Category: Philosophy

That Is No Country For Old Men

On By JonathanIn Culture, Film, Philosophy2 Comments

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
-Those dying generations- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium

The sparse, often un-nervingly silent landscape of the Coen brother’s latest film, No Country For Old Men, is- as others have already properly noted- truly no country for old men- or for any man, in fact. From the desolate wind-swept panaromas of the West Texas borderlands at the opening of the film to the equally desolate panaromas of human depravity and violence, the Coen brothers present an unflagging and unsparing examination of just how dark human hearts can become, and just how dark and hopeless the world can appear to those caught in the ensuing maelstrom. The result is a gorgeous, unsettling and provoking film that has rightly earned considerable praise and consideration as of late. The cinematography is magnificent, the acting top-notch, but most importantly, the film has something to say, and what it has to say is worth listening to and thinking about.

Before I examine (some) aspects of the film in further detail, I must warn against spoilers- if you haven’t seen the film but intend to, you’d best not read further.

The film is set physically in 1980’s West Texas, at the border with Mexico. The border runs through the film, though more as background and plot device than as a central symbol (as it is in another movie featuring a West Texan Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada). The central landscape of the film, however, is the morally desolate country that lies like a cloud upon every part of the film’s physical landscape. The two landscapes- the spiritual and the physical- blend into each other, such as when Llewynn Moss peers through his binoculars at the circled pick-ups and prostrate bodies. The circled pick-up trucks, the drug job gone bad, also opens up another important symbol: the evil and the violent operating upon each other, and spilling out into the entire world around. No one is safe in this country. The highways, the arteries of any modern nation, are pervaded by the killer Anton Chigurgh, who moves like a disease from one automobile to another, sending the rejected host up in flames.

Yet Chigurgh is not an anomaly; he does not represent an exception. He is only the apex, the ubermensch who has emerged from the nexus of violence and evil, wielding his own inner logic and rationality as singular as his physical weapon, yet clearly related to the broader, chaotic and violent landscape he is a part of. While he seeks to create his own world, having rejected all other systems, he is not immune to the world- perhaps some small measure of hope. Moss wounds him with his shotgun, and he is badly injured in the startlingly random car-crash. He too is, ultimately, a part of the same “dying generation” as the rest. As a symbol, Chigurgh stands for death, death not as a pseudo-spiritual “part of life,” but death as the result of the Fall, death with all its satanic, destructive overtones lended to it in Christian theology. Indeed, Chigurgh as symbol-of-death is a very apt demonstration of what is meant by death being “the enemy.” Evil is not, as we would like to believe, merely some entirely random, unpersonalized force “out there.” Rather, evil- while truly chaotic and random- has its own internal illogical logic, its own irrational rationality, and is extremely personal, even while ultimately destructive of personality. Hence Chigurgh has no real purpose beyond his drive to destroy, to be the will-to-power for the sake of that power and nothing more. He does not care about money, or drugs, or sex, or any of those things. He has principles, but they are self-created principles.

Herein lies another reality that we moderns (or postmoderns rather) are uncomfortable with: Chigurgh is not evil because of drugs or money or guns, as a fellow law officer suggests to Sheriff Bell. Certainly, he reflects and embodies the violent world he is a part of, but the suggested things do not drive him, and are not the “cause” of his evil. They are the external manifestations of internal realities.

Chigurgh- and by extension death, evil, and the whole destructive environment- can be opposed. Yet none of the film’s characters succeed in opposing him, not ultimately. Moss is weighted by his greed for wealth and his own hubris, caught in the “sensual music” for the most part. Having become caught in the self-devouring world of violence, he must ultimately subcomb to it- not by Chigurgh’s hand, but in a sudden, off-screen act of violence delivered by nameless characters. The well-meaning and insightful sheriff is ultimately out-matched and concedes defeat, retreats.

Indeed, the symbols of decency- Sheriff Bell, the various elderly victims of Chigurgh, and Moss’s wife- are unable to stem the tide of evil. They are either oblivious to the dark world around them, or they are unable to find the means to confront it. Instead, the country is pervaded by drug-runners and the violence that swirls around them, respecting no borders at all. The two groups of young men in the film- the suggested heirs of the country in Yeat’s poem- are perhaps the saddest figures in the film. They are at once oblivious to the extent of the violent chaos around them, yet self-absorbed and nearly amoral. They stand staring at the destruction, responsive only to pleasure. The two boys who assist Chigurgh have some level of decency left in them, yet it is obvious (more so in the book) that they too are self-absorbed, a part of the amoral landscape.

