Progress and masculinity

by Andrea Elizabeth

Chapter 3 of Atlas Shrugged is very painful to read because it is difficult to totally vilify technology and efficiency. If something is ineffecient, it is usually because of negative reasons such as poor construction, poor planning, or misguided goals. Rand goes too far in saying that nature is less efficient than technology. Slowness isn’t the only criteria for inefficiency. Tolkien provides the antidote for this mistake of hers, but even he gets impatient with the Tree Ents. Still, I can’t help but find this passage compelling:

“What she [Dagny Taggert] felt was an arrogant pleasure at the way the track cut through the woods: it did not belong in the midst of ancient trees, among green branches that hung down to meet green brush and the lonely spears of wild flowers – but there it was. The two steel lines were brilliant in the sun, and the black ties were like the rungs of a ladder which she had to climb.”

Manifest Destiny and Immanent Domain both seem tied to the above. There is something inevitable about “progress”, at least to the western mind. However stone age cultures quickly adapted when they were introduced to iron age tools.  But they were content before that, and didn’t seem to sense the importance of progress.

The above passage also makes me ponder the idea that nature is feminine and progress is masculine. Villifying progress seems to vilify masculinity. Indeed, one might characterize the expansion of the railroad as rape. But does that make men in “uncivilized” cultures feminine? No, they exert their energies towards territorial disputes and raiding. The same characterization can apply there too. What is the difference between the Genesis command to “fill the earth and subdue it”, and that characterization? The former requires permission from the feminine first, I suppose. Can you ask a tree what it wants to be used for? I believe so, but it takes an artist and a poet to properly hear the answer.

And there is also the issue of communication, which is a very human and natural thing. We crave access and sharing, which technology makes easier. Too easy in some cases, I’m sure. But to be against it is to close oneself off and make oneself unavailable. One may not like the invasive nature of railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, and highways, but even the pony express cut through Indian lands requiring the building of forts in the western frontier to protect them. White man’s communication trumped the preservation of Native American life. We should have befriended them and asked them to send smoke signals for us. And paid them for it. In higher technology?

This chapter also gets into international trade with Mexico. The argument for being our brother’s keeper is criticized very strongly. Again the vagueness of who our brother is is brought out. As is the amount of state control instead of free enterprise said brother is under. I believe in private property, so in that way I agree with Rand. But her heroes don’t come across as greedy, which I think is a side effect that needs to be addressed. They may say they only care about money, but their lifestyle is much more spartan. Resentment and envy is the greed of the less fortunate. Characterizing the less fortunate as lazy and inept sounds too harsh, but I wish the left would sound more like they valued hard work and that they believed laziness is a vice. Laziness and ineptitude alone do not account for poverty, however. There are tons of other variables in the equation. But to blame it all on rich people’s self-serving policies sounds too deflective.

Merton and baking

by Andrea Elizabeth

I just came across this quote,

“Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint… They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else’s experiences or write somebody else’s poems or possess somebody else’s spirituality.”

- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

I haven’t read Thomas Merton before because of my reservations about him. This quote inspires me amidst those reservations. The feeling I get about Merton is that he is a bit self absorbed and too independent in his thinking. This quote confirms it. He is judging others by his own idealistic standard – you are your highest goal. Ick. But there’s truth also – a person has to make his faith his own. I don’t like the harshness of his method however. While it may be helpful, at least for ourselves, to put things in our own words, the way we learn is to repeat others’ words. He also seems to be advocating innovation.

This quote made me think of my quoting the big three yesterday (Tolkein, Lewis, and Rowling. Should I have tried to provide comfort myself instead of letting them do it for me? I was relating what comforts me because I needed it. But can a needy person comfort? That’s something I don’t try to do here, directly. I’m not the comforter. I aim more for stoicism in my teaching and turn to others’ music and food to make myself feel better. Must ambivalence follow me everywhere?! I’m that way with my kids too. Work hard! Here’s a treat, made by someone else, to make it bearable. I haven’t made homemade dessert in a long time. My mother used to. My daughter had until recent weight consciousness affected her. Empty calories is one reason I dont, but I still buy them. The thought of making cookies or something seems too personal, too hands on. Man, I am getting sociopathic. I make meat and vegetables – Viking food! Argh! You touch meat minimally during preparation, and you use a knife to chop off the heads of broccoli. Yes, that is satisfying. Take that, you silly veggie! I’m gonna cut you this way, and that way, before I sever you down to the nub. But first, I’m gonna skin you. I commit animal and vegetable martyrdom.

