What can I say, the dude really believes in America
What I can say (okay, what I want to say) is that Robinson really believes in the Protestant Reformation truly, madly, and deeply; and that she locates the apogee, but also the denouement, of that Protestant tradition in small-town America. Also that Obama is very polite.
I actually listened the audio, which I rarely do. It's a much more musing conversation than the transcript conveys. This section especially -- it's still mannered, still measured, but you can hear a faint hint of genuine emotion:
It's interesting, because we're talking in Iowa; people always, I think, were surprised about me connecting with folks in small-town Iowa. And the reason I did was, first of all, I had the benefit that at the time nobody expected me to win.
And so I wasn't viewed through this prism of Fox News and conservative media, and making me scary. At the time, I didn't seem scary, other than just having a funny name. I seemed young. Sometimes I look at my pictures from then and I say, I can't believe anybody voted for me because I look like I'm twenty-five.
But I'd go into these towns and everybody felt really familiar to me, because they reminded me of my grandparents and my mom and that attitude that you talk about.
Marilynne Robinson is a brilliant novelist: she's like contemporary America's answer to Jane Austen, or something: the moral weight that accompanies the quotidian; the idea that it's here today, in the here and now, that we may make our moral choices.
But I have to say, there's something about Robinson's whiggish brand of Protestantism that just sometimes sort of rubs me the wrong way. Especially when accompanied by hand-wringing and liberal agonistics, and such. I'm all like, You people read the Theses on Feuerbach and decided to eliminate the Christ from Christianity; and now you're blaming the Pope, the Vatican, tbe RC Church for everything that has gone wrong with your particalur brand of Christianity (but you don't even believe, by your own lights, that the Pope, the Vatican, the RC Church have anything to do with Christianity, and you're the ones, aren't you? who said, Every man his own Bible, every man his own system of belief?).
And then you blame the Catholics for what your protestant system hath wrought? Don't even make sense to me.
So, you know: go big or go home, is what I always say. If you're going to be some kind of Christian, why not go all out and whole hog: the Mass, the incense, the rosary? Your aged grandmother telling those beads from a corner near the fireplace, and that shawl she's wearing barely hides the way she shivers from the cold? A grim spectacle, to be sure, but a dramatic spectacle none the less, and at least we're being honest. And perhaps, when you have a spare moment, yout might contemplate the words of Cardinal Newman, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." Or, in other words, Go big or go home.
Well, in a wholly Canadian way, we'll have to agree to disagree.
It's plain that Obama has actually read at least Gilead and Home, although his view of John Ames, very much like my own had been, may be modified when he reads Leila.
It's amazing how much he seems to be interviewing her, in part.
J: I read a piece in the Forward this week, by a couple of Canadian Jews, a Cantor and a Rabbi, on the occasion of Canadian Thanksgiving, sharing how that now they live in the States they've come to love American Thanksgiving, and feel that it's for everyone here. That is to contrast it with the Canadian one, which they don't feel that for, all but saying it's Protestant.
Is that true? Talk about bubbles, I'm a Puritan descendant, and have always taken for given things that are not shared.
4 and 5:
And perhaps, when you have a spare moment, yout might contemplate the words of Cardinal Newman, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." Or, in other words, Go big or go home.
I was raised among Anglo-Catholics who always thought about going over to Rome, and yet, many of them stayed within the Episcopal Church.
I met some other Episcopalians once who were so scandalized by the ordination of women that they decided to join the Eastern Orthodox church. That's really going big.
Well, in a wholly Canadian way, we'll have to agree to disagree.
One day, my dad drove me out to Richmond, Ontario, where we gazed upon a mural of King Billy on a white horse, outside the local legion hall.
We were Catholics; and this was an Orange Order Lodge stronghold Being good Canadians, we only made a few snarky comments; but we felt more than we felt it seemly to express. "You goddamn sonabitch Orangeman," I said to myself, but what I said to my da was, "That's a really white horse." And he knew; he just sort of looked over and winked at me. We were to laugh at the 12th of July parade, all Canadian-style, and we laughed, of course we did, but there was probably a bit of anti-Orange sentiment left over when we had finished laughing. .
Eh, 8 was me. Up the long radder, and down the short rope,
I think we've all been to many parades celebrating one Fenian or another.
In fact, there are pictures of us being adorable on a float in one.
Friends of mine who've traveled in Canada are struck by the much longer family memories and allegiances, often going back to the old world. No melting pot.
I think we've all been to many parades celebrating one Fenian or another.
I'm pretty sure this is not a universal experience, Moby, but totally hear you on the Fenian brotherhood. Yeah, in our family tree we had some O'Neills...