If we are left with what is ultimately an uninhabitable country, is there any hope? The film only offers glimpse and slight possibilities- nothing to give any great motivation. However, the pervading theme- the brute strength of evil, and the seemingly insurmountable difficulty faced in confronting it- should serve as a reminder that indeed, no man can truly vanquish evil. We require, not the wise old sage (as valuable as he may be), or a postmodern antihero, but a New Man Who can fully defeat that very old enemy Death, in all its manifestations and across all countries.

Refusal to Accept Things As They Are

On By JonathanIn Gospel, PhilosophyLeave a comment

Let us try to imagine what takes place in the soul of a saint at the crucial moment when he makes his first irrevocable decision. Let us consider St. Francis of Assisi when he threw away his raiment and appeared naked before his bishop, out of love for poverty; or St. Benedict Labre when he decided to become a verminous beggar wandering along the roads. At the root of such an act there was something so deep in the soil that it hardly can be expressed, I would say a simple refusal- not a movement of revolt which is temporary, or of despair, which is passive- rather a simple refusal, a total, stable, supremely active refusal to accept things as they are: here it is not a question of knowing whether things and nature and the face of this world are good in their essence- to be sure they are good; being is good insofar as it is being; grace perfects nature and does not destroy it- but these truths have nothing to do with the inner act of rupture, of break, that we are now contemplating. This act is concerned with a fact, an existential fact: Things as they are are not tolerable, positively, definitely not tolerable. In actual existence the world is infected with lies and injustice and wickedness and distress and misery; the creation has been so marred by sin that in the nethermost depths of his soul the saint refuses to accept it as it is. Evil- I mean the power of sin, and the universal suffering it entails, the rot of nothingness that gnaws everywhere- evil is such, that the only thing at hand which can remedy it, and which inebriates the saint with freedom and exultation and love, is to give up everything, the sweetness of the world, and what is better, and what is pleasurable and permissible, in order to be free to be with God; it is to be totally stripped and to give himself totally in order to lay hold of the power of the Cross; it is to die for those he loves. That is a flash of intuition and of will over and above the whole order of human morality.

Once a human soul has been touched by such a burning wing, it becomes a stranger everywhere. It may fall in love with things, it will never rest in them. To redeem creation the saint wages war on the entire fabric of creation, with the bare weapons of truth and love. This war begins in the most hidden recesses of his own soul and the most secret stirrings of his desire: it wil come to an end with the advent of a new earth and a new heaven, when all that is powerful in this world will have been humiliated and all that is despised will have been exalted. The saint is alone in treading the winepress, and of the peoples there is no man with him.

Jacques Maritain, in The Meaning of Contemporary Atheism

Eros and Ideas

On By JonathanIn Culture, Philosophy, University LifeLeave a comment

If there’s one god our culture worships as piously as sex, it’s children. But sex and children, sexual intimacy and familial intimacy, have something in common — beyond the fact that one leads to the other: both belong to us as creatures of nature, not as creators in culture. After Rousseau and Darwin and Freud, and with evolutionary psychology preaching the new moral gospel, we’ve become convinced that our natural self is our truest one. To be natural, we believe, is to be healthy and free. Culture is confinement and deformation. But the Greeks thought otherwise. To them, our highest good is not what we share with the animals, but what we don’t share with them, not the nature we’re born with, but the culture we make from it — make, indeed, against it.

From Love On Campus, via Arts & Letters Daily.

Through This Blood Alone

On By JonathanIn East & West, Gospel, History, Patristics, Philosophy5 Comments

‘Let those who are listening hear and understand that when the Father saw that Adam and his children had fallen into sin and were being jostled about in it as if by waves and that through it destruction had overwhelmed them, he said to his Son, “I see that Adam, who is in our image and likeness, as well as his offspring, have come under sin’s dominion. The just claim of sin that stands against them has excluded them from the state of blessedness for which they were created. The law cannot be made void, however; it must receive its claims in full, from every single human being. Come, take a body. Through it, manifest yourself in the world and expose yourself to the punishments that human beings merit because of their sins. Let those punishments befall you, for when this happens there will be forgiveness of sins for those who, for their sins, offer to me your pains. For them there will be an escape from every punishment they merit because of my law. In this way, you will have nullified the just claims of sin and the devil its sponsor and fulfilled the claims of my law without its becoming null and void. At the same time, you will have opened the door for all of Adam’s offspring who wish deliverance for themselves, preparing for them a forgiveness that they will be able to obtain without trouble, by faith in you and by the offering of your pains… when you have suffered for their sakes just once the punishment merited by them an innumerable number of times, you will have caused the law to receive in full its claims on them and infinitely more as well.”

