Jesus at the Prom

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This week I read Susan Campbell’s Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl. Parts of her autobiographical narrative seemed so familiar that it was almost like we could have been siblings. Other parts demonstrated just how widely a religious upbringing in America may vary. Fundamentalism is a powerful force, and one that often feels impossible to outgrow. The added dimension of a constant, insistent criticism of gender made Campbell’s account truly wrenching at times. Having been raised in a similar environment, I had been taught that ministry is a male prerogative, an activity women were separated from just as surely as begetting babies. Having been raised mainly by my mother, however, I was more sympathetic to a woman’s plight than most of the outspoken advocates for male privilege. Campbell’s story hit close to home.

One of the most tenacious aspects of Fundamentalism is the brain patterning it impresses on young minds. Who doesn’t know that baby birds impress parenthood on the first creature they see after hatching? Young children, trusting well-meaning parents, are impressed with a religious branding iron before they can sort things out for themselves. We make our children in our own image. Few ever undertake the intense reflection later in life to challenge these impressions. Like Campbell, I attended seminary because I was curious. Many of my classmates had no questions in their heads – they knew already that they were to be ministers. Seminary was a hoop to be leapt through rather than a rung to be climbed for a different perspective. And their children will be taught their perspective. Denominations will continue to increase in numbers as acorns roll not far from the tree, but just far enough.

Campbell’s memoir is a gentle indictment of the male establishment. What once began as a biological division of labor has been given a religious imperative; male dominance is ordained by God, and women have no option but to comply. Even as the divine gets pushed into an unlit corner of everyday life, the deity may always be drawn back out for a session of gender oppression before being tucked safely away again. In these days of advanced technology and wide perspectives, women are still held down as some kind of inferior sub-species by men who believe that they are the default version of the image of God. It is time to be honest and admit that the only reason women are kept from the male preserve in any field is because of a jealous green-eyed god called privilege.

Zombies, Golems, and Robots – Oh My!

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A truly great metaphor is hard to kill. Despite detractors and naysayers, the zombie has clawed its way into the modern psyche as a denizen of the living death of a world we’ve created for ourselves. Joblessness, environmental disasters, tea parties – just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the dead refuse to stay dead. Elsewhere on this blog I’ve written about the origin of zombies in Voodoo, and I mentioned in passing the connection with the golem. The golem is a mythical Jewish creature that serves the role of protector of the oppressed (one can’t help but think of the Democratic Party). It is strong, dedicated to its task, brainless and soulless (one can’t help but think of the Religious Right). Like the zombie, the golem has no inherent ability to think for itself, and it must be animated by a magical word written on its forehead.

Golem around the corner

One of the most famous golem stories involves the Golem of Prague, defender of the oppressed Jews in that city in the Middle Ages. The Prague connection also forever ties the golem together with robots in Karel Capek’s 1921 play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the very origin of the word “robot.” Like the golem the robot putatively has no soul. It too is controlled by a code written precisely for it. Unfortunately on my one trip to Prague back in 1991, I didn’t know to look for the golem – I did find the statue of Jan Hus, however. Right around the corner the golem lurked, standing guard over the oppressed. It is a powerful image when the world is in such a state.

We need a hero

With the recent release of George Romero’s Survival of the Dead, the zombie has been given renewed life. Watching the Republican Party gearing up for a major thrust at the very soul of America, lining up the local BP station to support big oil, spouting false rhetoric about what the Bible says, I think I’d rather take my chances with the zombies. Does anyone out there happen to have a golem for sale, just in case?

