During World War II, Karol Wojtyła helped found the underground Rhapsodic Theater, believing that, so long as Polish culture existed, the Polish state could eventually stage a comeback against the Nazis (and subsequently Soviets). But without a culture, there would be no soul left to animate the body politic.
That got me thinking about the defining characteristics of cultures, ours in particular. One of the curious wrinkles is that the most important texts in one sense may not be the most valuable. A work with which people can engage - and I realize that engagement is culturally conditioned; different people interact with texts and one another in different ways, including dramatic performances, poetry readings, morning newspapers, sacred proclamations - may be more important than the intellectual insights of a particularly erudite, but inaccessible, text.
We come then to a thought experiment: If our own country were overrun by tyrants, which works would you preserve for the sake of preserving our particular form of civilization? And why?
A bit Fahrenheit 451, I'll admit. The one parameter I'd place is this: we might as well assume that the tyrants of this little scenario are either foolish enough to permit the Bible and the Declaration of Independence, or so thorough in their thuggery as to prove them untenable for salvaging. There's no point filling our list with obvious choices; I think unusual ones provide far more food for thought.
One problem I have in approaching this question is how to define civilization, our civilization. American civilization? Western civilization? Christendom? Which of these is the most serviceable category? To which do I feel the most connection? Which is most worth saving? After all, I have multiple identities. My Catholic faith does not fit neatly into my American nationality; indeed, for much of American history, many people would have said the two were at odds. My status as an Anglophone (and, yes, Anglophile) links me to a variety of countries around the globe, though America initially defined itself in opposition its Anglophonic cousins.
I have no easy answers to these conundrums, at least not today, though I do have a few texts to offer for discussion:
Homer, The Iliad. This work is foundational to Western literature for a good reason. It does not simply come before later works; it engages with a variety fundamental questions about pride, friendship, free will, heroism, and loss. Little surprise, then, that G. K. Chesterton commented that, "if the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die." Or, as my friend Wondrous Pilgrim explained, "Hundreds of generations have read this and wept. Who am I to argue with them. (And I've wept as well!)."
Shakespeare. When considering the Bard's work, I must confess the inability to choose a single work, or even a single class of works. The histories exert a strong pull on me, not only because I love all things historical, but also because so many deal with questions of public life. But the comedies may prove just as insightful on this account - who would argue that The Tempest is not, among other things, about politics? - while also offering a lightheartedness that may be especially valuable in difficult times. Moreover, I think that drama offers two virtues worth mentioning. First, it is something one does. Whether one actually acts it out or simply reads it in a group, it invites a form of social participation beyond mere reading. Second, and related, drama invites discussion. The conversation over food and drink which follows a performance of Richard III or Julius Caesar may be some of the best civic discourse one can find.
Russell Kirk, Roots of American Order. In some ways, including this work is a cheat. Kirk surveys the origins of the American way of life, reaching from ancient Israel and Greece, through Rome, medieval Christendom, and the English liberal tradition, and on to the American Founding, all the way to Abraham Lincoln. Thus, in one vast sweep, this work encompasses the ideas and cultures of many other works which might appear on this list. At times I suspect Kirk indulges in a bit of wishful thinking, romantically claiming connections which are not quite so clear. But there is much to value in the history here surveyed, and even if America was not founded with all this in mind, modern Americans would do well to consider it.
G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man. Doubtless, this work benefited from the fact that I recently re-read it. But Chesterton's survey of human civilization, from its earliest origins to the Christian age, a survey which greatly influenced C. S. Lewis, makes a number of important arguments regarding the place of religion in society. Moreover, Chesterton reminds us that civilizations can progress but also regress, a worthwhile caution. Most importantly, Chesterton points to the supernatural power of God, which can reanimate humanity in ways even the best of merely natural civilizations cannot. And he writes with a very enjoyable flourish.
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail. I have written about this letter before. I think it is worth including here for three reasons: (1) it gives a glimpse of America in the latter half of the 20th century, (2) it draws extensively on the Western intellectual tradition, demonstrating how it can be applied to contemporary issues, and (3) it encourages reflection on how the tools of faith and reason should be applied to political injustice, certainly a worthwhile topic in difficult times.
Walter Miller, Canticle for Leibowitz. This is another work I have praised elsewhere. Although a very different genre, like Letter from Birmingham Jail it invites consideration of how people of faith many carry on in difficult times. This novel of monks in post-apocalyptic America also raises important questions about how the remnants of civilization are preserved, suggesting that the work of preservation should be carried on even in the absence of tangible benefits, though preservation should never be assumed to be complete nor should it become an end in itself.
