Loving Solitude and Being Married–A Few Reflections
In my series of posts on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, I remarked last time how love willingly gives up certain freedoms, and I ended by saying that focusing too much on the freedom I have to give up for my family diminishes my love for them.
Let me make this more concrete. I have an intense drive to create things, whether books or pictures or music. Additionally, I am an avid learner who loves to soak in information, grapple with concepts, and philosophize. If only I had time, I would read all the books in the world, see half the artwork in the world, and watch every good movie in the world. Not to mention stage productions. I love culture. Much, much more than small talk. I am an introvert who would choose solitude over company most of the time. But not solitude in a single place for a prolonged period of time. Traveling and exploring new places are some of my favorite activities, as long as I can do them alone (usually at least). I am hungry for experiences. I get a thrill out of physical activities. That moment when the sweat starts pouring fills me with energy. I embrace my physical reality as much as my inner reality. I want to taste and see this world as much as I would love to taste and see a world yonder.
Now, all of these activities and dispositions have two things in common: (1) They either generate no money worth speaking of or even cost money. (2) They take a lot of time and do not involve my family.
As a husband of a stay-at-home mom and father of homeschooled children, however, I mostly need to do two things: (1) Make money to provide for them. (2) Spend time with them.
It is not surprising, then, that I sometimes feel a conflict between the freedom I desire in following my natural drive and the desire to make sure that my wife and children have a good life. What do you do about two such conflicting desires?
Some people say that you ought to arrange your life in such a way that as few conflicting desires as possible arise, meaning that someone like me, who enjoys having a large portion of solitude and a life of contemplation, maybe should not get married or have children in the first place. But while there is undoubtedly wisdom in thinking ahead and avoiding unnecessary inner conflicts, we all—for whatever reason—get into situations where we notice conflicting desires without being able to easily change the situation. In that case, it does not help to say, “You should have thought of that earlier.”
Besides, only focusing on how one may avoid conflicting desires ignores the ethical dimension of the problem. Not all my desires are good desires, and even those that are not bad in themselves (a number of thinkers have considered the love of solitude a virtue) may turn bad if taken to an extreme. Even though I may not always like getting my solitude disturbed by the presence of others, it might actually do me good. Unless, of course, I am a hedonist and do not care about moral goodness or developing my character. But as long as I affirm that there is such a thing as moral goodness and positive or negative character development, I need to be willing to hedge in some of my desires.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that everything I do should be either (1) something I enjoy, (2) something that is morally good or (3) something that is useful. In three words, I should construct my life around fun, duty, and practicality. If something is neither of these three, why do it? Why should I do something simply because it is in fashion, or is generally expected in my culture, or to impress others—or, for that matter, because it is some random goal I have set myself and feel compelled to fulfill, even though it is neither good nor useful nor enjoyable?
Hence, my drive toward experience and knowledge can actually be an enemy of Aristotle’s wisdom. Do I really have to read every book that pricks my curiosity? Do I really have to travel to every place that strikes my interest? No. The desire for novelty can be the undoing of joy, goodness, and usefulness. I had better accept that I cannot know everything I want, see everything I want, experience everything I want. Otherwise my desires will rob me of the joy of what I do know and see and experience. They will lead me to forsake my duties and throw usefulness to the wind.
The Fool Says in His Heart, “There is No God”–What Did the Psalmist Mean?
In Psalm 14:1, we find the statement, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Thomas Aquinas and many others have used this verse to talk about atheism versus theism. But what did the Psalmist really have in mind? I doubt it was an intellectual, highly theoretical and abstract disputation about the existence or non-existence of a transcendent Absolute Entity we call “God.”
First of all, the Hebrew word translated as "fool" is not primarily someone who lacks intelligence but who is morally deficient. Second, and in line with that, the whole Psalm is about "evildoers" who "devour" God’s people and oppress the poor. Therefore, the statement about the fool saying in his heart that there is no God is meant to convey: People who suppress their conscience and mistreat other people say to themselves, "There is no one who will take me to account. There is no ultimate justice. I will get away with my crimes."
But neither does the Psalm assert that atheists are necessarily morally deficient. In my understanding, the Psalmist does not say, "All those who deny God’s existence are morally deficient." Rather, he means to say, "All those who blatantly mistreat other people cannot, in their heart of hearts, really believe that there is a God who will hold them accountable."
He does not say, "He who does not believe in God is a fool," but, "The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’" Note the phrase, "The fool says in his heart …" The "fool" may outwardly proclaim quite loudly allegiance to God. But if he acts in such a way that it shows utter disregard to others, his outward confession of faith belies what is in his heart.
