Start at the Beginning

Some years ago, I spotted a quote on facebook by a nun named Joan Chittister. The context in which it was posted was that of an attempt to discredit the pro-life movement as hypocritical and unethical. Indeed it is frequently used to support abortion. It is as follows:

“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

-Sister Joan Chittister

On broad principle, part of what she is trying to communicate is obvious and true: if you are pro-life, you must be pro-the-whole-life. There is a separate discussion here as to what is the best method of taking care of that whole life—at the governmental level or at the individual level—but here we are going to focus on the first part: whether the pro-life movement is really just "pro-birth" as she puts it.

As mentioned above, this quote is often used against those who believe a child in the womb has the right to life, i.e. ‘It’s all rhetoric with you people. You don’t care about kids or life, you’re just dogmatically fixated on little clumps of cells for some reason and you want to control women’s bodies. You should worry about the kids already born.’

I think those who support abortion are desperately misunderstanding what pro-life (or pro-birth) really means. To be pro-life means that we do not believe we have the right to simply kill children (however small they are at the moment) at our own convenience or until such a time as the world they are about to live in is perfect and can guarantee their every need and safety. By that logic, you could murder anyone in an abusive or poverty-stricken circumstance and be justified because you are, without their consent, saving them from the pain and suffering of their own life.

Pro-life is about a fundamental belief in the value of human life because we are all made in the image of God. In addition to that, it is very particularly about defense of the innocent and voiceless. Therefore it must start with protecting the infant in their most vulnerable moments—before, during, and immediately after birth—but it certainly should continue into a desire and sustained effort to help and protect them as they grow. Parents should care for their children. Communities should support those in need. This is why pro-lifers also emphasize the importance of marriage and families, by the way.

Also, it is for this reason that so many churches have ministries that help struggling mothers with counseling, formula, housing, public services, food, clothing, diapers, carseats, strollers, educational materials on motherhood, and job posting boards. I am grateful to have been able to volunteer at such a ministry at my old church. I saw mothers, struggling through difficult circumstances to do right by their children. I saw young women, some high-school age, making a choice to guard over rather than exterminate a life that was undoubtedly an ‘inconvenience’ to them. I have a profound respect for those who refused to give up and believe the lies that society tells them: that they have the “right” to be rid of their children.

What is a woman who decides to keep her baby—in spite of struggle, pain, poverty, fear, or uncertainty—and give that child her all? What is she? She is hope for the future. That’s the sort of woman that can change the culture in a profound way. That’s the sort of woman that maybe, just maybe, can resist the deep and despairing ruts of the poverty and pain into which she may have been born. She can raise a son or daughter with strength and conviction and persistence. She can change the world by her choices and the choices she makes for her children.

Does no one else realize how truly powerful and profound that really is? The very act of choosing life encourages still more life. It is a foundation.

Now, I am not an idealist. I know that there are far too many women who do have their children, but do not give them the care and love they need. But why? Well there are many reasons, but perhaps one is that our culture is telling them that they shouldn’t have to and it’s easier to be bitter and lazy about an undesired circumstance than to face it head-on with courage and hard work. (It's easier to give the bare minimum to your child, and you don't even have to be in dire straits to do that.) Perhaps because self-sacrifice is brutally hard. Perhaps because we all have to battle our fear, addictions, selfishness, weakness, and pain, and so many people do not even know how to begin to fight because we live in a culture that says “Myself is all that matters and I should be able to do whatever I want.”

Our culture of contempt for such an utterly defenseless life as that of a child in the womb is a culture that creates poor parents, poor choices, and destructive futures.

One pro-abortion argument says that by eliminating the child, you save them from the harsh circumstances he or she may face. They weren't wanted anyway, right? But the truth is—partly because of a culture of abortion, those circumstances are still there. They just exist around a void where a life once was. And that void doesn’t make anything any better. Indeed it will lie in wait for the next child and the next and the next. It takes putting the cart before the horse to a whole new extreme: you are saying “kill the child so that they will not have to suffer this world” while thereby creating the very world of violence and disrespect for life that you claim you would shield them from. Abortion is the “cure” that viciously perpetuates the disease.