Cryptid Be Thy Name

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While poking around the internet last night to take my mind off the heat and humidity surrounding me, I stumbled across an article entitled “The Religious Struggle over Cryptozoology” on a site called Science and Religion Today. The piece was written by Joe Laycock, a doctoral candidate at one of my alma maters, Boston University. Having just finished Bruce Hood’s Supersense, there was a pleasing euphony in the coincidence. Cryptozoology is the study of unknown animals, and is not necessarily based on the supernatural (although it may fall within Hood’s definition of it). Laycock notes that two religious elements in society have latched onto this study: New Agers and Creationists. Creationists, it seems, see in certain cryptids, such as the Loch Ness Monster, hold-overs from the Mesolithic Era that prove the Mesolithic Era never existed. God can still make dinosaurs today, therefore the Bible (which doesn’t mention dinosaurs at all) must be true.

The draw of the unknown

One of the most welcome parts of Hood’s thesis was its consonance with Stephen Asma’s On Monsters, a book I’ve posted on before. Both authors explore how the human psyche reacts against what it perceives to be “strange mixes,” beings that cross-over between readily defined categories. Hood addresses this by tackling the concept of “essence” while Asma notes a dread accompanied by a sense of wonder. Hood demonstrates that from a scientific point of view, there is no such thing as the “essence” of a person, object, or living thing. Such ideas are the cling-ons from the era of souls and radically distinct species and genders. Closer observation has taught us that many such things are more of a continuum than a series of sharply defined types. Religions prefer to have fixed categories. Religious ethics often depend on them.

Laycock suggests that both New Ageism and Creationism “can be read as a religious response to the cultural authority of science.” Religions fear that which can be empirically demonstrated since it throws the god-of-the-gaps into the dryer and he comes out smaller each time. This is so, despite the fact that Creationists crave scientific respectability. While teaching my course on Myth and Mystery at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, I dwelt on cryptids for a few sessions. They are indeed often surrounded with a religious mystique. I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the possibility of undiscovered species, many new ones are described by science every year. Nor would I say that they are supernatural. Nature has ways of surprising us still, and as Asma clearly demonstrates, we still have a need for monsters.

Super Sensitive?

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As not infrequently happens, I take my reading cues from others. In general I am reading half a dozen books at any one time, so when I finish one I cast around for something of a similar genre. One book that I just finished I learned about from my cyber-friend Sabio Lantz’ Triangulations blog – Bruce M. Hood’s Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable. Hood is a respected psychology professor, and his writing style is engaging. The book itself, while fascinating in its ability to offer an overarching theory to explain why people believe in the supernatural, is deeply disturbing. I grew up in a family where the supernatural was taken for granted. Many of Hood’s explanations are cogent and logical, but that was not what I found to be distressing.

The overall premise of the book is that if science cannot measure a phenomenon, it is “super”-natural. If it exists in nature, science can define it. To me this seems far too limiting. It assumes that science has already probed the infinite aspects of an infinite universe. Yes, we understand (to a degree) matter. We have discovered the sub-atomic world with its quarks and other tiny bits. We understand a great deal about energy as well. Could there not be, however, an entirely natural aspect of either matter or (more likely) energy that science has not yet learned to measure? And could not this aspect be a piece of the larger universe that we inhabit? In other words, when all that is not defined by science is “supernatural” then we have already decided on the limits of our world.

From a psychological viewpoint, I find Hood’s analysis quite agreeable. The human psyche does have a need to find the supersense in the world. We do look for irrational causes. Not all unexplained phenomena are supernatural, however. It is a semantic trap. If we define “supernatural” as anything outside of current understanding, then his thesis stands. If, however, we define “supernatural” as that which violates physical laws not as they are currently understood but as they actually are, then who is to say whether there is anything supernatural at all? “Unexplained” and “supernatural” are not the same thing. Such a distinction would not be troubling were it not for the fact that Hood defines “reality” (another problematic concept) only in terms of “scientifically known.” If it has not been measured by science, a phenomenon is not real since our physical brains (measured by science) are the filters through which we experience the world. There is no room for what has not yet been found.

