"...the philosophy of Light" (ramblings and parables from orthodox rebels)

Recently I flipped through an essay by Roger Scruton called "How I Became a Conservative," where he charts his course to philosophical conservatism from the Student Riots of 1968's Paris to his professorship in the 1980s. He mentioned how during the Student Riots, a friend of his (one of the rioters) justified the mayhem with a book by Michel Foucault called The Order of Things. Scruton had few kind words for the book, but one thing he did say stuck with me: "The book is not a work of philosophy but an exercise in rhetoric. Its goal is subversion, not truth...." 

That last remark in particular wedged itself into my mind. As a member of the postmodern "millennial" generation, I have found myself flummoxed by the strange audacities committed in our name. Rampant relativism, the near deification of doubt and skepticism, and a narcissistic insistence on a conformity to our own "authenticity," i.e., if something doesn't speak to or "resonate" with us then we have no ears for it and that's that. A lot of books have been written in defense of these atrocities, many of them religious in content, all of them mystical in tone.

It is that mystical quality that often astounded me. When I would read the "history" of Foucault or the "theology" of Rob Bell, I found a singular consistency: what they said was gibberish, but it was artful gibberish, and very often infused with a romantic flair or delivery. Some of Foucault's best chapters are his last ones, where he drops all pretense to scholarship and simply slips into the artist that he is, weaving an intoxicating and provocatively put pack of lies. Bell is even better, being an artist from start to finish. His books are more a product of creativity than serious study. Anyone with a critical eye can see through all the ornamentation to the real substance of the work, which is either terrifying (Foucault) or damnable (Bell). In either case, it is utter nonsense in fancy garb.

Yet they gain traction, and it is because of the fancy garb. There is something to be said for the power of beauty: it has a moral force. As such, its abuse is incredibly dangerous. It can turn a man's heart faster than any syllogism. I speak as an artist myself: in the grand scheme of any debate, rhetoric often trumps logic. That is the meaning behind Scruton's statement. It's not what you say but how you say it, and if you speak it well then you can bombard people with any number of things, hiding your true meaning and purposes behind a flurry of colorful lights, like a fireworks display obscuring an incoming storm.

The exact purpose of all this rhetoric is indeed "subversion," and the goal of subversion is the destruction of every "truth" that has apparently imprisoned us. Such a task can sound very noble, especially if you dress it up with terms like "tyranny" and "liberty," "oppression" and "authenticity". It can even speak of "truth" in a sense, i.e., all of the "truths" we've been given are just the oppressive constructs of dead, white, European men. We must tear down those constructs so that we can get to the real essence of things (if there even is such an essence). One could very well argue (and I'm sure that some have) that subversion is all about "truth": the destruction of its counterfeits and the discovery of its true form or nature.

"White is only the beginning."

Calling "subversion" the search for truth through destruction reminds me of The Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf recounts his ill-fated meeting with Saruman. Gandalf discovers that Saruman has rejected his title of "the White" and has instead become "Saruman of Many Colors". Gandalf retorts that he "liked white better." Saruman sneers at this: "White! It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten, and the white light can be broken." Gandalf's reply is another statement that has stuck with me: "In which case it is no longer white, and he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Tolkien was referencing a medieval theory of light. Medieval Christianity viewed light as the perfect physical image for God, being not only pure and clarifying but also an absolute unity of multiples. Such logic is fundamentally trinitarian, as is all of Christianity. Every inch of Christian thought and act and artistry revolves around this central notion of separates being one while remaining separates (neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance). The Trinity is the highest expression of this (three in one). There is also the Incarnation (God and Man) as well as Atonement (God and man). The Church fits the bill (one body, many members), as does the Bible (66 books of different genres written at different times and places in different contexts, yet all unified around a singular theme). The Liturgy is built upon many separate elements coming together to form a singular worship, while the sense and structure of stained-glass windows and the cathedrals they adorn give vivid concrete testimony to the amassing together of many into one (without losing the many).

Out of many, One.

For the Christian, existence (from the foundations of ontos to the spectacles of quarks and quasars) has always been a fragmented whole, a great and glorious tapestry of many threads of many colors(!) woven into a singular image. Reality, truth: these things have always been a work of art, not a didactic platitude. Truth cannot be summarized in a statement; that is why it was summarized in a person (John 14:6). The swirling complexities of reality are captured by the irresistible gravity of an incomprehensible center that is God. But that capture does nothing to diminish the complexities, anymore than gravity diminishes the stars. On the contrary, it is their capture that gives us the beauty of the night sky, with its constant constellations and expansive milky way. From the foundations of trinitarian doctrine, you arrive at a philosophy of light, which says that it is neither unity nor diversity, neither solidification nor fragmentation, but rather the whole spectrum working in unison, in perfect, sublime harmony and holism.

Not that I see it, but that I see all else.