But baking. That’s putting things together. Caressing and kneading synergistic components into a new, rising, soft, warm thing. It’s creation, not slaughter. It’s resurrection. This must be why I enter more into Holy Week than Pascha.

Can you stand it?

by Andrea Elizabeth

Plumbing in our new house is going to be further evaluated on Monday. This guy preliminarily says that he doesn’t think there’s a sewer leak because everything seems to be draining properly. If he’s right, then the first foundation estimate is probably correct, and we wont have to wait for the middle of our house to settle down before we can work on it. But jacking up the edges will probably break things, like sheet rock, bricks, plumbing, and windows. This is why we can’t get new flooring or paint until it’s all fixed. I don’t like waiting, but that’s life.

Speaking of life, I said yesterday in our Arena Class that life is purgatory, just some places are hotter than others. Discerning when one should stay in the heat, and when one should back away is the hard part. I don’t think we can help when we are overwhelmed and can’t cope, but we should always try to stand it. There is a limit, and beyond that I believe is more hurtful than helpful. Sometimes you don’t have a choice, sometimes it just doesn’t seem like you do. If it feels like you do have a choice, then you should probably stay. I just thought of that. I bet it’s right.

Angels watch

by Andrea Elizabeth

If heavenly-mindedness causes a certain detachment from earthly cares, I ask, in the midst of Dionysius the Areopagite’s Celestial Hierarchies, where does that leave earthly-goodliness? I would say, focus also on the children, ironically, because ‘their angels behold the face of the Father’. Lots of things are done for the sake of children, and I pray they are done with discernment and wisdom attained by proper, pure devotion to heavenly things.

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry

by Andrea Elizabeth

***The Avengers spoiler alert***

Ever since watching The Avengers, I keep going back to the secret to Banner’s finally controlling when he turns into the Hulk. ‘I’m always angry’. At first it would seem that then he would always be the Hulk. I guess the chemical explanation would be that it’s the spike in anger ‘hormones’ that causes the change. And it would at first seem wrong to always stay angry. But maybe there’s something to be learned. Isn’t anger connected with surprise at expectations not being met? Should we not have those expectations in the first place? Should we expect things not to go according to our plans? Does it depend on if we plan rightly, according to God’s will? Then should it be a result of being surprised, or a voluntary permission to the force inside of us to correct things? That sounds better. Puts Jesus and the money changers in a different light.

The Avengers

What role does social order have in individual purity

by Andrea Elizabeth

Yesterday I ambiguously said that some people do not seem psychologically up for purity, then later added the Romans 1 passage that says immoral people are without excuse. A lot of people understand that passage to be against atheism, but the context has more to do morality. Nature reveals God, and when people reject that, they exchange what is natural for what is unnatural – sin, contra Calvin. So, if people at large, democratically speaking, have rejected God and become immoral (though we can’t be so simplistic as to say that atheists are all immoral, but I can’t judge their private thoughts and lives either way), then their culture’s products will reflect that. And if Orthodox (right believing and acting) Christians live in said culture, then they will be affected by it. Even if they are raised in a sheltered environment, individuals have to decide for themselves to reject aspects of their culture. Just the fact that it’s there, even if being spoken against, presents a choice to everyone. And as Sherlock (and the movie Inception?) says,

So if gay marriage is legalized, then it becomes a norm that will unwittingly shape us. We have already accepted people living together, yet I think it still has a second tier status. Sarah Palin had a morality platform until her teenage daughter was found to be pregnant, after sort of trying to cover it up with her brother’s baby blanket. Then she shrugged and had to bow off the stage. It mostly became, “kids these days.” A hundred years ago girls had to go in more profound hiding, the baby was removed, or they were forced into marriages with made up stories about premature births. No shrugging. But were these fear inspiring measures the proper antidote for seduced young people? It created orphans, but less of them? In that case I think all children of young people are orphans in a way, whether they are legitimized and kept or not. Young people aren’t equipped to raise them securely.