‘…Do you not see that forgiveness is through Christ’s blood and that those whom God purified from sin through this blood were justly purified, for, as we have said, this Son’s death fulfilled each of the law’s claims against us? If in the divine scriptures of the Old and New Testaments you hear of forgiveness or mercy or penance, know that it took place only through Christ’s cross and the shedding of his blood. If this were not so, the law would be void and God would be one who does things in vain. Far be this from him! The fulfillment of the law’s claims took place through this blood alone, which was shed for the living and for the dead.

‘…It is thus that his summons is called the “gospel,” that is, the “good news,” for it proclaims to humanity the good news about how Christ saved them from that from which they were unable to save themselves. We give praise to Christ for his immeasurable grace.’

Theodore Abū Qurrah, On Our Salvation

Theodore Abū Qurrah was the late eighth-century and early ninth century bishop of the town of Haran, outside of Edessa, overseeing a congregation of Chalcedonian Orthodox Christians. He lived in a diverse environment of cultural cross-currents and competing religions: from the newly ascendant Muslims to the various Christian groups to a handful of practitioners of a blend of paganism and neo-Platonism. His writings are heavily concerned with, as we might put it, the problem of living in a highly pluralistic world.

However, I selected the above passage for a different reason- while it does not deal with the problem of religious pluralism, it does contain an argument of considerable interest for contemporary Christians, both East and West. Upon reading it without knowledge of Theodore or his ecclesiastical and historical setting, one might assume it to have been written by a Western theologian, not terribly far from the line of thought used by St. Anselm in Cur Deus Homo. Yet the above selection was written- in Arabic no less!- by an early ninth century Eastern Christian, operating in a decidedly ‘Eastern’ theological continuum. In presenting an argument often labeled as ‘Substitutionary Atonement,’ he does not seem to expect his readers to react with shock or surprise: he is simply unfolding what his readers are expected to understand: Christ died for our sins; the shedding of his blood brings salvation, and this salvation is intrinsically tied into the Law, as contained in the Torah, but which is a manifestation of God’s will, is a divine Law.

Theodore’s concern is in carefully delineating why Christ’s death had to happen, as understood through a decidedly ‘legal’ perspective. Yes, he is concerned with issues of law, of merit (gasp!), even of justification. There is a Law to be satisfied, and God simply cannot override it by fiat. The Law is Law and must be dealt with. The punishment of the Law must be carried out; we have all of us broken the Law, and all our penance in the world cannot save us from that Law. Only the perfect Son of God can take upon Himself the punishment we merit and in so doing fulfill the Law and bring us under the mercy and forgiveness of God, without ignoring the Law of God.

All of this is, of course, fairly common discourse in the West. Yet how often is it stated that such a view is unknown in the East- the abode of an allegedly more ‘spiritual’ (read: less concerned with ‘law and order’) Christianity? Whether advanced by detractors of the East or its defenders, it is very common to suppose that a view anywhere near that of St. Anselm or other Western theologians is either unknown or flatly rejected east of the Bosporus, and simply has no currency in Eastern Orthodoxy. This is interpreted sometimes to mean that the Eastern Church is incomplete in its theological understanding, or dreadfully ignorant of Scripture; on the other hand it is taken to mean the Eastern Church is spiritually wise in its supposed rejection of Substitutionary Atonement, accepting in its stead a Christus Victor model or something else (or simply focusing on the Resurrection to the near exclusion of the Crucifixion). All of these arguments draw upon a sort of Christian ‘Orientalism’ in which the mystical, spiritual, rather anarchic Eastern Church is the antithesis of the orderly, law-based, rational West. In reality, while the Substitutionary Atonement (a term I am using here as broadly as possible to embrace the more ‘judicial’ or ‘legal’ interpretations of Christ’s death) is not nearly as common an idea in the East as in the West, it is by no means foreign to the East, nor is it somehow repugnant to Eastern Orthodox thought or doctrine (nor is the neat antithesis of East and West quite so neat and orderly- but that is another issue). Theodore is a fine example: he is about as far removed from the Western world as any Chalcedonian Orthodox of his time could be, living in a Muslim-ruled state and writing primarily in Arabic, working in an environment about as thoroughly ‘Eastern’ as one could ask for.

