You Have To Laugh

[poliphilo]

The thing that bothers me most about the Pope isn't anything he's said or done (we all make mistakes and have silly beliefs) but that people will turn out in their thousands to be in his general vicinity- simply because of what he is. Look at him; there's very little there to detain us. He's old, he's ugly, he doesn't have his predecessor's bully-boy charisma, nor any particular vibe of holiness; he has nothing very interesting to say- and clearly knows very little about the culture he presumes to address- and when he speaks he mumbles- reading from a script. If he were not the pope- not dignified by office- but just the elderly professor he would have been if he hadn't been so ambitious you wouldn't give him a second glance.

One of the things he's been saying is that the decay of faith begets tyranny. Actually no. I couldn't disagree more. The habit of faith- the taking of things on trust- the deferring to a person dressed up like a Christmas tree just because he has a high-sounding title- is what begets tyranny. National Socialism went down a storm in Benedict's native Bavaria because they were already soused in the flamboyantly theatrical, authoritarian, sickly-sweet, plaster and gold leaf culture of Tridentine Catholicism. Tyrants down the ages have used religion as a handy tool (often despising it as they did so) and clerics- in very great numbers- in spite of the faith they're supposed to have in something quite different- have been only too happy to crown them and bless their flags and sometimes- even- their execution squads.

The one thing most likely to stop a tyranny from gaining a grip is the cultivation- in the individual- of a lively, sceptical, irreverent intelligence.  We defend ourselves against power by highlighting its absurdity, and refusing to accord a man especial respect because he has a costume and a title. Benedict- who has been an inquisitor, a censor and a scourge of independent thinkers -  has spent most of his career enforcing conformity and repressing the one thing that best guarantees our freedom. Driving down our streets in his funny little car, conducting his open air spectaculars, he is doing what tyrants and the friends of tyrants have always done; he is using theatrics to overawe us and boot us into line.  This being Britain- with its longstanding history of finding important people funny- he's not likely to have much success. Even so, we owe it to ourselves to keep up the great tradition- and laugh and point. The price of freedom is eternal mockery.

Comments

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

I see Dejevsky had a lacklustre piece in T'Indy. Stil, better than her recent utterances on Russia.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Lacklustre" is a very good word for it.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

Seen on a tee shirt in Holland "I like the Pope, the Pope smokes dope" and a (presumably) doctored image of His Holiness blazin' a spliff.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But did he inhale?

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

No mate he was busy having oral sex with Monica Lewinsky;)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

That is so true. Equating atheism with fascism is ridiculous. Of course atheism doesn't guarantee freedom from tyranny -- Stalin's Soviet Union was atheist -- but a irreverant agnosticism and mockery certainly helps keep any would-be tyrants in their place.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's nothing essentially religious or a-religious about fascism. Hitler was a cradle catholic who was happy to use Christian language when it suited him. Franco's brand of Spanish fascism was explicitly royalist and catholic. Mussolini maintained friendly relations with the Pope.

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

So he has the charisma of a bureaucrat.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In some ways I find him quite endearing. He's a bit of a dandy and he loves Mozart. If he were not the head of a wicked and coercive international organisation I'd be quite happy to sit down and take tea with him.

You know...

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

... Part of yr charm is that I can always really on you to be absolutely wrong about absolutely everything, both in matters of fact and in the conclusions to be drawn from them.

Mind you, just at the moment, in the midst of the current iteration of the Gordon Riots, it's even more tedious than commonly.

Re: You know...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd be glad to know what matters of fact I've got wrong. I try to be careful about matters of fact.

The Gordon Riots? Really? I was under the impression we were having the Queen show him round Holyrood Palace not burning him in effigy.

Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes.

‘The habit of faith - the taking of things on trust [...] is what begets tyranny’: Nonsense. Leaving aside examples from earlier times ranging from Antigone in mythos and drama to such simple factual incidents as Heinrich doing penance at Canossa, Becket’s murder, More’s murder, the Non-Jurors, no doubt Parliament for your party (my own family cunningly included at once the chief Royalist agent in the West, a Fairfax-allied MP, and one of the regicides: never put all your eggs in one basket), look if you like at the Kulturkampf in the Second Reich and the Kirchenkampf in the Third. Look, indeed, at Tibet. Resistance to secular tyrants, not only commonly, but overwhelmingly often, rises from a loyalty to transcendent authority, however conceived.

