When I first proposed the concept for the club, I had intended that the second book would be Nelson Lee's Three Years Among the Comanches. I haven't been able to find an etext version of that, however, and I'd like to try to maintain as much of the club as free and readily accessible online, to ensure we can all participate.
When we discussed it last, several of you endorsed Plutarch, and several Chaucer. I'm going to tap Eric to try to pull a few selections from the works of Plutarch online -- it's a very long work taken as a whole, but Eric's expertise in these things Roman will serve us well.
While he's doing that, why don't we go ahead and do a couple of the Canterbury Tales? Based on our recent discussion of Chaucer, I'd like to do The Franklin's Tale and The Wife of Bath's Tale. These are not so very long -- we won't need weeks to read them -- so why not try to aim for those for next week, i.e., a week from this Sunday?
Following that, we'll tackle Plutarch, if Eric has prepared for us a good selection of lives to consider.
Grim's Hall BC Followup
Grim's Hall Book Club: Next Work
A Clash of Foodstuffs
A Clash of Cultures:
Mr. Brooks says the Tea Party members are "Wal-Mart Hippies." I take it he thinks that's a clever line, because I heard him repeat it while watching that clip from the Colbert show a few days ago.
So, what does it mean to shop at Wal-Mart?
In the grocery section of the Raynham supercenter, 45 minutes south of Boston, I had trouble believing I was in a Walmart. The very reasonable-looking produce, most of it loose and nicely organized, was in black plastic bins (as in British supermarkets, where the look is common; the idea is to make the colors pop). The first thing I saw, McIntosh apples, came from the same local orchard whose apples I’d just seen in the same bags at Whole Foods....Mr. Brooks is also wrong to say that the Tea Party has a 'mostly negative' agenda: it actually has a positive document that explains precisely how it wants the government to function. It's called "the Constitution of the United States." The thing is, these crazy Tea Party people take it seriously -- they really want the government to function just that way, Tenth Amendment and everything.
I started looking into how and why Walmart could be plausibly competing with Whole Foods, and found that its produce-buying had evolved beyond organics, to a virtually unknown program—one that could do more to encourage small and medium-size American farms than any number of well-meaning nonprofits, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with its new Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food campaign. Not even Fishman, who has been closely tracking Walmart’s sustainability efforts, had heard of it. “They do a lot of good things they don’t talk about,” he offered.
Jews/Tolkien Redux
Other Writers on the Jews and Tolkien:
Russ Douthat of the New York Times asks why Jews would want a Jewish Tolkien at all.
(Mark will thank me for not quoting Chesterton here, on nature religions: "A man loves Nature in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty. He washes at dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehow at the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot bull's blood, as did Julian the Apostate.")
That's fantasy, perhaps, but it's not heroic fantasy. It is the notion of heroism that bothers. It is interesting that so many would rather be monsters than dare be heroes. That says much about how difficult it is to be a hero, and how very difficult to believe in one.
It is harder, I think, for some people to believe in heroes than vampires. That is true even though they might meet a hero in the street, while vampires do not exist.
We discussed this issue a few days ago. The main thing seemed to me that the Jews aren't really bothered by "medieval" swords' having been borne against their ancestors, but rather by what their ancestors did with swords during Israel's heroic age. After the Holocaust, their own heroic tradition must seem alien and alienating; whereas Tolkien's tradition, because it was the root of Just War theory and the idea that heroes should protect noncombatants, would only make more sense after World War One and Two.
A few more writers have considered the question since, and some of them (not really Wonkette) have serious thoughts about the issue.