Far more distressing than that is his assertion that freedom is an illusion. One of the most distasteful theological travesties ever is the concept of predestination. The idea that a loving God would create most people to suffer eternal torment simply to fulfill his own arbitrary assignment of justice is something for which Presbyterianism can never be forgiven. It is about the most immoral God that can be imagined. The same goes for the psychological premise that we must react according to our biology. I found myself wondering why Hood wrote the book at all, if life is all predetermined. What if he had chosen not to write it, or to write it differently? You could argue that this too was predetermined, but does this not simply justify the income and fame of those who are “important people”? It runs a true danger of being terribly bourgeois, if not downright supportive of eugenics. Not that Hood would advocate such an action, but any time predetermination is raised, it presents the grandest of excuses for the most heinous of behaviors. Even the psychological observations that support it may have been misunderstood. Of course, if you disagree with me, don’t blame me; it was predestined that I should write this.

That having been said, I found Supersense overall to be a wonderfully fascinating book. At points Hood’s argument seems to consist of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy he rejects as unscientific, but if this can be irrationally forgiven, there is much useful material to be gleaned from this book.

Pulp Bible

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Everyone is an expert on the Bible. This is one of the factors that provides professional biblical scholars with generous ulcers. Everyone is an expert because they know what they believe about the Bible. The difficulty is very few people actually know much about the Bible. Belief and knowledge are very different features of the human psyche. In my introductory course on the Hebrew Bible last night, I showed the clip from Pulp Fiction where Jules exegetes Ezekiel 25.17 (which is a fictional verse concocted for the movie). This offers a springboard to discuss how the Bible is perceived in society at large. Many people believe that Ezekiel 25.17 actually reads as Jules quotes it. The writer/director of any movie may freely manipulate the Bible since they are as expert as anyone else on the subject. (Of course, Ezekiel is a safe bet for a false citation since few people have actually read the book.)

As an officially trained “expert” on the Bible who has learned the original languages and who has read far more books on the Bible than health or common sense would dictate, I often wonder about this. When the Jehovah’s Witnesses stop by, knowing that I have these credentials, they plow straight ahead and tell me what the Bible really means. They are experts as well. When my wife was pregnant and we visited the obstetrician for an initial interview, as soon as he discovered my vocation, the physician quoted Scripture for this nervous young couple before him. Would you not rather have a Bible expert deliver your first child? Where is there room for the bone fide Bible specialist?

Having read Hector Avalos’ The End of Biblical Studies some months ago, I found myself largely in agreement. In many quarters the Bible receives a privileged treatment that only creates problems. Politicians, rap artists, physicians, movie directors, and janitors are all experts on the Bible; why do we need those of us who’ve made it a life’s work? The answer, I believe, is that knowledge of the Bible is at an all-time low. Many venerate the Bible without understanding what it is. Until society gets a grasp on what it means to have so many experts on the Bible, everyone should ponder the meaning of the passage that reads, “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Converting Triffids

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“Stupendous as this disaster is, there is, however, still a margin of survival. It may be worth remembering just now that we are not unique in looking upon vast calamity. Whatever the myths that have grown up about it, there can be no doubt that somewhere far back in our history there was a Great Flood. Those who survived that must have looked upon a disaster comparable in scale with this and, in some ways, more formidable. But they cannot have despaired; they must have begun again – as we can begin again.” This quote from John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids brings into focus a number of themes from this blog. Initially, it is another example of the intersection of science fiction and religion, specifically the Bible. In his apocalyptic 1951 novel, Wyndham can find no better example of disaster than the Flood Myth. The Bible and science fiction have kissed each other once again.

Another recurring theme reflects on disaster and how religions deal with it. As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill begins taking on apocalyptic dimensions religion is brought into the discussion in a variety of ways: God will take care of it; it is a sign of the end times; God is punishing us for something; corporate greed must stop. Take your choice. When people feel threatened, religion is quickly brought off the shelf, dusted off, and thrust out as the harbinger of deep solutions. Those of us who deal with religion every day must be forgiven for being a bit more circumspect.

