Journalists are trained to ask questions: who, what, when, where, how, why? The ‘why’ question is the most important, and also the most difficult to answer. Whenever a mass shooting happens, there is always a search to discover the shooter’s motives. Was he just fired from his job, or did he become estranged from his wife? Is he a “troubled” teen? Was he suffering from a chemical imbalance in his brain? Was he being seen by a psychiatrist? Is he a member of a jihadist terror cell? And so forth, and so on. I use “he” intentionally, because such acts of violence are usually, though not always, committed by males.
There are many different things that can be said about what is wrong with the human race: our psychological and moral immaturity, our pride, our imperialistic ambitions, our fear of foreigners, our blinding self-righteousness, etc. I suggest that another item can be added to this list that may seem (at first) to be unimportant: we are often easily satisfied with “pat answers.” If we hear about a horrific event such as the slaughter of a classroom of first graders in Connecticut, and then think the matter is settled when we are told by the media that this was a “disturbed young man,” we have been satisfied by a pat answer. As a culture, we do not have a track record of pursuing deeper and truer answers, perhaps because we sense that the pursuit would lead us down a path of self-examination that we actively avoid.
News accounts of the Connecticut shooter have said that he was “unable to feel emotional or physical pain.” We ought to question and reject such a facile notion. Anyone who is suicidal, as this young man obviously was, experiences life as a source of tremendous pain. He has decided to end that pain by ending his own life. Some people do precisely that, without doing violence to others. Those who do violence to others before taking their own life are choosing to inflict emotional pain on the survivors. It is as if they are saying, through their actions: “I have suffered pain; now it is your turn to feel pain also. That is my revenge.”
In our society today, the media’s superficial comments on “motives” leave us in a perpetual state of incomprehension. When a shooting happens we say: “I don’t understand why senseless acts of violence like this occur.” Of course it is the case that we don’t understand, because we have not made a serious attempt to do so. How many of us have not read a single article or book on the topic of violence, let alone the dozens that we would need to read to begin to grasp the dimensions of the problem? Because we have no comprehension, we file violent episodes into a cubby hole that holds the acts of deranged individuals who have nothing to teach us about our culture and its pathologies. We do not consider the possibility that a violent act is providing a window into the soul of our culture.
If we do see violent acts as providing insights into our culture, we may be tempted to misuse that intuition by asserting that the acts prove that God is displeased with us because we have abandoned prayer in schools, we teach evolution, we are redefining marriage, we allow abortion, and so forth. Such comments about Sandy Hook have been made by James Dobson and Mike Huckabee. People who have a variety of views on the issues just mentioned can and should recognize the painfully inept cause-and-effect reasoning that lies behind these comments. Dobson and Huckabee are acting like Job’s friends, seeking to point a finger of blame in the wake of immense suffering. “Heretical” is not too strong a word for any view of God that would claim that any slaughter of the innocents is “God’s judgment,” however orthodox the commentators may be in other respects. What is deeply troubling to me about these commentators is that they seem to have no interest at all in actually understanding the psychological motives of the shooter. Dobson is a psychologist and Huckabee is a minister, which makes their comments even more troubling.
While the notion that the Sandy Hook shooter could not feel pain rings hollow, the report that he acted as he did because he knew that his mother might have him committed to the care of mental health professionals rings true. We should take this report as a key to understanding what happened. He was a very psychologically malformed young man, and the prospect that he might actually be forced to be in a situation where people would help him with his problems filled him with panic. We human beings are often immature and we often actively avoid the possibility that we could become more mature. The ultimate means through which we enact this refusal to grow is violence; such a refusal is seen not just in a few isolated, “disturbed,” individuals, but in all of us, to a lesser extent. When we accept as a normal state of affairs the many forms of spiritual sloth that shape our “sane” culture, while seeing the Newtown shooter’s act as a bizarre aberration, it is like one ton of uranium ore saying to one pound of enriched uranium: “You are evil!”
For the person who views the world through pro-life lenses, the shooting at Sandy Hook cannot fail to shine a light on the intense irony of the pro-choice way of thinking and acting. This slaughter of children is described as a horrific crime and a terrible tragedy. Yet the fact that on the same day, as on every day since Roe v. Wade, more than 3,000 unborn children in the U.S. were pureéd by a suction tube (I take the word pureéd from the work of an abortion doctor describing her own practice), dismembered with forceps, or killed through some other means, is lifted up as an example of “liberty” and “progress.” That there might be a remote similarity between the Sandy Hook shooter’s fear of psychological growth and our own fear of growth, which is the energy driving abortion, is a thought that cannot possibly fit into the brain of the pro-choice advocate. President Obama spoke well and expressed the heart of the pro-life vision when he said after Sandy Hook: “This is our first task—caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged. And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children—all of them—safe from harm? Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?” Amen! . . . Preach it! . . . Coherently!
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Review of Oughourlian
Oughourlian, Jean-Michel. The Genesis of Desire. Trans. by Eugene Webb. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010. 174 pp.
Reviewed by Charles K. Bellinger.
Dr. Oughourlian, an experienced psychoanalyst in Paris, has collaborated with René Girard for many years in developing mimetic theory. This book presents mimetic theory with a focused application to the work of psychological therapists, as they seek to assist couples who are struggling with relational issues. A reader who is not familiar with Girard will find this to be a worthy introduction to Girard’s theory of human psychology, particularly if they have an interest in marriage counseling. Readers who are familiar with Girard will find this to be a substantial addition to the secondary literature. The question: “How does mimetic theory apply to . . . [the Arab-Israeli conflict, pastoral work, the interpretation of a literary text, advertizing, etc.]” is a live question among Girardians. This book provides a perspective on that type of query with regard to the psychiatrist’s couch and the anthropological reflections that arise out of that setting.
Theologically inclined readers will take an interest in Oughourlian’s comments on the Adam and Eve story in Genesis, which inspires the title. He interprets Adam and Eve as symbols of human beings in general; the Serpent is the symbol of mimetic desire. The Serpent introduces discontent, a feeling of lack and of deprivation. Out of these flow envy, conflict, and violence. The vertical relationship with God, which signifies the original goodness of creation, is broken down and replaced with horizontal relationships of mistrust, deception, and jealousy. In the wake of the Fall into sin, human beings claim to know good and evil, meaning that “my desire will be presumptuously indentified with the good, and the other’s rival desire will mendaciously be identified with evil”(68). Some of the author’s more memorable positive comments point to the reality of continuing creation, through which God seeks to bring humans forward into maturity in spite of the pervasiveness of sin. Rivalry is a “closed cycle of time” always repeating the victim / victimizer loop. The time of grace and redemption is “openness to the future”(157).
The book mentions the concept of “mirror neurons,” though it is not an extensive theoretical treatise on that topic. Mirror neurons are an aspect of the brain which enables humans and other animals to mimic behaviors they observe. This ties mimetic theory to naturalistic roots. The author includes diagrams illustrating psychological concepts that are at times helpful and at times hard to follow.
A fair number of pages are devoted to describing the entangled relationships of Dr. Oughourlian’s patients. X is married to Y, but X is having an affair with Q because Y drinks, and so on and so forth. The doctor seeks to show the patients how they are involved in various triangular relationships that are energized by jealousy. This is interesting, in a tawdry sort of way, but I can imagine many theological readers finding this aspect of the book to reveal more about the soap opera that is contemporary France than it does the gospel message. A doctor using the treasure that is mimetic theory to assist wealthy hedonistic westerners to manage their lives is a limited horizon. There is a great need for Christian catechesis that will apply the insights of Girard and others in a transformative way in our world, from interpersonal relationships on up to international politics. This book leaves the reader feeling that need very acutely; it does not fill the need.
Charles K. Bellinger
Assoc. Prof. of Theology and Ethics
Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas
Reviewed by Charles K. Bellinger.
