Praying for our Catholic friends

I have more to say about Catholicism later, but for now my prayers are with you, I assure you, during this time of excitement and hope. Sounds like a good choice – as someone at Mark Shea’s said, “socially conservative *and* cares about the poor?!?”

Can you imagine being the new Pope? Realizing that henceforth, your every word and action impacts billions of lives the globe over? I bet that going to bed on the first eve of one’s papacy, closing the door, and kneeling to pray, alone, with the full care of the world on one’s shoulders, must be something like entering the Holy of Holies in terms of the sheer feeling of spiritual awe that would overtake a person.

Follow-Up

I certainly never expected 172 comments on the previous post. I am extremely happy that with several exceptions, participants were very civil – that *is* a reflection of character, previous assessments notwithstanding. I have one or two notes to make, and then I will let the matter lie.

To begin with, let me acknowledge that describing “most” manosphites as perverted may have been unfair – it’s always easy for one to be given the wrong impression by a vocal minority. Nevertheless, the comment stream left me feeling largely vindicated, as it mirrored the tone I have generally seen elsewhere, on every major manosphere blog that I can think of, including the Christian ones. It is upsetting to me to think that we have reached a point in society where the bar for sexuality is so low that we have Christian commenters saying things along the lines of, “What do you mean so-and-so is a pervert? It’s not like he’s endorsing anal sodomy, for crying out loud!” The question of sex is not meant to be a legalistic one about what exactly is allowed and how far the bounds can be pushed. A good general guideline, though of course not foolproof, is the grandparent test – that is: would your grandparents have done this? Or would they ever even have *thought* of such a thing? If the answer is “no”, then your mind has been warped by our pornografied modernity.

Zippy Catholic twice offers a far better articulation than I could muster:

But life is short, and I think the point is demonstrated: when it comes to how a Christian ought to spend his time on-line it is legitimate to ask if witnessing (and linking to) debates over whether Biblical submission requires different kinds of sodomy, and participating in discussions only one degree of freedom removed from same, is worthwhile or wise.

…

I am going to decline the invitation to discuss the sordid details of various sexual acts, and point out that the repeated instances of enthusiastic fellatio advocacy in the one thread provide context for the other. I reiterate the point that a Christian who takes traditional sexual morality seriously, who finds himself in the middle of a discussion of sexbots and the explicit details of various sexual acts, is well within the bounds of reason to ask himself “what the Hell am I doing here?” and depart, announced or unannounced.

Just so, Zippy; thank you for offering this. It sums up my conclusion (after several years’ participation and observation) very well. Similarly, in response to complaints that I have not identified whom or what I am talking about with exact precision: I decline to do this because I think such things ought not to be talked about and find discussion of them to be creepy. That is the end of it.

For my Catholic readers: I assure you that your teaching on Natural Law forces me to consider swimming the Tiber at times. It’s something I strongly urge the Protestant church to re-visit.

My thanks to the commenter who pointed out that Samson’s Jawbone is ranked something like 20 millionth in the blogosphere – I did get a good laugh out of that, and would frankly *prefer* fewer commenters with *deeper* relationships. Unlike a good many other bloggers, I guess, I write mainly for myself and my own therapy, which helps explain the occasional outburst or premature remark.

Distancing Myself From the Manosphere

After years of at least semi-regular reading (less regular in recent months), I am finally inclined to distance myself from the part of the web called the “manosphere”. I have come to the reluctant conclusion that these blogs are more harmful than good. The problem is that there is enough kernelated truth in them to suck you into believing the rest of what you’re reading – and this is dire, because the rest of what you’re reading is terrible, often evil.

A related, second reluctant conclusion I’ve come to is that many, if not most, of the men on these sites are not really worthy of much respect, not worth emulating or feeling much sympathy for. I resisted this conclusion for a long time, not wanting to fall into the same category as feminists who use shaming language to keep men from speaking up. But I can’t resist any longer. When you read between the lines for long enough, it sooner or later becomes clear who these men really are and what they’re really about.

For instance, most of the manosphere denizens are perverts. Even at the supposedly “Christian” sites, most of the men are perverts. I mean this not as a pejorative, but in a literal, clinical sense: these men’s ideas about proper sexuality have been perverted; corrupted. On these sites, there is a good deal of posturing about wifely “submission”, but an awful lot of the time this is followed by complaints that a wife won’t “submit” – to her husband’s pleas for sodomy. This very blog entry was inspired by a sordid discussion that I saw at Dalrock’s (a site that I frankly have never been impressed with, viewing the author’s style as whiny and frequently bordering on misrepresentation), in which one commenter was upset and soliciting advice because he expected marriage to be an opportunity to engage in sickening sexual acts, and was disappointed when this didn’t materialize. Another commenter, one I believe to be quite popular, opined that if a woman doesn’t want to perform degrading sexual acts with her husband, she “must not really love him”. I don’t feel any sympathy when these men complain about not getting enough sex.