This is the poverty of logic that exists in the pro-abortion argument. It claims—mostly as a canned argument, not as a moral conviction—that you should worry first about the whole life of the child, while denying the strength and importance of where that life begins. It is a-linear and a-logical. You have to go to the foundation of life before you can even begin to speak about how it must subsequently look. You have to allow the child to live in order to then care about their life.

If you follow the rationale of the pro-abortion argument you have put human children on the level of humanely-raised livestock: give them nice conditions if you can, kill them when you must, otherwise divvy them up for parts for the good of society.

Honestly, do you think we have so many mass shooting simply because of the mere existence of means to kill people or is it also because we live in a culture where life is so casually and ruthlessly disregarded at its weakest and most vulnerable? A culture where we tell a woman with a unique role as guardian and cultivator of LIFE, that she has better things to do, and serpent-like, convince her to kill her charge and call it something else.

The tools of mass murder and mass shootings may be readily available, but we have actively cultivated an environment in which the use of those tools for meaningless deaths seems easy in the minds of more and more people. If you can kill a child in the womb, someone who is utterly dependent and utterly helpless, it is foolish to think that this will have no effect on the collective psyche. When you withdraw rights and humanity from the voiceless you are carefully sewing together the most ruthless and heartless society—and even worse—you are doing it under the guise of benevolence. You are calling good evil, and evil good.

In this the frequent pro-life comparison of abortion to slavery in the U.S. are very, very apt; it uses biased pseudo-science (ignoring actual science), cultural conditioning, economic entrenchment, media, jargon, and nebulous phrases of ‘benevolence’ to justify the dehumanization of a large group for the benefit, succor, comfort, and convenience of those in possession of greater social power.

So why do pro-lifers appear to talk more loudly about protecting children in the womb than any subsequent needs, if they care so much about both?

Because when you live in a culture where a child has the right to live in the first place, you have a far better platform from which to encourage and assist the future of that child. You can care just as deeply about the child coming of age, as coming out of the womb, but you have to start at the beginning and work from there.

We were once a rational society. No more. The idea of beginning at the beginning seems to be out of vogue. Everyone wants to start their argument at the point of their own fancy, their own need or preference, rather than by reason. In this way, you will find yourself working very hard to keep up with the times, ever moving the markers of what lives are “valuable.” We keep wondering why we see such callousness towards life—especially towards the lives of those who already struggle, who are already at a disadvantage—well if you wonder, this is why. You cannot value that which has been dismissed at the outset.

You cannot expect human kindness writ large, if you dismiss that which is humanity writ small.

We are becoming the ‘men without chests’ of which Lewis spoke in his book ‘The Abolition of Man.’

“And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible…In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

I would add, we claim the right to kill the defenseless, and wonder why there is so much heartless violence in our world.

As a last point, it is foolish to scoff and be dismissive when someone draws the connection between abortion and eugenics. The disproportionate effect of abortion culture on minority communities shows that the racist factor of eugenics is alive an well. Sex-selection abortions shows that the misogyny of eugenics is alive and well. Screenings for various diseases and syndromes—so that you can have the option of aborting a down syndrome or otherwise ‘undesirable’ child who might be more difficult to care for—show that the Hitler-like eugenic contempt for those who are weak or disabled is alive and hideously well.

People wonder how a whole society allowed such a thing as the Holocaust. This is how. They were told it was their right. They were told it would make them stronger, richer, freer, safer. They were told it was for the good of society. And everyone agreed not to think about the gritty details of what all that ended up looking like.

Caricature, propaganda, normalization. Frogs sitting ignorant in boiling water. We’ve been boiling so long, we’re all but disintegrated.*

*I say we often in this piece. I am obviously pro-life, but when I am speaking about the darkest sins in our human nature I usually say we, even if I am talking of something I fiercely oppose. Because we are all fallen short of the Glory of God, and because this is the culture we live in.

When Music doesn't 'Resolve'

I don’t know much about musical theory and have never had much musical talent. So, a while back, when I read a description of a band (called Thrice) which was described as having “mathy time signatures,” I had no idea what that meant. So I asked my husband, who is a bit more musically educated than me, and he explained the time signatures as having to do with how many beats there are in a measure, and also has to do with how many beats it takes for the main melody to resolve, and a “mathy” one would be particularly complex. He waited until a song played that had such a time signature, and I was at least able to recognize that the difference he was talking about. (That song, by the way, was by Amit Erez, and is called “Cinnamon Scattered Along Your Shoulders.”)

