Category Archives: Culture

Melekh HaKavod

Posted on by under Culture, General Articles

And do you trust your king?

autumn bruh

Even if you find this post ponderous, nerdy, esoteric, or gender non-inclusive, at least you get to see this dope picture, right?

Kings hold such a grip on our imagination and our history books that we have stopped wondering why they’re so important.

I’m not in the business of telling people what they already know, but forgive this reminder: kings are everywhere. Our movies, our books, our card games, our expressions, our artwork – no position in human history is so famous, so recognizable, so revered as that of king. And because of this saturation of kings, ranging from Babar to Elvis, we don’t stop to ask ourselves why we care so much about kings, and what our idea of kings reveals to us about ourselves.

Despite the astounding number of bad kings in world history, and even considering the number of times a king has been the bad guy in works of fiction, the human imagination remains enraptured by the good and noble king.

The groundwork for these concepts of kingliness might be laid out by examining the glorious amalgamation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and Peter Jackson’s screen adaptations of these works. These stories contain a number of kings, of which I believe Aragorn, Thorin, and Theoden to be the most important.

One of the biggest storylines in The Lord of the Rings that gets set aside when people oversimplify the story to “short guys who smoke and eat a lot go on a walk to chuck a ring into a volcano” is Aragorn’s journey to claim his right as the king of Gondor. This oversight is a little silly, considering the fact one of the books is entitled The Return of the King. But, nonetheless, the importance of Aragorn becoming a king, resuming a bloodline long bereft of lordship, extends beyond his importance of being a hero who takes care of his friends. Hunting orcs with Legolas and Gimli is one thing, but taking his place in a great line of kings is on another level entirely. At first, Aragorn’s place in the story might appear as simple as a good guy with a swift sword, but a more careful reading and viewing makes it pretty clear that it really matters that he is the heir to the throne. That’s part of what makes Boromir’s oath to him so powerful, it’s why the men in the mountain follow him to Minas Tirith, and it’s why his march to the Black Gate and his pre-battle speech are so meaningful.

It’s a similar story for Thorin, King Under the Mountain. Jackson subtly wove Aragorn’s lordship into the first trilogy, but in the Hobbit films he pulled no punches in emphasizing the potential monarchy of Thorin, heir to the throne of an exiled people. In An Unexpected Journey, when Balin recounts the Battle of Azanulbizar, and ends by saying of Thorin, “There is one I could follow. There is one I could call king,” it matters that Balin endorses Thorin to be a king, specifically. Like Aragorn, this is not about being a general, or a captain, or just a really cool guy. Generals and captains have their own legacy and lore, but it isn’t the same as saying king. As a result, Balin’s line is one of the movie’s first nods at what will become perhaps the defining moment of that trilogy – Thorin’s charge out of the mountain in The Battle of the Five Armies. Look, if Thorin leading his company out of the mountain, Dain yelling “To the king! To the king!” and Gandalf telling Bilbo “They are rallying to the king,” doesn’t evoke some sort of emotion in you, I’m sorry to hear that you’re missing out. It’s moments like that that make me believe in the Stendhal Syndrome. And, again, it matters that Thorin is a king – not just a really cool guy. It’s why a charge led by 13 dwarves turns the tide of a battle – it’s a charge led by the king. And, if you think that scene is a pandering Hollywood/Peter Jackson-big-screen-fanboy moment, think again. Just what do you think Tolkien had in mind when he wrote:

Suddenly there was a great shout, and from the Gate came a trumpet call. They had forgotten Thorin! Part of the wall, moved by levers, fell outward with a crash into the pool. Out leapt the King under the Mountain, and his companions followed him. Hood and cloak were gone; they were in shining armour, and red light leapt from their eyes. In the gloom the great dwarf gleamed like gold in a dying fire. Rocks were buried down from on high by the goblins above; but they held on, leapt down to the falls’ foot, and rushed forward to battle. Wolf and rider fell or fled before them. Thorin wielded his axe with mighty strokes, and nothing seemed to harm him.
“To me! To me! Elves and Men! To me! O my kinsfolk!” he cried, and his voice shook like a horn in the valley. Down, heedless of order, rushed all the dwarves of Dain to his help. Down too came many of the Lake-men, for Bard could not restrain them; and out upon the other side came many of the spearmen of the elves. Once again the goblins were stricken in the valley; and they were piled in heaps till Dale was dark and hideous with their corpses.

That scene is not the unfaithful work of Jackson (though there are plenty such scenes). And it works precisely because Thorin has completed his journey to take up a long-lost throne.

To draw one more example from Tolkien, King Theoden may actually be the most impressive of all. When we first meet Theoden, he is a weak and failing old man, but he is a king nonetheless. But even after being freed from the curse on his mind, his aging mind and body must grapple with tough decisions that will directly affect the fate of his people. And it’s a bleak situation, but Theoden’s people trust him –

“Who am I, Gamling?”

“You are our king, sire.”

“And do you trust your king?”

“Your men, my lord, will follow you to whatever end.”