The Flood Myth is a regular theme as well. It crops up in unlikely as well as predictable locations. As mentioned yesterday, it was evident in the Mystic Aquarium (unexpected), and it constantly resurfaces in Fundamentalist rhetoric (predictable). On a previous travelogue entry I mentioned Noah’s Ark being rebuilt in Maryland (unexpected). Seeing the Flood as the benchmark of worldwide disasters in a science fiction novel may be predictable, but the troubling ethical concomitants drawn out by Wyndham are profoundly disturbing. The Flood is not longer the worst disaster imaginable, but the Bible will continue as the measure of catastrophe long after the triffids have vanished.

Indiana Wants Me

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The conservative evangelical Christian camp sometimes makes blogging on religion just too easy. The paper this morning reveals yet another evangelical, abstinence-only soap-boxer being caught with his boxers down. Indiana Representative Mark Souder is stepping down because of an extra-marital affair. To fill in the gaps on other such evangelical infidelities, I recommend Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah.

No, I do not rejoice in such revelations. The suffering of families brought on by such blatant hypocrisy cuts me deeply. The lesson we should all be learning from this is that self-righteousness is a sham. For all their faults, the more liberal factions of society are ready to admit that people are people and not cookie-cutter angels. They are inclined to admit that temptations exist, yet statistics demonstrate their marriages tend to be more secure and less plagued with infidelity. I tend to think it is because evangelical teaching has lost sight of what is truly important: people have always been, and still are, people. The belief that God has made one class of people better than others, and that saying sex doesn’t exist gives you the right to live in a pre-Edenic fantasy world, the Neo-Con is in very deep denial. No wonder many evangelicals distrust psychology!

I often ponder why this disconnect should exist at all. It seems that evangelicalism has been singularly poor at providing the tools to cope with reality. If temptation doesn’t exist for the blessed, then why bother developing strategies to deal with it? When the newspapers come out, it is easier to cast the first stone at the liberal media for airing dirty laundry than it is to examine your own hamper. Yet even the Bible itself has one important character criticizing the religious establishment as whitewashed tombs. No, I do not respond with glee to the sad outing of Mark Souder. I simply wish evangelicalism would truly advocate the honesty upon which it claims to be based.

Medusa’s Legacy

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Having just finished my Mythology course at Montclair, I’ve picked up a few books to delve once again into a sublimated childhood interest. I was first introduced to Greek mythology back in Mrs. MacAlevy’s fifth-grade class in Rouseville Elementary. The story of Perseus, in particular, has stayed with me ever since. Of course, being taught in serious religion classes that this was all silly nonsense, what with the multiplicity of overly amorous deities whimsically whipping thunderbolts at humanity (everyone knew there was really only a single celibate deity whimsically spreading pestilence among humanity), I drifted away. Mythology continued to be an interest, but the Greek variety went the way of the dodo. The occasional Pauline reference to Artemis fanned the old flames, but just a little. I had more serious religion to comprehend.

So now, decades later, I find myself needing to catch up on the classics. To rejuvenate my interests, I once again turned to Perseus. My brother and I forked out the extra cash for 3-D to see the remade Clash of the Titans this spring, and I found myself even watching the 1981 version in a Harryhausen-induced haze to refresh my memory. The original movie realized the deficiencies of the classic story on the big screen and embellished shamelessly to wow the critics. One of the most memorable scenes was Perseus in the lair of Medusa. So I found myself reading Stephen Wilk’s Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon.

Wilk is a physicist and a member of a prominent optical society. He brings the fresh insights of a non-classics specialist to the story of Medusa (I should know, since I too am a non-classics specialist). This study raised my limited level of awareness in several respects, particularly in the repeated emphasis on eyes in the book. What really struck me the most, however, was how it became clear that Medusa was yet again an embodiment of female power ruthlessly struck down by a virile young man with nothing better to do than slay her. Medusa is the victim in the story, cut down for simply being what she is – a strong female figure. I could not agree with all of Wilk’s assessments, but this provocative book brought many interesting concepts to light.