To echo the opening paragraph: these guys are correct to speak about patriarchy and marital submission – but it’s clear that many of them, if not most of them, are really upset because they couldn’t handle marriage and are disappointed that they can’t command their wives to perform like pornography stars. I don’t believe, by the way, that Pauls’ commands in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 7 oblige wives to submit themselves to degrading, bestial forms of sexuality.

In the final analysis, I agree with the elders at Joseph of Jackson’s church: I would not allow my daughters to date the men who frequent these sites. I *do* want my sons-in-law to be leaders – but if they don’t learn that from their fathers, they will learn it from me. There’s too much poison in the manosphere atmosphere to lurk there long and escape unpolluted. Flee immorality, for bad company corrupts good character.

I would still like to see a Christian – a TRULY Christian – resurgence of teaching on the biblical definitions of manhood, womanhood, and submission, but after what I’ve been seeing in the manosphere, I wonder whether that’s possible. Theoretically, it should be – but in practice, it doesn’t seem to work out. For whatever reason, the men who are most interested in this topic seem to have their own pathologies.

Henceforth, this blog allies itself with the likes of Bruce Charlton, the first blogger I’ve encountered in a long, long time (perhaps ever) who seems truly to share my views and feelings in most ways. Thank you, Bruce! Besides the Thinking Housewife and Orthosphere, I also want to recommend the Russell and Duenes blog. Of late, they’ve been offering some very compelling arguments dealing with foundational issues of government, Christianity and worldview.

I am, in fact, considering shuttering the blog and beginning anew under a different name. I am not certain I will do this, as anonymity is still valuable.

Hobbit Impression (***Spoliers***)

I had not managed to see the new Hobbit movie until last night, and the only review of it I’ve read so far has been Bruce Charlton’s, with which I (naturally) agree on some points but disagree on the overall impression – I find it awfully hard not to like the movie, even if it strays from the spirit of the book a wee bit. I guess I just don’t *care* about that as much as I used to – I take it for what it is, and understand what it isn’t and can’t be. It just doesn’t seem to me to really be *possible*, for instance, to maintain the sort of light-hearted silliness that characterizes the novel. I don’t think it would work on-screen. It may be that I’m guilty of reading *into* the movie what I *know* should be there, but I just can’t help seeing this glass as half-full. I want to see it again, if that means anything.

Here are some various points that come to mind, roughly from Bad to Good. Truth be told, there really wasn’t that much of the Bad, or at least I didn’t *mind* even if it was there in an objective, clinical sense. There were a few moments during the film that made me say, “Yech, that’s not How It’s Supposed To Be” – but not many.

-the Dwarves: like Dr. Charlton, I abhorred the post-modern characterization given to many of the dwarves, beginning, as he notes, with the introduction of the dwarf with the tattooed skull. Too bad, because I really liked Dwalin otherwise, as the stereotypical “tough guy”. Then there was the Effeminization of Dori. I was not sure whether I was reading too much into this, and haven’t Googled the issue, but I was pretty sick over the subtle “gay” joke being played out here. (If there was no such thing, please let me know. Similarly, I have – sadly – never been able to fully enjoy Ian McKellen’s Gandalf knowing as I do how deeply sunk into the homosexual movement the actor is).

-there was quite a bit of stuff in the movie that wasn’t in Tolkien’s source material. But, you know, I didn’t really care.

-perhaps more importantly, there was a fair amount of stuff, I felt, that viewers wouldn’t really grasp unless they were familiar with Tolkien’s material. Maybe this was the case with the original LOTR films and I didn’t really get it back then. In any case, I didn’t mind it, but I can see why a more casual viewer would. Some of it I quite liked – the portrayal of Erebor allowed me, as noted by others, to really “see” the glory of the dwarf kingdom in a way that I hadn’t been able to visualize before. (And the *savaging* of that kingdom by the dragon – the breaking of the door – extremely well done. It helped that I had just received a Tolkien bestiary for Christmas and had been reading about the history of the dragons as war-machines of Morgoth.)

I also quite liked the portrayal of Dol Guldur, and Radagast’s confrontation with the Witch-King there. The history of Angmar is one of my favourites aspects of the mythos.