And in the events that follow in Theoden’s story, he validates this trust in moments that call for unparalleled valor, first leading them for wrath and ruin at Helm’s Deep and then playing the central role in my personal favorite moment of the third movie – the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Again, these moments are not all total figments of Jackson’s imagination – read the books. And I think it’s because Theoden is such a heroic king that his character has been one that has kept a special place in my love of Tolkien’s works. It matters that an aging man, with everything stacked against him, and a bunch of people counting on him, steps up when it matters and leads his people with courage in a way that only a born king could. It’s why Eomer says “To the king!” when they charge into the valley at Helm’s Deep, not “Charge!” and it’s why I end my articles with “Forth now, and fear no darkness!”

But this extends well beyond the world of Tolkien. Other creative minds have utilized the power of a king bravely leading his men into battle, inspiring them to do more than they ever thought possible. We are not far removed from St. Crispin’s Day, on which Henry V rallies his men with one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches (“We few, we happy few…”), coming in the same play as “Once more into the breach.” It matters that the freaking King of England is saying those things to his men, rather than some other military leader. Even in a movie like 300, you can’t tell me it doesn’t matter at least a little that Leonidas is the King of Sparta, not just another badass. It’s one of the (many) reasons that Themistokles is not nearly as compelling in Rise of an Empire as Leonidas is in the first movie.

But there’s even enough aura around the idea of a king that the king might not even have to demonstrate this martial skill in order to inspire.

For example, the character of King Baldwin IV in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, portrayed by Edward Norton, strikes a particularly kingly figure in a surprising fashion. It’s implied that Baldwin has had great victories before, but by the time of the film’s events, he is a masked leper that might seem more suited to the chess board than to the battlefield. But yet his character still commands respect, and there’s a very clear sense in that movie of how important his role as king is. So much so that it’s pretty freaking boss when he gives the order to assemble the army and he leads the men out to meet Saladin. So much so that Baldwin’s character has a few YouTube tributes – pretty remarkable considering he’s a fairly minor character in a movie widely regarded as a bust.

And, as Henry, Leonidas, and Baldwin show, these notions don’t just come from the minds of fanciful writers. History continues to tell the story of great kings and their heroic deeds.

So, to recap before we take this to the next level:

  1. Kings are ubiquitous in our imagination and have a very potent effect on our mind and emotions
  2. The inspiring traits of a good king are particular to kings; kings are inspiring in different ways than captains, generals, etc.
  3. Part of the reason for this is that king’s are “meant” to be kings – not just anyone can put on a crown and fulfill the role of monarch
  4. Courageously leading men into battle is perhaps a king’s finest hour
  5. But even just a strong presence can inspire

Now what I’m about to do will upset you if you’re one of those people who can look Dostoevsky in the face and say “Your overt use of Christianity to resolve Crime and Punishment undermines the rest of your genius.”

I think we were made to be this way. I think our admiration of the great and noble king tells us something about ourselves that points us to the message of the King of Kings.

From a literary and historical standpoint, the Bible is very concerned with kings, both good and bad. The lives of a number of kings are well-documented, including their heroism in war. The Bible’s authors write of how King ____ went out to face King _____, emphasizing the ruler’s place as commander in chief. When they became discontented with judges and prophets, the Israelites stopped trusting in God’s plan and demanded that the prophet Samuel anoint a king, a move that changed the course of Israel’s history.

Despite Israel’s disobedience, the authors of the Bible describe ways in which Yahweh guided kings to great victories, and gifted some of these men with the ability to inspire greatness in others. However, kings ultimately fell short – some had famous vices and sins, some were flat out bad men, and in the end Israel and Judah were conquered by foreign rulers. But, as Biblical prophecy and history shows us, ruler after ruler eventually meets their end. The Babylonian Empire gave way to the Persians, the Persians to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Romans, and so on and so forth.

Yet the Jewish people still expected the Messiah to come in the form of a great military monarch, one who would ride into Jerusalem on a mighty warhorse. Instead, they got a humble Jewish carpenter, who walked about Judea preaching a message of love and forgiveness. They got a savior who rode to the sight of his greatest victory on a donkey. Instead of a crown of gold and jewels, he wore a crown of thorns.

But he is no less a king. In fact, the Bible calls Jesus the King of Kings. For he, like the kings we so admire, fills a role that no one else could, he takes on the toughest of challenges and the heaviest of burdens, he conquers the most dangerous of enemies, he speaks words of inspiration and calls us to be courageous and have faith, in his name is power, great deeds are done in love for him, and, as a nice added bonus, he’s part of a long lost line of kings.

So what do I think we learn from Tolkien, Jackson, Scott, Snyder, Shakespeare, Branagh, Caesar, the chroniclers, the Gospel-writers, the Apostle, Lewis, Mallory, Charlemagne, and Jesus of Nazareth?

We long for a king. We are made for a king.

As much as we yearn to be free and to celebrate our individualism, I think there is an equally powerful force in the human spirit to be ruled. Not to be subjugated, or oppressed, or captivated, or ordered about by a tyrant – indeed, I think the bad king is one of our most potent fears – but to be led by someone that is greater than we could aspire to be. To be guided by one who assuredly leads the way. To serve someone worthy of honor and glory and praise.