Medusa, like Lilith, is the symbol of fear for a threatened manhood; women who are true femmes fatale – preying on male pretensions for sport. Until society willingly accords true equality, such figures will remain necessary to remind us that gender should never be the factor by which an individual’s contribution is to be judged. I suspect Mrs. MacAlevy knew something that the Greeks had also realized: repression only increases the ferocity of the repressed.

Perseus asserting the male prerogative

Giving Lilith Her Due

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Lilith Fair has announced its 2010 tour dates and excited fans are already purchasing tickets. Lilith Fair is a collection of women artists who share a stage to showcase the female contribution to contemporary music and donate a considerable share to charity. The event name, of course, is taken from the mythological character of Lilith. Popularized as a rare example of “Hebrew myth,” Lilith is a character who likely derives from ancient Mesopotamia, although her origins are obscure. Best known as “Adam’s first wife,” her somewhat sexy story in Judaic tradition evolved into Lilith being the original woman. Unlike Eve she was created simultaneously with Adam. Things were fine until she wanted to be on top during intercourse – males were not made to be dominated, according to patriarchal old Adam, and Lilith ships out to shack up with Satan. She is demonized (literally and figuratively) and becomes the “night hag” that snatches babies and claims the first right of intercourse with every male (an etiology for nocturnal emissions). She becomes the mother of demons.

This story shows all the traits of a late development, but the idea of a strong female figure in Eden is an appealing one. Lilith has come to represent the empowered female, and the modern trend towards accepting her as an icon of feminine independence is apt. Long ago I was intrigued by the female side of the story. Perhaps because I was raised primarily in a single-parent family for my formative years, I have always wondered about the disparity in our “advanced” culture that still considers the male as the “default” model with the female as kind of an adjunct after-thought. This fascination led me to the study of goddesses in the first place, culminating in a doctorate on Asherah. In the Bible men have Adam, Noah, Moses, David, and countless other role-models – even God himself according to standard interpretation. Why not admit the goddess?

It is telling that when Lilith becomes too powerful she is presented as evil. Anthropological explanations have little to offer by way of adequate explanations for such a development. Not to blame biology (or to lay claim to an excuse), but Frans de Waal’s Inner Ape demonstrates that males are hopelessly paranoid about showing weakness. Female primates tend to express their power by group cohesiveness while males try to blunder their way to the top with brute individualism. Adam had nothing to fear from Lilith. To those who perform in Lilith Fair, I only have to say, “Rock on!”

The Death of an Art

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In most ways, I enjoy progress. Having electronic communication has spared the lives of many innocent trees, information may be had quicker, and ideas can be freed from the sometimes narrow constraints of staid publishers. (On the other hand, it has given internet users way TMI, some of it not worth the double-click.) There is, however, no comparison to holding a book in your hands. I grew up with cheap paperbacks with their brittle, brown-edged pages and their cadre of book-mites, but many happy memories have accrued to those hours of reading. I never much cared if the books were pristine, as long as they were legible. As intensive reading became a major part of my career aspirations, I started to notice the quality and longevity issues of books. Hardbacks were more durable, but less portable. Some were artworks in themselves.

I was disappointed, therefore, when I recently ordered an Oxford University Press book and I discovered that it had been done Print on Demand. Having worked nearly three years for Gorgias Press, pretty much a strictly Print on Demand publisher, I immediately recognized the hallmarks of this quick and easy way of keeping books in print – inferior print quality and image replication were dead giveaways. The truly disappointing part of the scenario was that this particular book has an intensive discussion of artifacts shown in their grainy, low resolution PoD reproductions. I realize that even large publishers save immense warehousing costs by supplying on-demand titles after an initial print run sells out, but when it compromises the quality, in part the raison d’être of a book with illustrations, some troubling issues are raised.