Back to the point about being tainted by culture. If there is legitimacy given to immorality, and that generation is bent, so to speak, by it, then the proper, straight and narrow way becomes increasingly difficult. Being habitually bent forms a contracture, as it were. And to go in and immediately and forcefully straighten it is too harsh a remedy. Things can break. This is why the road to purity is a slow process. Sometimes malformed things need to be forcefully broken, usually under anesthesia, but the recovery time still takes a while. And I think the motivation to be fixed isn’t introduced theoretically only, but by example. Straight and tall is more attractive. So, physician, heal thyself first.

Another thing. Fr. Hopko once said something to the effect of, just because a person is male, doesn’t make him qualified to be a priest. Likewise, just because a person is married to someone of the opposite gender and of a certain age, doesn’t make them a good parent. It is possible, theoretically, that a given gay couple could be better parents than a given heterosexual couple, like those who give brandy to toddlers and such (I found some pictures, but they’re too horrible to link to). Yet I still believe priests should be male, even if a female could do a “better job”. Because ordaining someone or marrying someone is supposed to sanctify the act. I don’t understand the mystery of it exactly, but “sanctifying” an improper, unprescribed, sinful act is not orthodox. You can debate what is the lesser evil, but you still have to call them evils. Don’t do evil. Period. It messes up your soul. Don’t abuse your kids, and don’t do abominable acts that exchange the natural for the unnatural.

Self-esteem

by Andrea Elizabeth

Contrary to popular opinion, self-esteem is not all that it is cracked up to be. Abbot Tryphon explains here, in this 4 minute podcast.

Argument against the prosperity doctrine and determinism

by Andrea Elizabeth

From the Prolog of Ohrid for today:

THE HOLY FORTY-TWO MARTYRS FROM AMMORIA
They were all commanders of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus. When the Emperor Theophilus lost the battle against the Saracens at the city of Ammoria, the Saracens captured the city, enslaved many Christians and among them these commanders. The remaining Christians were either killed or sold into slavery. The commanders were thrown into prison where they remained for seven years. Many times the Muslim leaders came to them. They counseled and advised the commanders to embrace the Islamic Faith, but the commanders did not want to hear about it. When the Saracens spoke to the commanders, saying, “Mohammed is the true prophet and not Christ,” the commanders asked them, “If there were two men debating about a field and the one said, `This field is mine,’ and the other, `It is not, it is mine,’ and near by, one of them had many witnesses saying it is his field and the other had no witnesses, but only himself, what would you say, `Whose field is it?’” The Saracens answered, “Indeed, to him who had many witnesses!” “You have judged correctly,” the commanders answered. That is the way with Christ and Mohammed. Christ has many witnesses: the Prophets of old, from Moses to John the Forerunner, whom you also recognize and who witness to and about Him [Christ], but Mohammed witnesses only to himself that he is a prophet and does not have even one witness. The Saracens were ashamed and again they tried to defend their faith in this manner: “Our faith is better than the Christian Faith as proved by this: God gave us the victory over you and gave us the best land in the world and a kingdom much greater than Christianity.” To that the commanders replied, “If it were so, then the idolatry of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Hellenes, Romans, and the fire-worship of the Persians would be the true faith for, at one time, all of these people conquered the others and ruled over them. It is evident that your victory, power and wealth do not prove the truth of your faith. We know that God, at times, gives victory to Christians and, at other times, allows torture and suffering so as to correct them and to bring them to repentance and purification of their sins.” After seven years, they were beheaded in the year 845 A.D. Their bodies were then thrown into the Euphrates river, but they floated to the other side of the shore where they were gathered and honorably buried by Christians.

But what about the Bible verses where God promises to prosper you?

First thing that comes to mind is that these are promised to Israel as a whole, not to individuals. Second thing, ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul’. Third thing, what about all the wealthy Christians out there?

First thing that comes to my mind about the last question, ‘It is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle’. The other day I was thinking this relates to the Rich Young Ruler who was attached to too many things to give them up for Christ. He couldn’t fit through the small hole with all his stuff.

Then why is being prospered presented as a good thing?