It was still a little confusing for me at the time, but I liked the idea of how music has to resolve, which was something I never really understood before. Indeed, it’s part of the reason why Jazz is so hit or miss for many people—it’s not hugely into resolution, it’s into exploration. That can be really enjoyable, or really frustrating.

Most of the time, however, in order for the melody to be powerful and effective—however complexly it goes about it—it eventually has to resolve.

The idea has, shall we say, some striking metaphysical resonance. People who are especially musically talented can hear where a tune “ought to have gone” or where a melody “missed an opportunity” or where an important nuance was missing, or something was overdone. I do not have this skill, but my brother does and it fascinates me, because the implication is that music is not just a chaotic free-for-all, where anything goes, even though it may seem like it: it’s going somewhere. It’s saying something. The notes have purpose.

So what’s the point of all this mild-mannered musical theory from someone who knows far too little about the subject?

Well, a while back a friend recommended a song to me. I listened to it and liked it and sought out more of the artist’s work, because I detected some spiritual themes that intrigued me. Very quickly into my research, my shoulders fell because—as it turned out—themes were all there was to be found. Or, more accurately, spiritual imagery and cultural references with too little blood pumping through the veins to keep it alive.

I almost felt tricked. Don’t get me wrong, the music was still very good and the lyrics had real substance. But what I had thought was something truer and deeper was only an aesthetic—like incense, stained glass, or a gilded menorah when I had come through the door hoping for prayer, worship, and light.

And I realized what bothered me. It wasn’t that the music didn’t line up with my spiritual values—though that was a factor—because I listen to all kinds of music that doesn’t do that. It was that the song didn’t resolve. Oh, musically, it did. But thematically? Not at all.

I found myself feeling frustrated and weary. I don’t expect every artist who uses religious imagery to actually put forth something of spiritual depth and merit. Religion will be used by culture just like every other product. But when I get that hint of real truth-seeking and find that it was just a artistic flirtation with fact and faith? It’s getting old. Real old.

The imagery of faith is beautiful. I get it. It even resonates in an era and a culture that has little respect or understanding for the foundation beneath that imagery. But weirdly, it almost resonates like a fairytale—something dangerous and adventurous that pulls at their soul, but which they won’t really dare to believe. Something you like to muse about with quick-beating heart that is hiding just beyond the corner of your eye, but which ultimately has no effect on your daily choices and beliefs.

Artists use this spiritual imagery because it is evocative. They use it in a similar way that we have used the imagery of ancient myth: of Greek gods and fairies and elves and imps and sprites. Symbolically. Half-believed, but never lived.

But this is different. If I were to say something poignant about Athena because I was going into war, this wouldn’t come off as grand. At best it might be considered poetic, at worst extremely silly. It has little cultural resonance because we do not believe in Athena, nor does anyone we know, most likely. Athena is not a name tossed about at the center of most philosophy, religion, and even current political debates.

So this habit (particularly among musicians that I tend to love) is more than just evoking religious grandeur. This is tip-toeing on the edge of belief, recognizing with an artist’s eye that this is the greatest, most poetic battle on earth: it is life or death. Forget the trope of “Unresolved Sexual Tension” in every YA novel, cop procedural, and sit-com. The real stuff is to be had in the “Unresolved Spiritual Tension.” That’s where the true thrill is. The battle over souls, not sex.

So just as we desperately want to see the main couple in the cop show get together, but then we’re often bored once they do, it’s as though we—as a culture—are conditioned to demand that everyone wrestle with God, with Truth, with Faith, with Purpose, with Meaning, but then we cannot stand it when someone has reached a conclusion. It’s everything but the marriage, the smell of food without eating it, all of the preparation but none of the action, all the intellectual posturing but no final choice.

So here’s what I think regarding both types of unresolved tension: We fail to see that the reason we’re ‘bored’ when the couple in the TV show gets together is not because satisfied and growing love is boring, but because it’s beyond us and can no longer include us in the way that the lead-in can. We can join in the build-up, like we can attend a wedding. But then the married couple has to live it. And that is greater, and more complex. It’s not mere story arch anymore. It’s a road. The tension may be reduced, but the richness is increased and it is too subtle for easy caricature. Deep wholeness is harder to depict than mysterious fragment.