Gene Expression challenges the assertion that Jews don't write fantasy:
Is Christianity fundamentally more comfortable with the pagan than Judaism, as the author above asserts? I doubt it. The basics of Northern fantasy draw from a rich peasant cultural folk tradition which the Christian church ignored at best, and attempted to suppress at worst. The tradition was most robust in the regions which were Christianized last, so that relatively thick cultural memory remained from which to draw during the 19th century Romantic revival of national traditions. It is notable that Ireland in particular in the British Isles preserved its own mythic tradition; I chalk this up to the indigenous origins of Christianization, so that the culture-bearers of the past were not superseded by missionaries who dismissed the indigenous stories as being part & parcel of the pagan intellectual edifice. Tolkien was in part trying to create an Anglo-Saxon mythic cycle from fragments such as Beowulf and Scandinavian analogs. The Irish have no need of reconstruction. Culturally the Jews are very distant from their peasant origins, and naturally much more detached from their pagan past than Northern Europeans. For the past 1,000 years Ashkenazi Jews have been an urban minority, as insulated from the world of faerie as Christian priests. No wonder that Jewish authors, such as Neil Gaiman, draw upon Northern motifs. How popular is urban fantasy as a distinct genre anyway?
Russ Douthat of the New York Times asks why Jews would want a Jewish Tolkien at all.
But once you add up these insights, they jostle uneasily with Weingrad’s professed desire for a Jewish Tolkien, or a Jewish Lewis. What he seems to have demonstrated is that modern fantasy depends on Christianity, or at least a Christian-pagan synthesis of some kind, for its forms, conventions, and traditions. This suggests that you could write a novel that embodies a kind of Jewish critique of fantasy — in much the same way that China Miéville’s novels are a kind of Marxist critique of Tolkien, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Mists of Avalon” was a feminist critique of Arthurian-based fantasy, Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy is an atheist’s critique of C.S. Lewis, and so on. (And indeed, Weingrad’s essay reads Lev Grossman’s new novel “The Magicians” as a kind of crypto-Jewish critique of Narnia and/or Harry Potter.) But the genre itself will remain irreducably Christian, and a truly Judaic fantasy would have to belong to, or invent, a different genre altogether.Those two posts seem to run straight at each other! So-called "urban fantasy" is a new idea, actually; we used to call that genre "horror," because it was meant to be horrible. Lately it has become fashionable not to dread vampires, but to envy them. The werewolf was supposed to be a symbol of what it would be like for man to lose his humanity, and be turned back into a beast without reason or self-control. It has been converted, lately, a symbol of what it might mean for a man to be more in harmony with nature. Today we are asked to imagine the joy of running down a deer under a full moon, and drinking its blood.
(Mark will thank me for not quoting Chesterton here, on nature religions: "A man loves Nature in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty. He washes at dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehow at the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot bull's blood, as did Julian the Apostate.")
That's fantasy, perhaps, but it's not heroic fantasy. It is the notion of heroism that bothers. It is interesting that so many would rather be monsters than dare be heroes. That says much about how difficult it is to be a hero, and how very difficult to believe in one.
It is harder, I think, for some people to believe in heroes than vampires. That is true even though they might meet a hero in the street, while vampires do not exist.
Americaland
Americaland:
(The underlying tune is "Orpheus in the Underworld," which was used in Can-can shows across the West.)
(Note the rifles and dog sleds!)
This is a little bit shocking, like discovering that you've been made into a god by superstitious islanders in the South Seas.
A fertility god, at that!
When we lived in China, there was a theme park near Hang Zhou that was called "Americaland." It was supposed to be a place you could visit to see what that strange place called America was like. No one would ever give us directions as to how to get there, probably embarrassed about what the stereotypes would reveal.
It's not only the Chinese who have these dreams:
Americaland is real place for British writers, it is built from thousands of fragments of American TV, films, music, comics and other cultural artefacts. It’s a place filled with 1950’s dinners and long desolate highways among other things. And its just as imaginary as a Britain filled with red telephone boxes and bowler hatted business men.And Swedes! I somehow entirely missed this band called "the Rednex," whom I found tonight entirely by accident while searching for a traditional tune. They are nothing except a Swedish projection on American mythology, especially the mythology of the West.
(The underlying tune is "Orpheus in the Underworld," which was used in Can-can shows across the West.)
(Note the rifles and dog sleds!)
This is a little bit shocking, like discovering that you've been made into a god by superstitious islanders in the South Seas.
A fertility god, at that!