‘National Socialism went down a storm in Benedict’s native Bavaria because they were already soused in the flamboyantly theatrical, authoritarian, sickly-sweet, plaster and gold leaf culture of Tridentine Catholicism’: Well, up to a point, Lord Copper: which is to say, no. I can put together a list of reputable secondary sources if you like; suffice it to say that few historians agree with that statement. (It is also notable that it was German Protestantism that had much the worse record of allowing its co-option by the Reich.) I’d say more, but I’m already well into a post on just that point.

‘Benedict – who has been an inquisitor, a censor and a scourge of independent thinkers – has spent most of his career enforcing conformity and repressing the one thing that best guarantees our freedom’: No, sorry, that’s simply rubbish. This is the same sort of tribalism, I fear, as that which you proudly asserted had influenced your partisan loyalties, in a post put up about the time of the General Election; I cannot think what else could explain it. As one of the few surviving orthodox Anglicans in the C of E, I hold no particular brief for Rome, but it’s simply a duty of common honesty to note that this pope, a reformist peritus at the Second Vatican Council, was likewise the chap who began opening up the archives of the Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei; as for the claim that he has been an ‘inquisitor, censor, and scourge of free thinkers’, that’s simply Paisley-style balls. Look here, old boy, it’s the job of the Labour policy unit and offices, as it is that of CCHQ, not to censor or to silence, but, rather, to say, This is our policy and that is not, and, This person speaks for us and this person doesn’t. Well, that was then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s job. He wasn’t in charge of thumbscrews; he was the Chief Whip-cum-party-chairman. What you call inquisition, censorship, and the oppression of free speech is nothing more than saying, Chummy can say what he likes, but that’s not our position, and he may either change his mind or change his job. There’s nothing heroic about a ‘freely speaking and thinking scholar’ who takes one party’s shilling and clothes himself in one party’s mantle of authority only to then ally himself, with that shilling in hand and cloaked in that authority, with an opposing party. That’s not heroic free speech: it’s merely a peculiarly squalid and mercenary form of intellectual dishonesty.

I shan’t be so pedantic as to set out how the No-Popery riots were instigated popular uprisings in opposition to HMG’s policy, or labour the obvious current parallel.

Look here, you’re a fine fellow and an affecting writer and I’m always interested in and by what you have to say, particularly about daily life and its poetry, and am often moved by how you say it. But when it comes to economics, or history, or other issues not amenable to disputes of fact – you see I am leaving politics out of this – you really do possess the most uncanny ability to be precisely wrong, really, if I may say that with the utmost purely personal affection and respect.

Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm saying the habit of deference to religious authority makes people susceptible to the charms of dictatorship- especially when the dictator is as colourful as Hitler was. You're saying faith can inspire resistance to secular tyranny. I don't think these statements contradict one another. In fact I think they're both true.

Mind you, most of the people you cite as religious rebels were also committed theocrats. Beckett and More were advocates of papal power- supporters of one tyranny against another. Beckett went out of his way to be obnoxious to Henry II (who merely wanted to reform the Church) and More was an enthusiastic burner of heretics. I wouldn't have wanted to live under the governance of either of them. Nor, incidentally, would I have wanted to be a peasant in Tibet under the lamas.

Your defence of Ratzinger's role as Vatican censor and enforcer makes sense if you accept that the Church is obliged to run itself like a political party. If you don't, it doesn't.

Ah well, we're never going to agree- we come from opposite ends of the political spectrum- but I trust such a little thing won't ever stop us from being friends.

Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

At the risk of allowing reality to intrude upon a religious discussion, for most of the past 2,000 years Mother Church has either shamelessly supported tyranny or has herself embodied that tyranny. Until at least the smashing of the Armada and the Thirty Year's War, the Church was the greatest temporal power in all of Europe. And to claim, or even imply, that Roman Catholicism as an institution has stood with the people against arbitrary and absolute authority is frankly OBSCENE.

At the risk of allowing learning to intrude upon prejudice:

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Balls.

I am, as may have been noted, C of E, not RC; yet simple honesty impels me to say that the latter communion, although it has often fallen into political wrongdoing when it was a secular power (as, of course, I hold it to have erred theologically, which is why I am C of E), has indeed rather more often, whatever its motives at the time, good, bad, or indifferent, been on the popular side. The barons were wicked, no doubt, but John was worse, and it was Langton and the Church in England who threw their weight into the struggle that resulted in Magna Carta, to give one notable example. And as between the second Tudor monarch and the monasteries, it's not at all difficult to know which was more nearly on the side of the people and the poor. Or, again, there was the Anarchy....

More broadly, I must point out that, as an Anglican, I am arguing that churches other than only the Roman communion have appeared in the lists on the side of liberty: the struggle against slavery comes to mind, for one. If the intrusion of facts upon your prejudices (yes, I have looked through your own posts, to see what manner of person I am dealing with) strikes you as 'obscene', you're a more delicate flower than I for one, were I in your place, should at all care publicly to admit.

Re: At the risk of allowing learning to intrude upon prejudice:

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly the silliest thing I've read today. Congratulations!

I find that unlikely, granting the sort of thing that must be yr daily reading.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

I felicitate you however upon yr ability not to engage an argument you chose to occasion.

Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm torn in two here. I agree in general terms, but I can't rid myself (not that I want to) of my deep, irrational, romantic love of the medieval church. An institution that brought so much beauty into the world cannot, I feel, be dismissed as entirely bad.

There were always, I think, clergy- in the tradition of Robin Hood's Friar Tuck- who stood with the poor. John Ball- one of the leaders of the peasant's revolt- was a priest.

Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

There still are "Robin Hood" clergy, out there. Consider the Jesuits of Latin America and their liberation theology -- not that said theology will be granted nihil-obstat status, anytime soon. At the same time JP II and Ronald Reagan were busily fellating each other there were Jesuit priests sitting on the central committee in post-revolutionary Nicaragua.

I love the medieval church as well. Come to that, I am deeply sympathetic to Catholicism, generally. If only they weren't such creepy, whiney, meddlesome, lying, unregenerate arseholes about damned near everything, these days.

Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's my personal belief that the Catholic Church was irretrievably damaged by the Reformation. After the initial theatrics of the Counter Reformation it lost the ability to produce good art, good architecture, good liturgy, good philosophy, good anything....

Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly. I think the Peace of Westphalia marks the effective end of the papacy and the Church has been staggering about blindly ever since.

Stop us being friends, my dear fellow?

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Unless you're secretly managing Wolverhampton as we speak, I can't imagine that's happening. (COYS!)

Re: Stop us being friends, my dear fellow?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good.

I would hate to think that the only people who were reading my stuff were people who agreed with me.

I'm happy to tell you I have no connections of any kind with Wolverhampton. As far as I'm concerned it's somewhere I hurry past as fast as I can on my way to the Cotswolds.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Hero worship: it's probably as old as human history. Goodness knows I've suffered from it from time to time, though far more as a fundamentalist Christian than I do now as an agnostic. (Perhaps that may be due more to my age than my spirituality/religion; I was far younger then.) It has always been easier to justify missing a secular celebrity appearance; they are only human, after all. But being near someone who supposedly has a direct connection to The Almighty God^TM, well, what person suffering from low self-esteem and hoping desperately to finally be seen as "special" would dare miss that? I sure wouldn't have, back then.

I'm not saying everyone who flocks to religious figures has low self-esteem; I am saying that is why I always wanted to be taken under the wing of such a person.

And I agree that blind faith is what begats tyranny. I am far less likely to take mistreatment now than I was when I believed in the supreme moral authority of this, that, or the other person. Back then I believed there was something wrong with me for not toeing the line. Now I believe there is something wrong with them for insisting I do.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of low self esteem being a factor in hero worship- but I can see how it fits.

