You Have To Laugh
Sep. 17th, 2010 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloThe 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.
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.
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Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?
Date: 2010-09-18 12:55 pm (UTC)At the risk of allowing learning to intrude upon prejudice:
Date: 2010-09-18 02:57 pm (UTC)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:
Date: 2010-09-19 12:21 pm (UTC)I find that unlikely, granting the sort of thing that must be yr daily reading.
Date: 2010-09-19 03:47 pm (UTC)Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?
Date: 2010-09-18 05:21 pm (UTC)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?
Date: 2010-09-19 12:19 pm (UTC)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?
Date: 2010-09-19 01:18 pm (UTC)Re: Sorry, the ODI intervened. Where were we?
Date: 2010-09-20 11:16 am (UTC)