ARMA
ARMA Art, I:
The ARMA has quite a gallery of Medieval and Renaissance art associated with questions of battle. Here is one:
The clear effect of even single-hand sword blows against steel helmets. In the center a sword splits the top of a helm from behind. On the right two swords hack into the sides of helmets while a spiked mace delivers a crushing blow. Notice also the portions of each sword (their center-of percussion) that does most of the striking is invariably the last third to second-half of blade. One rider in the center has an arrow in his cheek that appears to have hit behind his mail coif. On the lower right, a long axe cuts powerfully against a rider’s neck and back of the head, pulling him off his mount. On the ground one fallen fighter has deep shoulder and head wounds while another has a deep cut on the neck. Four different types of helmet are visible. All the shields appear to be medium sized flat heaters. From the gruesome Maciejowski Bible, c. 1250.
Father Sends
My Father Sends...
...a story about a cowboy.
A cowboy from Texas attends a social function where Barack Obama is trying to gather support for his Health Plan. Once he discovers the cowboy is from President Bush's home area, he starts to belittle him by talking in a southern drawl and single syllable words.
As he was doing that, he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head. The cowboy says, "Havin' some problem with them circle flies?"
Obama stopped talking and said, "Well, yes, if that's what they're called, but I've never heard of circle flies."
"Well, sir," the cowboy replies, "Circle flies hang around ranches. They're called circle flies because they're almost always found circling around the back end of a horse."
"Oh," Obama replies as he goes back to rambling.
But, a moment later he stops and bluntly asks, "Are you calling me a horse's ass?"
"No, sir," the cowboy replies, "I have too much respect for the citizens of this country to call their president a horse's ass."
"That's a good thing," Obama responds and begins rambling on once more.
After a long pause, the cowboy in his Texas drawl says, "Sure is hard to fool them flies, though."
Chivalry & Solidarity in Game Theory
"Chivalry & Solidarity in Ultimatum Games"
An interesting game theory experiment from 2001 appears to show that women find it very easy to come to agreements with other women; but men are far readier to accept offers from women than from other men. The two effects are noteworthy, though painting the woman/woman effect as "solidarity" seems a bit odd. It's more likely that they understand each other, and have similar desires to come to agreement; whereas men, who understand each other, want to compete.
By the same token, "chivalry" is the wrong term here; this tendency describes all men who participated. It would have been very great good luck to gather only chivalrous men into the study!
When a woman is his partner in the game, however, a man becomes much less competitive: he is ready to accede to her requests almost at the same rate that women agree to accept/agree with either men or mixed groups. Men facing other men, however, accept offers only if they are much more generous.
The graph on page 184 is the main thing, I think. It shows that actual results are fairer in men/men pairings; but agreement is far more common in female/female pairings. That may mean that women are more interested in agreement than fairness (or gain); but it also may mean that men are more willing to resist authority if they feel it is not treating them fairly. After all, the proposer is in the position of authority where the resource division is involved; all the respondent can do is accept or reject the proposal. Men would rather punish unfair actors than seek agreement, even if that means gaining nothing rather than gaining an unfairly small amount.
Unless, that is, they are receiving the proposal from a woman: then, they're much readier to be treated unfairly!
Another way of saying that, though, is that they are more willing to accept female authority -- fair or unfair -- than they are to accept unfair male authority. From another man, they will only accept fairness.
This only treats initial acceptance, of course. One might later resent being treated unfairly, even if this proves that -- in some cases -- one is readier to be treated unfairly. It's also interesting that both men and women are readier to be treated unfairly by women than by men.
The Cathedral of Dawn:
(H/t: Lars Walker.)
A find in archæology is startling because of its age, but not because of its purpose.
[U]nder our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot—the exact spot—where humans began that ascent.This we have heard before, and wisely.
Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn't just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization....
Göbekli Tepe—the name in Turkish for "potbelly hill"—lays art and religion squarely at the start of that journey.
Even in trying to prove that religion grew slowly from rudeThere are a few men who have seen so clearly as to be able to predict both the future and the past. Chesterton was one.
or irrational sources, they begin their proof with the first men
who were men. But their own proof only proves that the men
who were already men were already mystics. They used the rude
and irrational elements as only men and mystics can use them.