Last night I went to see The Watchmen with some friends. Though I've not read the comic book, I like superhero movies, so I figured I would enjoy it. I left the theater with mixed feelings, but on reflection I've increasingly turned against it.
What didn't you like? you ask. The gratuitous sex and violence are worth a mention (though they're not the biggest issue). In superhero movies, I expect violence. Bad guys get blown up - that's the way it goes. But there were several scenes in The Watchmen that were just plain gratuitous. Not bad guys getting their comeuppance (with awesome special effects), just violence for its own sake. Likewise, sex scenes have become something of a staple of modern populist films. I don't like 'em, but in a certain sense, I can accept them: in the language of modern film, we know the hero and heroine love each other because they have sex. It's a wrong-headed notion, of course, but it often has a plot value. Not so the extended sex scene of The Watchmen: it's just an excuse for several pornographic minutes of actress Malin Åkerman.
**Warning: Spoilers, or elliptical references to them, follow.**
Beyond all that, I found the film's plot and attempt to struggle with moral questions sorely wanting. This is not a standard superhero film with good guys who - in spite, perhaps, of occasional foibles - are clearly good and bad guys who - in spite of occasional moments of charm - are clearly bad. A comparison may illustrate the point: Batman Begins is a film which grapples with the moral ambiguities and difficulties which arise from trying to do good in a world filled with evil. Bruce Wayne/Batman refuses to join the League of Shadows; whereas they see death and destruction as the only answer to a decadent and corrupt society, Wayne believes mankind can be saved. The ends do not justify the means. Justice must be tempered by mercy. I was less satisfied with the sequel, The Dark Knight. It seemed to me the desire to paint moral ambiguities at times overwhelmed the basic struggle of good versus evil. This is most clearly seen at the end of the film, when Wayne convinces Lt. James Gordon, his police sidekick, to blame Harvey Dent/Two-Face's murders on Batman, arguing that the people of Gotham City will lose all hope if they find out the truth about Dent. Batman flees as a fugitive. The painful lesson seems to be that doing good can require falsehood and not just the deception of Bruce Wayne hiding behind a mask, but an inversion of the truth about who has committed good and evil deeds.
Now take that trajectory from Batman Begins to The Dark Knight and follow it several steps further. There you will find The Watchmen. The villain, Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, motivated by a desire to bring peace to the world, kills a few million people and blames it on Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan, his former colleague. In the end, his scheme does bring world peace, and no one dares reveal the truth, lest it all be ruined. (We are given a hint at the end that the truth may come out, but through circumstances set in motion before our heroes knew about Veidt's plan.) There is no doubt that Veidt is the bad guy here, and yet... it's hard to hate a man who brings about world peace. One of the subplots mirrors this strange moral ambiguity: Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre reveals to her daughter that the reason she could never bring herself to hate Edward Blake/The Comedian, a man who tried to rape her, is because he fathered her daughter, Laurie Juspezyk/Silk Spectre II. The suggestion is that the means (Blake) justify the ends (Laurie).
Other contradictions and problems abound: Dr. Manhattan, Laurie's boyfriend, becomes increasingly disenchanted with her and humanity generally, though he ultimately defeats Veidt to save mankind. In spite of his conversion of sorts, eventually concluding that life may not be totally worthless, he nevertheless goes into self-imposed exile in the distant reaches of the galaxy, leaving her and everyone else behind. The Comedian is a psycho-killer and a sex-addict. Rorschach, our most morally consistent character, enjoys exacting psychotic revenge on evildoers. Laurie and Daniel Dreiberg/Nite Owl II are happy to take up an affair when her boyfriend - who left his previous love, Janey Slater, for the younger Laurie - grows more distant. These are not model citizens.
However, bad people don't necessarily make for a bad story. Indeed, one of my favorites, Homer's Iliad, is full of bad people. They're part of what make it compelling, actually. So what makes The Iliad different from The Watchmen? The difference, I think, is in the way that the Iliad's plot confronts these problems, whereas The Watchmen's accepts them. The Iliad opens with the problem of Achilles' honor being offended. Does he choose to withdraw from the fighting and protect his personal honor, or does he acknowledge his communal responsibility, continue fighting with the other Greeks and swallow the dishonor? He chooses to sit it out. However, when the Greeks are hard pressed, his sense of communal responsibility kicks in and he tries to paper over the problem by allowing his friend Patroklos to fight in his place. Does this seeming compromise solve the problem? No. That is made painfully clear when Patroklos is killed and Achilles accepts that he should have been fighting (which he promptly resumes). But then the whole question of personal honor versus community responsibility is circumscribed when Priam comes to Achilles to ask for the body of Hektor. Empathy triumphs over rage, providing the peace of mind that neither Achilles nor Priam could heretofore find. At each turn the plot introduces a moral quandary, allows the reader to dwell on it for a time, and then, through the action of the story, shows the consequences of a particular response to that quandary. Moral difficulties are not ignored, they are confronted.