So too with faith. It isn’t always Jacob wrestling by the river (though I’m wont to feel that it is in my life). Sometimes it’s Abraham waiting years upon years for a promised to be fulfilled. Steadily—sometimes failing and falling—but doing so for years on end often without the flash and snap of doubt and tension.

The theme of Unresolved Spiritual Tension is powerful because we all must wrestle. Even when we believe, we still must wrestle—working out our faith with fear and trembling.

But it’s also heartbreaking because everyone seems to think that mere wrestling is enough. Even I am wont to think that more often than not, and I’m sitting here saying I know better. It would be like in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu match, if I were to wrestle and wrestle but never attempt a triangle choke or an armbar because I thought the heart of it was just in the act of rolling around on the floor and exerting well-trained effort.

And that’s just not true. At some point you have to make a decision, find your opening, and go for the choke. Then you find out if you were right or wrong. If you don’t act, you will get choked in the end. To refrain from making a choice regarding belief is to make a choice against it. Eventually, even if it’s just because the time runs out, there will be a resolution.

We, both in and out of the church, are often trying to have all the trappings of spiritual depth without having to actually engage in the occupation…the leaves and fruit without the trunk and the roots. We like the resonance, but not always what that sound calls us to. So many wish to employ the beauty and power of things they are not quite willing to believe in.

Oh and they are beautiful and powerful. But if everything becomes divorced—the image from the meaning, the question from the answer, the wrestling from the conclusion—then the power either dies horribly, or becomes perverted in a way that something less meaningful never could have.

Why do artists do this? Why do we do this? Why do I want to be satisfied with the mere fight, never mind the victory (God’s, not mine)?

Because people think that imagery and a feeling of comfy antiquity is all Christianity has to offer? Or because we want to be able to yell at God without answering to him?

I think it’s both, but today I am discussing the latter. Our spiritual selves are drawn to throw our anger, our pain, our struggle, or hate, our longing towards him. Our baser selves cannot stand the thought of having to face a real, live response that requires something of us. Or, rather, everything. We’re afraid of resolution the way some people are afraid of marriage. It’s so permanent. What if I get bored? What if I change my mind? What if I’m wrong?

We want to rant, not to debate. We want to be heard, not to listen. We want to angst, not to resolve. I say this because this is my strong tendency.

Or, suppose, some of us do want a resolution, but we just can’t swallow the idea of one that requires us to give up all we have and are—our hate, our anger, our revenge, our bitterness, our preferences, our desires, our meandering…ourselves. Resolution means shearing off certain paths. Utterly and forever.

This is not to belittle the search and the struggle.  I enjoy these artists because their work resonates deeply with me—with my own spiritual struggles—and because there are powerful questions being asked. But no answers being struck.

And that last bit infuriates me.

I’ll tell you what, though: In the Bible the same person who said “My God, my God, has thou forsaken me” said “I will yet praise you.”

The same person who said “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? and “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil” and “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face” at the final hour said “my ear had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”

But for some reason, not all are willing to both ask the question, and then with a cry of “I believe, Help my unbelief” point to the answer because of its imposing permanence. We’re really not supposed to worry the same bone forever. We’re not supposed to wrestle over that one piece of ground endlessly.

What good is it to “have a form of godliness” but deny its power, or to be “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth” (2 Timothy 3: 5 and 7)?

Strange as it may seem, answers are simultaneously wild and complex as they are concrete and simple. In any case, they are real.

“We have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have found all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and started looking for answers”

-GK Chesterton

So, further up and further in. There is power in the music when it has the courage to resolve.

Room for Doubt and Rule of Fear

“A closed mind is a sign of hidden doubt.”
-Harold DeWolf

Doubt is an important subject to me, as I so often struggle with it. What I learned from my Mom from a young age was that I shouldn’t fear it, but explore it wisely. Well here is one attempt to do so:

 

Close-mindedness:

It seems as though the phrase “close-minded” is more widely applied to those who are religious than those who are not. The stereotype, if not the fact, is that a person of faith clings to their doctrines without examining or analyzing them, and the secularists or humanists are open to all options. I do think this happens sometimes, but I think that the opposite can often be true, and either version of close-mindedness (secular or religious) can be deeply obstructive to truth’s riverways.

