that era to the present, the history of Islam has been one of conquest and oppression of Christians when possible, and disgruntled resentment of Christians when not. We're in a transition time, I think, and so Muslims around the world use threats of violence to silence those in the West and elsewhere who might raise a critical point with regard to the Religion of the Prophet. I note, for instance, as does the article, that Wilders public remarks and policy proposals have not resulted in the kind of violence the ridiculous laws governing speech in his country is supposed to prevent, but Wilders and others have received death threats, and some, like Theo van Gogh, have received much worse.
Here I must digress for a moment.
Speech is supposed to be provocative. It's meant to arouse folks, to move 'em. That's the risk inherent in speech - it will inevitably lead to hurt feelings and flared tempers. More dire is the simple fact that any real clash of ideas, confessions, loyalties, is a conflict over Truth. That's just the way it is. And it is just this that a Liberal Democracy can not allow any more than Fascism can - free speech leading to conflict. For the later, this is an existential threat [to use a fashionable phrase] to Leader wielding the Fasces; for the former, it is a threat to the system's procedural neutrality. Such conflicts, again, result from the fact that for the parties so incited, nothing less than Truth is at stake, and it is just this kind of truth that undermines both Liberal Democracy and Fascism.
We'll pick that back up in a moment. For now, let me say that Muslims might take umbrage at my position on relations between Christians and Islam. What is that position? Succinctly put, that Islam is our enemy. We may befriend particular Muslims as the chance arises, but we cannot make nice with Islam itself. Islam, dear reader, is grounded on many interlocking confessions, one of which is of course crucial: God has no Son. This, rather than some silly notion that Allah is a Voluntarist while Yahweh is a Thomist, articulates quite honestly the great divide, for to a Christian of even lukewarm devotion like me, such a confession is nothing less than blasphemy.
Now here's where it gets tricky. Precisely the Christian confession that God simply is the Father begetting the Son in the Holy Spirit in all eternity world without end, and that the Son was born of the Virgin Mary as a very real man in a particular place at a particular time, and that moreover he died a shameful death on the cross to save humanity from sin and death, to be raised again...well, let's say that to a Muslim, that must sound like blasphemy. In fact, it was just this assertion that justified the conquest of Christendom in North Africa, the Levant, Anatolia; other blasphemies exercised 'em in Persia. I say this, not as a good relativist who wants to point out that one man's devout confession is another man's blasphemy. That may indeed be so, but I'm willing to get into serious trouble here - it's too damned bad that Muslims find the Christian confession blasphemous. They should get over it. After all, the Christian confession has the virtue of being true.
To return, then, to what I said about provocative speech, here we see the crux of the confusion many feel when they observe Muslims and Christians in conflict - it is an intractable conflict over ultimate Truth. To many Christians, it is indeed an eschatological conflict, inasmuch as Jesus is the incarnate Son whose crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension have brought on the New Aeon, while Islam is a relic of the Old Aeon fighting its demise. To say this in no way implies that the conflict need be violent, at least on the Christian side. Of course, in the day when outright war was waged on Christendom [Vienna, anyone? Lepanto? Barbary pirates?], folks could exercise the right of self-defense. But never should we indulge in individual acts of violence, because that would be, you know, wrong. We must also welcome those Muslims we know, and not befriend 'em on false pretenses. This imples, of course, that we not lie to 'em about the simple facts of our history, or the simple deception at the heart of their confession. Nor, for that matter, should we expect 'em to lie to us, to hold back to spare our fine feelings.
In short, we must grow up, all of us, and boldly confess the Truth, taking all the risks that implies. The least interesting response to any assertion of Truth is hurt feelings and offense. Argue, accept conflict, and don't look to any kind of procedural neutrality or authoritarian order to ameliorate it. Finally, let us pray that we who claim to be Christians might spend our days in peace and repentance, praying for our enemies that they might become our friends, and reaching out in love to those we fear, all for the sake of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of the living God, who trampled down death by death for the life of the world.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
saving the planet...
Saw an ad last night for the Nissan Leaf. I wonder how many coal fired and nuclear power plants we'll have to build in order to charge all these electric cars.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
weather report...
