Fish's Seinfeldian theology
Against the Seinfeldian theology of Stanley Fish’s “Faith in Letting It All Hang Out” (NY Times 2.12.02 wk 15) I urge: stick to the faith of our fathers. “Holy faith,” as the old gospel hymn has it.
At issue is whether publication of cartoon drawings of the Prophet Mohammed by Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose, admittedly known to be seriously provocative, crossed the line between pushing the free speech, anti-self-censorship envelope, to disrespect for Muslim religion. “What religious beliefs are owed is ‘respect’; nothing less, nothing more”, he affirms, the “first tenet of the (his) liberal religion is that everything (at least in the realm of expression and ideas) is to be permitted, but nothing is to be taken seriously.”
He goes on to explain how this is accomplished by keeping one’s serious religious issues on the private side, while assigning public religious uses a “jus’ goshin’, folks” pro-forma routine. Nice move. Wonder what Deacon Fish thought about Rev. President Bush’s recent sermon at Coretta Scott King’s funeral? Is that a “Ra! Ra!”? A “no! no!”? neither? both? When he said “God bless you all, and God bless our country” it certainly sounded, and was intended to sound, serious. But this manipulates conscription to his “God”’s causes onto those who were assembled more in sympathy with hers, and might well reject those he stands for as despicable and evil. What would Seinfeld say to that? Is “nothing is to be taken seriously” to be taken seriously?
What is either not seen or unappreciated in the cartoon outrage is that the images are not merely an attack on Muslim “beliefs”, but on their mode of spiritual communication. Specifically, by presuming to picture what is sacred, this being understood as intrinsically unseen (spirit), the understanding of the psychological state through which the religious reality is related is changed. It might be called “the Undressed Mother” syndrome; a step once taken cannot be undone, like loss of virginity.
It is a matter of raping their soul, if soul has anything to do with infusion of spirit. For these are matters belonging to what the psychologist Freud called “sublimation”, the silent, subtle transformation of lower, sexual, energy into energy ‘cathected’ by the head-state of consciousness directed toward the cosmic containers. For sensitivity-challenged newspaper editors to put The Prophet on the level of idols, caricatures, graffiti, a “let it all hang out” is not just condescending fatuity, it is metaphysical extinction of their religious system.
As to the metaphysics, “Unseen”, for the Hebrew God, is predicated by the second commandment: “no graven images”. The revelation on Mt. Sinai was by sound/light manifestations; idols and golden calf worship were Canaanite. “Things seen are great, but those unseen are greater,” the New Testament echoes. It is from the sky the great religious leaders ‘descend’ and ‘return’, but this is not, perhaps, just the sky above. In the beginning of Greek philosophy, the link supplied by necessary truths -- geometry, arithmetic, music, sun-moon-planetary orbits being the major fields of application, with notions of “Being”, “Unity” and “Reason” arising at the highest speculative levels of discourse.
Now, among things unseen on earth that are real are pent-up feelings of individuals when the historical setting of their group life has been burned. “Burned” is the proper term here, because it refers to the searing sensation in the pit of your stomach, right behind the navel, when the inner basis of spiritual life is assaulted by insult. Then rounded on by “jus’ goshen’”. This is the existential side of Abu Ghraib. The entire Muslim world has been burned by the US-Israel press which has scapegoated it, Islam and everything Arab, for the tragedy of 9/11. That is what the cartoons unleashed.
-Submitted to the NY Times op-ed
At issue is whether publication of cartoon drawings of the Prophet Mohammed by Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose, admittedly known to be seriously provocative, crossed the line between pushing the free speech, anti-self-censorship envelope, to disrespect for Muslim religion. “What religious beliefs are owed is ‘respect’; nothing less, nothing more”, he affirms, the “first tenet of the (his) liberal religion is that everything (at least in the realm of expression and ideas) is to be permitted, but nothing is to be taken seriously.”
He goes on to explain how this is accomplished by keeping one’s serious religious issues on the private side, while assigning public religious uses a “jus’ goshin’, folks” pro-forma routine. Nice move. Wonder what Deacon Fish thought about Rev. President Bush’s recent sermon at Coretta Scott King’s funeral? Is that a “Ra! Ra!”? A “no! no!”? neither? both? When he said “God bless you all, and God bless our country” it certainly sounded, and was intended to sound, serious. But this manipulates conscription to his “God”’s causes onto those who were assembled more in sympathy with hers, and might well reject those he stands for as despicable and evil. What would Seinfeld say to that? Is “nothing is to be taken seriously” to be taken seriously?
What is either not seen or unappreciated in the cartoon outrage is that the images are not merely an attack on Muslim “beliefs”, but on their mode of spiritual communication. Specifically, by presuming to picture what is sacred, this being understood as intrinsically unseen (spirit), the understanding of the psychological state through which the religious reality is related is changed. It might be called “the Undressed Mother” syndrome; a step once taken cannot be undone, like loss of virginity.
It is a matter of raping their soul, if soul has anything to do with infusion of spirit. For these are matters belonging to what the psychologist Freud called “sublimation”, the silent, subtle transformation of lower, sexual, energy into energy ‘cathected’ by the head-state of consciousness directed toward the cosmic containers. For sensitivity-challenged newspaper editors to put The Prophet on the level of idols, caricatures, graffiti, a “let it all hang out” is not just condescending fatuity, it is metaphysical extinction of their religious system.
As to the metaphysics, “Unseen”, for the Hebrew God, is predicated by the second commandment: “no graven images”. The revelation on Mt. Sinai was by sound/light manifestations; idols and golden calf worship were Canaanite. “Things seen are great, but those unseen are greater,” the New Testament echoes. It is from the sky the great religious leaders ‘descend’ and ‘return’, but this is not, perhaps, just the sky above. In the beginning of Greek philosophy, the link supplied by necessary truths -- geometry, arithmetic, music, sun-moon-planetary orbits being the major fields of application, with notions of “Being”, “Unity” and “Reason” arising at the highest speculative levels of discourse.
Now, among things unseen on earth that are real are pent-up feelings of individuals when the historical setting of their group life has been burned. “Burned” is the proper term here, because it refers to the searing sensation in the pit of your stomach, right behind the navel, when the inner basis of spiritual life is assaulted by insult. Then rounded on by “jus’ goshen’”. This is the existential side of Abu Ghraib. The entire Muslim world has been burned by the US-Israel press which has scapegoated it, Islam and everything Arab, for the tragedy of 9/11. That is what the cartoons unleashed.
-Submitted to the NY Times op-ed
posted by Sid Thomas | 5:40 PM
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