Examining a dirty word -- Censorship

Back in May, a book review by Richard Schickel was featured in the Los Angeles Times about book Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture by Raymond J. Haberski Jr. on the era just after the movie censoring of the ‘50’s. I’ll admit I haven’t read the book. However, as with most book reviews that use the book topic as a springboard for the book reviewer’s opining, I don’t need to have read the book confront Schickel’s point of view. Here is the link to Schickel’s book review below.

Read the article

Now that you’ve had a chance to read it, here is a statement that he made that I want to unpack in the context of other thing that he says in his article.

…The real issue was the widespread belief that movies, as a mass art, required closer censorship than other arts. The censors argued, ludicrously, that they were protecting a completely mythical creature, the innocent child who might someday wander into a theater and, in effect, see Mommy and Daddy doing it. Might have, I suppose. But so what? Children see and hear all sorts of things we'd prefer they didn't…

Now my goal is not necessarily to defend the movie censors, their methods or their rhetoric. That is a topic for another post. I will say in regard to this book review that I have a bias: I sympathize with the essential idea that there is an innocence that children possess that adults have an obligation to protect by setting boundaries.

Countering this idea is Schickel who is in the same ilk as Bill Maher when Maher says, “children aren't innocent” (Maher also says that Jesus wasn’t Republican, which is true, but that’s another issue). Here’s what at stake in denying the existence of innocence in children. If there is any idea that there may be a special innocence to the lives of children then it opens the door to arguing that some sort of boundary somewhere is appropriate is appropriate and that some censorship of some kind must take place to enforce the boundary.

While often claiming that parents should confine their jurisdiction of values to the “home”, Schickel and those who share his belief, use a rhetorical sword that thoroughly dismisses the ontological possibility that children have any special innocence. It is this sword that, taken to its logical conclusion, cuts into the very jurisdiction of the home. If the innocent child is a completely “mythical creature” and therefore is as non-existent as the tooth fairy, why should any parent ever raise a finger, a voice or an eyebrow to ever demarcate boundaries to protect a child’s innocence.

Likewise, there is the equal and opposite rhetorical sword; the one that says that there is a special innocence to children. It is a sword that is wielded by those who favor the imposition of boundaries that cuts into a realm beyond the jurisdiction of home and cuts into society at large, and even into the realm of the movies. In response to this threat, Schickel and those who share his belief are willing to use an opposing rhetorical sword that is able to cut into more than they are willing to admit.

What is happening in the paragraph cited above is Schickel in the process of A) creating the rhetorical sword to cut at the idea of children’s innocence, and then B) trying to hold back the sword from cutting along the full arc that his blade is designed to cut. He does this by first declaring that the innocent child who might wander into a theater is a purely “mythical creature” but then admits that "Children see and hear all sorts of things we'd prefer they didn't…".

It is almost an offhand remark, "Children see and hear all sorts of things we'd prefer they didn't". There is more importance and meaning in that statement than Schickel lets on, or is even able to admit to himself, which is why I want to camp out on it. Who is “we’? If we assume for the sake of convenience that “we” is adult society, is this adult society completely and utterly wrongheaded in its preference? Is the preference completely and utterly baseless and devoid of any claim to truth or reality? Here is the problem. The preference that “we” have would need to be completely and utterly baseless in order for the innocent child to be a “completely mythical creature”. “Completely” doesn’t leave a lot of room for ambiguity or nuance.

Perhaps Schickel would try to explain his position by saying, as many would, that A) the reality of kids seeing adult content and B) the desire that we would have for a child to not see it is the difference between what is "real" and an "ideal" in the world. Here, our “preference” is that which is ideal, while the reality of kids being exposed to adult content is that which is “real”. If Schickel took this line of thinking, he would be saying that the “ideal” is something that is purely mythic, and that what is “ideal” in human affairs does not have nearly the claim to being real when compared to that which actually occurs in day-to-day human affairs.

This is a common belief but inaccurate belief. In truth, that which tangibly occurs in the realm human affairs is merely an existential realm of reality. An ideal is not completely mythic in the sense that Schickel intends the word "mythic" to mean, as something as fanciful as the tooth fairy and that can be totally dismissed from serious discussion. Ideals are an intangible part of reality that are as real as our existential and tangible reality, even as our existential and tangible reality falls short of the ideals most of the time. Nevertheless, ideals shape, and should shape, our existential reality profoundly. Human affairs exist in the tension between what is ideal and what is real, and we would quickly think our way into savage behavior if we completely abandoned ideals.

As an example of this, we all know what junk food is even though we eat it. If a Martian were sent to Earth to conduct a superficial survey of what it is that people, in fact, eat, the Martian would discover that lots of people eat a lot of junk food. The practice of eating a purely nutritious diet is “mythic” in the sense that it is an Olympian task that the vast majority of people fail at. However, the need that people have for nutrition is not mythic at all. It may be impractical to prevent people from eating junk food. It may even be that people in a free society need to be free to have junk food. Whatever the case may be, there is an intellectual canyon that is crossed by telling ourselves that it isn't, in fact, junk food or by saying something tantamount to it, i.e. that junk food is completely harmless.

Of course, the nutritional value of junk food can be verified in a laboratory. The innocence of children can’t. The epistemology of tangible scientific empiricism is not always suited to the realm of grasping at ideals any more than it is suited to explaining the mystery of beauty and art. As with many issues, one person’s studies with one agenda can be pitted against another person’s studies and statistics with another agenda.

But maybe, just maybe, the innocence of children exists in some plane of reality, where it is a real thing, and kids are, in some way, better and healthier for having a sense of innocence protected. If this is true, then violations of their innocence are a spiritual and emotional junk food of a different kind. It is my assertion that it is this ephemeral reality that the antennae of collective adult preference is pointing us to, and our intuition, though not provable with scientific precision, may not be completely wrong.

I think that Schickel knows this on some level, which is why he includes his reference to our “preference" in stating his opinion, even as he has crafted his opinion as a “take no prisoners” rhetorical sword. He doesn't want to be too dismissive of the remote possibility that kids have an innocence that needs to be protected and nurtured. However, Schickel doesn't want the faint possibility of this to in any way get in the way of the way that movies are presented to the world.

Schickel criticizes the idea that the “mass art” required some “closer censorship” by brushing aside any concern about the possibility that a few kids made it into the theaters. So Schickel doesn't seem to be bothered by a few kids going in. But that is an easy target of his blasé. The real question is whether he bothered by a vast swath of them going in? It would be more intellectually honest for Schickel to say flat out that he wouldn’t mind in the least if most, if not all, children made it in to see movies with adult content. But then again, his “preference” would get in the way of making such a bold statement.

In regard to movie boundaries, more and more allow more and more sex and gore has been allowed in movies under the R and PG-13 rating over the years. In relation to what was censored in the ‘50’s, more and more kids have been "brought in" to the theatre to more sex and gore. For all intents and purposes, the 1950's boundary that Schickel dismissed has now been significantly breached. Now what?

Later in his book review, Schickel bemoans that "American film is almost universally pitched to teenage dimwits and the nation's addiction to pornography is chronic and more alarming… ”. So what does this have to do with adult content in movies? Movies are part of the larger media infrastructure that has increasingly brought raunch, and gore into the mainstream. And movies for “dimwits” and “porn” are both appeals to our base nature and the lowest common denominator for and easy buck.

What Schickel is actually bemoaning is the taste for raunch and gore and has run amok, that has become so dominant in our society that it imposes its own unique form of tyranny. As our society demands some form of “closer censorship” in the form of a ratings system, so too does our present society demand raunchy spectacle in movies, and it is this demand that has financial clout and with it, the creative clout to crowd out better movies. While certain aspects of some movies may be “self censoring”, the market is not.

Schickel plainly loves the "heady days" of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s and hates prissiness and dismay of the guardians of moral purity and the contempt of the high culture that came before and the drivel and raunch that has come after. Here is a scary possibility for Schickel. It is possible that there was a value to the force of censorship, even as the rhetoric of it was grating. The force of ‘50’s era censorship probably kept a lot of dimwit stuff and raunch in check by making movies work harder on different levels to be appealing without having easy access to sex and gore.

It is also possible that the first generation to be free from '50's censorship had the creative spark that was extruded though their being part of a culture that still had a more of a value for the sacred. I think that this enabled the first generation of movie makers who were free from censorship to be able to deal with sex in more aesthetically sophisticated ways than was accomplished in either their past or in their future because it was suppressed for decades in our culture. Their creative ability came out through the pressure of the culture like the force soda after it has been shaken, only to become warm, sticky suds on the ground later. It is possible that sex for lowest common denominator of raunch and gore has become the sticky “suds” of American cinema and media oozing out of spent creative and intellectual fire of the past.