Dr. Oughourlian, an experienced psychoanalyst in Paris, has collaborated with René Girard for many years in developing mimetic theory. This book presents mimetic theory with a focused application to the work of psychological therapists, as they seek to assist couples who are struggling with relational issues. A reader who is not familiar with Girard will find this to be a worthy introduction to Girard’s theory of human psychology, particularly if they have an interest in marriage counseling. Readers who are familiar with Girard will find this to be a substantial addition to the secondary literature. The question: “How does mimetic theory apply to . . . [the Arab-Israeli conflict, pastoral work, the interpretation of a literary text, advertizing, etc.]” is a live question among Girardians. This book provides a perspective on that type of query with regard to the psychiatrist’s couch and the anthropological reflections that arise out of that setting.
Theologically inclined readers will take an interest in Oughourlian’s comments on the Adam and Eve story in Genesis, which inspires the title. He interprets Adam and Eve as symbols of human beings in general; the Serpent is the symbol of mimetic desire. The Serpent introduces discontent, a feeling of lack and of deprivation. Out of these flow envy, conflict, and violence. The vertical relationship with God, which signifies the original goodness of creation, is broken down and replaced with horizontal relationships of mistrust, deception, and jealousy. In the wake of the Fall into sin, human beings claim to know good and evil, meaning that “my desire will be presumptuously indentified with the good, and the other’s rival desire will mendaciously be identified with evil”(68). Some of the author’s more memorable positive comments point to the reality of continuing creation, through which God seeks to bring humans forward into maturity in spite of the pervasiveness of sin. Rivalry is a “closed cycle of time” always repeating the victim / victimizer loop. The time of grace and redemption is “openness to the future”(157).
The book mentions the concept of “mirror neurons,” though it is not an extensive theoretical treatise on that topic. Mirror neurons are an aspect of the brain which enables humans and other animals to mimic behaviors they observe. This ties mimetic theory to naturalistic roots. The author includes diagrams illustrating psychological concepts that are at times helpful and at times hard to follow.
A fair number of pages are devoted to describing the entangled relationships of Dr. Oughourlian’s patients. X is married to Y, but X is having an affair with Q because Y drinks, and so on and so forth. The doctor seeks to show the patients how they are involved in various triangular relationships that are energized by jealousy. This is interesting, in a tawdry sort of way, but I can imagine many theological readers finding this aspect of the book to reveal more about the soap opera that is contemporary France than it does the gospel message. A doctor using the treasure that is mimetic theory to assist wealthy hedonistic westerners to manage their lives is a limited horizon. There is a great need for Christian catechesis that will apply the insights of Girard and others in a transformative way in our world, from interpersonal relationships on up to international politics. This book leaves the reader feeling that need very acutely; it does not fill the need.
Charles K. Bellinger
Assoc. Prof. of Theology and Ethics
Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Comments on Permanence and Change by K. Burke
The epigraph for Burke's later work A Grammar of Motives is ad bellum purificandum, which is usually translated as "towards the purification of war." I'm tempted to say that the epigraph for Permanence and Change could be ad religio purificandum: towards the purification of religion. I'm not sure if the Latin is exactly correct, but it is close enough to convey the meaning. The book as a whole can be interpreted as making the case that while the patterns of religion change over time and vary across cultures, the need of human beings to be religious is permanent.
Over and over again in the text Burke takes traditional religious language and reapplies it to modern "secular" culture, which renders the concept of secularity very ambiguous. Examples: Piety is obviously a key concept in this book, interpreted as "the sense of what properly goes with what"(74). All human beings are thus pious, in their varying ways, whether they are dock workers, teachers, police officers, or criminals. Anyone who seeks to persuade another person of some idea is engaged in "evangelism." "Conversion" is not simply the goal of preachers; all human beings are constantly being "born again" as they reconfigure themselves as they go through life. The professors, sales people, ad writers, etc., who are the priests of the capitalist system are always seeking to uphold that orientation(179). Karl Marx, as a representative of dissent that is trying to imagine a different orientation is a prophet. The "secular mysticism in Bentham" is concerned "au fond with the problem of evil"(193). The chapter on "The Ethical Confusion" can be seen as wrestling with the Great Commandment, in that it talks about the relation between love of neighbor and love of self. People must always choose between thinking of the universe as "being created" or "having been created"; is creation purely past tense or is it present tense (218)? The tension between these possibilities is a perennial debate among theologians, with fundamentalists tending to favor the past tense and reformers such as Martin Luther and Karl Barth tending to favor the "creation continues" approach.
What is the upshot of all of this? One could say that in human culture there is tremendously powerful inertia. So, if "modern" people think that they are rejecting religion and becoming secular, they are deceiving themselves, because the subtle inertia of millennia of religion will shape how they think and act (in the many ways that Burke is cataloging). But, it may be that in three or five hundred more years that inertia will have finally dissipated and humanity will actually be secularized. Or, a person may think that the religious features of human culture are necessary (permanent), not accidental. There is something in human nature that is stable across cultures and eras, which entails that there will always be catharsis, piety, conversion, and so forth. The specific expressions of those things will vary, but they will always be there, just as the human body can have different skin and hair colors, but it will always have lungs, a liver, muscles, bones, and so forth. I think Burke favors this latter possibility. "One may doubt that places such as heaven, hell, and purgatory await us after death--but one may well suspect that the psychological patterns which they symbolize lie at the root of our conduct here and now"(184). Homo sapiens is homo religiosus. Religion arises out of our metabiology.
If this is the case, it has interesting implications for higher education. Many "secular" universities, for example, do not even have a religious studies department, which suggests that there is a tacit acceptance of the inertia-dissipation-theory. But Burke's thought would seem to imply that it should not only be the case that there is a religious studies department in every university but also that there is a sense in which that department sees the human condition at the greatest depth. It is the heart of the university as it leads people to become aware of human pieties. Another implication would be that any philosophical interpretation of the human condition (such as Burke's, for example) is actually a kind of theology. "It seems obvious that before we could establish the existence of a common situation or motive for all men, we should have to define the cosmic situation and man's place in it. In the last analysis, psychology is but a subdivision of metaphysics . . ."(221). From the perspective of traditional (explicit) theology, this sort of (implicit) theology is ambiguous. It could be seen as a good thing in that there is a recognition of the permanent religiosity of human beings; it could be seen as a bad thing in that human beings in the modern world reject God and seek to become gods in their own right (rite!). Instead of human beings submitting to God's guidance, judgment, and poesis, they seek to become "strong poets of their own souls" which will lead to various forms of judgment against their neighbors, if those neighbors poetize differently. This judgment may include killing their neighbors (or euthanizing "defective" infants or the "useless" elderly).
We have been led to the conclusion that there is limited usefulness to the phrase that "religion is the opiate of the masses"; one could make a stronger case that the secularization thesis is the opiate of modern intellectuals who don't see things very clearly. Burke is thus a trojan horse for Marxism, boring from within to advance and purify religion.
Over and over again in the text Burke takes traditional religious language and reapplies it to modern "secular" culture, which renders the concept of secularity very ambiguous. Examples: Piety is obviously a key concept in this book, interpreted as "the sense of what properly goes with what"(74). All human beings are thus pious, in their varying ways, whether they are dock workers, teachers, police officers, or criminals. Anyone who seeks to persuade another person of some idea is engaged in "evangelism." "Conversion" is not simply the goal of preachers; all human beings are constantly being "born again" as they reconfigure themselves as they go through life. The professors, sales people, ad writers, etc., who are the priests of the capitalist system are always seeking to uphold that orientation(179). Karl Marx, as a representative of dissent that is trying to imagine a different orientation is a prophet. The "secular mysticism in Bentham" is concerned "au fond with the problem of evil"(193). The chapter on "The Ethical Confusion" can be seen as wrestling with the Great Commandment, in that it talks about the relation between love of neighbor and love of self. People must always choose between thinking of the universe as "being created" or "having been created"; is creation purely past tense or is it present tense (218)? The tension between these possibilities is a perennial debate among theologians, with fundamentalists tending to favor the past tense and reformers such as Martin Luther and Karl Barth tending to favor the "creation continues" approach.