Of course, by interpreting Psalm 14 in this way I do not deny that there is a long Western tradition about atheists not being morally upright—a tradition that several morally upright atheists of the past few centuries have tried to dispel.
Shakespeare: A Slave to Love
In a previous post, I started talking about Shakespeare’s The Tempest and how one of the main themes of the play is the desire for freedom. I noted that the desire for freedom is closely related to the desire for power, and that such a desire can be a dangerous thing.
In the case of Miranda, however, her desire for more freedom from the dominion of her father is not very pronounced. She is certainly not a rebellious child, and she really only wants to be free to love, not free to dominate. And herein lies a paradox. Loving always entails giving up my freedom and binding myself to someone else. Being free to love, therefore, means being free to surrender my freedom to someone else. When Miranda falls in love with one of the shipwrecked sailors, a young prince called Ferdinand, the freedom she desires from her father is merely his permission to give herself to another. Like desiring money to buy a gift, love only desires freedom to be able to give it away. “The very instant that I saw you,” says Ferdinand to Miranda, “did my heart fly to your service; there resides, to make me slave to it.”
He is a slave, but a slave of his own volition, for love relishes being in the power of another. “They are both in either’s power,” remarks Prospero fittingly about the two lovers. “You may deny me,” pleads Miranda with Ferdinand, “but I’ll be your servant, whether you will or no.” – “My mistress, dearest; and I thus humble ever,” replies he. “My husband, then?” asks she. “Ay, with a heart as willing as bondage e’er of freedom: here’s my hand.” – “And mine, with my heart in’t.”
They both willingly give up their freedom in order to celebrate a “contract of true love.” They choose bondage to each other over freedom without the other.
It might be worth taking a moment to personally reflect on this relationship between freedom, love, and bondage. I often notice that my desire for freedom and my love for other people are pulling me into opposite directions. On the one hand, I want the best for my wife and children, and what else is love than wanting the best for someone? On the other hand, my bond to them prevents me from doing many things that I would otherwise love to do. If I focus too much on the things that I cannot do because of my wife and children, it produces resentment, and resentment diminishes love. If, in contrast, I steer my thoughts more to what is best for them, the resentment about my lack of freedom diminishes.
Are the Harry Potter Books Children’s Literature?
In this post, I talked about the Golden Rule of Criticism: that we shouldn’t criticize something that we have no taste for or simply can’t stand. If I want to say something critical about Harry Potter, for instance, I have to turn to my palate before I turn to my subject. Do I have a taste for the genre that my object of examination is a part of? Or am I a blind man criticizing art?
In order to find that out, I first have to see what genre I am dealing with. What genre is Harry Potter? Some people might suggest “Children’s Books,” but I doubt that they are right. Certainly, the Harry Potter books appeal to many children. But is “Children’s Books” really a genre of literature—apart from pre-school picture books, that is?
C.S. Lewis pointed out that there are children’s encyclopedias, children’s detective stories, children’s handicraft books, children’s adventure stories and children’s fantasy books, just like there are encyclopedias, detective stories, handicraft books, adventure stories, and fantasy books for adults; and many are suitable for both age groups. But are the age groups the genres? Aren’t they only different levels within a genre?
Perhaps a detective story for children is not as complicated as one for adults, but it is still a detective story; and it is likely that the child who loves such stories will grow into an adult who loves the same, only on a higher level. Therefore I would not classify Harry Potter primarily as Children’s Books but as Fantasy Literature, perchance on a “lower” level than other works of its kind, but still part of the same genre.
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines Fantasy as “imaginative fiction dependent for effect on strangeness of setting (such as other worlds or times) and of characters (such as supernatural or unnatural beings).” This definition includes books which we usually call Science-Fiction, such as The Time Machine by H.G. Wells; traditional fairy-tales of Anderson and German Märchen preserved by the Brothers Grimm; fantastical poetry in the vein of The Faerie Queene; animal stories in the tradition of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and the books of Beatrix Potter; fantastical satires like Gulliver’s Travels and Animal Farm; allegories such as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; myths and legends in the league of King Arthur and the Round Table; of course books like The Lord of the Rings that are typically called Fantasy; and also Harry Potter. After all, the setting of the Harry Potter books is a rather strange school that is teeming with even stranger characters.