It is this "both/and" trinitarian logic that has been missed by the radicals of yesterday and today. They fear solidification at every turn, so they tear it down. To them, the light is nothing to them but blinding, so they break it that they might better see. But then it is not light at all, just disparate colors scattered about without direction or clarity. And in such a catastrophe, one of two things typically happens. Either they revel (or despair) in the prismatic chaos they have created, or they try to contain the madness by reducing everything to one of the disparate colors. Thus, everything becomes a reductionism: it all boils down to economics, or genetics, or sex, or race, or class, or truth-to-power, or pacifism, or Republicanism, or patriotism, or doubt, or whatever else comes and goes in fashion. Whatever way they go, they have broken the whole, and have left the path of wisdom.

I end this random ramble with a parable, told by G.K. Chesterton in the first chapter of his book Heretics. It is not his best book, but it is relevant here. Each chapter has Chesterton dealing a deathblow to a different kind of reductionism, for subversion (rhetorical or otherwise) has been in vogue for a long time now, which is why today we are practically drowning in it:

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good---" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmedieval practicality.

But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted an electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, and some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery, and some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes.

So, gradually and inevitably, today, tomorrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we may have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2013

 

Foucault VS Sayers (with apologies to G.K. Chesterton)

Foucault: I thought that I hated everything more than common men hate anything. But I find that I do not hate everything as much as I hate God.

Sayers: God never hated you.

Foucault: He never hated because He never lived! I know what He is, all of Him, from first to last: He is the people in power! He is the police, the great fat, smiling men in blue and buttons! He is the Law, and He has never been broken. But is there not a free soul alive that does not long to break Him, for no other reason than that He has never been broken? We who are in revolt talk all kind of nonsense about this or that crime of Government. It is all folly! The only crime of Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse Him for being cruel. I do not curse Him (though I might) for being kind. I curse Him for being safe! He sits in His chair of stone and has never come down from it. He is the Lord of angel armies, the one who knows the dwelling place of light and has seen the gates of deep darkness, and He has had no troubles. Oh, I could forgive You for everything, You who rule mankind, if I could feel for once that You have suffered for one hour of real agony like I have!

Sayers: I see everything now, including your error and your pain. It is good that you give glory to smallness, to the individual threads of the tapestry. But to say that the tapestry is ignorant of the threads and therefore the two are at odds? It is all a lie! Greatness knows all, including smallness; that is what makes it great. It has touched the heavens and the dirt. It has bent the knee. It has felt the plow and the whip and the horrible boot of the oppressor upon its back. That is the great truth of the Incarnation, which is not just a pious commonplace. It is not commonplace at all. What it means (among other things) is that for whatever reasons God chose to make man as he is---limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death---He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace, and He thought it all worthwhile, if for no other reason than that the real lie of Satan may be thrown back in your face! God has earned the right to say, "You lie!" For it is not true that He has never been broken; He was broken on the cross. It is not true that He has never descended from His throne; He has descended into hell. He too has suffered, beyond any man alive, for none have nor ever can drink of the cup that He drank for us all.

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2012

Why Liberalism and Postmodernism Will Always Fail (as expalined by an Original Orthodox Rebel)

The following is from p. 148 of G.K. Cheserton's Orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality and order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation, and advance.

If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor, we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfection; we can do it with the old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations, we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practice, we cannot help it much by insisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light, for these are at best reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam, for that means divine discontentment. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy, we shall instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire...civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero.

The Suicidal Mania of Post-Modernism (as prophesied by an Original Orthodox Rebel)

I have discussed post-modernism before, usually in contrast to both Christianity and common sense. In short, it is a lunatic subjectivism and skepticism whose corrosive epistemology eats away at everything, including itself in the end. Its exact elucidation is usually limited to the asylum of certain academic circles, but its fruits have permeated everywhere, from politics to Saturday morning cartoons.

That post-modernism is a self-destructive insanity was not an original idea of my own, nor did I get it from the popular tomes of Moreland and Zacharias (or any other popular figure in modern evangelical apologetics). Its maniacal idiocies were first made clear to me upon reading Chesterton's book Orthodoxy, which he wrote in 1908, a little over a hundred years ago. Then he was dealing with post-modernism's grand-sires (e.g., Nietzsche), and from their thoughts (or lack thereof) he could foresee the inevitable result, which he called "the suicide of thought," the title of one of the chapters in Orthodoxy.

The following excerpts (from pp. 42-43, 46-47, & 48 of the above-mentioned chapter) demonstrate (1) exactly what this rabid skepticism is, (2) what it entails, and (3) that it is nothing new. For my own part, my sentiments can be summed up in the last four sentences of the second paragraph and the very last sentences of the entire excerpt.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

[We] may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but [also] a touch of suicidal mania. The mere questioner has knocked his head against the limits of human thought and cracked it. This is what makes so futile the warnings of the orthodox [i.e., conservatives] and the boasts of the advanced [i.e., progressives] about the dangerous boyhood of free thought. What we are looking at is not the boyhood of free thought; it is the old age and ultimate dissolution of free thought.