What is the upshot of all of this? One could say that in human culture there is tremendously powerful inertia. So, if "modern" people think that they are rejecting religion and becoming secular, they are deceiving themselves, because the subtle inertia of millennia of religion will shape how they think and act (in the many ways that Burke is cataloging). But, it may be that in three or five hundred more years that inertia will have finally dissipated and humanity will actually be secularized. Or, a person may think that the religious features of human culture are necessary (permanent), not accidental. There is something in human nature that is stable across cultures and eras, which entails that there will always be catharsis, piety, conversion, and so forth. The specific expressions of those things will vary, but they will always be there, just as the human body can have different skin and hair colors, but it will always have lungs, a liver, muscles, bones, and so forth. I think Burke favors this latter possibility. "One may doubt that places such as heaven, hell, and purgatory await us after death--but one may well suspect that the psychological patterns which they symbolize lie at the root of our conduct here and now"(184). Homo sapiens is homo religiosus. Religion arises out of our metabiology.
If this is the case, it has interesting implications for higher education. Many "secular" universities, for example, do not even have a religious studies department, which suggests that there is a tacit acceptance of the inertia-dissipation-theory. But Burke's thought would seem to imply that it should not only be the case that there is a religious studies department in every university but also that there is a sense in which that department sees the human condition at the greatest depth. It is the heart of the university as it leads people to become aware of human pieties. Another implication would be that any philosophical interpretation of the human condition (such as Burke's, for example) is actually a kind of theology. "It seems obvious that before we could establish the existence of a common situation or motive for all men, we should have to define the cosmic situation and man's place in it. In the last analysis, psychology is but a subdivision of metaphysics . . ."(221). From the perspective of traditional (explicit) theology, this sort of (implicit) theology is ambiguous. It could be seen as a good thing in that there is a recognition of the permanent religiosity of human beings; it could be seen as a bad thing in that human beings in the modern world reject God and seek to become gods in their own right (rite!). Instead of human beings submitting to God's guidance, judgment, and poesis, they seek to become "strong poets of their own souls" which will lead to various forms of judgment against their neighbors, if those neighbors poetize differently. This judgment may include killing their neighbors (or euthanizing "defective" infants or the "useless" elderly).
We have been led to the conclusion that there is limited usefulness to the phrase that "religion is the opiate of the masses"; one could make a stronger case that the secularization thesis is the opiate of modern intellectuals who don't see things very clearly. Burke is thus a trojan horse for Marxism, boring from within to advance and purify religion.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Introducing Paul Young
I gave the following brief remarks to introduce author Paul Young, author of The Shack, at the Brite Divinity School Minister's Week Conference on Feb. 11, 2010.
Good morning, and welcome to the 2010 Scott Lectures at Brite Divinity School.
Through a quirk of circumstances, I just happen to have known Paul Young before he became famous. Back in 1997-2000 I lived in Portland, Oregon. Paul was also living in that area, and we met each other as participants in a discussion group for Christians from different churches. Back then, my impression of Paul was that he was bright, articulate, and well educated in theology, but I had no clue that Paul would one day write a book that would sell millions of copies. I'm sure that most of you are aware of the subsequent story: Paul wrote the manuscript of a novel, intending to give a few copies to family and friends. He and a small group of friends created their own imprint for the book, and it quickly rose to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
The most vociferous objections to the book seem to be coming from certain conservative evangelicals who claim that it teaches dangerously heretical doctrines. Such critics could benefit from reading The Art of Rhetoric, in which Aristotle says that there are three main forms of persuasion: logos (the logical force of the argument), ethos (the authority and charisma of the author), and pathos (the emotional impact that the work has on its audience). Those who criticize the alleged theological errors in the book make the category mistake of treating it as if it were a doctrinal treatise, an example of logos, which it is not. The book is not an example of ethos either, in the sense that Paul Young was not a person who had name recognition as a charismatic leader prior to the book's publication. The book's success is purely a result of the impact it had on its readers; it is an eye-opening example of what Aristotle called pathos.
Many readers have resonated deeply with the book's message about God's love for wounded people, and we are all wounded in various ways. The book challenges pastors in particular to ask themselves whether our churches and our religiosity are turning people away from God, or opening up people's spirits to truly hear the Gospel. Even if we are not contributing to the problem, is it the case that our preaching and teaching lacks persuasive power because it does not reach people where they are? Is there a deep spiritual hunger in people, for which we have very little nourishment to offer? These are the types of questions that we should be asking.
So without further ado, I present to you the accidental author, Paul Young.
Good morning, and welcome to the 2010 Scott Lectures at Brite Divinity School.
Through a quirk of circumstances, I just happen to have known Paul Young before he became famous. Back in 1997-2000 I lived in Portland, Oregon. Paul was also living in that area, and we met each other as participants in a discussion group for Christians from different churches. Back then, my impression of Paul was that he was bright, articulate, and well educated in theology, but I had no clue that Paul would one day write a book that would sell millions of copies. I'm sure that most of you are aware of the subsequent story: Paul wrote the manuscript of a novel, intending to give a few copies to family and friends. He and a small group of friends created their own imprint for the book, and it quickly rose to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
The most vociferous objections to the book seem to be coming from certain conservative evangelicals who claim that it teaches dangerously heretical doctrines. Such critics could benefit from reading The Art of Rhetoric, in which Aristotle says that there are three main forms of persuasion: logos (the logical force of the argument), ethos (the authority and charisma of the author), and pathos (the emotional impact that the work has on its audience). Those who criticize the alleged theological errors in the book make the category mistake of treating it as if it were a doctrinal treatise, an example of logos, which it is not. The book is not an example of ethos either, in the sense that Paul Young was not a person who had name recognition as a charismatic leader prior to the book's publication. The book's success is purely a result of the impact it had on its readers; it is an eye-opening example of what Aristotle called pathos.
Many readers have resonated deeply with the book's message about God's love for wounded people, and we are all wounded in various ways. The book challenges pastors in particular to ask themselves whether our churches and our religiosity are turning people away from God, or opening up people's spirits to truly hear the Gospel. Even if we are not contributing to the problem, is it the case that our preaching and teaching lacks persuasive power because it does not reach people where they are? Is there a deep spiritual hunger in people, for which we have very little nourishment to offer? These are the types of questions that we should be asking.
So without further ado, I present to you the accidental author, Paul Young.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Chantal Delsol, The Unlearned Lessons of the 20th Century
# Book report: Chantal Delsol, The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century: An Essay on Late Modernity.
The following is a paraphrase of some of the author’s main ideas. We think of ourselves as having left totalitarianism behind, as having triumphed over it. But we do not realize the extent to which we agree with the ideological assumptions that made totalitarianism possible. We are indignant, for example, regarding the way the Nazis dehumanized the Jews, but we are blind to our own practices of dehumanization. We condemn the condemnation of people as “radically other” while we also engage in othering.
Utopian schemes sow death. We are so slow mentally that we have to see the truth of that statement actually demonstrated before we acknowledge it. Utopian dreaming is premised on the idea that human beings are self-sufficient self-creators. The belief that there are no limits to our ability to refashion the world leads to violence without limits.
Ideologies such as Nazism and Communism sought to break down traditional ties between people, such as family and congregation, where personal virtue was nurtured, to replace those ties with worship of the state that would be enforced through suspicion, threats, and informing on others. The nihilistic culture that we foster today also seeks to break down traditional ties that nurture virtue, though the means used, such as ridicule, sarcasm, and ostracism, are less brutal. It is as if we feel a need to finish the uncompleted work of the ideologies. We call our escape into nothingness “progress.”
We define progress as the sweeping away of all scruples. Scruples are those cultural memories that prod us to defend the dignity of each human being; they are the voice within us that resists the destruction of morality. Our finest eugenicists are sometimes plagued with scruples; they realize that the rational course of action is to eliminate the substandard beings, but they hesitate. After we have “progressed” further as a race they will no longer hesitate. It will go without saying, because it cannot be said, that at that point we will prove ourselves to be the true spiritual heirs of Hitler, the one who burned scruples at the stake. The totalitarian ideologies destroyed traditional moral selfhood and the common world of neighborliness that it made possible. We have decided that we like living in that destroyed world. If anyone seeks to restore the common world that was lost we will brand them as a heretic.