It seemed when I was young that no matter which copy of a book – barring obviously defective tomes – I picked up, the contents were virtually identical. The industry standard, offset printing provided many identical copies of good quality relatively cheaply. With Print on Demand, books can be outsourced to different vendors and interiors can vary considerably. I saw this all the time while checking proofs at Gorgias Press. PoD also means that little changes can be made between “print runs” resulting in different copies of the same book having variable text. The compulsive footnoter in my veins starts clutching his little chest. When books move from a print run that can only be altered by a new edition to a PDF that can be adjusted between each individual copy, I begin to wonder about the stability of the written word. I’m still enjoying my OUP book, despite the uneven printing and the grainy pictures. But deep inside I fear that rewriting history has become much, much easier.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

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Preparing for another round of my annual course on Ancient Near Eastern Religions, I have been brushing up on Zoroastrianism. For this I generally first turn to Mary Boyce’s standard introduction, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. The book was written in the 1980s and is showing its age a bit, but it remains a seminal introduction to a religion whose humble position among world belief systems belies its overwhelming impact. A strange fact about the religion is that many of its main tenets have been summarily dismissed by the more politically influential religions of antiquity while its secondary features have been dramatically embraced. The classic example is dualism.

Zoroastrianism was founded on a dualistic principle: Ahura Mazda was the entirely beneficent, good creator, while Angra Mainyu was the powerful principle of evil. This cosmic struggle tapped deeply into all aspects of life, leading to the beliefs in two afterlife realms (which evolve into Heaven and Hell), two very powerful entities (that become the God versus Satan paradigm), and two dispensations (present age as opposed to future age, the ultimate source of the apocalypse). Indeed, it would be difficult to recognize Christianity without Heaven and Hell, the Devil, or the final judgment. Boyce carefully traces the earliest evidence for Zoroastrianism back to its formative period and offers detailed explanations for each aspect. Beyond this, however, Zoroastrianism became a forgotten faith, an abandoned parent.

It is a fact that religions evolve. Many believers like to trust that they have the straight information directly from the founder’s mouth and that their brand is the authentic brand of faith. All religions, however, if they survive long enough, change to meet the needs of present-day adherents. Again, Zoroastrianism is instructive. Believing in the sacred nature of fire, during the industrial revolution the use of fire for profane work, such as running a steam engine, was considered inappropriate. How were Zoroastrians then to keep up with society without softening their stance on the secular use of fire? The struggle was real and has never been fully resolved. The same exercise could easily be applied to other religions as well. Until the Zoroastrian-inspired apocalypse arrives, religions will have to adjust to continual societal change and accept that quantity of belief does not affect quality.

LOL Cat Bible Commentary, Part 1

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It was bound to happen. Here is the first installment of the LOL Cat Bible Commentary.

Genesis 1.1 Oh hai! In teh beginning Ceiling Cat maded teh skys an teh Urfs, but he no eated them.

In teh beginnin
In teh beginnin ub teh dai — Ceiling Cat nawt wurk at nite, cuz datz wen
Basement Cat come owt to do ebil stuffz.
Ceiling Cat
Ceiling Cat writed da Bible. He’z the mos smartess an strongess kitteh ever. An him reely good — he no eat other kittehs fud, an he nebber jumpz on another kitteh in da middul ub teh nite (but for hoomuns dis ok).
maded teh skys
But first him taked a nap. Den Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez so him had place to liv. An den him putted a hole in da ceilin so him kood peep down on teh Urfs. Wait, him nawt maek teh Urfs yet! Ai sowwy, plz to furgive? Kthx.
an teh Urfs
K, nao Ceiling Cat maek teh Urfs. Urfs is where the hoomuns howse iz.
Ceiling Cat no maek teh udder Urfs, jus da wun wif da howse.
but he no eated them
Ceiling Cat can has a hunger after awl taht wurk, Aifinkso! But him no eated teh skiez, cuz den him fall owt, an den dere no moar kittehz to wurk on da Urfs. An him no eated teh Urfs howse, either. Him wanted to maek teh birdiez an teh moal an teh fishiez. An him also want to maek teh hoomuns for to maek his fud.