The question is whether I have a taste for Fantasy besides, or in spite of, Harry Potter. And the answer is, yes! I am a great believer in fairyland. This, in itself, does not make me a connoisseur on the topic. My judgment on Harry Potter might still be wrong. But at least it does not disqualify me from commenting on Harry. I have kept the critic’s Golden Rule.
This post was a slightly altered excerpt from the book Seven Years at Hogwarts: A Christian’s Conversion to Harry Potter.
Return to Innocence: Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five”
I started the new year on a cheerful note with Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the queer novel about the allied bombings of Dresden during WWII. Here’s a hauntingly beautiful passage from the book, imagining what it would be like to roll the events of the bombings backward, expressing the desire to undo the evil in the world and return to innocence:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work.
The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground., to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn’t in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve.
The Tempest: Shakespeare on Freedom and Power
A couple of years ago, I set out to read or watch / listen to all of Shakespeare’s plays, and I recently finished the last one. To crown it all, I went to the Globe Theatre in London (a faithful replica of Shakespeare’s original), and I have now started to jot down a few reflections on Shakespeare.
Here is the beginning of my reflections on parts of The Tempest (more blog posts will follow in the coming weeks):
Italy during the Renaissance. Prospero, the Duke of Milan, falls victim to a plot by his power-hungry brother Antonio, who deposes him. But rather than raise his own hand and strike the blow to finish him off, Antonio takes a course typical of human nature and sends his brother adrift in a little boat. In that way, it would be the elements that killed Prospero, and not he himself. Also in the little boat is Prospero’s little daughter Miranda, as well as provisions and books, smuggled in by someone sympathetic to Prospero.
“By providence divine” the two land on a deserted island, which is only inhabited by spirits and the son of a deceased witch. Prospero makes use of his skills in magic to subdue the few human and non-human inhabitants, and henceforth he lives with his daughter in “a full poor cell.”
Years later, his enemies happen to pass the island in a ship, and Prospero, once again employing magic, raises a storm to force the sailors unto the island and win back his former position as Duke of Milan.
Thus far the broad outline. Most of the play focuses on the various people on the island after the storm, all of whom either strive for freedom or consciously give up freedom for the sake of other desires. In fact, the very last words of the play are “set me free,” but one hardly needs to wait until the last words to notice this theme. It is weaved into the text throughout.
Freedom—now what exactly is that? Many people feel that freedom is power, namely the power to go where they want, do what they want, and think what they want. “Had I been any god of power, I would have sunk the sea within the earth,” says Miranda right in the beginning of the play, after her father Prospero had raised the storm and caused the shipwreck. What Miranda is saying is that if she had as much power as Prospero, she would use it for the good. Of course, at this stage in the play she does not yet know the background story and so does not understand her father’s actions, but the main point is that she desires more power. “If I had the power, I would do so-and-so”—this is the desire of someone who recognizes that she is not completely free. Miranda is in the hands of her father, her “schoolmaster,” and others are in his hands too, and she is tempted to think that she would be more worthy of the power he holds. She would be kinder to others and not use her power to deprive them of their freedom.
Such are the thoughts of many a powerless person, thoughts as noble as they are foolish, for it is less easy to use power correctly once one is in possession of it than when one is merely desiring it. Indeed, the desire to be a “god of power” is a dangerous thing. As the Graeco-Roman gods demonstrate, gods do not always use their power for the good, and neither might I if I were one of them. The gods were personified forces of nature, and, like these forces, raw power tends not to discriminate. It thunders on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Therefore, it might be for the best that I do not have all the freedom I desire. It might give me more power than I can handle.
Judging Books: The Golden Rule of Criticism
The Golden Rule of a good critic is, “Do not criticize what you have no taste for.” That is at least what literary critic and Christian writer C.S. Lewis believed.
If I had an aversion to alcohol, he said, I would be in no position to tell anyone that a certain kind of wine was of poor quality. Any wine would be poor to my taste, even if it happened to be the finest vintage in the history of the world. A deaf man cannot criticize music nor a blind one examine paintings. Only someone who loves good music will recognize bad music and only someone who has seen many great paintings will detect a meager one.
So with literature: People who do not have a taste for a certain genre had better hold their tongue about any particular book of that genre, because they might not be criticizing it at all but the genre in general. Of course they might have good reasons for disliking the genre, but then they should criticize the whole genre instead of a certain book. Someone might have good reasons for disliking alcohol, and it is understandable if he advocates the benefits of teetotalism, but if he criticizes a certain vintage, he will only betray his ignorance on the subject. Such a person will look quite ridiculous.
