It’s a question pondered too often, yet it never seems to go away. Particularly in Christian circles. Even if it isn’t stated verbatim, it’s often the question that lurks behind most projects addressing the “state of the arts” or how Christians should “engage culture.”
But did you know that Plato had an eerily familiar answer? Eerily familiar, that is, for anyone who’s encountered these kinds of “culture” projects.
In Book 3 of The Republic, Socrates takes Homer and Hesiod to task for their poor behavioural models. To his reasoning, it is not right—let alone heroic—for a man to be caught weeping, mourning for the death of his friend. Why should we mourn something that is better for a friend, he asks. The solution? “We shall be right, then,” he declares, “to get rid of the heroes’ songs of lamentation, putting them in the mouths of women—and not even the best women, at that—and cowards.” Why? “We want the people we say we are bringing up to be guardians of our country to be appalled at the idea of behaving like this.” (388a)
And in case you’re confused about with this means, Socrates makes it quite clear earlier: “We shall ask Homer and the rest of the poets not to be angry with us if we strike out these passages, and any others like them.” (387b)
As the discussion continues, Socrates and his yes-men proceed to criticize all the “excesses” they can think of—over-laughing, over-eating, over-drinking, and over-sexing. Slowly, their reasoning emerges: men are too impressionable, too eager to imitate whatever they see without discernment. If you don’t want your men to be given to weeping, then make sure that their heroes are never weak. And don’t you dare tell any stories that show the gods at their worst: don’t you know what that’ll do to our people?
It should be noted here that the people in question are the guardians (those whom Socrates later refers to as the “gold” of humanity). These are the people born to lead and care for those who aren’t born well enough to guide the course of the city. If they can’t withstand these stories, who can?
Obviously, there’s something to be said for not immersing yourself in garbage. We are impressionable, which is why we’re each responsible to know our frames and our weaknesses. Yet, there’s something inherently wrong with the way Socrates is reading poetry. It’s not just that he believes poetry is only good for education—it’s that he never asks, “What happens in this story?” The problem is not that Achilles teaches young men to be first sulking and then heartlessly vengeful (something that Socrates probably wouldn’t find praiseworthy). The problem is that Homer focuses on Achilles’ bout of weeping. Socrates doesn’t take into account the rest of the story; instead, he focuses on one pitiful moment and decides that it needs to go, without looking to see why it’s there and whether or not Achilles would be worthy of praise without it.
It’s cliche to point that Christians do this sort of thing, a lot. Talk about “shit,” and it’s doubtful that your story will be read, much less respected. Talk about extramarital sex, and you’re guaranteed to be blacklisted. Unless, of course, the girl sleeping around is the whore of Babylon, and she gets properly punished by the end of the story.
But I think Plato offers us some insight into what we need to change. We are prudes with the best of intentions. Those who grew up without Christ remember the gunk they soaked up, and they’re determined not to let their kids make the same mistakes. And so the answer, of course, is to build an impermeable brick wall. Parents become Plato’s guardians, careful to make sure that their kids only know about the admirable things in life. Not because they think evil doesn’t exist—they know the opposite far too well. It’s a misguided act of love, because they know what it means to be impressionable.
But maybe that’s the point? Why else do we have the story of the dismembered concubine? Or the story of Judah and Tamar? Or the countless other distasteful moments in the Bible. Perhaps we live as if wisdom is the disappearace of nasty stories, when we really ought to be thinking that wisdom is knowing how to respond to nasty stories. And if that’s true, then a lot of our stories aren’t doing a whole lot of good.
So, Sandy and I watched Julie & Julia on Tuesday night and loved it. (Austin, Ephron was definitely on for this one. Two thumbs up on her simple but enjoyable paralleling of two lives.) They managed to add some humanity to Julia Child’s character (it could have easily been a stodgy retelling), twinning the main characters without pushing anything too much. Well worth seeing.
Yet, I do have one complaint. And even though I’m trying very hard to move away from cynicism and negativity, I’m going to voice it.
Halfway through the movie Julie’s husband runs off, frustrated by her cooking obsession. It touches off some apocalyptic moments for Julie, as she begins to see how selfish she’s been. This realization is topped off by her asking a best friend, “Am I really a bitch?” To which her friend says, “Yes. But aren’t all women bitches?” (or something along those lines—I don’t have the exact quote, but that’s the spirit of it)
Yet, it doesn’t really feel like Julie’s been a bitch. A tad bit obsessed, sure, but Ephron never really makes us think of Julie that way. Instead we’re very sympathetic, almost disbelieving. “Well, yes, of course you’re a bitch, because every woman’s a bitch so you’re just like the rest of us!”
Had Ephron actually managed to convince us that Julie was indeed a foul person, the movie would have been Picture of the Year worthy. As it was, that moment of character non-transformation falls flat and left me with a tinge of dissatisfaction.
I know some think that we’ve had enough Austen movies in the past decade to last a lifetime — that one too many troths have been pledged, that too much gingham has been weaved, that the empire waist is so 1804.
Philip Marchand has a fascinating article here (National Post – The Afterword blog) where he argues that Michael Jackson “had a grudge against adulthood” and actually lived out the “American man-child” stereotype found in many classic American novels (from Catcher in the Rye to Moby Dick).
An excerpt:
When Michael Jackson told Oprah Winfrey that he liked to tuck children into bed and that it was all innocent and sweet, viewers no doubt snickered in disbelief. Yet Jackson could have cited, as precedent, Ishmael’s relationship with the cannibal harpooner Queequeg. In Melville’s novel, the two share a bed, and Ishmael proclaims, “In our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg — a cosy, loving pair.†Even with Queequeg’s “now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back,†Ishmael would be horrified to think others might label this as homosexuality. It was all sweet and innocent.
Smoking, first a luxury, then the demon-spawn of society, has now become a marker of those who operate outside of the norm. These are people who partake of a substance that can damage health – and knowingly accept that risk, like the adults that they are.
Cigars and cigarettes still carry meaning as symbols… The cigars that our characters smoke mark them as not-one-of-the-herd, as one who is capable of making decisions solo, without Big Brother to look over each and every step. They’re still markers of class, of elegance, and of power. Nobody who knows what they’re doing will treat a good cigar like trash, because there’s an implicit knowledge of everything that goes along with the cigar – the history, the culture, the weight of the world against each smoker. And still, they shoulder the burden, and march on, smoke in hand.
For more than 60 years, hardhearted heiress Veronica Lodge and sunny girl-next-door Betty Cooper — in all their ageless comic glory — have fought for the affections of the bumbling Archie, seemingly unfazed by his endless indecision.
But, possibly thanks to Archie’s growing uncertainty in the face of the global economic meltdown, the wealthy, raven-haired Veronica has finally secured her place in the form of a marriage proposal from her long-time beau, publisher Archie Comics revealed on Wednesday.
My only question is: who cares? Does anyone still read Archie?
On second thought, perhaps this is a turning point. Now Archie can stop wishing it was a sit-com and become a soap opera: I’m betting this is all a setup for Archie: The Betrayal.