1.2 Teh Urfs has no shayps an has darwk fase, an Ceiling Cat roed invisible bike ovah teh wawters

Teh Urfs has no shayps
Cuz Ceiling Cat nawt evur maded a Urfs befoar. Him not no wut Urfs shayp iz!
an has darwk fase
Ceiling Cat can to seez in teh darwk, but dere nawt eny shayps to seez. The Urfs has dawrk fase liek teh howse wif no elec…elek…elekt…wif no lytes.
roed invisible bike
Liek him wuz dreemin. Invisible bike is hawrd to be finded in teh dawrk, but Ceiling Cat maded it an him finded it.
ovah teh wawters
Ceiling Cat nawt liek to get him feetz wet, so him no rided teh bike thru taht wawter. Wawters has see monsturs an stuffs.

1.3 At furst, has no lyte. An Ceiling Cat sez, “I can has lite?” An lite was.

At furst, has no lyte
Ceiling Cat nawt need lyte, but him noes taht hoomuns will to need lyte for to maek noms.
An Ceiling Cat sez
Ceiling Cat has to tawk to himself cuz of monokittehism. No udder kittehs arownd yet, not ebben Basement Cat.
I can has lite?
Ceiling Cat reely wanted a cheezburger. But him needed a hoomun for to maek cheezburger. So him has to maek teh lyte for to get noms.
An lite was.
Nao him can to see howse an da Urfs he maded. Den him maded lolz an udder stuffz, but first him taek moar napz.

(Translated into LOL Speek by the world’s greatest CATS! Fan Kthx)

Thoughts Off de Waal

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Although Frans de Waal’s Our Inner Ape was published half a decade ago, the monograph remains terribly relevant. I gave some primary impressions of the book last week, but one section has remained firmly in my head and has mingled with all the harsh rhetoric in the news about health care reform in the United States. Asking the question of whether Homo sapiens are still evolving biologically, de Waal withholds his final opinion on the matter, but he points out that statistics indicate Americans are falling behind much of the rest of the developed world in terms of general health. This he ascribes to the competition inherent in a free market economy that favors the best health care only to the wealthy while the average citizen is offered substandard options. The numbers bear him out on this – he notes that on the standards utilized to measure general health, the United States is not even in the top 25 industrial nations.

With the conviction of a true prophet, de Waal notes that privatization of health care has led to a precarious imbalance in medical care in the United States, where the top 1 percent of citizens has more income to spend than the bottom 40 percent combined. This, he believes, is because we have lost sight of the altruism inherent in apedom. Although the great apes are endangered (ironically, by their overly greedy genetic cousins) their societies show no such disparity. An ape family will assist a weakened or feeble member and give it extra care to ensure that it is offered a life as comfortable as possible. They do not discard the fragile and “expendable” members. Republicans, however, wave placards trying to shout down basic health coverage for the poor.

Does biological evolution continue among the human species? Have we stopped natural selection’s eternally ticking clock? Only time will tell. It does seem, however, that the very Bible pounded by the Religious Right (health care reform’s greatest opponent) would argue that the apes got it right. We should care for the poor, disadvantaged, and underrepresented. While the Tea Party belles are busy trying to rewrite history with America founded as a Christian nation they daintily wipe their mouths on the pages of the very book they treasure so deeply and claim as their authentic heritage.