Schickel knows, on some level, that the proliferation of raunchy garbage and the associated costs to our society is the price that he is willing to pay for the artistic freedom that he wants, the price for having enjoyed the “heady” days of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. The problem is that in the cognitive dissonance of completely denying the existence of the innocence of children, but not completely, he has not risen completely to the task of admitting the true extent of the cost of the artistic freedom he wants.

In regard to children's innocence, for Schickel to say that children's innocence is there and is violated would be honest. For him to say that we have allowed it to be violated and that we've all become cynical and blasé to sex and violence would be honest. For him to say that our society values the freedom of movie art and movie economics more than the innocence of children would be honest. For him to say that he and many others are willing to accept the trade-off of allowing raunchy and dimwitted movies to proliferate and help dumb many people down and injure the innocence of many kids in order to allow for greater artistic freedom would be honest.

However, for him to say that the innocence of children is not there to begin with; that it is simply a fairy tale myth with not claim to reality, is not honest. It is simply less painful to his conscience than admitting that the possibility that innocence of children has been injured.

Unsolicited Advice -- Examining Matthew 7:3

Matthew 7:3 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Many people read this passage to mean that one person, whom I will refer to as the “confronter”, should not confront another person, whom I will refer to as the “confronted”, on a small fault when the confronter has not dealt with his large violation of that same fault. This interpretation of the passage is based the most obvious and clearest form of hypocrisy. If I am criticizing another person for a small infraction, when I am committing that same infraction on a larger scale, I am obviously guilty of hypocrisy. Others may interpret this passage in the broadest possible sense to mean that anyone with a large fault in any realm of his life cannot confront another person on a small fault, even if the large fault of the confronter is completely unrelated the small fault of the confronted.

The problem with the former interpretation is that it is too narrow and does not call many confronters to enter the full X-ray of self-examination. The problem with the latter interpretation is that it is too broad and makes the standard for confrontation too high – who is not guilty of any large faults in any aspect of his life?

The passage is best interpreted to mean that there is something about the large fault of the confronter that it is affecting the confronter’s ability to operate with love and integrity as he approaches his brother in confrontation. Here, Jesus is saying that that one must remove any obstacle to operating with love and integrity as one begins to operate in the process of confrontation.

If the “speck” that belongs to the confronted is a genuine fault, then an unsolicited confrontation may be necessary on the part of the confronter. However, in order to proceed, the confronter must make sure that is not guilty of committing that same fault. That is the first test of integrity. Then, the confronter must make sure that he has repented of any insecurities or latent issues that are in any way keeping him from operating carefully with love, care and precision as he attempts to confront his brother. This is the second test of integrity, and it solves another potential problem. It is possible that the “speck” belonging to the confronted is not a genuine fault at all but only appears to be that way in the eyes of the confronter. It is also possible that the “speck” is a tiny fault that appears to the confronter to be much larger and more urgent that it really is.

It is the confronter’s failure to operate out of peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control that will render him unable to see clearly to approach his brother. For the confronter to operate without hypocrisy in all of the ways that hypocrisy can affect the confrontation, he must first take his emotions captive and surrender his emotions to the ministry of God’s Spirit. He must also apply his mind to discern the true severity of the fault that he is about to confront another on, according to Biblical standards of what constitutes a severe fault. The quality of the confronter’s emotion processing and Biblical/intellectual discernment will determine the quality of the confrontation.

The second test of integrity, of taking insecurities captive to the truth of Scripture and the ministry of God’s Spirit, solves yet another problem. A confronter who is being driven by insecurities to act impulsively is not assessing the true gravity involved in confronting another person. When we are confronting another person, we are drawing from a certain “negativity bank” in our relationship; there is a certain, limited degree to which we are prepared to hear things that are necessary but negative from another person with whom we are in relationship with. Any confrontation, no matter how small, even if it is only to dispense advice, is never “no big deal”, and must always be done with care and forethought so that we do not draw from the “negativity bank” carelessly. To treat any advice and criticism that one offers another as “no big deal” is to be flippant in regard to what is real about relationships. Anyone who is being intellectually honest will admit that this is true for anyone, including him.

It is the teaching of Jesus for us to be slow to confront another over what, according to Biblical standards, is a small matter, and to put our hearts and minds through several tests before proceeding in a confrontation. The wisdom of this passage can be summed up, by saying, “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you” by confronting others with the care and precision that you would like to have applied when you are confronted. A confronter’s failure to confront another with the precision and care that he/she would like to be confronted with is the subtlest and most common form of hypocrisy that Jesus is addressing. The inability to confront a brother in love and precision is the most common form of “plank” as it superficially presents itself. It is taking the hard, necessary step to examining the sin and insecurities that are causing this inability that we are able to understand the specific nature of the “plank” that needs to be removed as it is lodged deep in our hearts

One of the most common ways that the teaching is this passage is violated is when people give impulsively give advice/criticism to others. It will invariably be grating and will be interpreted as unloving criticism by the person receiving it. The insecurities that can fuel the impulsive giving of unsolicited advice/criticism are many. Someone who is giving advice/criticism impulsively may have the fear he/she is not effective in influencing the world and is trying to soothe that fear by trying too hard to seem wise and effective in the company of others. This form of insecurity is the result of a fallen, misapplication of a God-given need that we all have to affect the stage of history.

Someone who is giving unsolicited advice/criticism can have an even deeper an uglier problem; the need to find comfort in conforming to the standards of the world and the impulse to act out of discomfort to “fix” another person to conform to worldly standards. There is a demonic torpidity that lurks in the hearts of those who affect the stage of history in order to make themselves more comfortable according to worldly standards of comfort. This sin is compounded by intellectual dishonesty when those who act out of their desire for comfort excuse and justify the unsolicited advice/criticism by saying that it is “no big deal” or that they were “just” trying to “help” the other person. It is in this case the giving unsolicited advice/criticism can be the manifestation of a deep idolatry on the part of the person giving it.

These are only a couple of the insecurities that can fuel hypocritical and impulsive criticism and advice giving. It is A) impulse to give hasty, unsolicited advice and B) the empty justifications for giving it that Jesus calls us to crucify in the application of his teaching in Matthew 7:3 on how to proceed to properly confront another.

Dealing with Wounded Energy

We have each been hurt. We have each been punched in the gut by some form of injustice, whether committed by group or an individual, whether intentionally or un-intentionally.

I know that there are Christians who say that we must immediately invoke the gratitude of Jesus' death on the cross as the antidote to our wound. I find that this advice vexing. It is empty advice even as it contains some aspects of truth. It is in the family of “forgive and forget” advice that does not honor the difficult and thorny process of dealing with hurt. At least I can say that that sort of advice has never cut it for me.

Dealing with gratitude and the cross in the context of ministry to ourselves and others is a big topic. Suffice to say for this post that my idea of Jesus is one who is active and living and who meets us in our hurts. It is this supernatural, pan-global availability of Jesus via the Holy Spirit was a primary reason for the cross (John 16:7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you). It is in the ministry of the here and now that the power of the cross time and space into the present moment. It is in the clear and present availability of Jesus in the here and now that my discussion of forgiveness and anger relinquishment begins.

Dennis Prager, a Jewish commentator, makes the observation that Jesus calls us not to be angry at our brother but only calls us to actually forgive those who have directly asked for it from us. There are some passages that speak of forgiveness as something we offer to one who asks us, and there are other passages that speak of forgiveness as something we offer to anywone ("...as we forgive those who trespass against us..."). Is there any difference between the relinquishment of anger/forgiveness that we are called to for anyone's offense against us and the act of offering forgiveness to the one who has specifically asked for forgiveness from us? That is an interesting question for another post. What can be said is that the common denominator in forgiveness and anger relinquishment is that we are called to is a journey of emotion processing that requires giving up our anger that must not depend on whether the offending party has repented.

The common denominator for any serious hurt from another that requires a serious act of forgiveness/anger relinquishment is that there will often be a long intellectual, emotional and spiritual journey to reckon fully and completely with the offence. There will be a long, staggered process to properly understand and put into words what happened to know with precision what exactly is being forgiven, so that the offense is understood in all of its dimensions. The hurt will be contained in our psyche in several pockets at different levels of depth. The exposure of these pain pockets will occur as we are continually ministered to by God’s Spirit and as we are placed under various stresses and pains. It is when these various pockets of hurt see the light of day that they can explode in our consciousness like un-detonated grenade that has been exposed in a mine-clearing operation.