Old Testament materialist typology of spiritual blessings?

That sounds gnostic.

C.S. Lewis implies in The Great Divorce that material things get more real in heaven. I take that to mean we exchange them. ;Lest a grain of wheat fall to the earth and die’, it can’t grow into a healthy plant. Material things are like seeds. Gotta plant them, not horde them. In this way a rich man is to live the same way as a desert hermit. Just as unattached to his money and stuff, even though he, unlike the ‘desert ascetic’, or martyr for that matter, keeps getting more of it.

(references to the above quotes supplied upon request if you want to put me through digging them up)

Seven years ago…

by Andrea Elizabeth

Seven years ago a nun shared this with me and the friend who invited me to go to the monastery with her. And here it comes up today in St Nicholai’s Prolog of Ohrid.

Water is finer than earth; fire is finer than water; air is finer than fire; electricity is finer than air. Nevertheless, air is a dense element in comparison to the spiritual world and electricity is a dense element in comparison to the spiritual world.

Electricity is very fine but the voice is finer than electricity; the thought finer than the voice; the spirit finer than thoughts.

The air is fine and it carries the voice over a great distance. Electricity is fine and it carries light over a great distance. Nevertheless, how much more is every deed, every word and every thought of yours carried to all ends of the spiritual world. O how awesome it is to commit sinful deeds and to speak sinful words and to think insane thoughts! To what immeasurable distances are amassed from that on the waves of the spiritual sea! But do not go into the details of the unknown world. The main thing is that you know and that you measure how all of your deeds, words and thoughts unavoidably create an impression on all four sides: On God and the spiritual world, on nature, on men and on your soul. If you train yourself in this knowledge, you will attain a higher level of saving vigilance.

Work ethic

by Andrea Elizabeth

New developments about Whitney Houston’s financial situation bring to light another societal issue. Yesterday when I mentioned reinventing onesself, or struggling to keep up the same level of performance, I did not consider the idea of having to because of mounting debts. I was thinking of it more aesthetically. Paying the bills is a sad fact of life. The psychology going into it is pretty interesting, however.

I try to keep bills low so that I don’t have to work as hard – or actually, because I find hard work pretty stressful physically and emotionally. I wonder if there is a comparison to working out. Ricky Gervais said today on The View that he eats and drinks a lot, and a couple of years ago decided that he needs to intensely work out an hour every day to keep control of his weight. I’d rather eat less.

Then there’s the idea of achievement. That goes back to aesthetics. For now I’ll put conscience and moral responsibility in that category too. How much effort is required of us? There’s the minimum, low budget, but pay your own bills with low spending attitude, and then there’s a more competitive, or accomplishment oriented mindset too. And this doesn’t have to be selfish. One can be really driven to spend a lot of energy helping others. I just got stressed.

I like Stephen King’s work ethic that he describes in On Writing. He is very serious about writing a certain amount every day. Yet I don’t get the feeling it’s drudgery for him, though sometimes it is. In general, I get the feeling he enjoys what he does, and it is enjoyable to read him. The only fiction book of his that I’ve read is The Girl Who Liked Tom Gordon, and had to put one or two others down because they were too crude. But I’ve seen a lot of the edited for tv movies, which I quite enjoy. George is reading one of his newest, 11/22/63, which he says is cleaner than his others. It doesn’t seem that Stephen King finds it that big a deal to be number one, which is probably why he is, or is close to it, in sales.

In sports, however, being number one is all-important. We watched Money Ball the other day where it is pointed out that the only team that gets respect is the team that wins the last game of the year. It was stressful for me to watch it as I haven’t been able to watch any type of team sports since the upset at the World Series last fall. The last game is too important and the stakes are too high. There are die-hard fans of lesser teams, which I suppose means that they aren’t afraid to die a slow death every year. It’s too hard for me.

This is not to say I’m not competitive. I have my field of interest. And I worry that when I get to heaven I’m not going to achieve the position I want. I need to adopt Stephen King’s work ethic.

Other less positive motivations for working hard are informatively discussed in this psychologist’s blog:  http://njpsychdoc.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/do-the-careers-of-child-abuse-survivors-mirror-the-abuse/ Very interesting.