Ape Versus Primate

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I have just finished reading one of the most important books I’ve found in quite some time: Frans de Waal’s Our Inner Ape. My attention was first drawn to the author when Rutgers University sponsored a talk he gave in the fall that I was unfortunately unable to attend. Simultaneously I saw his book footnoted in a text I was reading and decided to follow up on it. In addition to containing fascinating, documented anecdotes concerning ape behavior (he tells of a bonobo that attempted to help an injured bird fly!) de Waal holds a mirror up to the great apes and sees humanity reflected back. His discussion of the origins of morality makes far more sense to me than any theory I’ve seen a professional ethicist concoct. Our sense of empathy, de Waal notes with considerable evidence, derives from our common ancestor with the apes.

After discussing the understudied trait of kindness in the apes, de Waal writes: “With morality firmly rooted in sentiment it’s easy to agree with Darwin and Westermarck on its evolution and to disagree with those who think culture and religion contain the answer. Modern religions are only a few thousand years old. It’s hard to imagine that human psychology was radically different before religions arose. It’s not that religion and culture don’t have a role to play, but the building blocks of morality clearly predate humanity. We recognize them in our primate relatives, with empathy being most conspicuous in the bonobo and reciprocity in the chimpanzee. Moral rules tell us when and how to apply these tendencies, but the tendencies themselves have been in the works since time immemorial” (225).

These might just be platitudes if ample evidence did not demonstrate their veracity. Apes plan ahead, recognize fairness, and can even see issues from the point of view of others (something Gorgias Press might benefit from learning). They are clearly inheritors of the moral sense that evolution has crafted among all cooperative animals over the eons. Religions like to lay claim to the origins of morality: we behave this way because our god told us to. In a sense that may be true, but only if the “god” is nature itself and the instruction it gives is the way for a species to thrive. Caring for one another, all religions aside, is the formula that evolution presents as the most successful choice of natural selection.

The Danger of Books

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Yesterday the Hunterdon County Library booksale began. I did not grow up as a reader. As a child, television was my primary source of information. For reasons unclear to me, I took to books when I started junior high school. Suddenly I couldn’t get enough of them. I lived in a town with no bookstores, so I usually depended on what I could find on our periodic trips to Goodwill to look for clothes. While my mother was looking for apparel for my brothers and me, I hovered over the quarter-a-piece book bin, buying up to a dollar’s worth of used books at a time. I kept my books in a ratty old suitcase under the bed. There were no bookshelves at home, nor any room for them. Besides, I liked to keep my books separate from other aspects of my life. Perhaps it is an illness, but from that day on, I have not been able to resist the draw of books. It is perhaps natural that I would go into higher education (although my field might have been chosen a bit more wisely). In any case, yesterday I drove to Flemington, New Jersey, with, at least to judge by the traffic, three-quarters of the population of the county.

One of the books I purchased had a slip of paper tucked between the leaves. When I got home I read on it, “The naked witches have been regarded either as a jokey press gimmick or as a complete non-event. The truth of the matter is that the witches played a very important role in a whole series of monster invocations.” Intrigued, I wondered what the source of this unusual quote might be. Then I was struck by the religious imagery implicit in the piece: witches, no matter how defined, are a religious subject. Monsters, as I have frequently noted, share intense neural territory with religion. And invocation? It is a liturgical term! I can only wonder what the original context of this quote might have been, but the book in which it was stuck was in no sense religious. I am a very eclectic reader (so it is perhaps unusual that I would go into higher education) and no books I purchased had anything to do with religion. It seems that religion never fails to find me.

My devotion to books often reminds me of the day when Amazon used to include bookmarks when you purchased from them. My favorite bore a quote from Erasmus: “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” It sometimes drives my wife to frustration that I still wear clothes I purchased before we were married some twenty-two years ago. My informal student evaluations on Rate My Professor sometimes comment on my out-of-date fashion sense. The reason is, however, that I buy books before clothes, and yes, even food. And when you buy used books at a library book sale, you may learn that naked witches invoke monsters, and that may be valuable information. And my clothes are never in a condition Goodwill would consider accepting when I’m finally forced to relinquish them for lack of functionality.