Dealing with this hurt, as it is continually brought to the surface, is a long journey of managing wounded energy. There are bad forms of wounded energy, which include rage and other forms of malicious thought and behavior. There are good forms of wounded energy, which include compassion, passion, understanding and even a righteous form of anger. The nut-meat of deep forgiveness and anger relinquishment is the long process of letting go of the bad forms of wounded energy and the redemptive directing of the positive forms of wounded energy.

Wounded energy and the call to justice

While we are accountable to care about injustice even if we have not been directly hurt by it, being directly hurt by an injustice is an important way that God calls us to attention to care about injustice in the context of "faith, justice and mercy". To illustrate this in the context of urban ministry, John Perkins of the Voice of Calvary Ministry in Jackson Mississippi discussed the “felt need concept” of urban ministry. In John Perkin's ministry people with resources choose to enter a poor, distressed neighborhood, ie. the ‘hood, to become neighbors to those who are stuck there. As those who have chosen to live in the 'hood experience the injustices first hand, they are compelled to pursue justice for the inner city in their own enlightened self interest. The “felt need concept" is also about making the Gospel real and tangible by dealing with the needs that have been brought to the fore of people’s attention.

As humans, we live in the ‘hood of planet earth and the injustices therein. We are called to live on planet earth like those who have chosen to move into the ‘hood, as Jesus himself chose to enter the ‘hood when he became flesh. It is by “picking up our cross daily” that we continually own and re-own this choice. Like the wealthy neighbors who choose to live among the poor, as Christians, we are called to bring the wealth of the resources of knowing God intimately into the situation of our hurt. It is as we are hurt directly by injustice that we are able to feel the “felt needs” of planet earth in regard to the need for justice. This is enlightened self-interest for the benefit of ourselves and those around us to confront injustice that we pray with force for God’s Kingdom to come.

It is when we experience injustice that we are able to know evil on earth first hand and to have a depth of conviction to confront it and the compassion for others being afflicted by it. It is in this context that we can begin to give shape to the long process of managing our wounded energy so that God is able to heal us and guide our wounded energy for a redemptive purpose. It is via the experience of injustice that God heightens our need to fulfill our purpose and fulfill the calling of bearing His image. It is the act of trusting God that we enter into this calling, trusting that God will bless and harness all of the wounded energy that we have acquired for a good and blessed purpose.

It is in the face of being hurt, we have two-fold responsibility, each complimenting the other. The first aspect of responsibility to manage our wounded energy is directly tied to the moment of the hurt. We must immediately enter into a gear of operating in trust in God and giving up our rage and anger to God and to His direction and timing. We are to not return injustice with injustice. The second aspect of responsibility that we have is across the span of time. We are responsible to the bigger picture, and we are to allow God to use our wounded energy to be the engine of our conviction to confront the injustice under God's direction.

These two forms of responsibility operate symbiotically with each other. We are to trust "from the get-go" that vengeance and total judgment belong to the Lord. It is in the successful ministry of God’s grace and direction to our wounded energy that we are able to exercise the lesser forms of judgment that we are called to. As we operate in God's grace and timing in managing our wounded energy, we are able to operate in Godly wisdom and direction in the management of our heart and mind and our affairs with others and (see my post on judging).

Rage is crisis in the exercise of proper judgment in of the all realms in which we are called to exercise right judgment. Rage is a crisis in our sense of being able to protect ourselves from the slings and arrows that would subvert our joy and our fulfillment. In rage, the human self lashes out apart from God’s peace and direction, operating out of fear. It is in the impulse of rage that we have the impulse to exercise the sort of total judgment on another person that God reserves for Himself.

The beginning of being able to deal with rage is to recognize it as a form of fear. If we take it captive properly and early, we can present it to God while it is still in its “fear” form before it has mutated into something larger and darker in our psyche. If the fear has become rage, we must allow God to unravel it so that it is revealed as fear in our hearts, so that we can present it God as our fear and receive the ministry of God’s peace.

The point of God’s peace that passes understanding is not tranquil, blissful equanimity. Rather, the point of God's peace that passes understanding is that the peace is an essential part of our trans-rational ballast as we embark on God’s path to redeem our wounded energy. The peace is a "pre-articulate" part of journey with God, penultimate to the exercise of fierce precision that God would lead us to confront evil. It is in recognizing this that we can submit to God’s peace not as an act of “blowing out” in a Zen Buddhist sense, but as the beginning of a journey with God who wants to use us as instruments to confront injustice in the world.

I discussed forgiveness and anger relinquishment once with a non-Christian Japanese friend of mine who was still learning English. I was trying to explain a big concept in very simple terms. I explained that being hurt by someone is like being shocked by the electricity coming from a bare wire that one has stepped on. I explained that the generator for that electricity is coming from somewhere far and beyond that person. The process of forgiveness/anger relinquishment involves correctly identifying the spiritual source and putting the person who is the conduit for that spiritual source into perspective.

Forgiveness/anger relinquishment is the act of putting a conflict with another person into its correct spiritual and philosophical plane, transferring the battle away from its incorrect target and following the direction of God to enter the battle correctly. As we relinquish our rage and surrender our wounded energy to God, we are able to operate in God’s direction and timing confront the injustice as a larger philosophical and spiritual battle and let go it is as a "tit for tat" with another person. While "forgive and forget" is often bad advice, it is valuable in the limited sense that we are called to have the image of the “monster” as it has taken the form of a particular person vanish into irrelevance, as the image is juxtaposed against the truth, joy and wisdom of the Lord.

As we are able to walk with God to channel our wounded energy toward a correct and fruitful confrontation of evil, we are able to we are able to pray effective for the advancement of God’s Kingdom that will end the foolishness that we were subjected to. It is via God’s healing in us that we are able to glimpse how His Kingdom is being brought “on earth as it is in heaven”, and it is by God’s grace that we are able see how the Kingdom is advancing into earth. These moments of holy clarity usher the triumph of joy over rage and are landmarks on the road to the redemption of our wounded energy.

As this vision matures, God allows us to see how His kingdom is advancing into the lives of those who were the conduits of evil that we are experienced. It is then that we are able to “pray for our enemies” as an act of correctly applied spiritual battle, confronting evil in prayer with the force of passion, joy and clarity.

As the battle is a spiritual one, it is also a philosophical one. We are called to confront the intellectual anatomy of the foolishness of the ideas that caused or facilitated the evil that we experienced. As we walk on the intellectual journey of reckoning with the hurt, we are able to articulate the justice that we were not able to articulate at the time. As we do so for the defenseless self that we once were, we are able to do so for others who are in a position of defenselessness.

It is as we are confronting successfully on the spiritual plane and the philosophical plane of reality that we are able to be more effective confronting in the human to human plane. We are able to live out Jesus’ commands to call our brother’s attention (Matthew 18:15-17) to an offence without being in a state of sin that would cause harm.

The Pleasure Principle

I was watching David Letterman once when he had Jerry Seinfeld as a guest. Seinfeld then riffed on a little comedy routine, talking about deferred payment plans that say “buy now, pay in June”. He said that it was like a person was treating their self today and their self in June as two different people, as “Today guy” and “June guy”, and saying, “I’m Today guy and I’m going to enjoy this purchase. As for paying for it, that’s June guy’s problem”. Seinfeld was making a funny commentary on a serious issue in a society wherein many people have allowed themselves to be fleeced of the idea that there is any continuity of their selves through time, and thereby give themselves permission to act on impulses without regard to the future. It is the consequence of people who do not have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives that is constructed enough to give shape to their sense of self as it moves through time.

Daniel Robinson is a philosophy teacher featured on the Teaching Series on the great Ideas in Philosophy” was discussing the goals of philosophy to find the “good life” and offered up a metaphor that was clearly not the “good life”. Robinson described a person who allowed their brain to be removed from their body and placed in a vat with electrodes hooked up to it so that the brain could receive constant streams of stimulated pleasure.

While the "brain in the vat" has been used as a thought experiment for various philosophical ends to examine the question of real and perceived knowledge, I want to examine is the visceral reason why the “brain in the vat” is a ghastly image. For one to choose to place one's brain in a vat is to choose after a series of experiences that not contextualized into a whole. Choosing to place one’s brain in a vat can offer one no joy in how one has affected the stage of history. It can offer no joy in the thread of continuity in life experiences that one can discover via one’s conscious effort to explore one’s nature and develop one’s character.