It's snowing! In the middle of winter! In Columbus Ohio! My god it's the end of the world! Panic! Stop in the middle of the interstate and cry! ... What?! Look! Another weather alert! O merciful heavens we have weather! Weather will kill us all! And I've never seen Barbados, or made love to a woman with red hair! O regret! O humanity!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
not a movie review...
Tron was bad, and not that Ed Wood 'The future is where we will spend the rest of our lives' bad either...it ripped off The Dark Knight, The Matrix, and, yes, the Bourne movies, right down to the score (a combination of DK and Bourne), and the obviously Bourned final title sequence. And, and, it offers half-baked Zen plus some pop-hegalian theodicy...then there's the occasional appearance of The Dude...fascinating as pop artifact, terrible as a film...more to come...
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
odds and ends...
So I just love making diatonic triads, and I'm obsessed with 9/8 time with a swing feel. Don't know what's come over me...
*****
You say you want a revolution? There's a gift card for that.
*****
Hegel called over the weekend to apologize. I was gracious and magnanimous all at the same time.
*****
Looking at my bookshelves I realize, I just can't quit the Russians.
*****
Snow on the ground outside my window - the work season has officially ended. It's time to play - literally, since I'm buying a new used acoustic guitar today.
*****
Oh, yeah, peace out...
*****
You say you want a revolution? There's a gift card for that.
*****
Hegel called over the weekend to apologize. I was gracious and magnanimous all at the same time.
*****
Looking at my bookshelves I realize, I just can't quit the Russians.
*****
Snow on the ground outside my window - the work season has officially ended. It's time to play - literally, since I'm buying a new used acoustic guitar today.
*****
Oh, yeah, peace out...
Sunday, December 5, 2010
i thought i'd whine a little...
Nothing happened this morning, nothing at all. It's just, well, I was so bored. I miss the cycle of festivals - the church has her own time you know - and I miss liturgy. To be sure, there are no drums in the sanctuary, and the gaggle is ordered and solemn and not at all superficial. No, it's me - I feel - and in saying this I make no large claims for anyone else - I feel cut off from the Church.
That's my problem, yes, and it's far from a new problem to be sure, and there is no solution ready to hand I dare say...and yet, yet, I was bored, soooo very booored. The sermon was damn fine, the folks were friendly, there was decency, good order, and suchlikethatthere...and I was soooo boooooooored. In fact, 'boredom' doesn't quite say all - ennui, that's better - ennui, that French mashup of boredom and existential emptiness.
Oh, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't bring myself to think that these fine folks are right about the Eucharist and baptism...close they are, but not quite there - devout all the same, which makes it hard, but still wrong wrong wrong... And yet I really love 'em. Go figure...
That's my problem, yes, and it's far from a new problem to be sure, and there is no solution ready to hand I dare say...and yet, yet, I was bored, soooo very booored. The sermon was damn fine, the folks were friendly, there was decency, good order, and suchlikethatthere...and I was soooo boooooooored. In fact, 'boredom' doesn't quite say all - ennui, that's better - ennui, that French mashup of boredom and existential emptiness.
Oh, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't bring myself to think that these fine folks are right about the Eucharist and baptism...close they are, but not quite there - devout all the same, which makes it hard, but still wrong wrong wrong... And yet I really love 'em. Go figure...
a poem...
...and where were you
I'd like to know – don't tell me that
you didn't know the hour,
don't say you've been here all along -
there, go ahead now, tell
me where you've been – it's been a long
night you know – you might
have called or sent a line or –
I’m tired from counting
milepost after milepost as they passed me by -
waiting as I sped along
for you to catch me – by the way
I’m well - you didn't ask,
you have your reasons, though – why
won't you please tell me where
you were – it's not like you've seized
the chance to say your say –
silent still? silent as the sea –
fine – have it your way – it's just
that I've waited...
I'd like to know – don't tell me that
you didn't know the hour,
don't say you've been here all along -
there, go ahead now, tell
me where you've been – it's been a long
night you know – you might
have called or sent a line or –
I’m tired from counting
milepost after milepost as they passed me by -
waiting as I sped along
for you to catch me – by the way
I’m well - you didn't ask,
you have your reasons, though – why
won't you please tell me where
you were – it's not like you've seized
the chance to say your say –
silent still? silent as the sea –
fine – have it your way – it's just
that I've waited...
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
tolstoy again...