We come back once more to the simple truth; that at sometime
too early for these critics to trace, a transition had occurred
to which bones and stones cannot in their nature bear witness;
and man became a living soul.
***
The modern man looking at the most ancient origins has been
like a man watching for daybreak in a strange land; and expecting
to see that dawn breaking behind bare uplands or solitary peaks.
But that dawn is breaking behind the black bulk of great
cities long builded and lost for us in the original night;
colossal cities like the houses of giants, in which even
the carved ornamental animals are taller than the palm-trees;
in which the painted portrait can be twelve times the size
of the man; with tombs like mountains of man set four-square
and pointing to the stars; with winged and bearded bulls
standing and staring enormous at the gates of temples;
standing still eternally as if a stamp would shake the world.
The dawn of history reveals a humanity already civilized.
Perhaps it reveals a civilisation already old.
(H/t: Lars Walker.)
Kitten
"That Bull Wouldn't Hurt A Kitten."
All of which reminds me of a story. It is meant with no disrespect, told in this context. As I said, it is the essentially dangerous nature of the bull that makes it honorable to deal with bulls; so this story is no insult, but a blessing.
It's part of the honor of those who work with large and powerful animals that there is a certain danger in the work. Frequently we play that down, amused at those less experienced with the creatures' strength and willfulness; but the danger never passes.
Ricky Weinhold, of Reinholds, was attacked Saturday by a 1-ton bull on a farm where he leased barn space in Wernersville, about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia, Berks County Deputy Coroner Terri Straka said. The son of the farm's owner found his body Sunday in an outdoor pen.Well, bulls are dangerous. Mr. Weinhold doubtless knew that, and gloried in what he did. Anyone might die in a conflict with a bull, and all must die sooner or later. At least here is a man who lived.
The property owners had encouraged Weinhold to get rid of the bull, Straka said. She said the same animal believed responsible for the weekend attack rammed Weinhold last summer, breaking several of his ribs.
"He's been known to be temperamental," Straka said. "The property owners just didn't trust him. They told Ricky, 'This bull has got a bad disposition."'
All of which reminds me of a story. It is meant with no disrespect, told in this context. As I said, it is the essentially dangerous nature of the bull that makes it honorable to deal with bulls; so this story is no insult, but a blessing.
A Federal officer stops at a ranch in Montana, and talks with an old rancher. He tells the rancher, 'I need to inspect your ranch for illegally grown drugs. The old rancher says, 'Okay, but do not go in that field over there.'Of course, in real life a Federal officer needs a warrant as well. Not, that is, that bulls are any more impressed with the one than with the other.
The officer verbally explodes saying, 'Mister, I have the authority of the Federal Government with me.' Reaching into his rear pants pocket, he removes his badge and proudly displays it to the farmer. 'See this badge? This badge means I am allowed to go wherever I wish...on any land. No questions asked or answers given. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?'
The old rancher nods politely, apologizes, and goes about his chores. A short time later, the old rancher hears loud screams and sees the officer running for his life chased close behind by the rancher's prize bull. With every step the bull is gaining ground on the officer, and it seems likely that he'll get "horned" before he reaches safety.
The old rancher throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs..... "Your badge! Show him your badge!"
Zebras and Mules
Zebras and Mules:
Of course, all this turns on the question of whether you could really cleverly disguise a mule to look like a zebra. Compare and contrast:
More contrasting than comparing, isn't there? From the shape of the ears to the general confirmation, there's no comparison. Of course, you can breed a donkey to a zebra, and then you get something that looks a lot like a cleverly disguised mule:
But it's neither a mule nor a zebra. It's a zonkey.
The real answer to the question, though, is not "Can I really know if I'm looking at a zonkey or a zebra?" Rather, the real question is, "Whose job is it to be able to know how to tell the difference?" The thought experiment errs by assuming that just because person X can't tell the difference, knowledge isn't possible. It is possible, though, for the zoologist; and he's probably the one who put the sign on the cage. So, can person X know that he's looking at a not-mule? Yes, if the zoologist can be trusted.