In the context of a discussion of pleasure, putting one’s “brain in the vat” is a metaphor for those who seek continual pleasure highs in the moment but who reject any effort to contextualize their pleasure and hold it accountable to a larger purpose. Jerry Seinfeld's “Today guy” and “June Guy” dichotomy is a consequence of “brain in the vat” living. For one who wants to divorce "Today Guy" from "June Guy", having one's brain in a vat would actually be a way for one to save oneself the consequences of living in the real world The only alternative to attempting to put one's “brain in the vat”, and therefore living properly in the real world, is to realize that there is a self inside of us that is being continually made better or worse toward an end that is larger than ourselves.

In The Picture of Dorian Grey, Dorian Grey is a man who was given the opportunity to live forever and appear young and beautiful as long as he did not look at the painting of himself in the attic of his house. As Dorian Grey did good deeds, his picture was made beautiful and as he did bad deeds, his picture was made scarred and ugly. In the context of our purpose for being, the self is like a Dorian Grey painting that is either becoming increasingly beautiful or increasingly ugly, and that will presented to us, to God and to the stage of history for all to see.

Our purpose is to elevate the world, to give the world a new experience of moral beauty through the unique contours of our own individual personhoods. It is our conscience that holds us accountable to this end. It is our conscience, as the Dorian Grey painting, that reflects the self that we are developing back to our self-consciousness according to whether the self is being developed according to our purpose. In is in the rejection of our conscience and the rejection of looking at our true selves and in the rejection of seeking our purpose that we place our "brain in the vat" and live as Dorian Grey did, who chose cruel pleasures until he was compelled to look at his ugly, scarred picture.

Our conscience is the membrane between our self-consciousness and our soul’s inner knowing of the larger purpose that each of us are endowed with. Our conscience informs our self-consciousness of whether we are rising to that purpose, and our conscience gives us joy or misery. It is with this understanding that Meaning is that form of knowledge and truth that reveals the contours of ourselves inside and out in the context of our purpose and elaborates on our purpose. It is meaning that takes other forms of truth and makes it beautiful within our lives.

It is in this context of a soul’s journey to achieve its meaning and purpose that one can begin to deal with each experience in life as an opportunity to discover Meaning. It is on a “journey of meaning” that one discovers the landscape of one’s soul and the purpose for which it was created, and is able to better lead others to find their purpose. With this understanding of purpose, life is both a construction and a journey leading somewhere, and the journey is not merely the destination.

It is from the vantage point of our purpose and our conscience that there is a hierarchy of pleasures within a moral order. There are pleasure pursuits that are connected to truth and to our purpose. It is these pleasures that are consistent with our purpose and that are validated by our conscience that constitute Joy, which is the union of truth and pleasure.

And then there are pleasures are not Joy, which replace, or even subvert our purpose. There are pleasures that can be wedded to our purpose in the right context and pleasures that are perverse and are inherently destructive. There are pleasures of beautiful accomplishments, the pleasures of blessing another person, which are joyful pleasures. There is the pleasure of winning the chess game, the pursuit of which can either be a joyful experience or an escape from the pursuit of higher pleasures. And there is the pleasure of crack cocaine, which demands everything of body and mind and gives nothing in return except for ruined health and addiction. There are pleasures that are virtues; the feelings of peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control. And that are pleasures that are vices; the feelings of lust, greed and the satiating of envy and revenge.

It is in the context of a moral hierarchy of pleasure that pleasure has gravitas, that pleasure is the power of gravity to lead us to blessings or to curses. Not all pleasure “rushes” are created equal, and each pleasure must be taken captive to purpose. All pleasures must be taken captive to the journey, and that meaning must be extracted from it, and every experience is taken captive to the whole endeavor of ones development. This is why Christian teaching holds us accountable for being aware of the moral and spiritual value of the things that please us.

In regard to the "brain in the vat" and the cruel pleasures of Dorian Grey, seeking mediocre and ephemeral pleasures is not unrelated to seeking destructive and cruel pleasures. When we seek momentary and banal comfort, we abandon the search for Meaning and leave the deep and heaving needs that we possess in a state of restlessness. It is these needs that will warp us, leading us down destructive paths, if they are not brought in line with our purpose. (As I wrote about in my discussion on vapidity, it is a consequence of being vapid that peoples' need for a sense of purpose is warped into a need to be the "fashion police" who hold themselves and others accountable to being excellent within the realm of banal pleasures)

In the context of pleasure and the moral order of pleasure that runs from vices to virtues, Character is the stoic ability of the self to persevere in the absence of lesser pleasures in order to secure a greater pleasure. It is our responsibility to exercise our Character to harness the power of pleasure so that it leads us to the joy and truth. It is when we experience pleasure that we are transformed, and are bonded to the source of our pleasure and become better or worse, becoming more or less in line with our purpose for being.

In regard to the question of pleasure, it is Christianity that that asserts that there is a moral order and spiritual order to the realm of pleasure, based on whether the pleasure is connected to our purpose for being; that the pleasure of virtues, peace patience kindness goodness and self-control are morally superior to the pleasures of vices. It is our purpose defined by Christianity that we are to enjoy God, to glorify God and to advance His Kingdom. It is this purpose gives us the shape and context for our journeys of meaning, and gives us benchmarks for how we are doing on that journey. It is Christianity that empowers us for the journey, wherein the Holy Spirit interacts with our conscience, empowering us to discover the contours of our created being and succeed in operate according to God’s purpose for us so that we can find joy in the virtues and grow out of the vices. And it is all of the benefits and consequences of God's promises for now and for eternity that call us to have the Character to keep life in perspective as the cord that saves us from being bonded to lesser pleasures.

Social Justice and the Mexican Border

Intro

I have pondered the issue of illegal immigration, and I have come around over the years very slowly and reluctantly to the position that I now hold, even as I am always open to hearing other points of view that are well articulated. Unfortunately, I've found many arguments on both sides of the issue wanting. Many of those who favor un-mitigated immigration across our borders discuss the topic in the context of promoting social justice, as understood as confronting the injuries that rich have promulgated against the poor.

Simply put, justice is the calculation of fairness, the exercise of fairness and the prosecution of fairness. From that essential starting point, there are many forms of justice, including jurisprudence, that deal with different jurisdictions of life wherein questions of fairness are tested. In Scripture, the prophet Amos specifically discusses social justice, and Jesus calls us to "faith justice and mercy". Mercy is clearly a value that we are called to practice on an interpersonal level, but how much should mercy be exercised by the government in relation to the application of the justice and jurisprudence? This post is the beginning of an ongoing attempt to begin to explore the complexities of justice when justice and mercy are complicated.

I have written a speech wherein I imagine myself giving a speech as if I were President of the United States. Writing this imaginary speech has been an exercise in trying to begin deal with the complexities of justice and mercy in regard to the current issue of illegal immigration. This "speech" also contains a redaction of many points that have already been made before on the issue.

"My fellow Americans,

"While it is possible to be racist and anti-Latino as a reason to care about border security and immigration, racism and bigotry are in no way inherent in having an interest in protecting our borders and the integrity of our legal system. While it is true that the northern border needs to be made more secure, and that our coasts need to be made more secure, it is our southern border where the vastly greatest number of illegal immigrants comes from. Our energy on border issues needs to be proportional to the scope of our problem, and it is our southern border that needs special attention.

I have known and liked many illegal Latino immigrants who are sweet, quiet hard working people, and the thought of doing something that would disrupt their lives is a painful prospect. Our current situation that allows many sweet, quiet hardworking people to cross our borders also allows many people who are a threat, including gangs, criminals and terrorists. It is an unfortunate reality, one that adults must face in dealing with this issue: we cannot confront the problem of border security in a way that deals with the bad people without also impacting the ability of good people to make it across.

One could argue that we should merely interdict the bad people who enter after they've crossed the border and leave the good ones alone. While we must, of course, interdict bad people who've crossed onto our soil as an unavoidable part of law enforcement, it does not make for a good foundation for our immigration policy to do this at the expense of tightening the border. Interdicting bad people who are here in the US after they have crossed the border means that these bad people will be first crossing the border and inflicting harm on US soil before they are caught. Our immigration policy must be based on a more serious and concerted effort to control who enters our country so that bad people enter as infrequently as possible.

Allowing many sweet, quiet, hardworking people to cross our borders illegally is beneficial to many parties. Illegal immigrants benefit, the families and homelands of many illegal immigrants benefit from remittances, and many US business interests benefit. Nevertheless, despite the ways that illegal immigration is benefiting many parties, it is eroding the integrity of our legal system and the integrity of many other key institutions that are necessary for our society. This erosion is not happening because the majority of individual illegal immigrants are especially evil or flawed people: most of them are decent people acting rationally in their own personal interests to try to better their lives. The erosion of the integrity of our legal system and institutions is happening because our society is only able to assimilate a certain number of people at a time.