The narrator of War and Peace - none other than Tolstoy himself perhaps? - is capable of subtle irony and humor in the pursuit of moral perception. One can, of course, offer this passage as an example of the former:
'Since the end of the year 1811 an intense arming and concentration of western European forces had begun, and in the year 1812 those forces - millions of men (including those who transported and fed them) - moved from west to east, to the borders of Russia, towards which, since the year 1811, the forces of Russia had been drawn in exactly the same way. On the twelfth of June, the forces of western Europe crossed the borders of Russia, and war began - that is, an even took place contrary to human reason and to the whole of human nature' [III.i.1].
Too true, that, but it's also the start of an extended essayistical meditation on necessity and freedom in history. Note that western and Russian forces seem drawn to the border of Russia like iron filings following a magnet under a piece of paper. What's more, even, or rather, especially the Great Ones, Napoleon and Alexander, are 'slaves of history', caught in a web of forces set in motion by a million contingent decisions and actions. So says the narrator - and I think he's on to something.
Still, I must confess that there are other passages even more biting in their anger-forged irony, while being quite funny if you linger with 'em a moment. Consider this - there is no need for any context I should think:
'Balaga was a famous troika driver, who had known Dolokhov and Anatole for six years already and furnished them with his troikas.... More than once he had driven Dolokhov, when he had had to elude pursuit; more than once he had taken them for a ride around town with Gypsies and "damsels," as Balaga called them. More than once, while in their employ, he had run down folk and cabbies in Moscow, and his "gentlemen," as he called them, had always helped him out. More than once he had been overdriven under them. More than once he had been beaten by them; more than once they had gotten him drunk on champagne and Medeira, which he liked, and he knew a thing or two about each of them which would have sent an ordinary man to Siberia long ago.... While in their service, he risked his life and his hide twenty times a year, and he had driven more horses to death than they had paid him in roubles. But he liked them.... He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to a peasant, who even without that was trying, more dead than alive, to get out of his way. "Real gentlemen!" he thought' [II.v.16].
'Since the end of the year 1811 an intense arming and concentration of western European forces had begun, and in the year 1812 those forces - millions of men (including those who transported and fed them) - moved from west to east, to the borders of Russia, towards which, since the year 1811, the forces of Russia had been drawn in exactly the same way. On the twelfth of June, the forces of western Europe crossed the borders of Russia, and war began - that is, an even took place contrary to human reason and to the whole of human nature' [III.i.1].
Too true, that, but it's also the start of an extended essayistical meditation on necessity and freedom in history. Note that western and Russian forces seem drawn to the border of Russia like iron filings following a magnet under a piece of paper. What's more, even, or rather, especially the Great Ones, Napoleon and Alexander, are 'slaves of history', caught in a web of forces set in motion by a million contingent decisions and actions. So says the narrator - and I think he's on to something.
Still, I must confess that there are other passages even more biting in their anger-forged irony, while being quite funny if you linger with 'em a moment. Consider this - there is no need for any context I should think:
'Balaga was a famous troika driver, who had known Dolokhov and Anatole for six years already and furnished them with his troikas.... More than once he had driven Dolokhov, when he had had to elude pursuit; more than once he had taken them for a ride around town with Gypsies and "damsels," as Balaga called them. More than once, while in their employ, he had run down folk and cabbies in Moscow, and his "gentlemen," as he called them, had always helped him out. More than once he had been overdriven under them. More than once he had been beaten by them; more than once they had gotten him drunk on champagne and Medeira, which he liked, and he knew a thing or two about each of them which would have sent an ordinary man to Siberia long ago.... While in their service, he risked his life and his hide twenty times a year, and he had driven more horses to death than they had paid him in roubles. But he liked them.... He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to a peasant, who even without that was trying, more dead than alive, to get out of his way. "Real gentlemen!" he thought' [II.v.16].
another poem in progress...
