Piercing the American religion

A friend asked a question on the board last night: "Psychologically, what makes 'us' hate protesters so much? What causes people to be more viscerally upset by people marching and yelling and waving signs or taking a knee or even doing property damage than they are by straight-up murder?" Putting aside the obvious racist implications for a moment, by response was this:

The simplest answer is this: Pointing out that something is wrong with America makes people uncomfortable because patriotism is the national religion of this country and it essentially lacks foundation. When you question someone's religion, if they're a committed believer, then they rely on their faith in the tenets of that religion. They believe in an idealized set of principles that are embodied by faith in a higher power or mysteries that can neither be easily explained or easily disproved. Neither you nor they can prove that their god does not exist. Similarly, neither you nor they can prove that said god exists. Their faith is based upon the idea that there is a higher purpose for themselves and for everyone.

Patriotism, OTOH, is based on ideas that are rooted in reality. It just may not be the reality that everyone wants to face. Mo Wagner, former University of Michigan and current LA Lakers basketball player, was tweeting yesterday about how when he first came to the US, everyone greeted him with: "Welcome to America, the greatest country in the world!" Everyone. It happened so often that it went from surprising to funny to kind of weird. There is a mindset that exists among Americans that the US is the pinnacle achievement in socio-political history; that since this is the "land of the free" and the "birthplace of democracy" and the "land of opportunity" to which so many wish to come, everything about it must be good and proper.

But the truth is that the US is all of those things for really only a very few people. For everyone else, it can be those things, but often is markedly different, in both degree and substance. When people point that out, many people react viscerally, as if you've questioned their personal character. Colin Kapernick was attacked for kneeling during the national anthem when he attempted to call attention to racism and police brutality. But for many, he wasn't pointing out racism. He was defiling the anthem! He was disrespecting the flag and the troops! He was despoiling our football, that most American of games! But what he was really doing was pointing out that it's only the "land of the free" for part of the population and people really don't want to hear a contrary opinion to what they've been taught since they were young and have had continually reinforced on a daily basis from news and entertainment media, every time a politician opens his or her mouth, and from every flag-waving sports entity that insists on playing the national anthem before every game.

Hell, they make young children recite a pledge of allegiance to a piece of cloth at the start of every school day. What greater sign of religion is there than everyone mumbling the national psalm together? It ends with "... with liberty and justice for all." But any casual experience in many American communities will tell you that the "liberty" part is often based on your skin tone and there sure as shit ain't no justice for anyone who doesn't have the money to buy it. But if you question the national religion, you're "unAmerican." You've stepped outside the illusion and are implicitly mocking anyone left within it. Many people object to that because, unlike actual religions, their belief isn't rooted in an idea about a higher power. It's rooted in the concept that America is the best thing ever and can't be questioned in the first place. Any evidence to the contrary must be based on the people being wrong; not the place. That's a lack of foundation. There is no faith there; just an insistence that a mirage is real.

Donald Trump is the walking manifestation of that insistence. His contradictory message- that America is the greatest nation on Earth and yet needs to be "made great again" -is the perfect embodiment of a population that knows the core is rotten but insists on shining the apple. It's like sports fans insisting that their team is the greatest ever, while fans of all the other teams chuckle behind their hands. Samuel Johnson said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" because he knew that vermin like the current president and Senate Republicans would continue to flog it as their lone defense against the perfidy of their actions. He also knew that much of the public would respond because, just as with organized religion, most people need something to believe in. Not everyone can be comfortable living in a Hobbesian world. But, at the very least, people should be willing to argue the point without sheltering in a bunker of distractions from the reality that faces us.

Snakes but charming

I was the one pushing for Them That Follow with the movie group this week. The ratings for it on Rotten Tomatoes weren't especially high (62/59%) and, after seeing it, I can understand why. It's not an easy film to watch in certain moments and it can leave the rational viewer with the pounding questions: Why? Why is Mara (Alice Englert) staying? Why subject yourself to this ritual? Why do these people believe this stuff? But those questions and the circumstances that surround them are what make the film a compelling story, because they involve three things that many humans have a tough time dealing with: emotion, family, and religion.