In our world people are afraid to ask deep questions about the meaning of humanness. We withdraw from that activity of questioning that is our true path toward wholeness and transcendence. We think that there is no need for questioning and growing because we are automatically self-sufficient as individuals. We are isolated individuals who enter into relations with others that are either contractual or predatory. We do not want to give or forgive; we do not want to need or suffer; we do not want to recognize that we are finite and fallen or that we are called to live by grace. We think that we are capable of inventing ourselves and of governing ourselves; we presume that we are the God of our own individual world. The utopian dream sought god-like power to achieve the goal of “saving” society. By embracing individualism we think that we have rejected that dream, but we are actually prolonging that nightmare. We seek to be individual demiurges instead of collectivist demiurges. That is our definition of “change.”
We like to think that if a person believes something strongly, with a sense of certainty, then they will become a fanatic who oppresses others. Therefore, the preferable alternative is to not believe anything, to not think, to be vacuous on the inside. We are very good at resisting the temptation of building up beliefs that could structure our lives. Because we have no inner depth or moral backbone, we live in a superficial wasteland of cultural fads and fashions. We are shaped by these social trends because we lack coherent selves, although we never stop bleating about how we enjoy our perfect “freedom” as individuals. Because we are passive we always hold others responsible for what is happening in the world, rather than being responsible ourselves. In truth, to become a real individual requires participating in a coherent culture that can foster our rationality, our growth in personal virtues, and our sense of responsibility for ourselves and others.
People today tend to live in a perpetual present moment, cut off from a meaningful past and a hopeful future. We have fashioned very small, narrow cells for ourselves in which we choose to live cut off from the flow of time and from true community. And then we wonder why our preoccupation with our small selves leaves us so bored.
When we do venture out of our solitary cells, we join collectives of “like-minded” people who share our “identities.” In this way our individual narcissism is lifted up to a social plane where we think that we have “strength in numbers.” It is often the case that these collectives seek to outdo in each other to see who can make the strongest claim to being victims of tyrannical oppressors. These identity collectives arise out of the psychology of the self-sufficient isolated individual who is seeking to reinforce his or her inner convictions. This individual wants to join in a group which consists of mirror images of him or herself. A true subject, on the other hand, a growing person who is open to transcendence, is more open to genuine diversity and pluralism, because he or she is not narrowly self-interested but is seeking to foster a common world in which all can participate. The growing person is drawn in hope by a vision of a better future, rather than trying to defend an idolatry of origins. Collectives often claim that they are able to define their own vision of good and evil, morality and law, in defiance of tradition and of the contemporary need to build a common world with other human beings who do not belong to the collective. A collective may even claim that each individual in the collective is able to define their own view of good and evil as an individual. This reduces human life to an absurd Tower of Babel. It also smuggles in the assumption that since the individual is defining good for themselves then they will always do good and never evil—by definition. Anyone who criticizes the individual who has thus self-interestedly defined their own self as good must be an evil imposer of alien standards.
Collective thinking presumes that the members of the collective are good and outsiders who can be labeled as members of another group (“the Jews!”) are evil. People are not evil because of what they have done but simply because they had the misfortune to be born into the wrong group. In this way individual responsibility is obliterated, both for the members of the collective and for those they are attacking. A true community is rooted in the principle of individual responsibility, that is, in a recognition that all people can make good or bad choices. We have free will. There are not separate sub-species within the human race; there is only one human race made up of persons who are called to live ethically before God and in relation to others.
The totalitarian ideologies have twin goals: recreating human nature according to a utopian dream and personifying evil in some group. The revolutions of 1989 in Europe were seeking to expose the falsity of these ideologies; they were seeking to actually learn the lessons of the twentieth century. We must reject the notion that we can recreate ourselves and society from scratch, ex nihilo. We must love ourselves, our neighbors, and our Creator more than we love the plans, dreams, and ideologies that arise out of our own immature minds. If we understand this, then we will realize that the creation account in Genesis protects human dignity more effectively than any modern forms of “reason” can.
We need to be gardeners, not demiurges, and the chief way we can do that well is in how we raise our children. To nurture and raise a child is to help him or her emerge into the world as a person who is wounded by the tragedy that is the human race, without being overcome and undone by that wound. We need to pass on our love and accumulated wisdom to the next generation so that they have a chance to become authentic subjects who know that they are incomplete beings on a journey toward truth, beauty, and goodness. To be incomplete, to be half-created, is God’s gift to us which evokes our freedom and makes it real. If we reject the ideology of self-sufficiency and live into this freedom, then we have begun to learn the lessons of the twentieth century.
The following is a paraphrase of some of the author’s main ideas. We think of ourselves as having left totalitarianism behind, as having triumphed over it. But we do not realize the extent to which we agree with the ideological assumptions that made totalitarianism possible. We are indignant, for example, regarding the way the Nazis dehumanized the Jews, but we are blind to our own practices of dehumanization. We condemn the condemnation of people as “radically other” while we also engage in othering.
Utopian schemes sow death. We are so slow mentally that we have to see the truth of that statement actually demonstrated before we acknowledge it. Utopian dreaming is premised on the idea that human beings are self-sufficient self-creators. The belief that there are no limits to our ability to refashion the world leads to violence without limits.
Ideologies such as Nazism and Communism sought to break down traditional ties between people, such as family and congregation, where personal virtue was nurtured, to replace those ties with worship of the state that would be enforced through suspicion, threats, and informing on others. The nihilistic culture that we foster today also seeks to break down traditional ties that nurture virtue, though the means used, such as ridicule, sarcasm, and ostracism, are less brutal. It is as if we feel a need to finish the uncompleted work of the ideologies. We call our escape into nothingness “progress.”
We define progress as the sweeping away of all scruples. Scruples are those cultural memories that prod us to defend the dignity of each human being; they are the voice within us that resists the destruction of morality. Our finest eugenicists are sometimes plagued with scruples; they realize that the rational course of action is to eliminate the substandard beings, but they hesitate. After we have “progressed” further as a race they will no longer hesitate. It will go without saying, because it cannot be said, that at that point we will prove ourselves to be the true spiritual heirs of Hitler, the one who burned scruples at the stake. The totalitarian ideologies destroyed traditional moral selfhood and the common world of neighborliness that it made possible. We have decided that we like living in that destroyed world. If anyone seeks to restore the common world that was lost we will brand them as a heretic.
In our world people are afraid to ask deep questions about the meaning of humanness. We withdraw from that activity of questioning that is our true path toward wholeness and transcendence. We think that there is no need for questioning and growing because we are automatically self-sufficient as individuals. We are isolated individuals who enter into relations with others that are either contractual or predatory. We do not want to give or forgive; we do not want to need or suffer; we do not want to recognize that we are finite and fallen or that we are called to live by grace. We think that we are capable of inventing ourselves and of governing ourselves; we presume that we are the God of our own individual world. The utopian dream sought god-like power to achieve the goal of “saving” society. By embracing individualism we think that we have rejected that dream, but we are actually prolonging that nightmare. We seek to be individual demiurges instead of collectivist demiurges. That is our definition of “change.”
We like to think that if a person believes something strongly, with a sense of certainty, then they will become a fanatic who oppresses others. Therefore, the preferable alternative is to not believe anything, to not think, to be vacuous on the inside. We are very good at resisting the temptation of building up beliefs that could structure our lives. Because we have no inner depth or moral backbone, we live in a superficial wasteland of cultural fads and fashions. We are shaped by these social trends because we lack coherent selves, although we never stop bleating about how we enjoy our perfect “freedom” as individuals. Because we are passive we always hold others responsible for what is happening in the world, rather than being responsible ourselves. In truth, to become a real individual requires participating in a coherent culture that can foster our rationality, our growth in personal virtues, and our sense of responsibility for ourselves and others.
People today tend to live in a perpetual present moment, cut off from a meaningful past and a hopeful future. We have fashioned very small, narrow cells for ourselves in which we choose to live cut off from the flow of time and from true community. And then we wonder why our preoccupation with our small selves leaves us so bored.
