Letter #257: Critical BS Theory
A Little Less Talk and A Lot More Action
My lad.
We seem to have finally perfected the Klavan Mind-Meld, which we probably should have trademarked before the Vulcans stole it. Even though, after my last e-mail, I was not thinking about Magritte’s pipe, I was, in fact, pondering the fascinating fact that we read novels, go to movies and watch shows and love and hate and weep, broken-hearted, at the deaths of characters who have never existed in real life. More than that, we seek out the experience. We feel something positive has happened to us when we’ve gone through it. And we can share that positive experience with others. That is to say, it’s unlikely I’ll sit sniffling at the death of Jack Dawson at the end of Titanic while you sit beside me giggling about it. Although, let’s face it, there really was enough room on that door for both of them.
All of which tells us something. While a picture of a pipe might not actually be a pipe, no one ever thought it was a pipe, but everyone understood it to represent a pipe. So what the hell was Magritte complaining about? No one thinks Hamlet is a Dane either, but we all know he signifies a Dane and a great Dane at that. So all these theories about signs and signifiers and social constructs and the human experience redefined as some sort of conspiracy or delusion are really what Magritte might have called, “Ze pile de merde.” They were created by people who know how to reason but not how to live. We know what a tree is and we know that’s what the word tree means, despite all the theorists. We know what an obscenity is, George Carlin notwithstanding. And we know that a woman is a woman and a house is not a home without one, despite fifty years of feminist claptrap.
Of language, metaphor, ritual, and theater we can say what Shane said about his gun: these are but tools, as good and as bad as the people who use them. So if you want people to believe in transubstantiation, it helps if the priests don’t rape the choir boys. If you want them to believe the news, it’s a good idea not to hire George Stephanopoulos. And if you want people to laugh and cry and cheer at your movies, don’t prove yourself a political ignoramus by making stupid speeches on Oscar night.
To me, this is the central mission of Saint Paul. Most of the time, he wasn’t revealing some special insight about the judgements of God. He was telling the faithful how they should behave if they wanted people to believe what they were preaching.
Which brings me back to the point I’m harping on. We don’t really need to waste our time theorizing about signs and signifiers. We should instead be re-learning how to know God so that our words are true and spoken by faithful men.
Love, Dad
Low blow, Klavan. Fully agree that the molestation scandal terribly harmed the RCC, and that the handling of the crimes was awful, with thousands of lives harmed or ruined for those children. Turns out that the numbers of molesters in the population of priests closely mirrors that of the general population. It is not unique to celibacy and certainly not unique to the religion which teaches transubstantiation.
This statement is also a bit of a non sequitur as well. A friend and I were discussing this issue years ago and was concerned that the scandal of child sexual abuse would harm the teaching authority of the church. That authority the RCC believes is divinely ordained, but the teaching weight given by the public would clearly be harmed. So whether what happens in the consecration is Transubstantiation, consubstantiation or merely a memorial, the status of evil humans being involved with the institutions that profess these beliefs is not material. There is much rot in the RCC as with any human endeavor, but that is as old as mankind. The ill acts of those who profess belief does not negate those beliefs, but those who act ill.
I am not arguing that other people are less inclined to listen to a church that does not have its own house in order. I’ve watched this now for decades in my diocese, painful as it has been, and had as a patient one who caused such harm, and got to know him to some degree. His remorse was painful to watch, and he told me once that what he had done was unforgivable by God. Over the course of a discussion, he came to understand that nothing is impossible for God, even that forgiveness, although a terrible atonement would await. In proclaiming his unforgivable state, in a way he was putting his judgement over God’s.
I believe in transubstantiation no less despite the sins and crimes of 2000+years of humanity trying its hardest to sully the word of God. I’m just trying my hardest to not lead anyone astray by any actions of mine, and yes, by not judging.
Well said , perhaps René should’ve painted a tobacco plant in the 1st place then he could’ve stuck that in his pipe & smoked it .
Then we wouldn’t be going around & around & around & did I mention around arguing “its a pipe” - “no it’s not” “oh yes it is”- “oh no it’s not” - like children shouting at widow Twankey in a Christmas pantomime . Which would then be inevitabley followed by the usual Kerfuffle - where punches will be thrown- then exhausted back to - “oh yes it is” - “oh no it isn’t. Which some wise-guy some where said “that’s the entirety of human history in a nutshell”.