Bill Whittle wrote about that, once. That's why the climate-change apostasy is so disturbing: it's a direct assault on that web of trust upon which civilization is founded.
How much can you know by deduction from facts you already know? A famous thought experiment ponders the question:
Suppose you are at a zoo in ordinary circumstances standing in front of a cage marked ‘zebra’; the animal in the cage is a zebra, and you believe zeb, the animal in the cage is a zebra, because you have zebra-in-a-cage visual percepts. It occurs to you that zeb entails not-mule, it is not the case that the animal in the cage is a cleverly disguised mule rather than a zebra. You then believe not-mule by deducing it from zeb. What do you know? You know zeb, since, if zeb were false, you would not have zebra-in-a-cage visual percepts; instead, you would have empty-cage percepts, or aardvark-in-a-cage percepts, or the like. Do you know not-mule? If not-mule were false, you would still have zebra-in-a-cage visual percepts (and you would still believe zeb, and you would still believe not-mule by deducing it from zeb). So you do not know not-mule. But notice that we have:Knowledge by deduction would normally permit you to reason to not-mule; this experiment suggests we may not be able to do that with confidence.
(a) You know zeb
(b) You believe not-mule by recognizing that zeb entails not-mule
(c) You do not know not-mule.
Of course, all this turns on the question of whether you could really cleverly disguise a mule to look like a zebra. Compare and contrast:
More contrasting than comparing, isn't there? From the shape of the ears to the general confirmation, there's no comparison. Of course, you can breed a donkey to a zebra, and then you get something that looks a lot like a cleverly disguised mule:
But it's neither a mule nor a zebra. It's a zonkey.
The real answer to the question, though, is not "Can I really know if I'm looking at a zonkey or a zebra?" Rather, the real question is, "Whose job is it to be able to know how to tell the difference?" The thought experiment errs by assuming that just because person X can't tell the difference, knowledge isn't possible. It is possible, though, for the zoologist; and he's probably the one who put the sign on the cage. So, can person X know that he's looking at a not-mule? Yes, if the zoologist can be trusted.
Bill Whittle wrote about that, once. That's why the climate-change apostasy is so disturbing: it's a direct assault on that web of trust upon which civilization is founded.
Tolkien Wasn't Jewish
Tolkien and Judaism:
The investigation is an interesting one.
Consider Simone Weil's War and the Iliad as a counterexample. Weil was Jewish by ancestry, though she became a Christian mystic after a religious experience at Assisi. Her work is characterized as "an inspired analysis of Homer's epic that presents a nightmare vision of combat as a machine in which all humanity is lost." She actually calls it "the only true epic the Occident possesses," standing head and shoulders over all the other great poems and tales of the West because it treated the slain with the same sympathy as the slayers.
It may be the only poem that ever has, not merely in the West. Yet it is no accident that Tolkien's Catholicism could stand as a root for a recovery of the heroic tradition, even in the wake of World War II. It was the Catholic tradition that gave rise to the concept that the hero defends the innocent as well as fighting his enemies; and that their women and children are not legitimate targets.
It is not, then, simply that the Jews of the Middle Ages suffered from the swords of knights -- though they certainly did, at times. It is that modern heroic literature is rooted in a concept of what it means to be a hero that is originally Catholic; it is not rooted in Jewish epics, in the ancient Greek epics, any more than it is rooted in Chinese or "Aryan" epics. If Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were the first to pull it forward, it is because they were closest to the garden in which it grew.
Let that not be the last word! The modern world needs heroes, and it needs heroes from precisely this tradition. If Jewish writers want to tackle heroic writing, this is the road to take: one that views their enemies as potential friends, and their enemies' innocents as sacred. Anyone who can write in that tradition will be improving our world: we need far more of that vision than we've had.
Unfortunately, the essay ends pointed in another direction. The final example, of what the author hopes is an emerging tradition of Jewish heroic fiction, is merely self-obsessed.