4 -- Does "go big" mean add more dogmatism, abortion obsession and child rape? KIDDING NOT KIDDING.
Anyhow, Marilynne Robinson and apparently Barack Obama are apparently like the only two people in the world (at least under 90) who are willing to Stand Up For Calvin.
Do I count? I've been reading in Calvinism for years.
Does "go big" mean add more dogmatism, abortion obsession and child rape? KIDDING NOT KIDDING.
Yes Halford, it absolutely does. Because absent the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no exploitation in the world: no, I mean absolutely none whatsoever. Were it not for Pope Frankie and his evil minions, we'd all be innocently chasing butterflies in the Garden of Eden all day long. Goddamn the Whore of Babylon and his cunning agents...
Hopefully I'm not hijacking the thread but I'm on day whatever of this stupid cough/cold/whatever it is and losing track of how long we're supposed to wait (a day? 40 comments?).
Anyway, this Tracy Clayton (@BrokeyMcPoverty) interview with Hillary Clinton is getting a lot of buzz on Twitter. I haven't listened to it yet.
40 comments is the standard rule, but since this thread seems to be rapidly turning into a reenactment of the Thirty Years War I think an exception is warranted.
You should listen to the Hillary interview. She's going to be the next president.
I just did. She refers to Bill as "my husband" throughout. Which is a bit weird.
And she ducked a very blunt question about the '90s crime laws. And reparations.
She danced at the edge of admitting how much sexism she experienced as a Senator from fellow Congresspeople.
All in all, worth listening to, but not wildly surprising. I like the hosts better than the guest.
7.last gets it right. If you want to go big, your service should be in Greek or Aramaic.
Talk about bubbles, I'm a Puritan descendant,
Mind. Blown.
The Puritans are within us. We are made of Puritan stuff.
All in all, worth listening to, but not wildly surprising. I like the hosts better than the guest.
I listened to it (and had been thinking about posting it earlier this afternoon), and I'd agree with that summary and also felt more positive overall about the whole interview.
It's clear that Hillary was in campaign mode, and came across as both quite personable and still fairly guarded (and absolutely ducked the question about the 90s crime bill).
But, I thought it also worked. She took advantage of the fact that she was talking to relatively friendly interviewers to be a little more casual and it was a reminder that her experience and perspective is fascinating.
28: Absolutely everyone says so when I ask, so they're all on this fall's agenda for me.
24: what, no love for Amharic? It's a liturgical language hallowed by centuries of tradition and you can use it to buy groceries in. Try doing that in Old Church Slavonic.
(And I quite like 4 for being the perfect sectarian equivalent to the belief that all these foreigners really speak English and are just pretending not to understand anything but French or whatever out of sheer cussedness. Just shout loudly and slowly and they'll understand. )
Being an atheist, as a former Protestant I found 4 way more offensive than I should.
Really? I just thought it was funny. Two thousand years of theology and the best sales pitch you can come up with is that it's a kind of JM Synge re-enactors club with shiny hats? OK then.
But back to the subjext: Obama really does seem at his most comfortable having these sort of thinking out loud ruminative conversations, it's a very academic approach and I can't help thinking it must absolutely terrify his press people.
Two thousand years of theology and the best sales pitch you can come up with is that it's a kind of JM Synge re-enactors club with shiny hats?
Okay, I laughed.
But what annoys me about Robinson is that she makes these ponderous statements about tradition, and the tradition is the version of a thing to which she subscribes, which has, in her view, absolutely nothing to do with anything that came before it. To set aside religion for a moment (not easy to do with Robinson, since everything is theological for her), here she is on the difference between American liberalism and British liberalism:
In England and Europe, the word "liberal" means almost what we might call "libertarian." In the United States, it has another origin, a theological origin: "Open wide thy hand."...British liberalism is just mercantilism; it has nothing to do with our traditions. One of the things that has corrupted our understanding of our own liberal tradition is the fact that we can't make this distinction between British usage and American usage. You go to the London School of Economics to learn "liberal economics," and it's absolutely hair-raising--and makes the University of Chicago look like heaven on earth.
"To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant."
The Protestants were just the first church reformers (aka heretics) that won. (To be fair: Orthodox vs. Rome. You'd have to admit that the Orthodox did pretty well, too.)
And if you go deep enough in history you cease to be Christian, too. You don't have to go that much deeper than when there were first fights over Christian theology.
If you are into deep history, Cardinal Newman, you should consider Judaism. That's "going big."
The Protestants were just the first church reformers (aka heretics) that won.
Unless you count the Muslims, of course.
