Terry Jones and Questioning Motive

The media frenzy over Terry Jones, a pastor who had been threatening to burn the Quran in commemoration/protest of 9/11, recently caught my eye. People of practically every background and political persuasion agree: it's a terrible, terrible idea. So why would he even consider it? Cui bono?

As far as I can tell, there are exactly 2 constituencies who would benefit in any concrete way:

1. Anti-Americans, who could use frame this incident as an emblem of how Americans feel about Islam to recruit and inspire insurgents and terrorists.

2. Terry Jones, whose audience has increased from a congregation of 50 to everyone who is plugged into the global media. I think it's fair to presume that there would also be a financial benefit to his ill-gotten fame.

So here's where I think it gets very interesting: is Jones a man of faith, trying to strike a symbolic blow against a religion he sees as evil, or is he a media-savvy cynic who saw an opportunity for fame and fortune? Should we ignore the words of Mike Mansfield, who warns us to "never question another man's motive--question his judgment, but never his motive."

I think it's clear that every American has the right, if not the duty, to question Terry Jones' judgment, but should we be questioning his motive?

Justice and Instinct

I quoted Coetzee recently on the subject of justice. In that post I was most interested in whether there are concepts that are too subjective to possess a Platonic form. Perhaps it is not necessary that justice be mathematically absolute; perhaps a lower standard suffices: that the accused accept his society's definition of justice. Coetzee may be suggesting this in Disgrace:

"It was a male. Whenever there was a bitch in the vicinity it would get excited and unmanageable, and with Pavlovian regularity, the owners would beat it. This went on until the poor dog didn't know what to do. At the smell of a bitch it would chase around the garden with its ears flat and its tail between its legs, whining, trying to hide...

...there was something so ignoble in the spectacle that I despaired. One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offense like chewing a slipper. A dog will accept the justice of that, a beating for a chewing. But desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts."

I recently read an engrossing New Yorker piece about the Mazoltuv Borukhova case. She certainly seems to be refusing to accept the justice for following her maternal instincts.

I also think it's interesting that Coetzee thinks it best to use animals to describe justice (the donkey in Waiting for the Barbarians and the dog in Disgrace). Coetzee may think animals do not self-justify the way humans do.

Ofermod and Cowardice

When I was taking Emily Steiner's class on Beowulf, we talked briefly about the Battle of Maldon. A quick summary: an English leader named Byrhtnoth refused to pay tribute to Vikings, so the Vikings attacked. The Vikings had the larger force, but Byrhtnoth had a good chance because the Vikings had to cross a narrow causeway, which rendered their numbers useless. Maldon could have been tactically similar to the Battle of Thermopylae, in which Gerard Butler and a handful of Greeks were able to hold off a larger Persian force by forcing the large force through a narrow patch of shoreline.

But instead of taking advantage of the causeway, Byrhtnoth decided to let the Vikings off the causeway before fighting. Why? Byrhtnoth was struck with ofermod: one of my favorite concepts of all time. (Predictably, the Vikings won the day; a lot of people on both sides died, Byrhtnoth lost his head, and the English began paying Danegeld.)

A lot of ink has been spilled about ofermod, including a famous essay by J.R.R. Tolkein, but here is a brief summary: ofermod is an Old English word, but its parts are familiar to us: "ofer" just means "over" and "mod" gives us the modern word "mood"--it means something like spirit and it connotes things like heart, pride, and courage.

History is full of Byrhtnoths--leaders with a surfeit of mod; we may even have a few still around. Are these people heroes or idiots? Or both? What is the difference between prudence and cowardice, and why is cowardice considered especially despicable, especially in men? Is any discussion on this topic colored by cultural lenses?

Pop Culture and Race Loyalty

One of my mentors recently posted a critical review of Tyler Perry's most recent film, Why Did I Get Married Too? Having not seen the film, I was most interested her description of Perry's appeal to "a demographic of women—working-class, Christian African Americans who identify as heterosexual—who do not have movies specifically marketed to them."

One interesting issue is that Black viewers would like to applaud Perry's success, even as they question the real quality of his work. This conflict is symptomatic of a broader ambivalence: what we like isn't necessarily what's good for us.

To what extent is a Perry a trailblazer, and to what extent is he a profiteer of poor taste?

A World of the Second-Best

In Waiting for the Barbarians, Coetzee's Magistrate recalls lecturing a young offender. I will paraphrase some, but quote it at some length because I think the language is beautiful:

"You think you know what is just and what is not. I understand. We all think we know...all creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice. But we live in a world of laws...a world of the second-best...all we can do is uphold the laws, all of us, without allowing the memory of justice to fade."

He says "a world of laws," but he may as well have said "a world of flaws." I think Coetzee's invocation of this Platonic system is interesting. I am accustomed to thinking of the "intelligible world" in terms of hard, scientific absolutes: triangles and such. An ideal triangle I can wrap my head around. Ideal justice is harder to conceptualize.

If our world is a world of the second-best, how do laws get us any closer to the world of the best?

Would Humans Prefer Zoos?

In Life of Pi, one of Yann Martel's characters brings up an interesting point about zoos. While the animals in zoos are not free, they are safe. Animals do not value self-determination or the natural sublime like humans; they are more concerned with freedom from predation, freedom from hunger, and freedom from the deleterious effects of the environment.

It is only when humans begin anthropomorphizing animals--projecting human values upon them--that the morality of zoos becomes fuzzy. Animals, Martel's character concludes, are better off zoos. Given a choice and the intelligence to understand it, animals would certainly choose the cage.

Are we the same? Would we sacrifice safety and comfort for a wilder life? What would we seek on this quixotic endeavor? Authenticity? What would authenticity mean in this context?

Family Guy and the Humanity of the Disabled

This topic is somewhat dated, but it attracted a fair amount of media attention. To review: in a recent episode of Family Guy, Chris goes on a date with Ellen, who has Down Syndrome. Chris has high hopes because he believes that individuals with Down Syndrome have exceptionally beautiful souls; he is crushed to discover that Ellen is cruel and domineering.

I am unconvinced that this episode is morally objectionable or that it creates net social harm. By portraying a disabled character with flaws that are a) unrelated to her disability and b) consistent with a stock character familiar to anyone who watches sitcoms, Family Guy asserts, not denies, the humanity of the disabled. The stakes are high: the extent to which disabled individuals count as fully human and the extent to which they deserve a place in society.

Individuals with Down Syndrome bear the burden of a stereotype: that they are kinder and more moral than the general population. I am uncertain of this belief's origins. It might be the idea that cognitive disability impairs deceit or aggression. It might be the idea that individuals with a disability in one area are compensated with exceptional ability in another. Not only are these ideas wrong, they leech at the individuality and humanity of their subjects.

Chris meets a girl with Down Syndrome and she is insufferable. One possible takeaway is that individuals with Down Syndrome are generally insufferable. But it strikes me that most characters on Family Guy are insufferable in one way or another. What would it mean to exclude characters with Down Syndrome from Family Guy's world, or to portray them as angels? What would be the underlying logic? Would either of these approaches do justice to the disabled community?

Tabula Rasa

New projects should begin in the springtime, preferably near opening day. The beginning of baseball season is a familiar figure for hope. In this spirit, I will very briefly outline my hopes for this blog.

I have never been able to maintain a chronicle of my quotidian life. This project, in contrast, will be about my ideas, which are most likely to be in the realm of current events, theory, and literature. While I intend it as a resource primarily for myself--a repository of my own ideas-- I am writing a blog rather than a Word document in the hopes of attracting interlocutors.