There is a current cultural claim of being open-minded that is decidedly not. The post-modern young secularist has decided what the world is—it is what they want and feel—and anyone who challenges that will be promptly labeled “close-minded’ and dismissed. I find this sad and ironic.

It would seem—again, via stereotype—that people are more accustomed to the very notion of religious close-mindedness than secular, post-modern, or humanistic close-mindedness. Religious close-mindedness is an easier sell in our culture. Religion offers very certain instruction on morals, beliefs and behaviors and does not allow a great deal of room to maneuver away from those things. Most forms of secularism, per current perception, allow morals, beliefs and behaviors to be more malleable. Redefinition and relativism replace constancy and conviction.

I think that many religious people also buy into this notion, and can sometimes be nervous about having their convictions pinned down by someone secular, for fear of being called close-minded. Of course, the difference between living close-minded and living with conviction is vast, but that is another matter, albeit one not sufficiently explored.

What genuinely concerns me are not those creeds which openly admit that they are fixed, but rather those that champion, and claim to be, one thing—open-minded or tolerant—while, in fact, being something else entirely. The source for this concern does not arise solely from my desire to defend a life of deep conviction—though I do so---but from a chance encounter with a certain literary discussion:

 

Room for Doubt, or Not:

I love reading reviews for Young Adult (YA) Literature novels. The YA author and reader community is vibrant, interactive, and extremely internet savvy. They offer some interesting analyses of the works themselves, but also provide perspective on the young adult literary zeitgeist.

You can get more information than you ever needed, and I find the debates over various Young Adult novel controversies very telling. Often the debates seem more interesting than the works themselves, although that may simply be the fact that I am inherently drawn to controversy, and NOT terribly interested in reading novel after novel of paranormal dystopian love triangles.

For example, one debate surrounded a sixteen-year-old female character that chose a “friends-with-benefits” scenario with her love interest, versus getting married or any form of commitment. Did that make her feminist and independent, or did that make her fearful, selfish and unfeeling towards said love interest? Gender and sexuality debates are some of the most common controversies in the YA community. It would appear that this has much to do with the visibly high quantity of female authors, readers, and reviewers in this community.

Which brings me to a review of a book called “The Knife of Never Letting Go.” I should state right up front that I have not read this book, nor is this post ABOUT this book. It was about a small controversy which stemmed from it, and about how that debate was conducted, and what troubles me therein.

 

 

In the book review and the discussion it spawned, one reviewer was offended by the fact that, in the novel, there is a certain germ or disease that affects the minds and bodies of males in a decidedly different way than it affects the minds and bodies of females. This reviewer took this to mean that the author asserts there to be something essentially, or “qualitatively” different between men and women. The reviewer was appalled at this claim. Debate ensues.

Well fairly soon, another commenter chimed in with the very viable argument that there are some inherent “biological/physiological/biochemical” differences, and the author was not being sexist to build upon that in his novel. This argument was not well received, and most of the other commenters continued to insist that this notion that men and women are somehow different by nature is archaic and will throw us back to the Stone Age or some such.

The following comment boggled my mind and represents the death of any real debate:

“a lot of time merely implying that there exists room for doubt about something is too great a compromise”

I don’t want to be brutally unfair, but the moment my eyes came across that sentence I copied and pasted it because I could scarcely believe it was said. Neither the removal nor the addition of context does the sentence any favors. The blatant claim here is that the mere implication of any room for doubt is an unacceptable compromise. Apply this logic across almost any debate and you run into serious trouble. Ultimately, in this particular discussion (link provided here), the Implication is that there are essential differences between men and women, particularly physiological differences, the Room For Doubt is the possibility that those differences are in any way essential or immutable, and the Too Great A Compromise would be allowing this idea to be given a seat at any debate table ever.

I understand why the commenter feels this way…he fears the confines of “gender essentialism” and how women have been ill-treated and restricted by it. But fear is the key word in that sentence. No matter how good your argument, nor how valid your concern, deciding not to acknowledge and explore doubt is generally a fear-driven decision. And this is coming from someone (me!) who believes that doubt can be deeply foolish, deeply wrong, and can kill you if mishandled.