While determining that number is an arbitrary and inexact science, it is necessary for us to arrive at a number and respect the number that we have arrived at. This is the very essence of a value for the rule of law. The alternative is that we find no such number, and allow our system to be overwhelmed. The integrity of many other institutions and interests in our society, including – but not limited to— our budgets, hospitals, schools, social security system is at stake. Being able to predict and manage the flow of new people into our country allows us to plan and budget accordingly. It also allows us to better culturally integrate people into the E Pluribus Unum that makes our country strong and great. It is in the advancement of this interest that managing the flow of people into our nation is the right and the responsibility that comes with being a nation.

One could try to make a counter-argument to this by saying that our country has benefited from immigrants. Of course our country has benefited from immigrants. However, this is a non sequitor as a response to the current problem of mass illegal immigration from the southern border. The current southern border illegal immigration issue is not the same issue as the immigrants who crossed the Atlantic at the turn of the 20th century. Those immigrants arrived at our invitation and put an ocean in between the Old Country and their new home in America. In fits and starts, they assimilated into the new, American way and came to recognize George Washington as the father of their country as much as any other American. We are at a time in our history when we do not need the mass influx of people in quite the same way that we did in the last century. The mass influx that we are facing now is overwhelming our institutions, and we need to have it slow down so that those who are coming in to be citizens can be assimilated.

Many of the illegal immigrants of today are more geographically and culturally connected to their homeland than the immigrants of the past, and often consider the US to be an extension of their rightful homeland. Many of them still wave the flags of their homeland and vote in their homeland's elections, and demand that the language of their homeland be institutionalized alongside the English language in every manner of document. While Spanish is a beautiful language, there is a potent symbolism in making it co-equal to English in America in every public space and on every public legal document. Having two languages side by side is as potent a symbol of dual allegiance as having two flags. This phenomenon on the current grand scale has no precedent in any of waves of immigrants who arrived in this country at the turn of the 20th century.

This is not to say that the heritage the Spanish language, of Mexico or of any other south of the border country is bad and must be rejected. It means that a dual allegiance that increases in scope will make it increasingly harder to assimilate people and their children into the American heritage. Our country must have both the Unum and the Pluribus to be strong, and the current illegal immigration problem on its current course is leading us away from E Pluribus Unum.

Immigrants must make a meaningful and symbolic break with their allegiance to their homeland of origin so that they may fully bond to our nation as citizens. While this is true for all current immigrants from any part of the world, this is especially true for those who are geographically close to us. It is our prerogative as a nation to decide how many immigrants we can accept. It is our prerogative as a nation to make the laws that an immigrant must follow to become a citizen.

This is not to diminish the personal sacrifice and hard work that many illegal immigrants have made to get where they are. While this is usually a great sacrifice of personal effort to find personal gain for one's family, it is not the same sacrifice of one's identity and allegiance as one who has followed all of the rules to become a US citizen. The sacrifice that bonds a person to our nation and to all of the ideals of our nation as a fellow citizen must be that unique form of sacrifice that holds the law of our land in highest regard. It is in following those laws -- that we as a nation have decided – and in valuing the wisdom that lies behind those laws that an immigrant makes the meaningful symbolic break with the allegiance to his homeland of origin and crosses the threshold to become a US citizen. An illegal immigrant who wants to change the U.S. laws ex post facto to fit his behavior is not properly bonding himself to our nation.

And likewise, U.S. corporation or politician that wants to change the immigrations laws to accommodate the current situation is not operating in the best interest of our nation in the long run. All too often, they are serving their more immediate interests to please their constituents or to maintain their current business situation than they are interested in the long term interests of our nation. While wanting to "help the economy" is a valid goal, there is an interest of our collective citizenship of the E Pluribus Unum that is even higher than the economy. We are citizens of a nation first and foremost before we are members of an economy. When the interests of the economy are the first source of our allegiance over and above the well-being of our nation, we are doomed to be corrupted and subverted.

Some have proposed making changes to our immigration laws to allow for temporary workers. The problem with this is that we will not be able to enforce new immigration laws if we cannot enforce the ones we already have. We will no more be able to control the flow of those individuals across the border to get their temporary jobs under this proposal than we are now able to control the flow under our current immigration regime. Under this proposal, we will no more be able to enforce the "temporariness" of those workers under new laws than we are able to enforce the status quo under the current laws. Without the will to enforce the laws that we now have, any proposal to change our laws to confront the problem of illegal immigration is an empty proposal and will not fix our broken system.

Simply allowing an illegal immigrant who is already established here to pay a fine to begin the process of becoming a legal citizen will not solve the problem we now face. This is because this proposal would allow illegal immigrants to work their way out of the act of having broken the immigration laws that made them illegal in the first place. As others have stated, it would unwittingly establish the act of breaking our laws as the basis for one to begin the path to citizenship. And for every other illegal immigrant who did not want to pay the fine, the system would continue to operate in the broken way that it has been operating.

While disrupting the lives of many nice and hardworking people is a painful thing to do, it will be an unavoidable aspect of restoring integrity to our legal system. In the face of the flesh and blood people who will be uprooted, the idea of preserving the integrity of our legal system might seem as cold, remote and abstract interest. However, it is in our best interest in the long run to preserve the integrity of our legal system. Doing so means that we maintain the value for the rule of law, which means that we preserve a value for all of the long term interests that laws are created to protect even when they are sometimes inconvenient in the short term.

It is true that the Bible speaks of justice as it relates to helping the poor and correcting the historical injuries that have been done to the poor. There are historical injuries that the U.S committed against poor Mexicans – as have the Aztecs, and then Spanish and then Mexican oligarchy and the Central American drug lords and sundry leftist rebels. This does not excuse the U.S. of its responsibility to face its past. In a separate discussion, we can debate whether reparations should be made to Mexico for the Mexican American war or for "Greaser laws" of the turn of the 20th century. We can balance out the things that the US took and the ways that the US has benefited Mexico over the years see where the balance lies. What we cannot do is use the broken state of the current immigration laws as the de facto and undeclared "reparations" to Mexicans for any and all sins of the US against Mexico and/or poor Mexican citizens. In the context of the current immigration debate, any appeal to "justice" to help the poor illegal immigrant that frames the issue as exclusively the U.S. vs. the poor Mexicans is simplistic and injurious to the truth. An idea of justice that comes at the expense of facing the more abstract and long term considerations of what is in the best long term interests of the US and US institutions is a narrow and incomplete idea of justice. It is an attempt to correct a series of injuries with yet another injury.

Some will argue that we cannot take such drastic measures on account of the pragmatic concerns for our national security. They say that while our current immigration situation presents some degree of threat to our security, having an unstable situation south of our border would also be a threat to our national security in a different way. This is a valid concern. In our current situation, the US absorption of illegal immigrants has functioned to mitigate against that potential economic and political instability south of our border. As we in the US move toward seriously enforcing the laws that we currently have, we also need to be open to ways that we can help avert the disruption that would occur south of the border as a result of enforcing those laws.

I don't have the complete answer to this problem, though micro-lending NGO's in Central America may play a role. The governments of countries in Central America also need to find ways to better support entrepeneurship, confront corruption and become places where people don't feel the need to emigrate from. Confronting this potential problem will be complex, and it is an uncertain future that we must face. What we cannot do is work backward from the corruption and dis-function of other countries as a reason to diminish the integrity of our own laws.

It is true that certain parts of our country have deep historical and cultural ties to Mexico. These parts of the country have an American culture that has absorbed many aspects of Mexican culture. I personally enjoy this as I walk down the street where I live in Southern California. While it is valuable for these parts of the country to recognize and celebrate their heritage and the blend of cultures that has occurred, these parts of the US need to be recognized as belonging to the US and operating under the dominion of US laws.

It is tempting for those who value a globally inter-connected world to conclude that maintaining the integrity of our borders or the integrity of our national identity is an enemy to this interconnectedness. It is easy to believe that borders only promote a sense of bigoted and narrow identity among those who identify with one side of the border or the other, and that truly enlightened people don't need borders. While the existence of borders may help enforce the bigotry of some people, the belief that borders are useless is a belief that seems enlightened but is actually sloppy, dangerous and inaccurate. In truth, our borders and immigration laws are a necessary membrane between countries that have a relationship culturally, economically, geopolitically and in many other ways. It is in the interest of what is best for that membrane that we need to face the problems of our broken immigration system.