Mara is a young woman in the northern mountains of Virginia who is the son of the local pastor of their Pentecostal church. When I say "local", I mean "very", as their community is a tiny hamlet on top of a mountain that is comprised of perhaps three dozen people. They also happen to be members of that sect of Pentecostals who think that handling serpents is a test of faith and demonstration of salvation (The specific verses that are the foundation of this belief are Mark 16: 17-18.) Given the obvious public health objection to people handling venomous animals, it's not difficult to see why the community might be secluded. On top of that, as with many wings of the Holiness movement, other literal interpretations of scripture predominate. Mara has been promised to a man who assists her father regularly in the church and must undergo a ritual of acceptance, during which she struggles with the fact that she's in love with another man in their town who is actually a non-believer. The inevitable familial and personal trauma should be obvious.

The foundations of Christian Protestantism are based in the concept that the church had lost its way and that finding the way back to Christ was the only way to arrest that decay. The proliferation of sects after the initial split was based on cultural differences, changes of interpretation over time, challenging and misunderstood circumstances, and sometimes just a charismatic figure who convinced people to think in a new way. Mara's father, Lemuel (Walton Goggins) plays that type of figure quite well. He's gaunt, driven, conveys a burning intensity with just a glance, and has a commanding baritone. It's easy to see how he could be the focal point of people looking to believe in something greater and even easier to imagine his children not wanting to step past the boundaries he's set for them, even given the natural tendency to rebel as one grows older. Mara, being an only child and without her mother, has no one else to turn to on a regular basis, except Augie (Thomas Mann) whom she cares for, but whose non-belief makes it even more difficult to take that first step outside the door of the family confines. And that's where the story is.

Them That Follow is a story about personal transformation as one grows older; the struggle with viewing the way things have always been with newer, older eyes; family pressure; religious pressure; and the struggle with personal spirituality. These are all very broad and timeless aspects of storytelling, regardless of background or religion (or lack thereof.) But they're also very humanocentric in nature, which means that the film is about the way humans feel about the events happening in their lives. Given those two aspects, I thought it was appropriate that writing-directing team Britt Poulton and Dan Savage (first-timers behind the camera, incidentally) kept the story small. There were no broad statements or events on screen that took place off the mountain. The law was a constant background noise, given the local authorities' interest in preventing people from dying by snakebite, but everything was contained among these few people and how they handled the personal traumas of their lives.

On the one hand, you could suggest that the snakes were the element that made this different from the "small town girl wishes to break away" plot. It's certainly more exotic than the usual fare. But, as interesting as they were, I don't know that the spirituality angle that included them was really that crucial. Certainly, they were important. One example of husband-to-be Garret's (Lewis Pullman) failure in the eyes of some was how difficult he found it to be part of the rituals that defined their religious lives. He was terrified at the prospect of being involved in the hunt for new snakes for the church and was highly uncomfortable when instructed by Lemuel to "treat Mara like a wife" by making her wash his feet in true Biblical style. In contrast, Mara fed and tended to the snakes with indifference and warned Garret during the washing that "There are limits to what I'll let you do to me." Certainly, the inner strength that made Augie reject the devotions of his family and friends matched up better with Mara's determination to be her own person, even under the weight of the pastor in the house. The scene of Mara's own direct experience of snake handling is tense, but perhaps superfluous to the whole. Despite her protestations to Augie ("It's my faith, too!"), her struggle isn't really with her faith. It's whether she can break those bonds that also mean family and what has embodied her entire life for all of her 16 years.

Another performance of note is that of Olivia Colman, who was excellent in The Favorite. In this film, as a devoted follower of Lemuel's but the mother of apostate Augie, she went from having to convey her fervor for the church to a mother's sympathy for Mara's personal travails to genuine terror at what might happen to her dissenting son, both in the community and from her deity. All of that was helped along by the wild, searching eyes that she used as Queen Anne in The Favourite. In the end, when confronted with the fact that the belief system that occupies her every thought may lead to the death of her son, it's fascinating to watch her deal with it in utter confusion but with perhaps a sneaking, cynical understanding that maybe this was always how it was going to end.

Religion is a difficult topic in modern times. It's tricky to tell something that displays a respect for others' beliefs while still calling them into serious question, without descending into outright derision or parody. Those questions of "Why?" are always easier asked by the outside observer than by those actually living the events. Fictional or not, I think Them That Follow did a solid job of conveying that struggle and presenting those questions without taking away from the fact that different humans will always have different answers to them.