It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild skepticism runs its course. It has run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself.  You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more skeptical world than that in which men doubt if there is a world. [...] Free thought has exhausted its own freedom. It is weary of its own success. [...] We have no more questions left to ask. We have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have found all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers.

[...]

The [old revolutionary] could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what was more important) the system he would not rebel against, the system he would trust. But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but [also] the doctrine by which he denounces it.

Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, then curses Mrs. Grundy [i.e., an old pop culture term for prudery] because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is a waste of time. A Russian pessimist [i.e., an anarchist] will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. [...] In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

[...]

[In sum], thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot. Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain.

   

Why I Am a Writer (the confessions of an orthodox rebel)

G.K. Chesterton told a story once about a young lady that he knew. She had lived in mainland England her whole life and had never been to the coast, never been to the sea. Chesterton felt the need to rectify this and escorted her out there himself. They came to some random beach on the coastline and watched the dark green waves cresting and falling across white sand. Chesterton turned to the young lady and asked her what she thought. After a moment's hesitation, she said, "It looks like cauliflower." Chesterton would later say that he had never heard a more poetic statement.

Chesterton's assessment of that statement is why I love him. I don't always understand him, but that's not the point. It is his way with words that astounds me, how he understands the way that they work. I remember perusing some of his books online, and I got to his Father Brown collection. I only read the first line of the first story: "Between the silver ribbon of the morning and the green glittering ribbon of the sea, a boat touched Harwich and let lose a swarm of folk like flies." I stopped and immediately bought the book. I was in the middle of my college days back then, and I had no idea what to do with myself. All I knew was that I wanted that book and all the words it contained.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cartoonist, mostly because I spent hours doodling and also because Garfield the Cat had reached a cult-like status for me. By the time I was biologically mature enough to go to college, I began looking into graphic arts programs. One of my cousins and her husband were both graphic artists, so I took some samplings of my best stuff to show them. I sat at their dining room table one afternoon, passing graphite-laced pieces of paper back and forth between them and myself. I asked what they thought. My cousin said nothing because her husband beat her to it: "You draw well, but you really need to be a writer."

He was right. At that very moment, I knew he was right. His statement seemed absurd, yet it was completely true. As he would point out to me, every single picture that I showed them had been accompanied by a story. Every doodle was a scene, every piece a part of some whole. I was a writer. It was instinctual to me. I wanted to be one. I had always wanted to be one. I just didn't realize it until a graphic artist told me so.

So I abandoned the graphic arts programs and enrolled in a literature program, because I figured (as only someone cusping the age of twenty could figure) that I could learn how to write by simultaneously writing often and reading great writing. Thus I spent four years as a fish out of water, surrounded by academic bookworms concerned with theories and research. I just wanted the books themselves and their words, words fitly spoken, burning like stars or cold like steel. After all, I had bought Chesterton's entire Father Brown series on the merit of its first sentence alone. Another time, for kicks and giggles I sat down and read T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. During "Burnt Norton," I got to these lines: "Garlic and sapphires in the mud / Clot the bedded axle tree. / The tilling wire in the blood / Sings below inveterate scars / Appeasing long forgotten wars." For some reason my whole chest felt like it was burning, and my head felt cleansed and clear. I read all of his poems soon after.

Only two of my professors seemed to really understand how I felt. One was Dr. Kieth Callis, a wry man with a small mustache and a thin strap of messy gray hair. He was a true academic and scholar, but he also loved the written word for itself. On occasion during class, he would be reading something (usually Shakespeare) and he would constantly interrupt himself with "oh that's just beautiful!" I came to understand this sentiment firsthand. Last year I was teaching an English literature class, and we were reading through The Faerie Queene. When Redcrosse Knight reached Lucifera's House of Pride, I read the line: "and underneath her scornful feet / the dauntless dragon lay." I paused. It was beautiful, and I let the class know it.

The other professor was a creative writing instructor. His name was John Walker, and he was paralyzed from the collarbone down. He spoke with a soft, soothing voice and always waved a limp hand in the air whenever he was making a point. His class was the only one that I purposefully took twice, and I often frequented his office. On one such visit, he asked me to pull a book off of his shelf and hand it to him. It was Hey Jack!, a book by Barry Hannah, his old creative writing teacher. He flipped through it, his hands moving like flippers, and read to me the first few sections of the first chapter. I remember standing mesmerized. Every sentence was perfect, and not a word was wasted. It reminded me of Chesterton. I bought the book about a week later and devoured it.

Reading Barry Hannah reminded me why I wanted to be a writer, why I loved writing itself. It's the words, the power and beauty that they can have, how they can fit together so perfectly, bouncing off of each other like light between a thousand prisms. There's music in them, a submerged symphony desiring excavation, and every note I hear (either from myself or others) makes me want to dig deeper. There's that image in the Bible from Ezekiel of the dry bones coming together to form a standing army. That's what writing does: it makes the bones live. And that's what I wanted to do.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011