The answer to this issue of illegal immigration must be one that has the ultimate best long term interests of all parties. Our current practice of having under-enforced immigration laws seems on the surface to be helpful to the most parties, but it is actually shortsighted and will not be in our best interest in the long run. What will be in everyone's best long term interest is an immigration system that is consistent, transparent, properly enforced and sustainable long into the future.

The idea of mass deportations seem scary and unpleasant, but it is part of the bitter pill that must be swallowed to get there. The argument that this is impractical is an empty argument, since it only means that it will be difficult, messy and expensive. Any course of action we take will be difficult, messy and expensive including the course of taking no action or of taking "path of least resistance" action. In the long run, it is in doing what is in our best long term interest that will be most practical."

Brand marketing and the veil of soul developing

Over the past couple of months, I have seen a couple of TV commercials that have caught my eye. An ING Direct commercial mocks a yoga instructor for telling his student that pain is the path to joy. A commercial for a Snickers bar covered in dark chocolate mocks two homely Neanderthal looking boys for asking their mother whether it really matters what’s on the inside, to which mom replies “it doesn’t”. These commercials are in the same family as a Tequila ad a few years ago which read “Lost – Restraint: disappeared late Fri.-early Sat. If found, keep...”

Of course, there are naive and not-so-productive ways that people can seek depth in their lives. It is not enough to say that these commercials are merely singling out naive ways to seek depth as the object of their ridicule, and leaving serious ways to seek depth unscathed. The humor that these commercials are trying to tap into is part of a larger zeitgeist that rejects the idea of eschewing material gain in order to seek depth. These commercials are simultaneously tapping into that zeitgeist, mirroring it back to the culture at large, and perpetuating that zeitgeist.

Of course, the commercial writers are not trying to comment on society, they are only interested in being cute and hip in order to draw fleeting attention to their product. But that is the semiotics of commercials – commercials are window into our culture when they are trying to be nothing other than cute and hip.

Everyone is aggressive and intense in the pursuit of some sort of perfection and some sort of self promotion. For those who might think that that idea is somehow anti-Christian, I delved into this topic on my post on Self Esteem and the Gospel. Jesus does not denounce promoting oneself, but rather lays out a Godly way to do it, a way that puts one at odds with the world and at the mercy of God’s executive direction. Jesus calls us to harness our God-given desire to evaluate ourselves in the pursuit of greatness, excellence and perfection by striving for the spiritual and moral perfection that he has laid out for us.

That said, promoting oneself in the realm of enlightened self interest is not a bad thing. Harnessing one’s God given desires to pursue truth and beauty is good. Harnessing one’s God given desires to pursue something less is bad. Since everyone has these basic desires for excellence and self-promotion, the only question is whether one is pursuing these ends with the ultimate goal to aggressively seek out truth and beauty.

The tragedy of vapidity is that one has directed ones intensity away from the aggressive pursuit of truth and beauty and toward banal forms of self promotion. It is axiom that self promotion that is not based on aggressively seeking that lasting pleasures of truth and beauty will be self promotion that is based on the realm of disposable pleasures. Being vapid is not the state of ignorance that is penultimate to knowledge by one who is seeking. Rather, vapidity is defined as a state of being casual and un-aggressive in the pursuit of truth and beauty. By default, vapid people become aggressive in the pursuit of banality, and in things that rot and do not last. In this way, what starts out as people being casual in the pursuit of truth and beauty, ends up as people openly rejecting it. As I explained in My Lust Makes the Word Go Round people bond the need that they have for some sense of purpose and meaning to the very act of rejecting purpose and meaning, and therefore become purposeful in their rejection of meaning.

As our culture has thought its way out of believing that truth and beauty even exist, it has become ever more the realm of militant, evangelistic vapidity where people find humor in poking fun at naïve attempts to find seriousness and depth – as reflected in our commercials. In place of holding themselves and others accountable for truth and beauty, vapid people pursue their excellence in banal things and hold others to account for measuring up to banality. It is the vapid people who become the “fashion police”, enforcing the standards of excellence in keeping up with all that is disposable.

The Identity Industrial Complex

It is in the interest of those who hawk products to encourage people to eschew a quest to find happiness and meaning in a realm beyond consumerism, since companies would loose money if people did not wrap their quest for happiness in it. The infrastructure of commerce and marketing depends on the vapidity of people and works mightily to encourage people toward it.

I introduced the “brand marketing worldview” in my Sign of the beast post, where I expressed my concern with emotion based brand marketing whose purpose is anything more than helping people build trust that a brand is a sign of quality and reliability. Emotion and identity based brand marketing is only the marketing component of a modern industrial reality, what I call the Identity Industrial Complex. The Identity Industrial Complex, the IIC for short, includes the whole industrial and commercial enterprise and all of its levels of decision making that seeks to create emotion and identity based bonds with people and their disposable products. To encourage this bond, the IIC promotes its worldview by trying to construct how people perceive the social marketplace in which new products and the pleasure of new products are continually traded for status, attractiveness and popularity. As I explained in my Sign of the Beast post, I think that the IIC is the penultimate sign of the beast.

As a social reality, the IIC simultaneously paints a picture of the social marketplace and provides the product or service as though it were something that one would need to succeed in the social marketplace. And when enough people believe it, it is so. In fact, to make one’s product an indispensable part of the social economy is the ultimate goal of the IIC. IIC encourages people to find their individuality by being “ahead of the curve” of the Joneses. By encouraging endless “one-upping” and “one-offing”, the IIC defines the enemies as boredom, loser-hood, and un-sexiness that it then will help the consumer dispatch with its product/service.

In this worldview, constant change is the only master and the brand marketers are here to show the consumers where the change is headed, so that one can find one's freedom and individuality by avoiding the abyss of being left behind by the change. In this way, the IIC encourages people to find their excellence in banality by introducing both the problem and the solution to that problem, which is their product.

In a service-based economy, when a product becomes a social currency, it becomes a currency of ones financial success, as one’s financial success is largely based on one’s ability to hang with people and make one’s boss, co-workers and customers feel good. Here, people’s emotional, social and financial insecurity and drives a need for people’s perpetual self-evaluation based on the system of evaluation that the IIC works overtime to carefully craft. The IIC does this with a powerful industrial and media infrastructure to ensure a presence of constant targeted images.

While the IIC is made of individual companies who are all competing for market share, the IIC is an economy of scale in the realm of values. As ostensibly competing members of the IIC sell some versions of the same basic worldview, the IIC operate with the intelligence of an ant-hill in advancing its values, even if each individual “ant” is not necessarily very intelligent.

The veil of soul-developing

It is the kingdom of God working in the unseen realm to shape the hearts of his chosen that is hidden to everything that the IIC represents. The IIC encourages people to take their attention away from the unseen realm of God’s veil of soul developing with a competing and contrary claim on people's need to be excellent and to find purpose, identity and meaning. Jesus calls us to promote ourselves and to seek truth and beauty within the parameters that he outlined in regard to the behavior of our heart, our behavior toward our brothers and sisters and to the poor.

It is the winners in the veil of soul developing who are the losers according to the identity based brand-marketing worldview. As the IIC marketers and their legion of fashion police hold us accountable to mammon, it is God that holds us accountable to His economy. God’s economy, all person to person transactions involving an exchange of value are to be routed through God and his truth, as each person interacts with another in Spirit and in Truth.

Jesus calls us to cast our insecurities and fears upon Him, while it is the IIC that would like us to medicate our fears and insecurities by keeping up with new products. It is for this reason that the IIC frowns upon one being still, as the Tequila ad mentioned at the beginning so instructs us and as a Bodies In Motion billboard once said, “You can rest when you’re dead!” In God’s economy, we are called us to be still and know that God is God, so that we can continually realign our lives according to the requirements of that economy. While the IIC would have one primarily fear falling behind the times and being a loser economically and materially, God calls us to fear being separated from God by remaining dead in our sins. While the IIC wants us to be afraid of being nerdy and uncool, God’s economy calls us to be uncool and nerdy to the extent that it is necessary for us to be excellent in God’s economy by paying the opportunity cost of not being cool in the realm of the IIC. It is being nerdy and uncool to succeed in God’s economy that we die to that part of ourselves that wishes to be endlessly pleasing to the world.

According the IIC one is rewarded with worldly/material social status; while in God’s economy one is rewarded according to the extent to which one has invested ones gifts and blessings to advance His Kingdom. The status that is granted in God’s economy is upside down from the IIC and is based on those who are least and on those who have done much with little. In God’s economy, ones' social network is made up of those who one has blessed with discipleship, mercy, faith and justice, particularly the poor. It is the upside-down nature of losers vis-à-vis winners that God’s economy is hidden from the realm of the IIC, and one who adopts the worldview of the IIC will be blind to God’s economy. That is why God’s economy is under a “veil”.