For Tolkien's tradition, it was both God and one's beloved that one served, in the hope of love. As Wolfram von Eschenbach's Willhelm said to his knights, "There are two rewards that await us: heaven, and the recognition of noble women." For those who wish to write in another tradition, you can speak of service to the ethic of heroism instead of service to God; you can speak of service to any beloved person or community. Yet it is service that defines.
Did you know that there was talk of a Nazi edition of The Hobbit?
When the publishing firm of Ruetten & Loening was negotiating with J. R. R. Tolkien over a German translation of The Hobbit in 1938, they demanded that Tolkien provide written assurance that he was an Aryan. Tolkien chastised the publishers for “impertinent and irrelevant inquiries,” and—ever the professor of philology— lectured them on the proper meaning of the term: “As far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects.” As to being Jewish, Tolkien regretted that “I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.”The article goes on to wonder why there are no Jews in the top authors of fantasy literature. Tolkien's remark about giftedness is clearly on point: the author of this piece can unselfconsciously wonder about "an entire literary genre—perhaps the only such genre—in which Jewish practitioners are strikingly rare." Who besides the Jews could honestly claim that there was only one literary genre in which they were rare? Not many!
The investigation is an interesting one.
To answer the question of why Jews do not write fantasy, we should begin by acknowledging that the conventional trappings of fantasy, with their feudal atmosphere and rootedness in rural Europe, are not especially welcoming to Jews, who were too often at the wrong end of the medieval sword. Ever since the Crusades, Jews have had good reasons to cast doubt upon the romance of knighthood, and this is an obstacle in a genre that takes medieval chivalry as its imaginative ideal.It goes deeper than this, though, if I may say so. Jewish thinkers have very often been suspicious not merely of feudal or medieval ethics, but of heroic ethics. I suspect the reason has to do not nearly so much with our history or literature, as with their own.
It is not only that Jews are ambivalent about a return to an imaginary feudal past. It is even more accurate to say that most Jews have been deeply and passionately invested in modernity, and that history, rather than otherworldliness, has been the very ground of the radical and transformative projects of the modern Jewish experience.
After the battle is won, the Israelites capture the five fleeing Ammonite kings. Joshua drags the monarchs before him and orders his generals to "put your feet on the neck of these kings." As they stand on the kings' throats, Joshua tells his commanders, "Do not be afraid or dismayed: Be strong and courageous; for thus the Lord will do to all the enemies against whom you fight." Then, Joshua himself executes the kings and hangs their bodies in the trees. This episode is so proudly barbaric that it's painful to read. It's clear that we readers are supposed to take the Israelites' side here—they're conquering the Promised Land, they're God's Chosen People, the Ammonites are vile statue-worshippers, etc.—but the unapologetic savagery is hard to bear. This probably reveals a profound weakness in me, but I imagined myself—in the way one always imagines oneself inside a book—not as one of my own ancestors, the victorious Israelite generals, but as a heathen king with a boot on my neck, moments from a brutal death.Read that in the echo of the Holocaust, and you can begin to understand why there is little interest in writing Jewish heroic fiction. The tradition they would naturally draw on leads directly to a soul-shaking conflict, for their own heroes treated the women and children of fallen nations in a way that has to be horrifyingly familiar.
Joshua and the Israelites have been doing nothing but killing in this book—killing by the thousands, killing women, killing children, killing animals—but it is the death of these five men, who aren't even innocents, that inspires the most revulsion. There's an obvious reason for this, one Stalin understood: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." All the other killings in Joshua are mass killings. This is the only time the book of Joshua gives us death in a tight close-up, and it's appalling.
The rest of the chapter is gruesome, but in the statistical way. Joshua sweeps from city to city across southern Canaan, sacking them one after another:
Joshua took Makkedah on that day, and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword; he utterly destroyed every person in it; he left no one remaining …
Then Joshua passed on … to Libnah … He struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it; he left no one remaining in it …
To Lacshish … He took it on the second day, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it …
Gezer … Joshua struck him and his people, leaving him no survivors …
To Eglon … [They] struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it he utterly destroyed that day … etc. etc.
The worst parts of Leviticus seem positively joyful compared with this smug roster of slaughter.