And I'm not quite sure of the inherent virtue of being deep in history. To be deep enough in history is to cease to be a vertebrate.
If you are into deep history, Cardinal Newman, you should consider Judaism Animism.
The first and still the best religion. It's just so much more practical and user-friendly than all these angry sky gods.
Does it get any bigger than the Aztec religion?
OK, maybe not exactly local, but more so than some desert Middle Eastern tribal religions.
Not as local as Mormonism, which is a 100% homegrown white and delightsome US religion rather than one of those dodgy Hispanic-serving institutions.
Local woman's one weird trick the chiefs don't want you to know.
And if you go deep enough in history you cease to be Christian, too.
Of course!
But here's another example of her bizarre account of Calvinism. It's a great (and really interesting) essay on the role of fear in fostering America's now insane and out-of-control gun culture, where she attempts to reclaim American Christianity from the forces of militarism, belligerent nationalism, and so on.
We who are students of Calvin's tradition know that our ancestors in the tradition did not spare their lives or their fortunes. They were loyal to the will of God as they understood it at the most extreme cost to themselves--in worldly terms, that is. They also defended their faith militarily, with intelligence and great courage, but without ultimate success, except in the Low Countries. Therefore the migration of Pilgrims and Puritans, and Huguenots as well, and the great flourishing of Calvinist civilization in the New World. We might say that the oppressors meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, except this might lead us to forget a crucial thing, a factor not present in the story of Joseph and his brothers. Those oppressors were motivated by fear of us. We were heretics by their lights, and therefore a threat to the church, to Christian civilization, to every soul who felt our influence. We filled more or less the same place in the European imagination that Islam does now, one difference being that the Christianity now assumed to be under threat on that most secular continent is merely sociological and cultural, in effect racial, and another difference being that there was no ideal of tolerance and little concept of due process to mitigate the violence the presence of our ancestors inspired. Quite the opposite. To suppress our tradition however viciously was a pious act.
She then goes on to speak of the massacres of Protestants in France, and later refers to the Spanish Inquisition, but with not a word about England or the Church of England. From her account, you would almost think the Puritans had fled Catholic Lyons; and in her version of the "Calvinist civilization in the New World," there is apparently no cultural connection between New England and, well, England. It all came from Calvin (and he apparently had very little to do with anyone who came before him, either).
To unite the Pauline Kael thread and this one: I don't understand - and I mean, I really just don't feel in my bones - how so many Americans can listen to Obama or read an interview like this one and be appalled. How is this man so viscerally despised?
Also: Hillary has always struck me as charming and witty and naturally likable.
They aren't listening to him, of course. They're listening to somebody talking about him.
(To be fair: Orthodox vs. Rome. You'd have to admit that the Orthodox Roman Catholics did pretty well, too.)
I'm always surprised by people talking about Calvin as if he was anything but a horrible evil shithead, or talking about Calvinism as if it wasn't a religion centered on God as a vicious asshole. I know it's my bubble, but I just can't wrap my head around anyone seeing Calvin as worthy of anything but condemnation.
Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.
British liberalism is just mercantilism
This makes so little sense as economics. Mercantilism is the opposite of liberalism; the point is to get whatever combination of imperial export markets and import trade barriers causes you to accumulate gold. Liberalism actually arose as a reaction to mercantilism; rip out all that stuff, peace, retrenchment, reform. The rock in its sock, of course, is that you can be hella imperialistic via free trade.
But that's like saying US capitalism is just communism.
You would not believe how many people think that U.S. capitalism is communism and only Ted Cruz or some asshole can fix it.
About 75% of the people who think that get their health care from Medicare.
talking about Calvinism as if it wasn't a religion centered on God as a vicious asshole.
Plenty of other religions also have God as a vicious asshole. The Calvinists are the ones who come closest to admitting it.
The worst part of liberal Christianity is inevitably reaching for Jesus to club one's opponents and finding Him nowhere. You can't beat down a political opponent or a frothing racist with church suppers and canned goods drives, though many have tried.
you should consider Judaism. That's "going big."
Allowing that some people find Christ important, I think we can agree that you're either martyred or you're just yakking.
46,47:Unbelievable
Because I do not have such an overweening arrogance as to think I can listen to, or read the direct words of, the number one most accomplished skilled professional charmer in the world, a person who gets tens of millions of people's trust, a person who separates billionaires from their money and soldiers from their lives on a daily basis...and be able to accurately judge his character or sincerity. He can fool me. There is no doubt. He does it for a living, on a world-historical scale.
I also don't think I can beat Lebron James in basketball.
So I never listen to or read Obama, or Clinton, or any of their followers or opponents.
I look at what they do, their records.