It's been a few years since I read any of Aristotle's Poetics, but as I recall, one of his big points is that the plot must carry a story. You cannot try to describe a character as X, if his actions reveal him to be not X. You cannot say that the moral of the story is Y, if the action reveals it to be not Y. By this standard, the Iliad deserves high marks. The Watchmen, on the other hand, fails. More than just a story of mostly despicable people often doing despicable things, the action of the plot fails to interrogate whether or not these people are exemplary, whether or not they provide a valid window into the nature of reality. That is not only woefully disappointing; it is dangerous.
PS: Intrigued by what Barbara Nicolosi, a respected movie critic, had to say about The Watchmen, I took a look at her review. "WE WALKED OUT. Awful. Disgusting. Degrading. Vile. Barbarous. The kind of entertainment the Roman mobs were watching just before the barbarians came over the walls. Did I say depraved? I meant to. If you let your kids go to this piece of absolute unmitigated garbage, you deserve whatever nightmare lives they end up inflicting on you. I fear I haven't expressed myself strongly enough..." Wow.
Even The Dark Knight didn't get a review that bad, though it wasn't a lot better: "Too Dark. Too long. Too fast. Too pretentious. Too loud. Too many characters. Too much steady cam. Too little substance. Too little fun. The whole world has lost its mind." So I looked up her review of Batman Begins. Far more positive (though not without reservations): "Batman Begins is a very solid movie. It is well-produced, structured for suspense, and incorporates a number of satisfying - if not hugely compelling - characters. It just isn't what you expect it to be as a comic book movie, which might be the kiss of death with the comic book genre fans who want some mystery under their capes. We'll see. I'm giving two bats ears up."
In today's first reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, we heard about the "shield of faith" (Ephesians 6:16). In the ancient world, the shield went through a number of phases. In the heroic age, individual combat was the rule and a champion generally employed his shield without respect to others. But from time to time, one hero's shield would come to the aid of another, as in Book XI of the Iliad:
Three times [wounded Odysseus] called, as much voice as a man's head could hold, and three times Menelaos the warlike heard him shouting and immediately spoke to Aias, who was near by him: 'Son of Telamon, seed of Zeus, Aias, lord of the people... let us go to [patient Odysseus] through the battle...' Now Aias came near him, carrying like a wall his shield, and stood forth beside him, and the Trojans fled one way and another. Then taking Odysseus by the hand warlike Menelaos led him from the battle... (XI.462-5, 469, 485-8)
And so the mighty Aias the Greater used his shield to protect Odysseus and pull him back to the safety of the Greek camp.
In classical Greece, warfare was no longer about heroic individual combat, but massed infantry, called a phalanx (seen left). Discipline, holding the line, was key. In this age, soldiers carried large round shields, the upper lip of which rested on their shoulder. Because the shield was on his left arm, a soldier (called a hoplite) was well-protected on the left side, but his right was a little bare. Here he depended upon the man to his right, and in turn the man to his left depended upon him. Thus, if one man ran, the man to his left would be exposed and he too would run. Soon the whole line would fold.
In the Roman Republic, the manipular formation replaced the old Greek phalanx. Shields once again became an individual matter, tall rectangular things that did not overlap much with one's neighbor. But in certain situations (usually when storming enemy fortresses) the Roman legions would sometimes form a so-called tortoise formation (seen below), holding up their shields to create a box, protecting everyone inside.
Well, you can probably see where this is going... St. Paul not only spoke Greek, but could even quote the Greek poets (Acts 17:28). So whether he had in mind the epics of Homer, the battles of classical Greece or the contemporary military practice of the Romans, when he wrote the phrase, "the shield of faith," there would have been a communal quality attached to it. Faith is by its very nature intercessory: it not only protects us from "the flaming arrows of the Evil One," but we are also called to reach out with that faith to protect those around us. It is not always a fun thing to do - indeed, sharing our shield of faith in the midst of battle can be dangerous - but St. Paul seems to be calling us to nothing less.