So what do we do in the year 2007 with the fact that many of us cannot escape the realm of IIC completely? As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5: 9-10,

“I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.”

We are to participate in the economy that involves mammon without bonding emotionally to it and we must live among those who are bonded to it, by being, as Paul says, “in the world but not of the world”. What this means, specifically is that we need and want clothes and products, and we should get what we need and even what we want. However, we must carefully take our wants captive and continually submit our wants to Jesus’ teachings and Jesus’ specific executive direction in our lives. In so doing, we must be careful that our wants are not being shaped by the IIC and its claims on our identity and emotional security found in ephemeral products.

As we give our wants to Jesus daily, in so doing we pick up our cross, and we should not be surprised that Jesus will often call us to make difficult and painful breaks from our bondage to the IIC as we walk with him and grow in our understanding of God’s economy. In a world in which we are surrounded by the IIC, we must often engage in one sort of “fast” or another from products, food and fashion as a gut check to see just how bonded to the IIC we’ve become.

The IIC is merely a worldly manifestation of a veiled spiritual power and principality that is making claims the battle for our hearts and minds. It is with this in mind that being vapid is not a spiritually, neutral act, since those worldviews that we do not question we will, by default, accept. Being vapid is an act of ratifying the default, capitulating to the IIC and avoiding the difficult and un-vapid mental, emotional and spiritual work that God calls us to for His Kingdom. Because everyone is intense about pursuing their self-interest, if one is not seeking to cast one’s intense self interest onto the Lord and seek the Lords interest, one will never have the impetus to face the discomfort of continually severing from the values of the IIC. It is in seeking truth and beauty in Jesus that we are able to see past the values that are advanced by emotion-based brand-marketing and see past the chimera of disposable products to see and track with God’s economy and the veil of soul-developing therein.

The Hook-up Realm

I was thinking more about Katie Dobie's idea of exploring one’s humanity via hooking up, as I introduced in my hook-up positive feminists post of a couple of weeks ago. This is an issue that I have long felt a need to deal with squarely, speaking as Christian to Christian and as citizen to citizen to confront all of the ways that the hook-up culture is influencing people's thought and behavior. The key problem with hook-up ideas of sexuality, as Katie Dobie tried to argue for, is that you must lower your idea of your humanity to the common denominator that makes disposable sexual experiences possible. You must resign your humanity to the cynicism and ennui of the Darwinian world of failed relationships and, on some level, decide that your sexuality, and the intimate self that is wrapped up in it is not, in fact, precious. Then and only then will hooking up explore your humanity.

Then, again you’re not really “exploring” in a moving forward with both eyes open sort of a way. Rather you are acquiescing to what is in you as something that is bound to what is around you. In regard to the id, hook-up apologists deal with the sexual impulse as something that is either always good or at least unproductive to question, so they have a certain acquiescence to the sexual impulse as a juggernaut of nature. Operating with the idea that sexuality is the Schopenhourian “will to life” of nature, hooking up is based on the premise that one's conscious mind is only a passenger in the back seat of this “will to sex”, and one should not try to superimpose any mastery over it that would attempt to harness it or control it in any way.

I have written other essays on primalism as a social contract of people who have collectivized their id, networking together their acquiescence to the id as a personal in its personal form and in its collective form. As I’ve explained, it is a social contract that negotiates the advancement of every more diverse id-expressions into the fold of acceptance and ethical/social equivalence. It is a given that the “times” are always a step for the better, and not to be questioned, and represent an increment of progress is the unfettering of the id, personally and collectively. Here, there are no fixed values or meanings and the “times” is a sort of “Tao” of social and ethical wisdom that is in continual flux, as it is sorted and re-sorted by the collective, in a dynamic continuous revolution.

The acquiescence of the personal mastery of thought and dialogue to the collective id is both vaunted as an ethical system and is recognized as a juggernaut that should not be challenged. Primalists and hook-up apologists, after having vaunted the beautiful potential of hooking up as a rite of passage will, to one degree or another, recognize that people are marinated in an un-ending environment of targeted sexual imagery, what has been described as an “unchangeable channel”. The lone individual is climbing uphill to reject all of that imagery and the values therein. It is also a psychological reality that the “will to life” is also includes a powerful “will to fit in”. Put in simple terms, people do what people do.

In the hook-up realm, there is an interesting counterpoint that operates contra to the acquiescence to non-mastery, operating in cognitive dissonance. The hook-up realm operates on the premise that fixed, metaphysical ideas of meaning don’t exist, there is no inherent meaning that is granted to the act of sex itself or in any related sexual behavior that is once removed from the physical act. Having rendered any sexual experience into a blank slate in terms of meaning, the hook-up realm understands that sex has emotional consequences only according to the manner in which individuals subjectively connect or disconnect meaning from the act. In the midst of all that the individual is exempt from being expected to master in regard to his/her sexual nature, in the hook-up realm, the individual is given the prerogative to decide what the emotional consequences of a sexual act are by deciding how much he/she actually gives of himself/herself in the act.

This is the basis for the hook-up social contract regard sexuality in public space. The individual is granted the privilege to apportion sexual experiences into different levels of meaning to the act, ranging from deep meaning to non-meaning. Since there is no inherent transcendental meaning or symbolism in the power of sexuality, its power is available to be harnessed for any and all personal and collective social and economic purposes. Sexuality is thus “freed” from the constraints that it would have in a more structured universe, so that it is now available for experiences that range from the banal to the profound. It is this idea of mastery over sexual meaning that allows for a hook-up social contract that negotiates sexuality across the realms of commerce and personal relationships.

Within the spectrum of sexual experiences that are available to Primalists, the sex at the less meaningful end of the spectrum would include the idea that "sex sells". The slightly more meaningful but not too meaningful sex can be understood in the realm of "exploring one's humanity" as Katie Dobie might define it, wherein sexuality is to be embraced as a personal thread of singular experiences. Primalists, believe that former aspects of the sexual id can be enjoyed, while the truly meaningful sex can be reserved for committed relationships.

"It's no big deal" is the hook-up way of saying that sex is not so precious as to be the exclusive realm of one level of meaning or another. For Katie, and those who argue as she does, there is nothing lost/diminished in the domain of the trust/commitment based sexual behavior on account of all the other non-trust/commitment based sex that is going on in tandem with it.

While a primalist might say, “Sex sells”, a primalist would not say that the “intimate part of my being sells”. This is based on a metaphysical claim concerning the nature of sexuality as being inextricably wrapped up with the dignity of our being in a manner that a primalist is not willing to make. Having eschewed this premise, the primalist can entertain a sense of mastery over sexuality wherein he/she has mentally divorced the intimate self from the experience. It is this divorce that is necessary for a primalist to be “outside” his/her sexuality enough to ostensibly master it. From this idea, one can be “outside” one’s sexuality enough to treat the experience of it as one would experience an endless bazaar that one can choose to indulge in.

Of course I am a critic of the hook-up realm because it plainly violates Jesus’ and the apostles teaching. That said, evaluated on its own terms, the hook-up realm crumbles on its own contradictions, because it assumes a individual’s mastery over sex that is inconsistent with the other tandem ideas of non-mastery. Here, the “mastery of the individual” is not predicated on any other effort of discipline for the individual or of any disciplined examination of the nature of sexuality as being connected with the profundities of one’s being.

As an expression of primalism, the hook-up realm is “post-rational”, dispensing with the value for the individual’s effort at disciplined thought as a means to sort out reality. It operates in its cognitive dissonance with a big "whatever" to the aspects of sexual non-mastery that operate in tandem with the ideas of sexual mastery. Having an ethical premium on not questioning the individual id or the collective id, primalists are interested in the appearance of “cool” over any reckoning with cognitive dissonance in the hook-up realm. There is a certain ennui, an ability to traffic in all of this that is given the status of "adulthood" and sophistication. Hook-up sex is also about bravado, and the power that people have when they appear to have mastered danger. This realm of un-examined pleasure, cool-pose and latent pain are all wrapped up in hook-up sexuality as a coin of the social realm.

It is my assertion that the pleasure of sex is, in fact, the pleasure of the intimate self jumping off a cliff into an unknown of fear and awe. The pleasure of sex is the rush of the most intimate part of oneself being either supremely validated or deeply rejected by another. That is it symbolizes the power of a bond of supreme trust. The physical consequences of the act, which are mitigated only by extensive modern technology, are symbolic of the degree of trust that is involved. The pleasure of sex is a profound "thrown-ness" of being as Heidegger would say. As sex is the act that is rife with potency and meaning, so are the acts, the foreplay, that are intended to operate in proximity to the act.

