"Gnothi seauton" as the Greeks quipped; "know yourself". The task of paradox (as our man, Chesterton wrote) is a difficult one, though, b/c at the same time we have to refrain from such siloed and Pharisaical thinking, don't we also have to be able to recognize evil in the world? Do we not have to be able to spot monsters as monsters? For instance, to say that Kermit Gosnell is monstrous recognizes the evil in which he was engaged (in aborting babies) and yet to spot that Gosnell was probably like B.N.Nathanson = a deeply wounded man who suffered as every other human suffered seems to contradict this monstrous quality to his personality. Norma McCorvey, whose convictions about Jesus and about abortion developed over time, engaged in monstrous actions too - suffered for it - recognized after time how she also had been used and converted.
Humans are never simple. "Of all strange things in the world, mankind is the most strange."
I just finished watching "One Child Nation" about the Chinese abortion/forced sterilization program that resulted in murder, violation of basic rights, and human trafficking on a global scale. Yet everyone interviewed expressed their own helplessness and sorrow at the same time as professing the goodness of the program. What? Even at the end of the program the narrator/interviewer/producer equivocated the Chinese program with the US program that prevents women from choosing abortion. That seemed a very odd conclusion to make, but humans are never simple.
"What is man that you should care for him? Mortal man that you should come to him?"
THAT I think is the power of artwork - to make us reflect on ourselves, how we fit into this human thing, and what the scope of strangeness the human thing covers.
Anagogy. (ἀναγωγή), a "climb" or "ascent" upwards.
...facilis descensus Averno;
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
hoc opus, hic labor est.
My father used to say that, of the four levels of meaning in art, anagogy was the real goal; "the goal of all art is anagogy" - prompting us to reflect on our own role in similar situations (and thus the realism in art). I think both highly symbolic art (such as Beowulf) and highly realistic art (such as Crime & Punishment, or Emma, or Grapes of Wrath) and even hyperbolic art (such as A Good Man is Hard to Find, or The Trial, or even The Jungle or Lord of the Flies) prompt such reflection.
If such prompting, though, is accident and force rather than reflection and choice, we have a problem. This is the point about "symbolism" I was trying to get at during our discussion. The action of one man killing another is an action (whether he be a white cop killing a black man, or a black haberdasher killing an oriental deli worker) - it becomes symbolic when it is recorded (in paint, song, artwork or video), edited (so we see only what the editor wants us to see) and repeated (until we utter it as mantra that two legs are bad and four are good).*
In that case the "mighty upheaval" that breaks the historic tectonic plates apart is more damaging than helpful - more Krakatoa than continental drift. And though the upheaval may be in response to unloving choices, or to government oppression, or to injustice of some kind, it may also be orchestrated upheaval designed to scour away the old way and usher in the new glorious revolution of next Tuesday; the spark to ignite the preconditioned powder keg. Who orchestrates, I wonder? Who prepares the way? Yuri Bezmenov has some distinct ideas in answer to such questions prompting us to look a bit further than what might have been mere incompetence or racism:
Truth can speak to power and bring about an end to the injustices of the world; a standing up to the tanks, a defiance of the demand to join the Nazi army, or a regret of having only one life to give for your country. And though sometimes the event that leads to "the mighty upheaval" might result in a better world (though whether a better middle east now exists is another subject of discussion) a Manchurian incident, or a dismissal of Necker, or a shooting of vam Rath might also result in a Rape of Nanking, a Reign of Terror, or a Kristallnacht.
A multitude primed for inflammation is a dangerous multitude indeed & if we are to ask "who would I be, Chauvin or Floyd?" we must also ask "who would I be, Guan Guangjing or Japanese Imperial army? Marie Antoinette or Danton? Ruth Winkelmann or Joseph Goebbels?" It is easy enough to rejoice in Sidney Carton's self sacrifice and claim affinity and nobility of how we would act in a similar situation. It is far harder to wrestle with the idea that, if we had to choose between betraying our family & convictions and saving our own hide we might prove more like the Minotaur than the Man from Athens. Perhaps this is why Tiresias says to Oedipus "You. You are the man. The source of all pollution."
Lord Jesus, let me know myself and know You,
And desire nothing save only You.
Let me hate myself and love You.
Let me do everything for the sake of You.
Let me humble myself and exalt You.
Let me think of nothing except You.
Let me die to myself and live in You.
Let me accept whatever happens as from You.
Let me banish self and follow You,
And ever desire to follow You.
Let me fly from myself and take refuge in You,
That I may deserve to be defended by You.
Let me fear for myself, let me fear You,
And let me be among those who are chosen by You.
Let me distrust myself and put my trust in You.
Let me be willing to obey for the sake of You.
Let me cling to nothing save only to You,
And let me be poor because of You.
Look upon me, that I may love You.
Call me that I may see You,
And forever enjoy You.
Amen.
—St. Augustine of Hippo
*read John Berger and Marshall MacLuhan on this subject