For my people are foolish; they know me not

"They are stupid children and have no understanding. They are shrewd to do evil. But to do good, they do not know." - Jeremiah, 4:22

Simone got a student subscription to Spotify, which came with a Hulu subscription. (Media consolidation. Yay?) I'd held back on getting one because there's so much to watch on things we're already subscribed to (Netflix, Amazon, HBO; we also watch Vikings and Top Chef on "regular" TV) and I didn't feel like paying for yet another service. But I was interested to have it dropped in our laps for "free" because I had wanted to see The Handmaid's Tale. I'm a fan of both Margaret Atwood's novel and the 1990 film with Natasha Richardson and Robert Duvall. I'm also a fan of Elizabeth Moss, as while Peggy was not always among my favorite characters on Mad Men, she was always one of the more grounded and realistic and, thus, interesting ("Why are you using your sexy voice?") people in the series. I have an attachment to characters that are placed in extraordinary circumstances and get played in the same manner that you or I or people we actually know would react. In the series, Offred is like that.

It's a departure from the two previous tellings of the tale, but I think an appropriate one. 2017 is a different world for women than 1985 (book) or 1990 (film), although regrettably not that different (#metoo.) The gloomy, ethereal Offred that appears in her journal as represented in the book or the timid and cowed stance that Richardson played in the film, while certainly possible, wouldn't be quite as believable as the more confrontational and outraged approach that Moss has taken. She's still largely keeping herself within the boundaries as set forth, as the idiots have the power at the moment (MAGA!), but she's pushing back occasionally (we're only to episode three) and constantly fuming to the camera when alone.

Similarly, the "ceremony" in the TV series is a much different atmosphere than it was in the film. In the latter, the event was emotionally traumatic for Richardson and Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy. In the series, Moss has gone for the psychological protection of simply checking out while it happens and the only one emotionally impacted seems to be Serena (Yvonne Strahovski.) I think some of that is the difference between a film and an ongoing series. In the film, you have a discrete number of times that you're going to be able to impact the audience with the shock of the event, so it's played to that impact. In the series, this is a regular thing, both within the story and the structure of the series, so either you have to play it up as an event of outrage at every opportunity, which would likely get Offred sent back to the Red Center and the audience tuning out after the fourth or fifth time, or you have to show that it's something that she's adapted to as best she can, so the audience can adapt to it, as well, without questioning why she hasn't committed suicide or taken some other action of finality or escape.

Production design was another series of contrasts that I noticed. The book never really gives a timeframe for events and neither does the film, but the situation has clearly been present for some time. Although the Red Center in the film is clearly a former high school (the sleeping chamber for the handmaids being a former gymnasium), everything is very clean and formal. Furthermore, the Guardians of the Faith all have detailed uniforms. The series, OTOH, is specific about the fact that the transformation from the United States to the Republic of Gilead has happened within the last few years. The Guardians all wear black clothing, but not a standard uniform (a variety of jackets, knit caps instead of berets, etc.) and the Red Center is depicted as a school, but one with peeling paint and dirty windows; clearly an ad hoc operation taking place in a school that was no longer needed with the reduced number of children. Despite the series having a significantly greater budget than the film, an attempt was made to make things appear less shiny for the sake of the story and it was clear that the Gilead system was still being put into place. I always appreciate that level of care. Also, the series takes pains to return to some of the particular detail that Atwood provided in the novel. The film showed the handmaids in red headscarves and fairly form-fitting dresses. They were still objects of attraction. In the series, they're in loose gowns that hide their bodies and they wear the large bonnets that prevent anyone not directly conversing with them from seeing their faces. They've also been careful to keep the actresses playing them as plain as possible. These are women that are not intended to be objects of attraction, but simply objects; possessions; tools of the state and the god that looks over it.

On the acting front aside from Moss, it was interesting to see Joseph Fiennes as the Commander, although we haven't seen that much of him yet. It's a fairly reserved role compared to the things he usually plays. I was pleased to see Samira Wiley as Moira, since she was a favorite from Orange is the New Black. She and June's former husband, Luke (O. T. Fagbenle) were also the first indication that the series producers had decided to do away with the "children of Ham" theme from the previous versions, which drew clear racial barriers, in addition to gender, sexuality, and ethics. As many others have noted, Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia has been a particular highlight, although I have to say that I loved Victoria Tennant in that role in the film.