Another example for this sort of thinking on the crucifixion comes from the considerably later St. Symeon the New Theologian- another writer who could hardly be accused of extensive intercourse with Western thought. In one his homilies he offers an understanding of the Atonement virtually the same as Theodore’s- and very resonant with Western interpretations. I would offer some excerpts here, except that I accidentally left my copy of the homily on a flight between Los Angeles and Hong Kong, and have yet to purchase a new copy. It is contained in this selection of St. Symeon’s homilies: The First Created Man. 

Now, as I mentioned above, the sort of argument Theodore here employs is not common in Eastern Orthodoxy when compared to certain other perspectives on the Atonement: but it is not unknown, and it is entirely compatible with the general scope of Eastern thought and theology- which itself is not monolithic at all, anyway (nor could it or should it be). It does not conflict with other understandings of the Atonement, for the simple fact that an act so complex and deep as the Atonement admits numerous interpretations that are non-exclusive. Think of it as viewing many different facets of the same jewel: each facet reveals something different, yet related, connected to the previous facet. The strength of this particular ‘facet’ is its taking into account the very important reality of the Torah and its focus upon law and sacrifice. A cogent Christianity must deal directly with the entire corpus of Scripture, on its proper terms. This includes such things as law and sacrifice, and all the ‘legal mechanisms’ entailed therein. Further, the New Testament uses decidedly legal language- alongside all sorts of linguistic forms and metaphors. By incorporating all of these metaphors and interpretations, we- East and West- deepen our understanding of the mystery of the Gospel, giving us yet more cause to ‘give praise to Christ for his immeasurable grace.’

Thoughts on the Value of History

On By JonathanIn Culture, History, PhilosophyLeave a comment

“But falsehood, in general, passes current among the multitude because they are ignorant of history and believe all that they have heard from childhood in choirs and tragedies.”

Pausanias, A Description of Greece

“For human reason is not autonomous at all. It is always living in one historical context or another. Any historical context, as we see, distorts the vision of reason; that is why reason needs the help of history in order to overcome these historical limitations.”

Pope Benedict, Truth and Tolerance

Being a history major, and intending to one day make a living of some sort via the discipline of history, the overall value and place of history as a discipline in the broader scheme of things is something I regard with some interest and thought. I came across these two quotations today and was struck by the general convergence of thought in the two quite disparate writers. Pausanias, in one of the occasional interjections of opinion or explanation he offers in his travel guide, illustrates succintly one of the problems we must deal with in considering history (and Pope Benedict brings this out further in a different vein): our notions tend to be pre-formed from often times dubious sources. In the modern age replace “choirs and tragedies” with television and movies- the impact is the same. Our surrounding culture conditions our understanding and perception of history, and it is only by beginning to step back from our era and regard other eras that we can break out, contingently and partially to be sure, from the pre-conditioning of our age.

By considering history in greater depth and detail than what is offered by the mass media organs and popular opinion and knowledge, we are able to begin- again contingently and partially- viewing our own age and its systems of thought, its preconceptions and first principles, from a better perspective. History enables one to move outside of our limited perspective of the now and realize that the now is by no means absolute or unique; many “nows” have existed, with their own preconceptions and certainties, often quite divergent from ours. By recognizing and to as much of an extent as possible understanding this basic fact one is able to regard one’s own preconceptions with greater objectivity- most importantly, to recognize the preconceptions and first principles of one’s own era.

This assumes that one can, as Pope Benedict says, to a certain extent step outside of the immediate limitations of one’s historical context, that speaking and listening across “language games,” to borrow Wittgenstein’s terminology, is entirely possible. I agree, though of course with the caveat that one is always, to a certain extent, conditioned by one’s historical context, but it is not an absolute condition. Nor is it impossible to interact meaningfully with other language games; they are not mutually exclusive and impermeable. The disciple of history indeed rests upon the practice of crossing language games and stepping out of one’s immediate historical context; at the same time the ongoing practice of history more greatly enables one to consider the world more rationally and with fewer blind spots.