When we do venture out of our solitary cells, we join collectives of “like-minded” people who share our “identities.” In this way our individual narcissism is lifted up to a social plane where we think that we have “strength in numbers.” It is often the case that these collectives seek to outdo in each other to see who can make the strongest claim to being victims of tyrannical oppressors. These identity collectives arise out of the psychology of the self-sufficient isolated individual who is seeking to reinforce his or her inner convictions. This individual wants to join in a group which consists of mirror images of him or herself. A true subject, on the other hand, a growing person who is open to transcendence, is more open to genuine diversity and pluralism, because he or she is not narrowly self-interested but is seeking to foster a common world in which all can participate. The growing person is drawn in hope by a vision of a better future, rather than trying to defend an idolatry of origins. Collectives often claim that they are able to define their own vision of good and evil, morality and law, in defiance of tradition and of the contemporary need to build a common world with other human beings who do not belong to the collective. A collective may even claim that each individual in the collective is able to define their own view of good and evil as an individual. This reduces human life to an absurd Tower of Babel. It also smuggles in the assumption that since the individual is defining good for themselves then they will always do good and never evil—by definition. Anyone who criticizes the individual who has thus self-interestedly defined their own self as good must be an evil imposer of alien standards.
Collective thinking presumes that the members of the collective are good and outsiders who can be labeled as members of another group (“the Jews!”) are evil. People are not evil because of what they have done but simply because they had the misfortune to be born into the wrong group. In this way individual responsibility is obliterated, both for the members of the collective and for those they are attacking. A true community is rooted in the principle of individual responsibility, that is, in a recognition that all people can make good or bad choices. We have free will. There are not separate sub-species within the human race; there is only one human race made up of persons who are called to live ethically before God and in relation to others.
The totalitarian ideologies have twin goals: recreating human nature according to a utopian dream and personifying evil in some group. The revolutions of 1989 in Europe were seeking to expose the falsity of these ideologies; they were seeking to actually learn the lessons of the twentieth century. We must reject the notion that we can recreate ourselves and society from scratch, ex nihilo. We must love ourselves, our neighbors, and our Creator more than we love the plans, dreams, and ideologies that arise out of our own immature minds. If we understand this, then we will realize that the creation account in Genesis protects human dignity more effectively than any modern forms of “reason” can.
We need to be gardeners, not demiurges, and the chief way we can do that well is in how we raise our children. To nurture and raise a child is to help him or her emerge into the world as a person who is wounded by the tragedy that is the human race, without being overcome and undone by that wound. We need to pass on our love and accumulated wisdom to the next generation so that they have a chance to become authentic subjects who know that they are incomplete beings on a journey toward truth, beauty, and goodness. To be incomplete, to be half-created, is God’s gift to us which evokes our freedom and makes it real. If we reject the ideology of self-sufficiency and live into this freedom, then we have begun to learn the lessons of the twentieth century.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Joker Is Satan, and So Are We
The Dark Knight is a movie that is breaking box office records. Why? Because it is a powerful expression of biblical truths. I need to elaborate a bit on this apparently odd statement.
Let's list, in no particular order, some of the main themes of the movie: The Joker's main goal is not acquiring money, but sowing chaos and destruction; Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent are rivals for the affection of Rachel Dawes; the police force is filled with corruption; Batman's exploits have produced copycats, imitators; the "law-abiding citizens" and the "criminals" are distinct groups of people . . . aren't they? . . . or are they all in the same boat?; a symbol of "justice," such as Harvey Dent, can be seduced to join "the dark side"; criminals often kill each other, taking greed to an irrational extreme. These themes can be elucidated very effectively with reference to the writings of René Girard.
If you are not familiar with Girard, I will provide a brief outline of his theory of culture. The theory begins with the concept of desire. Human beings have basic natural desires. If my stomach sends hunger signals to my brain, then I have a desire for food. But because human beings are highly social creatures, our basic natural desires very quickly become overlaid with complex patterns of social mediation. I may feel hungry, which is an internal, natural desire, but if I see a commercial for Burger King and decide to satisfy my hunger by eating a Whopper, then my desire has become socially mediated.
Girard uses the phrase “mimetic desire” to describe this bedrock phenomenon of human psychology. We may think that our desires are internally generated, but most of the time we do not know what we should desire until we look around at others and see what they are desiring. We mime, mimic, imitate the desires of others, particularly those others who appear to us as models of successful living. The models strike us as having a greater fullness of being than we have; in order to be like them we must desire to possess the things that they possess. There are many examples of mimetic desire. If two small children are in a room that has many toys in it, what will happen? One child will start playing with a particular toy and the other child will then want that toy also, and a tug-of-war will ensue. This will happen even if there is an identical or equivalent toy in the room. This is a perfect example of the phenomenon of mimetic desire, which is not predicated on scarcity; the scarcity of objects is not relevant because an artificial scarcity is created by the process of mimicking another person. When children grow into adults, mimetic desire does not fade away; it simply takes more sophisticated forms. I have already referred to advertizing as a key shaper of socially mediated desires. In general, the strategy of advertisers is to present happy, beautiful, successful people who own or use a certain product. You should own the product also if you want to mimic their success in life. In many ways the stock market is a mimetic phenomenon, as is fashion. The concept of "fashion" is not limited only to clothing; it also includes lifestyle items such as iPods, cars, computers, and avid devotion to sports teams or NASCAR drivers. The phenomenon of the romantic triangle, two men fighting over a woman, is a common theme in literature, television, and movies. In his works of literary criticism, Girard traces the roots of romantic rivalry as it is unveiled in the works of key authors such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Flaubert, and Dostoevsky.
This concept of rivalry is the second major element of Girard’s theory of culture. If human beings are copying the desires of other human beings, the stage is set for envy, rivalry, conflict, and violence. If I am imitating someone else’s desire for an object, then by definition I am setting myself up as a rival and potential enemy of the other person. If mimetic desire is the bedrock of human social psychology, then human society is always a conflictual field of mutual antagonisms which can lead to generalized chaos. If I imitate others then those others are always stumbling blocks for me, impeding my ability to get what I (and they) want. The phenomenon of the stumbling block is designated by a very precise term in the Greek language of the ancient world: skandalon. Mimetic desire and the rivalry to which it leads are inexhaustible sources of scandal, which Girard interprets as our inability to break free from the entangling webs of imitation and the violence to which it leads.
How do societies prevent themselves from suffering a meltdown into generalized chaos, into a war of all against all? Girard answers this question by pointing to the phenomenon of scapegoating. If the members of a society can single out a victim, they can channel their violent emotions toward that victim and do away with him. This cathartic release of pent up violence serves to give the society a new sense of unanimity and purpose. Instead of hating each other, people can agree to hate a particular victim or perhaps a minority group or class within society. It is easy to find examples that illustrate the scapegoat mechanism. In the Middle Ages in Europe, if the plague were to break out in a certain city, usually what would happen is that a rumor would be started that the plague was caused by the Jews poisoning the drinking water. This rumor would lead to a massacre of local Jews. The fact that the Jews were also dying of the plague and had been drinking from the same water sources as everyone else is irrelevant. Scapegoating violence is irrational and subconscious. It is commonly noted by historians that those who were preaching in favor of the Crusades and whipping up public fervor for them, such as Pope Urban II, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Catherine of Siena, would commonly say to the people that European Christians should stop killing each other in petty internal wars. Instead, they should become united, march to the Holy Land, and slaughter the infidel Muslims. This is a clear example of how the scapegoat mechanism serves to unite people and channel their violence toward a scapegoated Other. The lynching of blacks in the United States is another particularly stark example of the scapegoat mechanism at work. The ideology of slaveholding specifically taught that persons of African descent are subhuman and can therefore be killed with impunity to maintain what was claimed to be a superior white civilization. The killing of Jews by the Nazis is another immense example of scapegoating at work, as is the killing of so-called “counter-revolutionaries” in Stalinist Russia. In Japan in 1923 there was a major earthquake that killed thousands of people. False rumors began to circulate that persons of Korean descent living in Japan were taking advantage of the situation by looting, robbing, and raping. Vigilante groups of Japanese men began to massacre anyone they suspected of being Korean. The similarity between this situation and the medieval plague is striking and undeniable. It also shows that the phenomenon that Girard is describing is not simply “Western.” He is unveiling the social psychology of human beings as such. Human culture is a lynch mob which has normalized and structured the process by which scapegoats are identified, vilified, and killed. The lynch mob always sees itself as innocent and the victim as a guilty transgressor who must be killed to restore "law and order" in the universe.