Sonata
Of the spewing forth of words there is no
end, mouth an open grave that swallows
sulfurous dew a woman’s cinnamon-drenched
hair memories of orange groves, pears,
uncertain voices and childish cries, longing
lost under the sun, gravel under foot;
there is no end, o child, o dayspring, judge
of rites and festivals, for our lady hawks
onions by the road, yet o it’s a broad and lovely
road, as broad as pasture overgrown with
nettles, palms, rattlesnakes; look, along
the broad disheveled road at night a burning
cross, a liturgy to a cloaked and boring god;
of the spewing forth of words there is no
end, book after book devoured, tossed
aside while all was green under the sun
of summer after stripping off that cincture, burning
that alb, to skip along free of vestments, water
from a cracking font, to stand no longer
in the fire under the sun, o trial, o burden hard
to bear, at war with my tongue and with my
hands, for all is now and ever shall be,
shall be, as the shattered ‘I’, limestone,
fossil foraminifera, splintered
driftwood on the shore all swirl under the sun
and mock our present; still we remember,
through the ache of parting spouses in a marriage
bed, fire flashing off each face like hard struck
flint, that garden of time wherein we sleep
together: may we not yet break from nostalgia;
so of the spewing forth of words there is no
end – mouth’s an open grave which swallows
all, tongue’s a weapon of destruction,
but o my heart remember, let the waterfall
with trumpet blast not catch you fast asleep
under the sun–
Of the spewing forth of words there is no
end, mouth an open grave that swallows
sulfurous dew a woman’s cinnamon-drenched
hair memories of orange groves, pears,
uncertain voices and childish cries, longing
lost under the sun, gravel under foot;
there is no end, o child, o dayspring, judge
of rites and festivals, for our lady hawks
onions by the road, yet o it’s a broad and lovely
road, as broad as pasture overgrown with
nettles, palms, rattlesnakes; look, along
the broad disheveled road at night a burning
cross, a liturgy to a cloaked and boring god;
of the spewing forth of words there is no
end, book after book devoured, tossed
aside while all was green under the sun
of summer after stripping off that cincture, burning
that alb, to skip along free of vestments, water
from a cracking font, to stand no longer
in the fire under the sun, o trial, o burden hard
to bear, at war with my tongue and with my
hands, for all is now and ever shall be,
shall be, as the shattered ‘I’, limestone,
fossil foraminifera, splintered
driftwood on the shore all swirl under the sun
and mock our present; still we remember,
through the ache of parting spouses in a marriage
bed, fire flashing off each face like hard struck
flint, that garden of time wherein we sleep
together: may we not yet break from nostalgia;
so of the spewing forth of words there is no
end – mouth’s an open grave which swallows
all, tongue’s a weapon of destruction,
but o my heart remember, let the waterfall
with trumpet blast not catch you fast asleep
under the sun–
a poem...
Twilight
Autumn’s hymn falls silent
clouds hide the sun I may never
recognize the moon if she
shows through again
Curse this muted light this early
hour I’d have light diaphanous
as water each breeze a kiss
no shade no dark
Still there is a light
clouds will never hide this hour
Chase o chase that light the night
has not yet come
Autumn’s hymn falls silent
clouds hide the sun I may never
recognize the moon if she
shows through again
Curse this muted light this early
hour I’d have light diaphanous
as water each breeze a kiss
no shade no dark
Still there is a light
clouds will never hide this hour
Chase o chase that light the night
has not yet come
acting my age...
So, it's raining out there. To be precise, it's pouring out there. And, and, I just woke myself up at a coffee shop - seems I was snoring. I leave the conclusion as an exercise for the reader....
Monday, November 29, 2010
i've seen this movie as well...
'About 20 percent of the comets visible from Earth were sent by a dark, distant planet'...do you think they know how that sounds?
can they get an amen...
My friends, we here at ER have made our objections to that horrible Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer song and TV show quite clear. Well, in that spirit, I offer you Cracked.com's fine article on The Wizard of Oz, one of the most depraved movies ever made. Truly, it's wicked - no one should allow their children to watch it.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
no one should ever ask me anything...
A fellow at work wants to be a poet. This came as a surprise to me, for he has always seemed such a sensible sort. Anyway, he knows I write poems, so he asks, 'How do you know you're a poet?' Well, that's a good question. 'Because I write poems', I replied. Then I ask, 'Do you write poems?' 'No', he says, 'but I really want to'. 'Well, until you start writing poems you aren't a poet'. 'So, all I have to do is start writing poems?' he asks. 'Yes. But be careful - not all who think they're writing poems are writing poems'. 'But if it looks like a poem, I mean, if it's got rhymes and all, isn't it a poem?' 'Not always.' 'Then how will I know if I am really writing poems?' 'By writing poems'. 'This is confusing', he says finally.
Yes, yes it is...
Yes, yes it is...
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