So why do I conclude that exploration of doubt is necessary and that this rather secular, open-minded, tolerance-advocating commenter is giving poor advice despite their good intentions? Because, as a person of faith, if I tried to dismiss every doubt about God that frightened me or challenged my understanding of the world, that would be implying that the truths I know, proclaim, and try to live by aren’t strong enough to stand up against the doubts. And since I believe they ARE strong enough, I HAVE to face those doubts without fear. I can’t say it is always easy, but I can say that it is important and I hold a deep conviction that I must strive to do this.

“Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe”

-Henry David Thoreau

 

Faith

The controversy regarding faith stems largely from the idea that it is blind…that the entire merit of faith is the very lack of evidence. If that is the case, doubt would be an understandable and frequent occurrence.

But I don’t think that’s the whole picture of faith. I referred to the siren metaphor once before on this blog because the tale of the sirens speaks to the importance of tying yourself to a conviction based on evidence—on genuine knowing—despite how the current sense, circumstance, or temptation tries to demolish that conviction. The knowing came first. Faith is the thing that keeps you from forgetting what you knew, when everything and everyone around you would have you do so.

As in C.S. Lewis’ “The Silver Chair,” faith is remembering that there is a sun when you haven’t seen it in a long time, and everyone else is telling you it never existed, that it is a product of your imagination, that it is mere wish-fulfillment. But you basked in it before, and, if nothing else, your remember that in your very blood-stream.

 

The trouble with fear-based analysis is that it’s “see no evil” in its worst sense; it’s failing to face the chinks, the failures, the confusions. Ultimately it’s failing to learn and grow. And faith is meant to grow.

Again, one thinks of the phrase “blind faith”, but I think that is something of a misnomer. Faith is not recklessly blind; it believes in what it knows but cannot see. There’s a difference. Doubt will occur…the difference is the manner in which the doubt is handled. Fearlessly, or fearfully? Moored or unmoored?

 

Advance or Withdrawal

A good pastor once said that when one experiences doubt, don’t ignore it. Take it up and bring it to God, not away from him. He stated that when we withdraw from Him—“to get perspective” we claim—we are not able to truly get free of other influences and prejudices. There is no such thing as neutral ground. To imagine that as possible is to make a great mistake. Nature abhors a vacuum, does it not?

The illustration he gave was of how we sometimes come to doubt the nature of a friend that we rarely see, until we get together with them. Then we are reminded of their qualities and our confidence in them is reestablished. Withdrawal from a person is not the way to prove our theories about them, whether positive or negative…we go to the subject of the theories and dive in. Then we discover if we are right or wrong. Never by withdrawal.

This applies to all fields of study: the field develops (be it physics, medicine, or the social sciences) when someone approaches the conventional wisdom with a doubt or a suspicion. If they are wrong, the exploration of their doubt will strengthen that which is correct already. If they are right, something wrong, insubstantial, or misapplied will fall away (i.e. those thing which are “but rules taught by men”). One can see this happening when Jesus challenged the Pharisees. The core of truth remained. It was only the religious frippery that was sloughed off.

 

Giving up the Rule of Fear

Returning to the debate regarding “room for doubt” and the issue of gender essentialism, one begins to see what happens when room for doubt is not allowed in debate. Truth is neglected on behalf of conventional wisdom. The truth here is that there are basic biological differences between men and women which influence certain parts of life, including physical capabilities, bodily functions, and (occasionally) actual behavior.

The prevailing post-modern conventional wisdom is that what you want and how you feel about what you are trumps all of that…or, more extreme still, that all of it is a product of “social construction.” Ironically, the voice of someone advocating a concrete, provable, scientific view is drowned out by the voices of those reacting emotionally, fearing the consequences of any hint of gender essentialism, even if that hint is borne by fact.

Doubt is hard, and can be very uncomfortable. But ought it not to be taken hold of and made into something useful? The difference between acknowledging or examining doubt, and succumbing to it is the difference between hearing someone out—really listening to what they have to say and considering it—and simply being batted back and forth by every single argument you encounter. The only reason to fear doubt is if you expect the latter to happen to you…which it needn’t. It all depends on where you take it.

 

 

 

Language and Fact

I snidely defined post-modernism thusly on my blog once before:

A philosophy in which the self is the source, interpreter and purveyor of all and in which nothing can be weighed against anything else, for nothing is accorded weight.