Sure, you can go by their records is you're going to allow inductive reasoning, but there's all sorts of problems with that.
It's probably quite easy to fool someone who thinks that petitio principii is a good way to reason.
It's probably really easy to fool somebody whose standard for "good politician" is something like "implements full Communism withing two years of taking office."
If he could swing that he would be a very good politician indeed.
When I was a child, I thought like a child, that I was smarter than other people, and the cause of the world's misery was stupidity.
Now that I am old and no longer smart, I see that the sages were right, and vanity rules and ruins, and rules and ruins especially the smart ones.
The rock in its sock
Dr Seuss's great lost adult book.
37 - there are still an extant church that split off during the Council of Ephesus (431) and several that quit after the Council of Chalcedon (451) (the Assyrians and the Copts/Syriac Orthodox/Ethiopians/Armenians, respectively). Oddly enough people's principled differences in theology seem to have been felt in direct proportion to their distance from Constantinople.
there are still an extant church that split off during the Council of Ephesus (431)
What is that? I didn't realise there were any survivors from that split.
There's a theory that Islam should be regarded as the Reformed Ebionites, but attractive though it is I don't quite buy it.
Assyrian Church? Wikipedia makes it sound like their status on that topic is kind of ill-defined.
66.1 -- the Nestorians, I think. Wasn't the purpose of that council to condemn them?
I feel like I should write a long, more serious response to 35 and 45 but it would be too long and I don't have the time, stamina, or ability, and, as an asshole, would rather just troll JPJ. The thing from Robinson is clearly wrong and silly as written. Trying to pry American Calvinism as put in practice away from English traditions is silly, much of the good stuff comes from England as much as it does from the writings of JC (not that one) directly. But there is IMO a really deep and important connection between Anglo-American Calvinist congregationalism, our historical tradition and law, and a communalism that's at odds with small-l free-market liberalism or libertarianism. It's a really important part of the American legal and cultural tradition that's now largely ignored and could be more drawn upon.
Shorter: the point of Calvinist/Puritan liberty, as interpreted in a particular, Anglo-American way is to encourage the formation of citizen-directed communal organizations to do good work on behalf of the community as a whole. It's opposed to both dogmatism (top-down or state-directed) and liberalism understood as primarily about protecting the ability of individuals to pursue their self-interest. While those congregational organizations could themselves be dogmatic and oppressive, they also could could be (and were) the places where radical American doctrines like abolitionism or unitarianism flourished.
It seems like much of the point of Robinson's work as politics is to promote and try to revive that tradition. Though she's a good enough novelist (IMO, a great one) and serious enough about her religion to also see problems and failure and contradictions and humanity in that tradition as well.
That was pompous, unclear AND badly written. Anyhow, Robinson's a great writer and she is drawing on a tradition that's real and important IMO. OK, back to trolling.
66, 67, 68 - yes, the Assyrian Church, which is what the modern-day version of the Nestorians call themselves.
Man, I tried to read Housekeeping (on baa's recommendation, as it happens) and just could not do it. I don't even remember what I hated so much, but it was not for me.
The shorter in 68 seems smart, though.
68 is great. If only Robinson could make that case without relying upon invidious (and often dubious, if not downright ridiculous) comparisons.
71: the fact that it was excruciatingly slow, perhaps? Because that really did bog it down hopelessly for me, although a few scenes were excellent anyway.
Hey, any recommendations for bleak protestant theologians of the 19th or 20th century ?
Kierkegaard doesn't seem much interested in a personal Jesus, and I bet I could get better recommendations for interesting successors of his or coeval skeptics unwilling to give up on faith here than most other places I could ask.
74: And Fur in Sich
Why settle for old bleak, when you can get ya some 21st Century Post-structural grimdark Godawfulness?
If you are interested in Robinson's communitarianism, Russell Arben Fox is based in Wichita KS, is liked by the liberal blogosphere, may be a little more conservative than MR although no longer a Republican I think, and has written extensively on localism, communitarianism, and the everyday.
71, 73. I thought Housekeeping was pretty good. It was super-slow, sure, but then so were Gilead and Home. I did think the characters in Housekeeping were far less interesting than the Ameses and the Boughtons. But the book had its own grim charm.
I made M read Gilead because he's an immigrant and was raised a papist and didn't understand the centrality of Protestantism in American politics, or what makes it interesting or appealing. I don't know that the book convinced him in any way, but he liked it.
Anyway, I had been re-reading Home over the last week or so, and thinking about Robinson's depiction of Christian morality vs. community-based decency. I haven't really formulated my thoughts. I'm looking forward to the next installment of the Obama/Robinson conversation.