It is the nature of sex and sexuality that gravity and pleasure are woven together. Hooking is an attempt to extract the pleasure of sex without any true intellectual reckoning with its gravity. As such this leaves the hook-up apologists unable to deal with or explain the often destructive power of sex as anything more than an inevitable force of nature. Of course "nature" is a loaded term and can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean, which, in the realm of disposable sexuality, usually means that sexual nature is lowered to the lowest common denominator of acquiescence and mental and spiritual non-engagement.

Any sexual encounter presents one with either a profound validation of ones being in all of its dimension, or a profound invalidation. Pseudo-validation is a form of non-validation that can be pleasing to the receiver. Pseudo-validation is the outward act of validating another with what would be done with a bond of trust if one were deeply trusted – except that it is being presented without any actual trust or respect. The pleasure of lustful sexual desire that one experiences with pseudo-validation is the extrusion of the pleasure through latent pain that comes at the expense of one’s dignity. Thus, the pleasure is not woven into a true exploration of one’s nature in the context of any lasting idea of purpose, dignity or meaning, but is something that is sought as an end in itself. As such, the pleasure is sought as constant nip of desire that demands an endless commitment to procure more of the same and justify more of the same.

The emotional carnage of people caught up in continual hook-up relationships is when there is any discrepancy concerning the level of meaning that people are attaching to the act (it was a hook-up for him but a little more than a hook-up for her or vise versa). Or when people embark on a hook-up only to realize that they gave a little more of themselves than they thought they were at the moment, only to realize that they have left a little piece of themselves behind, or to realize that there were some other physical or emotional consequences that they didn't bargain for. These injuries to the self and recognition of non-mastery are recorded amply in music and art when they are not admitted openly.

Hooking up encompasses all that is done in reality and in fantasy, both physically and merely visually. A strip club offers one form or another of the GFE, the “girl-friend experience”, which can be understood as the “pseudo fore-play experience”. The visual tease of a strip club is a sort of pseudo-validation of pseudo-foreplay that says, “I'm allowing/trusting with the exposure of my intimate self, represented with my body, but not really. I'm invalidating your value as one who is truly worthy of my trust, though I am playing with your pleasing feelings of validation that extrude through the tease.” For the recipient, the emotional oscillation of pain and pleasure is intoxicating.

I am such a harsh critic of the fashion and advertising that accessorizes the hook-up realm for the marketplace because it is the “McVoyuerism”, the endless visual landscape of banal pseudo-foreplay of exposed and party exposed intimate body parts. This practice borrows from the sexual energy of porn and strip-clubs and is toned down just enough to be brought into all crevices of time and place. GFE fashion is one wing of the vast hook-up realm, as is porn and all other manner of amateur boffing, fondling and intimate exposure.

I believe that we are summoned to a realization of ourselves that involves our full emotional and mental engagement of our sexuality. Hook-up is an abdication of this summons for this reason: to treat sex as banal and "no big deal" is to treat ones intimate self as banal and "no big deal". It is the very nature of sexuality such that, were it goes, so does the intimate part of ourselves. Reckoning with this is the beginning of any serious understanding of sexuality.

In rejection of this, hook-up lust is like a wolf licking the ice of frozen blood on a knife, who does not realize that it is now licking its own blood as its tongue is being cut by the knife. The injuries to the self that one bears that one cannot face bond one to the illusion that it’s really “ok” and “no big deal”. Such is the power of sex, that the pleasure of sex, when gone awry, is powerful enough to bind one to delusions. It is no coincidence that the idea of a “hook-up” is not dissimilar to the drug language. Hooking up treats sex as a drug, as a sexual “fix”. And it often goes hand in hand with other drugs.

The only path out of hook-up sexual delusions is a journey into the realm of our sexual being that actually faces the spiritual, emotional and metaphysical cliffs we scale and bruise on. More to come on what that means.

“If God created everything who created God?”

I want to take a brief detour to answer the classic metaphysical question by a dorm room smarty pants in response to Christian apologetics, “If God created everything who created God?” The question is a clever play on the word “everything” in response to a Christian apologist who says that “God created everything”. Of course, when the Christian apologist says “God created everything”, he is assuming that God is the root, the uncreated thing. Here, dorm room smarty pants is pretending to ignore this assumption and is extracting the idea “everything is created” to turn it back against the premise of God. In this way, smarty pants is challenging the intellectual and philosophical integrity of the Christian apologist.

But does smarty pants have any integrity himself? Is there any intellectual integrity to the possibility that God could, hypothetically be created? Here’s what’s at stake. If there is no intellectual and philosophical integrity to the possibility that God could be created, then smarty pants can’t use that possibility to attack the integrity of the Christian apologist. To begin to even approach the question “who created God?” requires that two major adjustments are made in the definition of God: A) that the God of Israel is not created; he simply is who he is and B) that the God of Israel is Lord above of all: that for him to be created would mean that he was subservient to someone, and was not, therefore, Lord of all.

In other words, if God is created then God must have a God. If one carries the logic of this smarty pants premise through, there are yet more adjustments to the definition of God that are required that deviate from the God of Israel that is being advanced by the Christian apologist. To begin to unravel why this is, let's give smarty pants some leeway and examine a hypothetical alternate universe where God was created by a God who was created by a God who was created by a God who was created by a God, etc… into infinity. Gods creating Gods into infinity cannot result in one God having ultimate executive authority. Each created God will be subservient in authority to the one above him. Either there is an ultimate God where the creation ends, as an un-created God from whom all directives originate to all the created Gods beneath him, or there is a diminishing thread of executive authority extending up from each created God to that God who created him, wherein the thread of original executive authority vanishes into infinity.

Let’s say that smarty pants tries to solve this problem by admitting that, in this alternate universe, there must be an ultimate, uncreated God wherein the creation of lesser Gods creation stops and where the “buck” of executive authority in the universe stops. So let’s say we have an alternate universe where there is a “great grandfather God” and series of “in between Gods” and a “bottom-most God” who would be a sort of “representative God” who would interact directly with the created universe.

So the question is thrown back in the lap of smarty pants? If there is a “great grandfather God” why would he need to create a God to create a God to create the “bottom-most God" in the pecking order to be the “representative God” to create and interact with the created universe? For there to be an unbroken line of executive authority and intent extending from the great grandfather God to all the other Gods ending with the “bottom-most” God requires that each created God was created as a complete clone of the one immediately above, operating with complete determinism in relation to the God immediately above in the pecking order. In this case, each created God is not actually a God but is more of a robotic agent, ultimately, of the great grandfather God. Or, each God in the pecking order is an independently operating volitional Person, thus resulting in a tiered polytheistic universe, where the original executive intent is ever more remote and removed from the great grandfather God with each successive level of God.

Putting the problem of pantheism aside, the smarty pants is in conflict with another attribute of the God of Israel in question that is being presented by the Christian apologist: God is love, and God loves what is good, and it is God’s joy and desire to interact directly with his creation. Yet another definition of the God of Israel is that God acts according to his nature and his character. If we grant as a definition that God only acts according to his nature, the alternate universe of staggered Gods would require that each God have a different nature that the one above and below, and that only the God at the bottom would have the nature and character to directly enjoy relating with creation. The Gods who created the Gods to create creation for them would not have the attributes to love that creation quite like the “representative God” at the bottom of the pecking order who got to interact directly with the created universe. Here, the God immediately above the God who created creation would need to create a God who had a different nature than himself.

To look at it from a different point of view, if the God who created the God of Israel actually had the same character as the God of Israel, we are left with this problem: based on the degree to which the God of Israel demonstrates his love and jealousy for his creation, for such a God to create another God to create creation and relate with that creation for him and on his behalf would be the equivalent of a husband giving his wedding ring to another man to be husband to his wife.

If smarty pants were to try to solve this problem by saying that each God above the God of the universe could have his own creation to love in a parallel universe according to his nature to love, then why would the God above the God in the alternate universe need to create the God of that universe to be God for him in that universe? What would be the investment of that grandfather God in the universe if he had his own created parallel universe to love? For a God to create a God to create a universe would place a God between him and that universe that it was in his nature to love directly.

And so it goes that the question “who created God?” requires moving the goalposts. It requires adjusting the definition of the God that is being presented by the Christian apologist such that the idea of God that is required to take the smarty pants seriously is a concept of God that is utterly un-reconcilable with the God of Israel. As such the question, “who created God?” is far more often used as a ploy to confuse the Christian apologist than it is used as the basis of a serious inquiry.