The extra storytelling space that a series permits also allows some greater space for clarifying cultural changes. When Janine's birthing scene takes place in the film, there's a lot of moaning and wailing from the assembled handmaids, but that could easily be interpreted as another example of the cultish behavior that they've been programmed with, akin to the group slaughter of a rapist or the group shaming of a rape victim. Instead, in the series, we're shown the very real desperation that the nation has developed over the years of declining birth rates, as the birth of a healthy child is met with a paroxysm of joy from not only the handmaids and wives, but even the aunts in attendance, one of whom embraces Janine in a show of genuine affection. This is cultural expression on the order of Children of Men, where the despair at the dissipation of the race and the absence of children is deeply rooted in the public conscience, whether they agree with the current political structures and policies or not.

Some of the difference in approach is also a sign of the times. Religious fanaticism and the political expression of same has become more prominent in the last thirty years, from the manifestation of ISIS to the prominence of a man like Mike Pence in American government. Reviews for the film were generally average to poor (Roger Ebert gave it two stars), with a lot of disdain heaped upon it for it being an incomplete expression of a scenario that "certainly couldn't happen here." Reviews of the series have, of course, been almost universally positive, with notes of concern dropped in over the possibility that "It's already happening!" Since the emergence of our current gerrymandered state and the accession of the current Idiot-in-Chief, people have become far more cognizant of not only the encroaching backlash against expanded civil rights (for "gender treachery" and other things) but also the insidious nature of the fascist mindset that fuels that backlash. It's important to note that Atwood has repeatedly stated that she doesn't consider the people who created and maintained the Republic of Gilead to be genuine Christians and the story demonstrates that with Catholics being targeted by the state as a primary perpetrator of resistance against the new order.

So, needless to say, I'm enjoying it. I have a vague concern in the back of my head that comes from reading and viewing the story multiple times before, in that I question how much of the power of that story will be lost in successive seasons as they have to find a way to keep the essential tension of the resistance extant. But there are certainly ways to do that and I'm eager to find out which ones they take (and, for that matter, see how far it gets by the end of the first season.)

"The Catholic Church is not a democracy."

These were the words posted on the board in response to this poll, which indicates that 61% of Catholics in the US support the idea of mandatory coverage of contraception in insurance plans provided by religiously-affiliated employers. I'm sure you've heard about the controversy, since it's been rebounding from the walls of the newsosphere for the past couple weeks. The opinion proffered by the title comment was that it didn't matter that the majority of US Catholics supported the idea. The Church is against it and the Church is not a democracy, so people will just have to suck it up and live with medieval philosophy for a while longer. A quick response was that it was too bad for the Church, because the US is a democracy. In a democracy, we don't cotton to the idea of a bunch of old, rich, white men making decisions about what happens with women's bodies without even consulting the women.

Anti-abortion bill signing, because all of them are worried about being forced to have one.

Oh. Right.

What I always find amusing is the ability for the same people who regularly rant about "government control infringing upon our freedoms" to instantly accede to the idea that "the Church is against it, therefore we must obey." This isn't even a case of drawing some barely contextual example from the Bible to "prove" that "God said so!". This is following a dictate set down by a bunch of guys who are extrapolating from that presumed word of God and giving it their own shine (in the same way that a lot of people like to extrapolate from the Constitution... but let's get back to that later.) "Go forth and multiply" becomes "Thou shalt never not run the risk of having kids if thou art performing the evil, evil deed that God intended thou perform to have kids." And that's it. They said, therefore everyone must follow. This is the same institution that used to pressure scientists to not talk about things that contravened Church opinions, even though those discoveries soon were proved true and are accepted by everyone today. But most of those, of course, were about physical phenomena and this issue is about social engineering, which has always been more important to the proponents of organized religion.

Much of said engineering occurs on the strength of one idea: the Pope is the direct conduit to God. Everything the Pope says is what God says. Even the councils to choose the next Pope must be divinely inspired (omniscient and omnipotent, remember?) because that's how they got the right guy, of course. Believe what you'd like to believe, but it stretches credulity for intelligent humans in this day and age to completely subsume themselves in the concept that someone can be a regular, pious individual one moment and be speaking the Word of God in the next; especially in a day and age when the Church is losing members. It's as if they feel like they're in an arms race with other religions and everyone has to do their part. Repeatedly. And without end. The arms just happen to be human and most have two of them (the concern over the loss of "cherished cultures" as a consequence of low birth rates (in comparison to less cherished (i.e. non-white) cultures) has been prevalent for some time.)

