Peter Edman
Perhaps we are getting to the point where we can actually get back to arguing again. A couple of recent articles indicate a larger trend I think I’m seeing: people are increasingly willing again to go against political and secularist correctness in public. It indicates that the tide may be turning against those who would exclude opposing opinions from the public square by fiat.
First is Terry Teachout’s insightful piece on art and persuasion from In Character, reprinted in the Wall Street Journal, “When Drama Becomes Propaganda: Why is so much political art so awful?” (6 June 2005).
It isn’t just that they feel no responsibility to make arguments that might prove persuasive to those who disagree with them, or at least haven’t yet made up their minds. They no longer acknowledge any responsibility to their audiences. They appear to believe instead that so long as an artist thinks all the right things, he need not go to the trouble to be amusing, subtle or even interesting. All he need do is make his characters say the right things, and he’s entitled to the approval of his enlightened brethren. No one else matters.
A recent column in TIME Magazine from Charles Krauthammer is more ephemeral but also worth reading. “In Defense of Certainty: It’s trendy to be suspicious of people with ‘deeply held views.’ And it’s wrong” (June 1, 2005, web only).
The campaign against certainty is merely the philosophical veneer for an attempt to politically marginalize and intellectually disenfranchise believers. Instead of arguing the merits of any issue, secularists are trying to win the argument by default on the grounds that the other side displays unhealthy certainty or, even worse, unseemly religiosity.
We’ll leave Teachout with the last, constructive, word:
All art, political or not, must make everything more beautiful in order to fulfill its most essential function, that of seizing and holding the viewer’s attention. Any political artist who aspires to be more than a cheerleader for the converted must first learn this lesson, and learn it well. A boring work of art cannot convince anyone of anything, not even that we should believe what it tells us about the world in which we live. And nothing is more boring--or less believable--than a story with only one side.
Gleanings, Arts and Culture, Public Square, Mon 06 Jun 2005
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
George Washington Carver
Israel-Lebanon: A Clash of Cultures
America’s Most Important Export
Christian Realism and the United Nations
The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It by Os Guinness.
A proposal for restoring civility in America as a way to foster civility around the world.
Christopher Nolan’s Achievement: The Dark Knight: “The title of the Nolan’s latest Batman film calls to mind medieval chivalry in a postmodern key. The dark knight embraces extraordinary tasks and fights against enormous odds; his quest is to restore what has been corrupted and to recover what has been lost. In so doing, he takes upon himself a suffering and loneliness that isolate him from his fellow citizens and inevitably court their misunderstanding and scorn. He is a dark knight, in part, because the world he inhabits is nearly void of hope and virtue, and, in part, because some of the darkness resides within him, in his internal conflicts between the good he aspires to restore and the means he deploys to fend off evil. Of the many filmmakers designing dark tales of quests for redemption, Christopher Nolan is currently making a serious claim to being the master craftsman.” (Thomas S. Hibbs, First Things: On the Square • 2008 07 22)
Unplanned Parenthood: “Hall offers a faithful reconception of parenthood that resists notions of the “progressive family” and instead summons the church to lovingly and actively incorporate all children. She uses the doctrines of Creation, salvation, and eschatology—namely, that all children bear the image of God, that adoption is God’s form of salvation, and that God secures the future of the church—to move the church beyond mere biology and more deeply into its baptismal identity.” (Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom reviewing Conceiving Parenthood by Amy Laura Hall, Christianity Today • 2008 07 21)
What makes a supervillain?: “We’ve exposed all the stories we know as a culture to several peanut-butter-thick layers of ironic reimagining by now, parodying and re-parodying them until there’s nothing left to appreciate with any sincerity, but rather with a smirk and a knowing grin. So how, I wonder, does this culture manufacture more sincerity? How do we create something new that isn’t a parody of something we saw as kids?” (Brian Tiemann, Peeve Farm, on Joss Whedon’s excellent Internet-based musical, Dr. Horrible. • 2008 07 19)
Pope’s Speech at Barangaroo: “Dear friends, life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose (cf. Gen 1:28)! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this - in truth, in goodness, and in beauty - that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.” (Pope Benedict XVI, The Catholic Herald • 2008 07 17)
• Hollywood’s Hero Deficit (2008 07 17)
• The Return of Religion (2008 07 16)
• Food for Thought (2008 07 15)
• Sir John Templeton: iconic innovator in finance and religion (2008 07 12)
• Running on Faith (2008 07 11)
Leaf by Niggle by J. R. R. Tolkien, Foreword by Alonzo L. McDonald.
This charming and haunting story, which Tolkien used to demonstrate what he meant by the “mythopoeic” power of fairy-stories, addresses the question of life’s purpose and the legacy we leave behind us.
