If only Hardy had known ... and Voltaire, and Wells, etc., etc..

Having just picked up a copy of Jude the Obscure I did the nerdy thing and read the introduction. Hardy wrote it some years after the book came out and spends most of his time defending his writing of Jude and the dark themes contained in it. Without having read the entire book yet I'll keep my comments few, but his self-righteous attitude is fascinating given how much we know what happens when marriage law is drastically changed.

Being a progressive of sorts, Hardy complains about the negative reactions to his book and, in accordance with that now tired artistic line, claimed that no one understood what he was trying to do. Only one person, who thought the book wonderful of course, was thought to have actually grasped all the depth contained therein. Everyone else had of course given quite bad reviews of the book, and supposedly there was a bishop somewhere who burned a copy of it. Those silly medieval holdovers.

On the other hand, while complaining about the reactions of those who "didn't understand Jude" he then goes on to admit outright that part of his intention in writing the book was to ruffle a few feathers, arguing for looser marriage laws---no fault divorce, essentially. In other words, those who misunderstood his book actually understood it very well, they just happened to disagree with Hardy's artistic project (indeed, this falls in line very well with the assertion I came across recently that many of the first seeds of artistic moral superiority were sprouting in the late 19th century). And Hardy's view is that in order to understand his writing you'd be of the same mind as he.

It makes one wonder how it’d go if you were given the opportunity to travel back in time and explain to hardy the consequences of his views on divorce.

It finally hits me

Forgive the thickness of my head. I was born with a thick head, not an entirely big one, the latter feature being common with the smart people of the world like, um, G. K. Chesterton. (I have more examples, really, I just don’t feel like making the case for why I put them in that category. Incidentally, did Jesus have a big head? Was he a “smart” guy, as it were?)

The SCOTUS news is what I’m talking about though. When Bush was pushing Alito and Roberts through there was plenty of talk about compassionate and empathetic judges then, too. “They’re not supposed to be compassionate, they’re supposed to be impartial!” says one side; “they’re supposed to understand the plight of the poor, the dispossessed!” says the other, and a great flailing argument ensues.

I remember my brother, during the Roberts/Alito bit, had several conversations with a lawyer friend of his who insisted that the empathy argument had some legs---some pretty decent legs---since we all bring this or that from our experiences, etc., etc.. It’s actually not a bad argument when it’s all fleshed out since, well, cultural issues, identity issues, and so on definitely contribute to the way we think. So the full fledged lefties and those leaning that way are right to include this sympathy bit.

But this is exactly where the debate gets all skewed. What the left means by sympathy is sympathy of a very specific kind.

I do want a sympathetic and empathetic judge. I want someone who sympathizes with the one who has been treated unjustly under the law, no? After all, a person with no feelings is quite illogical. But that’s not what most people mean when they want a sympathetic judge. What they mean is they want someone who is sympathetic to their own understanding of what sympathy is; someone who shares their political and sociological opinions about what makes for the best kind of society. They want someone who has no problem with the notion of legislating those beliefs from the bench (ding!), who agrees with their positions (ding!) and also makes them look pretty sympathetic themselves for picking that particular person (ding again!).

The other problem is the credentials involved. Clearly in the case of Sotomayor it is her empathy; her childhood experience trumps intelligence. You can hate Roberts and Alito, but you can’t deny that they are intellectual powerhouses. Sotomayor, however, is kinda lacking there. So not only is it the liberal nature of her apparent sympathy (or empathy) that’s highly problematic, but it’s also the point at which that empathy starts to kick in as the sole deciding force in making decisions. I daresay that point comes to her long before it would with someone like Roberts, if it ever did.

E's and C's Together Doing ... ?

My brother brought up the matter of evangelicals and Catholics together over on his site. A number of experiences lately had me thinking through the frustrating issue once again.

I've had conversations with a few protestants who liked to talk about "Catholics who were saved." It sounds like a step in the right direction, and it might be, but there's a tone of condescention to it. They are the ones who have bent over backward, gracefully allowing that you really can be Catholic and be saved. In other words, had the Catholics more understanding they'd be protestant.

It's hard to find fault with a Catholic taking offense at this. It's like your brother breaking all ties with the family only to have his grandkids decide years later that they'd found room in their hearts to allow all the other relatives in to their family.

A couple weeks ago a couple guys from St. Brigid invited me to a talk given at another local parish. It was relatively interesting. The oddest thing though was afterward when I bumped into a guy from my church. I was distracted at the time and didn't think much of it until I saw him after church the next Sunday. Turns out he's pretty anti-Catholic and went to that meeting at the behest of some friends of his who had the usual lack-luster passive Catholic upbringing. Naturally they'd rejected that which hardly anyone bothered to explain to them and even fewer probably acted out and only as they got older did they start to think maybe they'd better start taking this Jesus stuff seriously. So they started going back to church at their local parish and this guy was privy to their journy and was attempting to witness to them.

We had a bit of a conversation about the whole thing, and of course certain facts about my family (my brother's catholic) came out and suddenly I had this bizarre upper-hand. Because I had a personal stake in Catholicism being "ok" I could see this guy get very awkward about the whole thing; perhaps concerned that he'd offended me. He suddenly stopped saying things like "they just completely misinterpret such and such" and resorted to finding the one thing he thought Catholics were ok at (they're pious).

I actually like the guy a lot. The fact that he had such strong opinions about Catholicism actually made me appreciate him more than if he'd been all hunky-dory about it. It's one thing to disagree with Catholicism and get all worked up about it. It's a whole other thing to disagree with Catholicism and think it matters not a whit because, well, it does matter. If Catholicism is wrong on some important points then it's pretty serious (it goes the other way too). But the cool thing is that one could have a conversation with this guy and, as you boxed a round or two, actually get somewhere with it because in his mind he was fighting to the death, as it were. The latter type will often, upon finding themselves smacked upside the head with a trenchent point, shrug his shoulders in response, muttering blandly about the mysteries of Christ.

Even if his apparently traditionalistic mindset was thoroughly modern in its theological assumptions, his heart seemed to be in a better place in some way. At least he was choosing a more difficutl path. It's 20 times easier in the modern West to be "the liberal." I could sense it when I was talking with him. I had the upper hand simply because my perspective was the "broader" one. My heart went out to him. I want to ask him to coffee so we can chat.

A month or two before that April and I went to a Catholic event that was advertisd as having something to do with protestants and Catholics together, understanding the differences, all that sort of thing. There were only Catholics at the event and the video that was shown was really something that should have been shown to protestants since it was a protestant minister interviewing a Catholic preist about what Catholicism taught. The priest was a real interesting guy abd came across way cooler than the prot. That's fine and all but I'm not sure anyone in the room really learned anything. Some of the questions at the end made me realize a little more clearly the strange way Catholics will put things sometimes. If E's and C's are going to have a prayer in conversing with each other then the vocab has got to change. One lady kept saying things that would have sent any good protestant running for the hills, and I'm not sure I would have blamed him.

Those experiences make me want to find some way yo do a kind of inter-faith (for lack of a better term) discussion group where E's and C's could interact a bit more and start to work through some things on a reasonable level. How to do that is a problem though.