Mere Training or Indulgence

On By JonathanIn Culture, PhilosophyLeave a comment

“The problems of education are merely reflections of the deepest problems of our age. They cannot be solved by organisation, administration, or the expenditure of money, even though the importance of all these is not denied. We are suffering from a metaphysical disease, and the cure must therefore be metaphysical. Education which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training or indulgence. For it is our central convictions that are in disorder, and, as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper persists, the disorder will grow worse. Education, far from ranking as man’s greatest resource, will then be an agent of destruction, in accordance with the principle corruptio optimi pessima.”

E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful 

Theodore Dalrymple on Speech and Freedom

On By JonathanIn Culture, PhilosophyLeave a comment

La Rochefoucauld said that love of justice in most men is only fear of suffering injustice. By analogy, love of free speech in most men is only fear of being shut up. If they were a bit stronger than they are, they would just have monologues, the most pleasurable of all speech forms. Who among us has not taken part in a conversation in which his principal concern was with what he was going to say next, hardly bothering in the meantime to listen to the others, except to await a pause into which he may interject his wonderful words?

Freedom and Its Discontents

As Dalrymple goes on to affirm- and the teaching of Scripture and Tradition affirms- the rooted danger to conversation- whether person to person or in the context of broader society and culture- is found in our own hearts, in our own- sinful!- inclinations. We are, in our fallen condition, egotistical creatures, and for creatures that express themselves principally through speech, that means guarding our ‘right’ to speak. The fragmentation that occurs afflicts every aspect of our lives, as we retreat from the other into the self-sure domains of our own reasoning and understanding.

The insertion of the Word Incarnate is ultimately an act of interjection into our closed-off conversations: Christ is ‘the Word spoken in silence,’ Who does not trumpet Himself, does not go on television and scream over a panel, does not order His disciples to put up propaganda boards all over Palestine, or form pressure groups to shout down the opposition. Instead, His enemies seek to silence His life-giving Word, and work together- their desire to stiffle the discourse of the Other united in one target- to crucify Him and put His words in the grace. Yet He is resurrected and sends His disciples out into the world, without gold and silver to act as lobbyists, still speaking the truth and trying to listen- to God and to the other.

Identity and Migration

On By JonathanIn Culture, PhilosophyLeave a comment

The dilemma of immigration and identity ultimately converges with the larger problem of the valuelessness of postmodernity. The rise of relativism has made it harder for postmodern people to assert positive values and therefore the kinds of shared beliefs that they demand of migrants as a condition for citizenship. Postmodern elites, particularly those in Europe, feel that they have evolved beyond identities defined by religion and nation and have arrived at a superior place. But aside from their celebration of endless diversity and tolerance, postmodern people find it difficult to agree on the substance of the good life to which they aspire in common.

Immigration forces upon us in a particularly acute way discussion of the question “Who are we?”, posed by Samuel Huntington. If postmodern societies are to move towards a more serious discussion of identity, they will need to uncover those positive virtues that define what it means to be a member of the wider society. If they do not, they may be overwhelmed by people who are more sure about who they are.

Francis Fukuyama, Identity and Migration

The problem, of course, is that postmodern society is essentially devoid of concrete values; what values exist are remnants, memories and echoes from earlier epochs. That does not, however, necessarily rob a society of impetus; it is quite possible to forge actions and policies guided by nothing more than one’s immediate situation alongside the background remnants of values. It does seriously undermine such a society, even if not existentially. Can our society succesfully arrive at some common ground of value and meaning? I rather doubt it, at least for the foreseeable future.

The Result is What Counts!

On By JonathanIn Culture, Gospel, Philosophy, WarLeave a comment

“…from all kinds of socialists, and most of all from the most modern, infallible, and intolerant Teaching, which consists of this one thing only: They result is what counts! It is important to forge a fighting Party! And to seize power! And to hold on to power! And to remove all enemies! And to conquer in pig iron and steel! And to launch rockets!

“And though for this industry and for these rockets it was necessary to sacrifice the way of life, and the integrity of the family, and the spiritual health of the people, and the very soul of our fields and forests and rivers—to hell with them! The result is what counts!

“But that is a lie!”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Via Light on Dark Water

Postmoderns and Selling More Stuff

On By JonathanIn Culture, PhilosophyLeave a comment

From the Economist, via Arts & Letters: Postmodernism Is the New Black:

More surprising, perhaps, than the pomos’ influence on the way business presents itself was the accuracy of their predictions and the perspicacity of their perceptions. Modern retailers are only just getting to grips with two of the consequences of the breakdown of authority and hierarchy that they hoped for half a century ago: the “fragmentation” of narratives and the individual’s ability to be “the artist of his own life”.