-Radagast. Unforgiveable. In fact I would call this the worst rape and mutilation of any character in the four films, and possibly the *most* unforgiveable, except that he is such a minor character that it doesn’t *truly* matter. But just so we’re clear, let me spell it out absolutely starkly: the Istari are spiritual, celestial, angelic beings. They do not behave this way. Yes, Radagast is odd, a recluse – but in a schizoid-personality-disorder kind of way. Not in this Disney-esque 10-year-old sort of way. And the rabbit sleigh belongs in Narnia, not Middle-Earth.

-also hated Gollum as much as I did in LOTR. He is NOT supposed to be comedic in any way, shape or form. The scenes with him “arguing” back and forth with himself would have made my blood boil if I hadn’t already had that experience in TTT.

-the pacing and editing: Bruce complained about this. Quite honestly, I hardly noticed it, and was absolutely on the edge of my seat for most of the movie – but I guess that is because I am such a fan that I ate up everything. I will admit that there were scenes or lines in the movie that came across better when I saw them in the trailer, moments that in the trailer were very dramatic but came across in the film kind of “flat”, I think because the trailer was better edited. Critiques that the movie was “too long” are likewise lost on me; in fact I was one of those who had been skeptical about making the story into three films, but not anymore. I agree with commenters I’ve seen who’ve said that the three-hour span just made this movie easy-paced instead of crammed full and pared down.

-the scenery: not much needs to be said. I always wonder, when you see those gorgeous panoramic scenes, how much of New Zealand actually looks like that. Is it miles and miles? Or do they cherry-pick the locales and use tight camera angles to convey the impression of a never-ending expanse that, in fact, is not so large?

-the soundtrack: as much as I love the original LOTR score (and I do), I like this one even better, particularly the “main theme”.

-there were a few things that I frankly liked better in this movie than in the original LOTR series: particularly the portrayal of the orcs and elves. Leaving aside the gratuitous and unnecessary inclusion of the chief orc-warrior, I did feel that the orcs were more “realistic” in this film. In the three originals, there were no small number of scenes where the “extra” orcs were done fairly sloppily, coming across as bumbling, lame, manifestly *not* terror-inspiring. Not so in this movie. I wondered whether this represents PJ et al’s receptiveness to past fan criticisms.

(Relatedly, it occurs to me that between all four films thus far, we’ve now got enough on-screen orc villains that we could really begin holding competitions to see who is the baddest. Does Azok strike you as tougher than Lurtz? Not me, but opinions are welcome.)

Similarly, the elves: I have argued elsewhere, and maintain, that no “real-world” depiction can really capture the full majesty, aloofness and ethereal nature of the elves. Nevertheless, this film comes closer than the originals did. Elrond in particular is much better done than he was in FOTR, with more gravitas, yet still youthful and vital. In this film, you can believe that he’s 4000 years old with the wisdom of the ages.

(To venture onto a further tangent, one that may not come across clearly, because I’m not sure I can explain what I mean: it struck me that we’ve now seen enough peoples of M-E on-screen to gain a better appreciation of the uniqueness of each indivual people. I think particularly of Rohan, my favourite “people” – it’s now easier, I find, to see them in TTT and ROTK as a *distinct* people, battling to defend *their* way of life. Previously, we might have thought that that’s just how Men *are* in M-E. Now, with more peoples to contrast them to, we can see the Rohirrim as a unique class of warriors – which makes them all the more enjoyable.)

-Saruman: agree with other commenters that CL was pretty lacklustre. I choose to forget that this misstep ever happened.

-the Dwarves. I added this back in again because, in spite of my criticisms, I really quite liked them. Post-modern appearances notwithstanding (can anyone doubt that these movies will look terribly dated to our children?), I enjoyed and respected the dwarves’ loyalty, their courage… they really felt, to me – as I never felt about the comrades in LOTR – they felt “real”, like a group of *real* men, with *real* character flaws, a group that you’d want to be part of, for better or worse, just the same as you want to hang with your buddies even though sometimes they’re cranky, or not that bright (Nori!), or whatever. The scene where Fili and Kili tease Bilbo about the orcs – come on, that is *exactly* what mates do to each other. In fact, that PJ acheived this sort of depth even though he had to portray 13(!) different dwarves is no mean feat, IMHO. Really well-done here. I feel sure that other observers will disagree.

Likewise, the battles were great – honestly, if your blood didn’t get fired up when the dwarves charged the trolls all at once, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps our friend Dr. C doesn’t get invigorated by watching a good battle charge…?