In the end, it's hard to escape the idea that this is all really about sex, as opposed to the sanctity of human life and/or associated organisms.

Sin of Onan and all that. The funny thing about that skit is the line in the song where he says that "Catholics will take you as soon as you're warm", when most know that the anti-choice movement in the US is far more concerned about human life when its connected to an umbilical cord and for not one second after that cord is cut (especially if you're not, you know, white...)

There are two things that humans in general and men in specific like to do: screw and kill each other. Given the choice, most would prefer the former. Why that's always been a problem for organized religion is enough to fill a couple dozen more posts but let's let it rest with the idea that if people favor "earthly pleasures" over "serving God (and especially the Church!)", many think that religion kinda loses its verve. While humans have proved at times that they're fully capable of engaging in multiple pursuits with abandon, monotheism is monotheism for a reason. If you piss off the one God, you can't go running to another like Taygete (even though she didn't really anger Zeus; it was all about the sex (again!)) Therefore, sex should be about procreation and it's enjoyable because you should be multiplying. If you take away the threat of procreation, it's just enjoyable and you forget about serving God. See how easy? And you don't even have to get into that whole conflict of interest wherein a desire for sex may preclude you from killing each other or, preferably, those the Church would have you kill. That's too complicated. Deus vult!

Deus vult and Deo vindice!

The madness that involves violating one's own supposed precepts in order to violate another's existence.

The madness that drives otherwise intelligent people to the depths of ignorance and ignorant people to the heights of destruction; their own and others'.

The madness that perpetuates war and disease and famine and death at the beckoning of writings from millennia past and drives communities apart from within and without.

One cannot have proper communication in the face of faith. The latter will eventually drown out any attempt to properly understand one another as the belief that the ultimate destination of those who do not believe will be doom of some kind that may or may not infect the minds of the children whom that faith proclaims to protect and 'save'. Cue Helen Lovejoy... One questions why people will simply not stop and think.

The ideas that have driven people to the limits of outrage; of achievement; of beauty; of earnest desire and contemptible desire are those that are in and of themselves earnest and contemptible. Faith has been used to create codes and to shatter them; to insist upon guidance and to set people free from it; to create unshakable laws and to empower people past any law written by a human hand. All of this has been done with the idea of some goal that can neither be defined or experienced because the ultimate experience will supposedly be at the end of any that can be related to one another. Thus, communication denied.

Is action taken by the will of a person or by divine fiat? The laws say thou may not and the laws say thou may. Are all of those laws prescribed somewhere before they are even written or has the will of the average human being been proscribed before he or she has even learned how to pick up a pen and use it to communicate what is in their mind? Are we a nation of men or a nation of laws?

Unfortunately, we're currently a nation burdened by the conviction of some that the principles upon which it was founded were both universally applicable and unchangeable; this in the face of the facts that the writers of said principles were objecting against the idea that divine, unknowable will elevated the status of any one person above any other. God/Yahweh/Allah/Brahman/Buddha were to have no part in the common designs of the American man and yet we are stuck arguing over how big their role should be in a time period where we are supposedly more educated and more knowledgeable about the world and our role in it than those hallowed people. Would that it were actually so...

I knew a man, once. I had the audacity to tell him that I had no use for philosophy or poetry. I was a pragmatic individual and I knew where of and what I was and where I was going and I had no time to stop and consider deeper thoughts. I was all of 15 years old and a senior in high school. That man taught me how to better use the words that I was so proud of and encouraged me to reconsider philosophy and poetry, telling me that I would learn to love them.

That man was a Catholic priest. I have little use for the beliefs that he held so dearly, but I wish that he was here right now so that I could tell him that he was right. My appreciation for words extended to poetry and philosophy became one of the driving forces of my existence. That man's religion had driven him to teach, in the same way that the driving force of Islam led Arabic peoples to develop scientific principles that we still use today (as we grit our teeth in chagrin over the way Islam is used as a tool of ignorance in Afghanistan.) Is there an upside? Of course there is. I miss you, Father Ziemba. I can't ever repay how you convinced me to stop and think. I only wish so many other people would do the same without the constraints of some presumed morality handed down from an otherworldly being that no one has seen nor ever will.