But to be a little more fair and to put a broader stroke on it, I should explain that the main aspects of post-modernism have to do with social constructs and language; post-modernism, as a theory, emphasizes the notion that most things which we deem to be fact are, instead, mere walls that we construct around ourselves, which we then proceed to perpetuate. (Hence the obsession with deconstruction). Post-modernism is far more concerned with the idea of everything being merely ideational, rather than any concrete desire to explore why “society” advocates certain behaviors and derides others, and whether indeed there is more to it than construct.

Example? Well here’s a rough attempt. (ahem).

Gender as a construct: A Post-modernist Tale

Once upon a time was born a human being with certain anatomical parts denoting what is linguistically referred to as female. Language is a human invention therefore its applications are malleable. Due to having received these particular anatomical features via the vagaries of genetic science, this person grew up in an environment in which it was anticipated that they would dress and behave in ways societally acceptable for said features. One day, shortly after the time in which biological agents act upon the body in a sexually maturing manner, this human being decided to adhere to behaviors, mannerisms, and sexual activities associated with that which is linguistically referred to as male. Henceforth this person chose to use the pronoun “he” instead of “she”, thereby adjusting the language with which they preferred to be described. Despite having to undergo many advanced scientific procedures to modify the once-healthy body, and to take hormones modifying the inherent biological agents and the inability to perform any of the functions of that which is referred to as the “male”, the protagonist of this story followed feelings and preferences, and this is very natural. But “natural” is not a value judgment. No. That is not permitted. Value judgments are against the mandate of post-modernism.

Oh. And the person lived indistinctly ever after, manipulating language to suit the flux of thought, feeling and perceived morality.

Okay. Yes. I have a tendency to poke fun and/or attack post-modernism. This for the two following reasons:

1.       My own tendency towards moral ambiguity keeps me well and full aware of where post-modernism actually and logically leads. I know what sort of person I would be without objective truth and this keeps me on my toes about philosophies that would enable all the very worst in my blood to go giddily, viciously wild.

2.       Post-modernism irritates the ever-loving daylights out of me. It is self-eating. It cannot walk for it has swallowed its own legs. It is so fascinated with itself that it—while claiming to see through all the constructs—sees nothing but its own self. It is the quintessential self-centered, self-justifying creature and a well-spring of untrustworthy tautologies.

I found this cartoon (linked to the only source I could find) and I think it handles post-modernism pretty well:

Per usual, C.S. Lewis pointed this out some sixty years ago when what is now called ‘post-modernism’ had not yet lost its baby-teeth:

“You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is of no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”

And what does this all come to?

My sister Ronit, among other things. She is a linguist. I am also a linguist (sort of) but I’m what I call a street linguist and she’s a proper one who understands things like…grammar, syntax and structure. It is her job to understand that which is applicable across languages, not just within context.

At first blush my own approach to language would well suit a post-modernist palate. I always say that context is king. And it is. We all know that one word can have a dozen or even many dozens of meanings and only the context can inform us of which one is actually intended. The meaning of the word is influenced by the topic, by inflection, by the speaker and who knows how many other factors that we scarce know to take into account. That is why text-speak is so inane; it lacks a huge number of context-qualifiers. That is also why letter-writing is an art; it’s the ability to infuse the words with the appropriate nuance and sentiment, honing the meaning down to a fine point while not having access to all the traditional tools (voice, expression, gesture).

But while context may be king, post-modernism would have it be a tyrant. One ought not to let context run amok. Context is the medium of communication, not the communiqué itself! Moreover, the truer a thing is, the higher it rises above context.

I am no grammarian, so my sister can speak on the rules and regulations of language to a degree that I can barely understand. This knowledge of the inherent structures that make up languages, both broadly and specifically, is what enables her to do with language things that I—in my context-soaked methods—cannot do; she analyzes them and understands them in and out of contexts; she can approach the language whole, or dissect it into parts.

Language is not as wispy and elusive as some would have us think. It is not as inextricable from its locale as it often seems. If handled with wisdom and care, meaning can survive translation with a healthy heart-beat and live well.

If we make the mistake of chalking everything up to context, we might be astonished (though we really shouldn’t be) at the many horrors that it justifies for itself, and at the many semantic and linguistic games we’ll find ourselves caught up in so as to never have to adhere to something higher or greater than the old adage that ‘perception is reality’. Because, if that’s the case, then all is in the eye of the beholder, and if the eyes are bad, how dark the light within (Matthew 6:23).