I also enjoyed the fact that (making-it-into-three-films notwithstanding) this story is less of an “epic” than LOTR. It makes it feel more accessible, somehow.

-Bilbo: Martin Freeman is outstanding. Good job on making sure we get to see “the pity that stayed Biblo’s hand”, although the way it was done I’m not sure it would come across clearly to a viewer not familiar with the source material. Hopefully so.

That’s it for now.

Happy Hanukkah!

You mean you’re Christian and you *aren’t* celebrating Hanukkah? Well, I daresay: if you are a traditionalist who despises the encroachment of secular liberalism, and particularly resents our elite’s embrace of that agenda, then the tale of Hanukkah is for you.

The Jewish festival of Hanukkah celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple following Judah Maccabee’s victory over the Seleucids.

What was the Maccabean Revolt all about? Of course, amateur students of history need to beware of inferring false analogies based on superficial similarities. Nevertheless:

In the 2nd century BC, Judea lay between the Ptolemaic Kingdom based in Egypt and the Seleucid empire based in Syria, kingdoms formed after the death of Alexander the Great (336–323 BCE). Judea had been under Ptolemaic rule, but fell to the Seleucids around 200 BCE. Judea at that time had been affected by the Hellenization begun by Alexander. Some Jews, mainly those of the urban upper class, notably the Tobiad family, wished to dispense with Jewish law and to adopt a Greek lifestyle. According to the historian Victor Tcherikover, the main motive for the Tobiads’ Hellenism was economic and political. The Hellenizing Jews built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, competed in international Greek games, “removed their marks of circumcision and repudiated the holy covenant”.

Hrm. I can’t imagine where I’ve heard this sort of story before.

The author of the First Book of Maccabees regarded the Maccabean revolt as a rising of pious Jews against the Seleucid king who had tried to eradicate their religion and against the Jews who supported him. The author of the Second Book of Maccabees presented the conflict as a struggle between “Judaism” and “Hellenism”, words that he was the first to use.

Most modern scholars argue that the king was reacting to a civil war between traditionalist Jews in the countryside and Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem, though the king’s response of persecuting the religious traditionalists was unusual in antiquity, and was the immediate provocation for the revolt. According to Joseph P. Schultz, modern scholarship “considers the Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppression than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp”

And lo, the traditionalists won – thus, Hanukkah. And hardly anybody today knows or cares who Antiochus IV Epiphanes was, but the Israelite religion (of which Christianity is the proper, legitimate expression, ever since that first Christmas ca. 4 B.C.) has spread across the face of the earth.

Speaking of that: Merry Christmas! While I hope you will also be enjoying Exmas with your family (as I will be), don’t forget the real Christmas, which is not about presents nor even family, but about the birth of the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Tolkien, the S-word, Realism, Childish Naivete, and all the rest

We Tolkien-lovers have spent no small amount of energy defending him against the charge that his work is “childish”; “unrealistic”, and all the rest of it. In the main, our apology is accurate – properly understood, the Legendarium *is* deeply adult, deeply realistic and a very deep well of *wisdom*. Mostly. But there is one way in which I still feel it isn’t – one thing that for some time has been bugging me and interfering with my enjoyment of re-visiting Middle Earth. That is the question of sex.

Tolkien knew all about the male sexual drive, of course, as evidenced by his personal correspondence. Certainly as a soldier he would have been exposed to (or at least heard about) the full scope of male desire. He must have known that men under pressure, fierce men, sinewed and hard, experience desires.

And yet – what are we to make of the dominant male characters in his world?

There is a tendency for us, as believers, grasping the rich Christian symbolism in LotR, to likewise want to view the *characters* as proto-”Christians” – people to believe in, when our own leaders have so often failed us. If we view chastity as a Christian virtue – well, we naturally want to believe that our heroes are virtuous. But are they? Can we believe it?

I will omit the hobbits, elves and dwarves from this discussion – as “fantasy species” we cannot be quite sure what goes on in their heads. Let us consider just four characters, of the human race that we all know and love: Aragorn, Boromir, Eomer, and Faramir.

Boromir, my favourite character in LotR, is an ambitious, bold, self-confident man, brimming with male vitality and drive. By the time we meet him, he has fought many campaigns, been politically active for years, and by any account seems socially savvy. Is there any way to believe that this man remained chaste?