Consider Simone Weil's War and the Iliad as a counterexample. Weil was Jewish by ancestry, though she became a Christian mystic after a religious experience at Assisi. Her work is characterized as "an inspired analysis of Homer's epic that presents a nightmare vision of combat as a machine in which all humanity is lost." She actually calls it "the only true epic the Occident possesses," standing head and shoulders over all the other great poems and tales of the West because it treated the slain with the same sympathy as the slayers.
It may be the only poem that ever has, not merely in the West. Yet it is no accident that Tolkien's Catholicism could stand as a root for a recovery of the heroic tradition, even in the wake of World War II. It was the Catholic tradition that gave rise to the concept that the hero defends the innocent as well as fighting his enemies; and that their women and children are not legitimate targets.
The Peace and Truce of God was a medieval European movement of the Catholic Church that applied spiritual sanctions in order to limit the violence of private war in feudal society.This was the tradition that invented the idea of loving enemies even as you fought them. It was this tradition that first introduced the idea a warrior could swear himself to the service of a lady, rather than regarding her as a mere prize or slave. (Contrast part 1 of Mr. Plotz's essay on the Book of Joshua, wherein women are normally prostitutes!)
It is not, then, simply that the Jews of the Middle Ages suffered from the swords of knights -- though they certainly did, at times. It is that modern heroic literature is rooted in a concept of what it means to be a hero that is originally Catholic; it is not rooted in Jewish epics, in the ancient Greek epics, any more than it is rooted in Chinese or "Aryan" epics. If Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were the first to pull it forward, it is because they were closest to the garden in which it grew.
Let that not be the last word! The modern world needs heroes, and it needs heroes from precisely this tradition. If Jewish writers want to tackle heroic writing, this is the road to take: one that views their enemies as potential friends, and their enemies' innocents as sacred. Anyone who can write in that tradition will be improving our world: we need far more of that vision than we've had.
Unfortunately, the essay ends pointed in another direction. The final example, of what the author hopes is an emerging tradition of Jewish heroic fiction, is merely self-obsessed.
[T]heir deepest struggles are expressed in the language of contemporary self-actualization. “Before I can return with you to any human realm and be who you expect me to be,” Yonatan tells the empress with whom he has fallen in love, “I have to deal with who I am.” The empress meanwhile learns that, to fulfill her own magical quest, she must discover that “the abyss is within you … you must jump into the depths within yourself.” Yanai’s former involvement in Israel’s New Age culture—she wrote for a prominent New Age magazine, spent time in a Buddhist monastery in Japan, and edited a volume of literary erotica by women before turning to fantasy—makes itself felt here.The author says that he would hesistate to give the book to a teenager, because it contains nothing they don't already know. Self-esteem is not the reward the hero seeks. Honor is sacrifice. It is repaid not with self-love but with the love of those you have served.
For Tolkien's tradition, it was both God and one's beloved that one served, in the hope of love. As Wolfram von Eschenbach's Willhelm said to his knights, "There are two rewards that await us: heaven, and the recognition of noble women." For those who wish to write in another tradition, you can speak of service to the ethic of heroism instead of service to God; you can speak of service to any beloved person or community. Yet it is service that defines.
The Declaration of Arbroath
The Declaration of Arbroath:
In an interview with a Tea Party founding member, there is this quote on what to do with certain celebrity figures trying to associate themselves:
She, like many Tea Party members, resists the idea of a Tea Party leader — “there are a thousand leaders,” she says.That's the spirit! Robert the Bruce would have understood, since his supporters had the same opinion:
Glenn Beck? “He can be a Tea Partier, but it’s not like the movement bends to him.”
Sarah Palin? She will have to campaign on Tea Party ideas if she wants Tea Party support, Ms. Carender said, adding, “And if she were elected, she’d have to govern on those principles or be fired.”
Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand. Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.It must not be enough that a person says the right things; we need them to do the right things. These things will be hard, but it is time to start taking apart the anti-constitutional parts of the Federal government, and restoring the Constitutional order. The Federal government certainly has a role, but it is a role limited by enumerated powers, balanced and checked.