Girard's theory of violence comes to a head in his discussion of Satan. He says that Satan is not a individual person but rather the entire complex process that we have just summarized. Satan is the seducer who alienates people from God and insinuates to them that they must long for something that they supposedly lack. They must seek out models of success and imitate them. Satan is also the one who "kicks it up a notch" into rivalry, conflict, and chaotic violence. And Satan is the whisperer behind the lynch mob, the voice demanding that One must be sacrificed for the Many. In this way, "law and order" will be restored.
Some scholars have commented, regarding John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, that Satan is the most interesting character, much more so than Adam, Eve, the angels, or Christ. In a similar way, the Joker is clearly the most interesting character in The Dark Knight, and he is obviously a figurative version of Satan. His main purpose is to sow chaos, confusion, and destruction among human beings. He does this by stoking the flames of the skandalon -- the intense fascination that human beings have with each other in the pursuit of their desires. There is the obvious romantic triangle of Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, and Rachel Dawes; two men seeking the affection of one woman is one of the most common mimetic plots. The Joker says to Batman at one point: "Does Harvey know about you and his little bunny?" which throws Batman into a predictable jealous rage. On a larger scale, there is the rivalry between the criminals and the "law abiding citizens", who are all seeking money, mammon. In modern Western culture, which is highly secularized, money is the new god that people worship. The movie is saying that all people are greedy; the difference between the citizens and the criminals is that the latter take greed to an absurd extreme, killing each other off in the process. The Joker recognizes all of this and uses the fascination with money to create all kinds of temptations and conflicts, so that the police become just as corrupt as the criminals.
The Dark Knight is a movie that has so many resonances with Girard's ideas that the question inevitably rises as to whether or not the film makers have read him. It may be that his ideas have filtered into the consciousness of the Hollywood intelligentsia. It may be that the comic book authors and the film makers are simply drawing on the same inspirations that Girard draws on: the Bible and great works of literature. The answer to this question is not germane to our discussion here, but it is an interesting sidebar. The quotations from The Joker that I will present shortly have such strong Girardian resonances that it is hard to believe that the film makers have not read Girard. One can speculate that they knew Girard's ideas would make the movie philosophically powerful in addition to being visually dazzling. The combination would be a box office hit because of the public's mimetic desire (word of mouth patronage). The film makers, motivated by a desire to make millions of dollars, employ Girard's ideas. Delicious irony, isn't it?
The interrogation room scene in the middle of movie is its center, where the entire story is revealed under the blinding lights. This scene shows that The Joker is the most astute observer of human pyschology in the film. His insights into mimetic desire and the scapegoating activities of the "civilized" people reveal a transcendent perspective; precisely the sort of transcendent perspective that Girard claims is the fruit of biblical revelation. The Joker says to Batman: "They need you right now. When they don't, they'll cast you out like a leper. You see, their code, their morals, it's a bad joke." Girard's theory maintains that an individual who is lifted up as a hero today is likely to become the scapegoat tomorrow. The King who is obeyed by his loyal subjects today will have his head chopped off tomorrow. Society sees itself as moral, as being comprised of the good people who can judge the bad people. But what society cannot admit to itself is that its need for scapegoats is itself immoral. Society cannot recognize its hypocrisy. The Joker says that "When the chips are down, these civilized people, they'll eat each other." He also says "I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve." He is revealing that "law abiding society" is a mystification; human culture is a lynch mob riding the bucking bronco of chaotic violence. By thinking that it is attacking Satan in the form of the scapegoat, society is actually acting according to the satanic principle. When The Joker says "the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules" he is speaking the voice of chaotic, Dionysian violence. But he also reveals in this scene that the "rules," the laws and prohibitions that society invents to contain violence, are a sham. The police and the legal system think of themselves as stemming from a different spiritual source than the demonic criminals; but in reality they all flow out of the fountain of the complex, shapeshifting satanic event. The violence of the criminals and the brutality of the police, symbolized by Batman slamming the Joker's head into the table, reveal that the ultimate basis of violence is reciprocity. The enemies who attack each other come to resemble each other more and more until they are indistinguishable. This is recognized implicitly in the film's underlying question: "How can evil be struggled against without allowing evil to overcome the one who is struggling, turning him to the dark side?"
The Joker's statement to Batman -- "You complete me" -- is profound, perhaps more profound than the film makers realize. Like the phrase from the gospels, "It is finished," it offers the perfect summary of the entire story. The Joker is saying that his role as the chaotic Satan is complemented by Batman's role as the "law and order" Satan, whose good violence is supposedly casting out the other Satan's bad violence. This is why The Joker can say with such confidence "You have nothing to frighten me with, nothing to do with all your strength." He realizes that Batman is actually his ally in the satanic event. The Joker knows about satanic shapeshifting, Batman does not.
It is customary in movies to present the criminals as evil and the cops as good. But the radical implication of Girard's theory is that evil is present in the structure of "law abiding society"; Satan is ultimately not a person but a complex process. Satan is at work in the actions of the criminal, but when the criminal is apprehended, tried, and retributively punished, society is acting as a lynch mob which is also secretly inspired by Satan. When this is seen, the rhetoric of "Justice" becomes empty, or worse than empty, it becomes the evil of hypocrisy. This is why I say that the film makers may have put into the Joker's mouth a line that is more profound that they realize. To understand that Satan is a shapeshifter who can be in the criminal and in a defender of Justice, such as Harvey Dent or Batman, is to deconstruct the (good guys vs. bad guys) genre of the film. In contemporary political parlance, if the bad guys, the evildoers, and those who are carrying out the War on Evildoing are all fulfilling Satan's agenda without realizing it, then the world is utterly dark. How can such a world ever be transformed? "Who can deliver us from this body of death?"(Rom. 7:24) This is a question that can only have a christological answer, which is articulated in Romans 12:21: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." But while The Joker is clearly a Satan figure, it is my argument that Batman is not a Christ figure, even though he willingly accepts the role of scapegoat at the end of the movie.
Christ is not a character in the movie, but he is present throughout, in the sense that his defeat of Satan on the cross, through nonviolent love, put Satan on display, thus making the revelatory insights of the movie possible. This also is an idea which is articulated clearly by Girard. When The Joker says to Batman "I know the truth. There's no going back. You've changed things forever" his words intimate that he is really addressing another conversation partner, the same one to whom Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor was speaking.
Let's list, in no particular order, some of the main themes of the movie: The Joker's main goal is not acquiring money, but sowing chaos and destruction; Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent are rivals for the affection of Rachel Dawes; the police force is filled with corruption; Batman's exploits have produced copycats, imitators; the "law-abiding citizens" and the "criminals" are distinct groups of people . . . aren't they? . . . or are they all in the same boat?; a symbol of "justice," such as Harvey Dent, can be seduced to join "the dark side"; criminals often kill each other, taking greed to an irrational extreme. These themes can be elucidated very effectively with reference to the writings of René Girard.
If you are not familiar with Girard, I will provide a brief outline of his theory of culture. The theory begins with the concept of desire. Human beings have basic natural desires. If my stomach sends hunger signals to my brain, then I have a desire for food. But because human beings are highly social creatures, our basic natural desires very quickly become overlaid with complex patterns of social mediation. I may feel hungry, which is an internal, natural desire, but if I see a commercial for Burger King and decide to satisfy my hunger by eating a Whopper, then my desire has become socially mediated.