The fact is no human being is worthy of our adulation- or at least not of our uncritical adulation.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

The fact is no human being is worthy of our adulation- or at least not of our uncritical adulation.

And that is something I still struggle to remember. The opposite side of the same coin (and something else I struggle to remember) is few, if any people are completely unworthy of our respect in every aspect. My thinking got shaped very, very early as black or white: a person is either good or evil, and never the twain shall meet. I know better, now, but I still experience cognitive dissonance whenever I find something admirable in someone I generally disagree with or something distasteful about someone I generally admire.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's it, isn't it!- human beings can always take us by surprise. Very bad people usually turn out to have redeeming virtues. Stalin, for instance- as monstrous a figure as any in the past 100 years- was in his youth the author of some delightful little poems. Hitler- as is well known- was kind to his dogs.

I've tried not to personalise my distaste for the Pope. He is, I believe, a delightful man in private- kind, charming, with great taste in music and very fond of cats.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Now that nearly two years have passed since the US Presidential elections, I am in the process of depersonalizing my distaste for President Obama. I no longer feel like cursing when I hear his name mentioned, for example. :-) I am mystified by how much I personalized my distaste for his politics during the campaign, however. Some kind of switch flipped in me when the second George Bush first took office, and politics on that level suddenly became intensely personal. Perhaps it has something to do with how the election went down, or perhaps it is because I was at a point of political awakening in my development. Whatever the case, politics has been personal since then, and it's kind of distressing, since I have little to no influence on things at that level.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I felt rather the same about Tony Blair- and Gordon Brown after him. I feel less personally involved with David Cameron, but that's because I expect so little of him. He is, after all, a Tory. With Blair and Brown- who were notionally on the left- there is a sense of betrayal.

Brown has slipped out of the limelight, but Blair just won't go away. I can hardly see his smug, smiling, prosperous face without feeling a surge of anger.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

great taste in music and very fond of cats

Just like Ernst Stavro Blofeld, then.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Even Bond villains are human.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Faith, IMHO usually begets tyranny. Start with the Crusades and work forward. No, start with the Chosen People moving into Canaan...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And secular tyrannies tend to turn into pseudo-religions- with the beloved leader (it could be Elizabeth I or Hitler or Chairman Mao) being elevated into some kind of a god.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I have to take issue with blaming religion for ALL the ills of the world. It seems to me that many an arch-villain believed in nothing other than himself or herself. It's when human plays god that evil takes over. Hitler, for example. Stalin, definitely. James Jones of Guyana notoriety.
The Big Brother mentality - that's what I'm talking about. What is the sad part? That people who have no convictions will fall for almost anything - whether it's a destructive cult or a wingnut political organization or any other totalitarian outfit.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I have to take issue with blaming religion for ALL the ills of the world.

Where did Poliphilo do that?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how true that is. A lot of good Catholics also became ardent Hitlerites. And a lot of good American Christians are also ardent tea-baggers. Having a strong faith doesn't innoculate you against political folly.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

It's a strange thing, but the visit just struck me as being rather irrelevant... This is odd, because even though I consider myself as lying between agnostiscm and paganism, when I went to our family funeral today, I still felt as if I was firmly rooted in the Christian tradition. It's where my culture comes from, and there's no escaping it.

You can't have Present or Future without the Past, even when it has so much baggage attached...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's true. I don't call myself a Christian these days, but there's a sense in which I can't stop being one. I am rooted in the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer and the Pilgrim's Progress.

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

His Holiness is a viscious little man who gives me the willies.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He looks a lot like Uncle Fester, doesn't he!

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

I would normally agree, but that seems a bit unfair to Fester, don't you think? Maybe with a lightbulb, though...

[sovay]

The habit of faith- the taking of things on trust- the deferring to a person dressed up like a Christmas tree just because he has a high-sounding title- is what begets tyranny.

Not only do I agree with this, it is very well said.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.