Since I am not eager to make a fool of myself, I have to turn to my palate before I turn to my subject. Do I have a taste for the genre that my object of examination is a part of? Or am I a blind man criticizing art?
This post was an excerpt from the book Seven Years at Hogwarts: A Christian’s Conversion to Harry Potter.
Abortion and Stem-Cell Research: Arguing from Continuity or Category?
After reading William James’ Pragmatism and Varieties of Religious Experience this year, I also dabbled in his humungous Principles of Psychology recently. Now in Chapter 3 of the Principles, he uses the term “Argument from Continuity,” which I found to be handy peg for a line of thinking that I’ve never had a name for.
Let me explain the Argument from Continuity by using the controversial issues of stem-cell research and abortion.
Some people argue that there is an unbroken continuity from the male sperm and female egg to the growing lump of cells after conception. After all, this lump of cells doesn’t much resemble a human baby yet. Sure, nine months later there would be a baby, but it is a gradual process from unfertilized cells to fertilized cells to fetus and unborn baby, born baby, child, and grown-up. There is no absolute, definite line between any of these stages.
Therefore, if we want to pass laws to protect human life, we have to be somewhat arbitrary. We might, for instance, draw a line at twelve weeks after conception. This arbitrary line is needed because we certainly do not want to prosecute a man for not saving the lives of all his sperm cells, and—so the Argument from Continuity goes—likewise we do not want to prosecute anyone for using fertilized human cells for medical purposes. But we do want to prosecute someone who rips out an eight-month old baby from the womb of its mother and kills it. It’s a gradual process from the lump of cells to the baby with no definite natural line, but we do have to draw a line somewhere.
So far, so good (or not good, depending where you stand on this issue). But what might we call the opposite of the Argument from Continuity? Perhaps the Argument from Category?
The Argument from Category would counter that at the moment of conception there is a category change of what we are dealing with. Before conception, we just have cells. After conception, we have fundamentally a human being. From then on, there is only a change in degree, not a change in kind. Therefore, if we want to have laws for the protection of human life at all, we have to include even those who are only just starting out on the human journey.
Within each category, there can be a lot of change, but none of the changes merit treating the object in question as something fundamentally different.
This latter argument is essentially Aristotelian, and, due to Aristotle’s great influence on Catholicism, probably has a lot to do with the Catholic Church’s stance on stem-cell research and abortion.
Proponents of the Argument from Continuity would of course criticize the Aristotelian notion of categories as something that imposes human concepts onto nature, even though nature really cannot be quite so neatly divided. For instance, our common conception of different animal “species” cannot be a hundred percent matched with what we actually find in nature. Ernst Mayr defined a species as a group of population that can successfully interbreed and cannot interbreed with other groups. This is true of many groups of animal populations, but it is not true of all. There are some groups we call species that can interbreed with other species and there are other groups that very much seem like a single species, except that that not all can interbreed within the group.
This is just one example how we tend to quickly form neat categories in our minds, even though nature is more complex than those categories. On the other hand, clearly nature is not completely chaotic or unvariable. It makes sense to see things in terms of categories, but not at the expense of becoming victims of our own categories.
What do you think? Is the supposed category change at the moment of conception an example of our becoming victims of our own categories, or is it a line given by nature that we should not trespass?
Christmas Present for Christian Harry Potter Fans (or skeptics, for that matter)
My new book is now ready to order at Amazon! If you’re still looking for a Christmas present for someone interested in Harry Potter, Fantasy, and Christianity, maybe this would be an idea:
Seven Years at Hogwarts: A Christian’s Conversion to Harry Potter
Blurb and Back Cover of My New Book on Harry Potter (soon to be released)
After sharing the cover for my new book, here’s the back cover and the blurb. A link to order the book will follow soon.
“Harry Potter has not only had many fans, but also many critics. Some of the criticism has been religiously motivated. But is Harry Potter really as un-Christian as these critics suggest?
Come and join Jacob Schriftman as he explores the world and worldview of J.K. Rowling’s Fantasy, drawing comparisons to Christian writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, as well as to explicitly non-Christian ones like Philip Pullman and H.G. Wells.
In the process of analysis, Schriftman deals both with literary and existential questions. Should Harry Potter be understood as a parody of our own society? How does Harry Potter treat serious issues? It is common for humans to ask, “Where do we come from? What can we know? What should we do? Do we have a purpose? And how do we approach death?” These questions are woven into Harry Potter, and some of the answers take a surprising turn.
A book that delights as much as it instructs, a challenge to fans and skeptics alike.”
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