Girard uses the phrase “mimetic desire” to describe this bedrock phenomenon of human psychology. We may think that our desires are internally generated, but most of the time we do not know what we should desire until we look around at others and see what they are desiring. We mime, mimic, imitate the desires of others, particularly those others who appear to us as models of successful living. The models strike us as having a greater fullness of being than we have; in order to be like them we must desire to possess the things that they possess. There are many examples of mimetic desire. If two small children are in a room that has many toys in it, what will happen? One child will start playing with a particular toy and the other child will then want that toy also, and a tug-of-war will ensue. This will happen even if there is an identical or equivalent toy in the room. This is a perfect example of the phenomenon of mimetic desire, which is not predicated on scarcity; the scarcity of objects is not relevant because an artificial scarcity is created by the process of mimicking another person. When children grow into adults, mimetic desire does not fade away; it simply takes more sophisticated forms. I have already referred to advertizing as a key shaper of socially mediated desires. In general, the strategy of advertisers is to present happy, beautiful, successful people who own or use a certain product. You should own the product also if you want to mimic their success in life. In many ways the stock market is a mimetic phenomenon, as is fashion. The concept of "fashion" is not limited only to clothing; it also includes lifestyle items such as iPods, cars, computers, and avid devotion to sports teams or NASCAR drivers. The phenomenon of the romantic triangle, two men fighting over a woman, is a common theme in literature, television, and movies. In his works of literary criticism, Girard traces the roots of romantic rivalry as it is unveiled in the works of key authors such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Flaubert, and Dostoevsky.
This concept of rivalry is the second major element of Girard’s theory of culture. If human beings are copying the desires of other human beings, the stage is set for envy, rivalry, conflict, and violence. If I am imitating someone else’s desire for an object, then by definition I am setting myself up as a rival and potential enemy of the other person. If mimetic desire is the bedrock of human social psychology, then human society is always a conflictual field of mutual antagonisms which can lead to generalized chaos. If I imitate others then those others are always stumbling blocks for me, impeding my ability to get what I (and they) want. The phenomenon of the stumbling block is designated by a very precise term in the Greek language of the ancient world: skandalon. Mimetic desire and the rivalry to which it leads are inexhaustible sources of scandal, which Girard interprets as our inability to break free from the entangling webs of imitation and the violence to which it leads.
How do societies prevent themselves from suffering a meltdown into generalized chaos, into a war of all against all? Girard answers this question by pointing to the phenomenon of scapegoating. If the members of a society can single out a victim, they can channel their violent emotions toward that victim and do away with him. This cathartic release of pent up violence serves to give the society a new sense of unanimity and purpose. Instead of hating each other, people can agree to hate a particular victim or perhaps a minority group or class within society. It is easy to find examples that illustrate the scapegoat mechanism. In the Middle Ages in Europe, if the plague were to break out in a certain city, usually what would happen is that a rumor would be started that the plague was caused by the Jews poisoning the drinking water. This rumor would lead to a massacre of local Jews. The fact that the Jews were also dying of the plague and had been drinking from the same water sources as everyone else is irrelevant. Scapegoating violence is irrational and subconscious. It is commonly noted by historians that those who were preaching in favor of the Crusades and whipping up public fervor for them, such as Pope Urban II, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Catherine of Siena, would commonly say to the people that European Christians should stop killing each other in petty internal wars. Instead, they should become united, march to the Holy Land, and slaughter the infidel Muslims. This is a clear example of how the scapegoat mechanism serves to unite people and channel their violence toward a scapegoated Other. The lynching of blacks in the United States is another particularly stark example of the scapegoat mechanism at work. The ideology of slaveholding specifically taught that persons of African descent are subhuman and can therefore be killed with impunity to maintain what was claimed to be a superior white civilization. The killing of Jews by the Nazis is another immense example of scapegoating at work, as is the killing of so-called “counter-revolutionaries” in Stalinist Russia. In Japan in 1923 there was a major earthquake that killed thousands of people. False rumors began to circulate that persons of Korean descent living in Japan were taking advantage of the situation by looting, robbing, and raping. Vigilante groups of Japanese men began to massacre anyone they suspected of being Korean. The similarity between this situation and the medieval plague is striking and undeniable. It also shows that the phenomenon that Girard is describing is not simply “Western.” He is unveiling the social psychology of human beings as such. Human culture is a lynch mob which has normalized and structured the process by which scapegoats are identified, vilified, and killed. The lynch mob always sees itself as innocent and the victim as a guilty transgressor who must be killed to restore "law and order" in the universe.
Girard's theory of violence comes to a head in his discussion of Satan. He says that Satan is not a individual person but rather the entire complex process that we have just summarized. Satan is the seducer who alienates people from God and insinuates to them that they must long for something that they supposedly lack. They must seek out models of success and imitate them. Satan is also the one who "kicks it up a notch" into rivalry, conflict, and chaotic violence. And Satan is the whisperer behind the lynch mob, the voice demanding that One must be sacrificed for the Many. In this way, "law and order" will be restored.
Some scholars have commented, regarding John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, that Satan is the most interesting character, much more so than Adam, Eve, the angels, or Christ. In a similar way, the Joker is clearly the most interesting character in The Dark Knight, and he is obviously a figurative version of Satan. His main purpose is to sow chaos, confusion, and destruction among human beings. He does this by stoking the flames of the skandalon -- the intense fascination that human beings have with each other in the pursuit of their desires. There is the obvious romantic triangle of Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, and Rachel Dawes; two men seeking the affection of one woman is one of the most common mimetic plots. The Joker says to Batman at one point: "Does Harvey know about you and his little bunny?" which throws Batman into a predictable jealous rage. On a larger scale, there is the rivalry between the criminals and the "law abiding citizens", who are all seeking money, mammon. In modern Western culture, which is highly secularized, money is the new god that people worship. The movie is saying that all people are greedy; the difference between the citizens and the criminals is that the latter take greed to an absurd extreme, killing each other off in the process. The Joker recognizes all of this and uses the fascination with money to create all kinds of temptations and conflicts, so that the police become just as corrupt as the criminals.
The Dark Knight is a movie that has so many resonances with Girard's ideas that the question inevitably rises as to whether or not the film makers have read him. It may be that his ideas have filtered into the consciousness of the Hollywood intelligentsia. It may be that the comic book authors and the film makers are simply drawing on the same inspirations that Girard draws on: the Bible and great works of literature. The answer to this question is not germane to our discussion here, but it is an interesting sidebar. The quotations from The Joker that I will present shortly have such strong Girardian resonances that it is hard to believe that the film makers have not read Girard. One can speculate that they knew Girard's ideas would make the movie philosophically powerful in addition to being visually dazzling. The combination would be a box office hit because of the public's mimetic desire (word of mouth patronage). The film makers, motivated by a desire to make millions of dollars, employ Girard's ideas. Delicious irony, isn't it?
The interrogation room scene in the middle of movie is its center, where the entire story is revealed under the blinding lights. This scene shows that The Joker is the most astute observer of human pyschology in the film. His insights into mimetic desire and the scapegoating activities of the "civilized" people reveal a transcendent perspective; precisely the sort of transcendent perspective that Girard claims is the fruit of biblical revelation. The Joker says to Batman: "They need you right now. When they don't, they'll cast you out like a leper. You see, their code, their morals, it's a bad joke." Girard's theory maintains that an individual who is lifted up as a hero today is likely to become the scapegoat tomorrow. The King who is obeyed by his loyal subjects today will have his head chopped off tomorrow. Society sees itself as moral, as being comprised of the good people who can judge the bad people. But what society cannot admit to itself is that its need for scapegoats is itself immoral. Society cannot recognize its hypocrisy. The Joker says that "When the chips are down, these civilized people, they'll eat each other." He also says "I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve." He is revealing that "law abiding society" is a mystification; human culture is a lynch mob riding the bucking bronco of chaotic violence. By thinking that it is attacking Satan in the form of the scapegoat, society is actually acting according to the satanic principle. When The Joker says "the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules" he is speaking the voice of chaotic, Dionysian violence. But he also reveals in this scene that the "rules," the laws and prohibitions that society invents to contain violence, are a sham. The police and the legal system think of themselves as stemming from a different spiritual source than the demonic criminals; but in reality they all flow out of the fountain of the complex, shapeshifting satanic event. The violence of the criminals and the brutality of the police, symbolized by Batman slamming the Joker's head into the table, reveal that the ultimate basis of violence is reciprocity. The enemies who attack each other come to resemble each other more and more until they are indistinguishable. This is recognized implicitly in the film's underlying question: "How can evil be struggled against without allowing evil to overcome the one who is struggling, turning him to the dark side?"