Similarly, Eomer. Eomer is another of my favourite characters (in the book at least – Karl Urban portrayed him decently, but not excellently. In the book, Eomer shows much more gravitas, judgement, intelligence, less hot-headedness – in short, much more *nobility* of character than Urban can muster. He is more “wild” and uncouth than Boromir, but perhaps even wiser, in the sense that men close to the land often are. His sense of duty at a time when the very existence of his people is at stake is thought-provoking and inspiring, worth reading through in light of our present crisis). But again – are we really to believe that this hard-riding, robust, life-and-death-facing horseman finds himself able to abstain from the pleasures of yellow-haired maids?

What of Aragorn and Faramir? Knowing what we do of their personal characters, it’s easier to believe they remained chaste. Aragorn is the Christ-figure who manages even to resist the temptation of the ring. And yet he is, what, 90 years old when he joins the Fellowship? Is he really virginal at that age? Faramir is the “good” son, who prays before eating and loves tradition and learning. But he too is a man.

Is it believable, then, that sex should have been omitted from the story? Or *is* it, in fact, believable, and am I reading 21st-century assumptions into the story?

I have to say that in my experience, as someone who *does* believe in chastity as a virtue, I must nevertheless acknowledge that most of the best men I’ve known – men who were *alive*, vigourous, and not afraid of their own shadows – had awful trouble maintaining any sort of chastity. Was this really different in other eras?

Or did Tolkien intentionally downplay the sexuality of his characters, in much the same way that he downplayed Christianity to make it less explicit?

Are our heroes merely human after all?

Halloween and the Numinous

It’s that time of year again – a season in which the weather, the temperature, the colour of the sky, all of these elements conspire to create a general ambience that I think of as “spiritual”, “adventuresome”, “ethereal”, “otherworldly”. For that reason it’s one of my favourite times of year.

But why do we, in this age of “hyper-rationality” (so-called, of course – see end note!*) celebrate Halloween, anyway? Most moderns have not heard of All Hallow’s Eve, and view Halloween chiefly as an excuse to dress up, maybe get a little drunk, and get a bit scared. That’s too bad, because I think Halloween fills a very real purpose; it address a certain longing of the soul, and it’s only been this year that I’ve really been able to articulate what this is. Just as, for example, Christmas is the time of year for celebrating Christ’s birth, and Remembrance Day commemorates the sacrifice of our soldiers, so Halloween is a time of the year for coming to terms firstly with death, but also with the numinous, and the fear of the numinous.

I’ve lately been reading through Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories (which I highly recommend if you like that kind of thing – the tales are great), which has reminded me of a discussion we had at Bonald’s old blog a year ago. In the comments there, I quoted this page:

The mysterium tremendum implies three qualities of the numinous:
a. its absolute unapproachability,
b. its power,
c. its urgency or energy, a force which is most easily perceived in the “wrath of God.”

It has been suggested that Gothic fiction originated primarily as a quest for the mysterium tremendum.

The numinous grips or stirs the mind powerfully and produces the following responses:

Numinous dread. Otto calls the feeling of numinous dread, aka awe or awe-fullness, the mysterium tremendum. C.S. Lewis’s illustration makes clear the nature of numinous dread and its difference from ordinary fear:

Suppose you were told that there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told “There is a ghost in the next room,” and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is “uncanny” rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply “There is a might spirit in the room” and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking–described as awe, and the object which excites it is the Numinous.

The writer suggests that Gothic fiction originated as a quest for the numinous. I find that very plausible, and argue that in fact *Halloween* today represents a quest for the numinous – and not just a quest to encounter or evoke the numinous, but to grapple with the fear of the numinous.

Modern man has attempted to eject God from conscious thought – but we cannot escape God, not really. Because the knowledge of God is written on our hearts, the mysterium tremendum is a defining characteristic of the human experience, and if we exclude it from conscious thought it comes back to haunt us on a subconscious level. We can’t escape the fear of the numinous realm, and our need to grapple with it.

Modern Halloween, and the enthralment many of us feel with “ghost stories”, graveyards, scary experiences, with death in general, is thus a sloppy, kindergarten-grade effort (sloppy because we don’t allow ourselves to fully or accurately appreciate the numinous; because *consciously* we deny that there could be such a thing as a “numinous” experience) to understand death – not just to understand death, but to understand the numinous, terrible feeling we get when we contemplate death.

*It’s been quite interesting, reading through the 19th-century ghost stories, that more than one of them contains variations of the idea that one character experiences something apparently supernatural, and another character disbelieves him, citing grounds of “rationality”. Plus ca change – modern arguments about the “irrationality” of spiritual belief are much older than some may think!