The Joker's statement to Batman -- "You complete me" -- is profound, perhaps more profound than the film makers realize. Like the phrase from the gospels, "It is finished," it offers the perfect summary of the entire story. The Joker is saying that his role as the chaotic Satan is complemented by Batman's role as the "law and order" Satan, whose good violence is supposedly casting out the other Satan's bad violence. This is why The Joker can say with such confidence "You have nothing to frighten me with, nothing to do with all your strength." He realizes that Batman is actually his ally in the satanic event. The Joker knows about satanic shapeshifting, Batman does not.
It is customary in movies to present the criminals as evil and the cops as good. But the radical implication of Girard's theory is that evil is present in the structure of "law abiding society"; Satan is ultimately not a person but a complex process. Satan is at work in the actions of the criminal, but when the criminal is apprehended, tried, and retributively punished, society is acting as a lynch mob which is also secretly inspired by Satan. When this is seen, the rhetoric of "Justice" becomes empty, or worse than empty, it becomes the evil of hypocrisy. This is why I say that the film makers may have put into the Joker's mouth a line that is more profound that they realize. To understand that Satan is a shapeshifter who can be in the criminal and in a defender of Justice, such as Harvey Dent or Batman, is to deconstruct the (good guys vs. bad guys) genre of the film. In contemporary political parlance, if the bad guys, the evildoers, and those who are carrying out the War on Evildoing are all fulfilling Satan's agenda without realizing it, then the world is utterly dark. How can such a world ever be transformed? "Who can deliver us from this body of death?"(Rom. 7:24) This is a question that can only have a christological answer, which is articulated in Romans 12:21: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." But while The Joker is clearly a Satan figure, it is my argument that Batman is not a Christ figure, even though he willingly accepts the role of scapegoat at the end of the movie.
Christ is not a character in the movie, but he is present throughout, in the sense that his defeat of Satan on the cross, through nonviolent love, put Satan on display, thus making the revelatory insights of the movie possible. This also is an idea which is articulated clearly by Girard. When The Joker says to Batman "I know the truth. There's no going back. You've changed things forever" his words intimate that he is really addressing another conversation partner, the same one to whom Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor was speaking.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Book now available
My book, The Trinitarian Self, is now available for sale at http://wipfandstock.com/
Type bellinger into the search box at the lower left side and you will find it. The cost is $17.60 plus shipping.
ISBN 10: 1-55635-232-8; ISBN 13: 978-1-55635-232-4
Back cover text:
The Trinitarian Self argues that the insights of three key authors—Søren Kierkegaard, Eric Voegelin, and René Girard—can be synthesized to produce a Trinitarian theological anthropology. Their reflections on the deep roots of human behavior illuminate three structural dimensions of human existence: the temporal trajectory of selfhood, the vertical axis (God and nature), and the horizontal plane of cultural formation. An understanding of these dimensions and how they interrelate proves very fruitful in making sense of a wide variety of pathological forms of behavior that human beings have engaged in during the modern era. This work links together in thought-provoking ways various realms of thought, such as Trinitarian theology, a plea for a “New Copernican Revolution” that will result in a broadly held psychological understanding of violence, the ethics of war and peace, atonement theologies, and critical commentaries on terrorism and the war on terror. The interplay between these topics will likely prove very stimulating to a wide variety of readers.
"Bellinger has thrown a clarifying spotlight on the question of violence as the crucial intersection between our human sciences and theology, a dialogue that proves as fruitful in theory as it is necessary in practice. His telling readings of Soren Kierkegaard, Eric Voegelin and Rene Girard are woven together into an interpretive framework that multiplies the diagnostic relevance of each one for our conflicted human condition. Ambitious, clear and creative, this book is a welcome contribution to the theological understanding of humanity and to the struggle to overcome violence."
S. Mark Heim, Samuel Abbot Professor of Christian Theology, Andover Newton Theological School
"The lethal blow is as ancient as Cain, and it is this mystery of human malice that Charles Bellinger explores with creativity and verve. His ambitious theological anthropology, closely tied to the doctrine of God and ethics, consistently provokes insights into our painfully predictable tendency toward pyscho-social pathology—and gives us valuable hints about the way toward peace."
R.R. Reno, Professor of Theological Ethics, Creighton University
Another endorsement, not on cover:
" 'The luxury of ignorance is no longer possible.' Charles Bellinger is absolutely right. Christians must reflect more deeply upon the violence in which we are involved—either as victims or perpetrators. University and school shootings, the mass violence of terrorists and nations, the quiet violence of aesthetic individualism: all this requires that we get our bearings. Bellinger provides a remarkably sophisticated but accessible anthropology whereby we can discover the idolatry and genuine subhumanity at the root of our violence. Yet, the real gift of this book is what Bellinger provides in the way of discovering what it means to encounter Christ and the triune life of God in maturity, openness and peace. If churches or study groups were looking for a book to help them think through the chaos without resorting to empty rhetoric, this book is a worthy guide."
Rev. Joshua Whitfield, St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Mansfield, Texas
Type bellinger into the search box at the lower left side and you will find it. The cost is $17.60 plus shipping.
ISBN 10: 1-55635-232-8; ISBN 13: 978-1-55635-232-4
Back cover text:
The Trinitarian Self argues that the insights of three key authors—Søren Kierkegaard, Eric Voegelin, and René Girard—can be synthesized to produce a Trinitarian theological anthropology. Their reflections on the deep roots of human behavior illuminate three structural dimensions of human existence: the temporal trajectory of selfhood, the vertical axis (God and nature), and the horizontal plane of cultural formation. An understanding of these dimensions and how they interrelate proves very fruitful in making sense of a wide variety of pathological forms of behavior that human beings have engaged in during the modern era. This work links together in thought-provoking ways various realms of thought, such as Trinitarian theology, a plea for a “New Copernican Revolution” that will result in a broadly held psychological understanding of violence, the ethics of war and peace, atonement theologies, and critical commentaries on terrorism and the war on terror. The interplay between these topics will likely prove very stimulating to a wide variety of readers.
"Bellinger has thrown a clarifying spotlight on the question of violence as the crucial intersection between our human sciences and theology, a dialogue that proves as fruitful in theory as it is necessary in practice. His telling readings of Soren Kierkegaard, Eric Voegelin and Rene Girard are woven together into an interpretive framework that multiplies the diagnostic relevance of each one for our conflicted human condition. Ambitious, clear and creative, this book is a welcome contribution to the theological understanding of humanity and to the struggle to overcome violence."
S. Mark Heim, Samuel Abbot Professor of Christian Theology, Andover Newton Theological School
"The lethal blow is as ancient as Cain, and it is this mystery of human malice that Charles Bellinger explores with creativity and verve. His ambitious theological anthropology, closely tied to the doctrine of God and ethics, consistently provokes insights into our painfully predictable tendency toward pyscho-social pathology—and gives us valuable hints about the way toward peace."
R.R. Reno, Professor of Theological Ethics, Creighton University
Another endorsement, not on cover:
" 'The luxury of ignorance is no longer possible.' Charles Bellinger is absolutely right. Christians must reflect more deeply upon the violence in which we are involved—either as victims or perpetrators. University and school shootings, the mass violence of terrorists and nations, the quiet violence of aesthetic individualism: all this requires that we get our bearings. Bellinger provides a remarkably sophisticated but accessible anthropology whereby we can discover the idolatry and genuine subhumanity at the root of our violence. Yet, the real gift of this book is what Bellinger provides in the way of discovering what it means to encounter Christ and the triune life of God in maturity, openness and peace. If churches or study groups were looking for a book to help them think through the chaos without resorting to empty rhetoric, this book is a worthy guide."
Rev. Joshua Whitfield, St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Mansfield, Texas
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