We might go to the ends of the earth for an inspirational leader like Jeanne d’Arc or Richard Winters, but we would try to go even further for a leader born to wear the king’s crown.

But, just as the people of faith in Hebrews 11 were longing for “a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” we are longing for a better ruler (that is, a heavenly one). This impression upon our souls leaves us with a recognition of great earthly rulers, and these men instill in us a version of the inspiration received from Christ. And this innate love for great kings points to the love and to the king that can overcome anything.

It is when a person casts off their desire to be the master of their fate and the captain of their soul, when they recognize the futility of their efforts, when they deny their longing to rule over their own life, that they cast their eyes to heaven and see the one true king, the king of glory, and say,

“There is one I could follow. There is one I could call king.”

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

– Peter

The Tao of Christianity

Posted on by under Culture

 Seeking faith and wisdom in the writings of Lao Tzu.taijitu

There is a voice on the wind that calls for what someone termed “inter-faith dialogue.” That means different things to different people. For some, it is a cloak and dagger effort for conversion. For others, it is an academic exercise in perspective expansion. There are those who want to use it to water down every belief in the catch-all of universalism. And there are those who are not so much seeking a religious result, but a cultural one, hoping that a sit-down between rabbis and imams will not produce a resolution in theology, but rather a political or cultural shift that brings about peace and prosperity. I’m not sure of everyone’s agenda, but somehow inter-faith dialogue got into the water and there are some people who have put a great amount of importance on it, even if it’s rather unclear what the endgame of it all is.

I suppose I don’t fit into any of the above groups, although I am into academia and I’m all for peace and prosperity. But the problem I run into with this notion is that, as I understand it, inter-faith dialogue asks me to put an inordinate amount of value on common ground, when what really defines religions is how they are different. Put simply, I believe what makes Christianity different is that, while other faiths say “This is the way,” Jesus says “I am the way.” And, while I would like for people of other religions to also put their faith in Jesus Christ, I think there is a silliness to asking religious people to reserve the possibility that they are catastrophically wrong. Religion is important exactly because it is, well, important. Any religious person who believes other religions can also be “the way” are not, in my flawed human opinion, really religious. This doesn’t mean we have to fight wars over disagreements, but I believe religious people should value dearly whatever it is that they believe. In very John Owen-sy style, I’m just going to say that making defenses for all the counter-arguments that surely sprang up with that last statement “is not my present intention to demonstrate.”

But I think that, while still maintaining that the core of my belief system is the correct way of faith, there is still something to be gained from studying other religions. And by study I mean not simply learning that Muhammad was born in such and such year and had a revelation at such and such city. Being able to run down a few facts about major world religions is not of substantial value (although it’s better than nothing). What I mean by study is to actually read a sacred text and consider its teachings. And sometimes this might include talking with someone else about their religious beliefs **INTERFAITH DIALOGUE!**

I was drawn to this idea initially as I pondered a question that I think should unsettle any religious person given enough thought: If my religion is the right one, then why do people of other religions seem to find peace and fulfillment in their religion too?

There are a range of possibilities, but the one that I settled on was this: God’s fingerprints are everywhere, and if someone looks beyond themselves for answers, they may find the comfort that comes even with finding God’s shadow. Yahweh is too great not to be known. The heavens and the earth are his craftsmanship. Cicero is credited with saying that “Nature itself has imprinted on all the idea of god.” While the only true bridge between humanity and God is the god-man Jesus, the greatest revelation of God, perhaps it is possible for people seeking Allah or Vishnu to learn some of the truths of god using the spirit – so to speak – of the natural world as well as some sort of indwelling sense of spirituality.

Around the same time as I was considering this, I also continued to develop my affinity for things Chinese. Seriously, if the 1993 birth class was redrafted, China wouldn’t have passed on me in the millionth round. Physically speaking, my eyes are rather small, but even more remarkably I have scleral melanocytosis (gray spots on the whites of my eyes) that are more commonly found in the Asian population. As far as interests go, Chinese is my favorite kind of food, the erhu is probably my second most-favorite instrument, I like wushu fights and wushu films (Hero is in my top 5), and I just have an overall attraction to the Chinese aesthetic, be it architecture, calligraphy, pandas, dragons, weapons, landscapes, etc. (And, yes, for those of you keeping track of score at home, I think Chinese women are beautiful). Fam, I prefer to pray seated in the lotus position while listening to the guqin. While in the Field Museum’s Hall of China, I recognized the guqin song being played on the speakers. Get the picture?

But, more important than various and sundry interests of mine that are not the topic of discussion at the present time, I found that my worldview is startlingly Chinese. In one of my classes, I took a couple of tests that would assess my perspective dealing with values, social and cultural norms, and the like. My results on both quizzes more closely resembled the composite of answers given by Chinese citizens, not Americans.

So, naturally, I felt that I should look into the Chinese worldview. What is it like to see things from a Chinese perspective?

And I was also finding how Westernized my surroundings are. Not only socially/culturally, but religiously. Most versions of Christianity today are a western tradition, when Christianity started in the Middle East. What might it be like to look at faith and spirituality from an Eastern perspective? How might my Christian beliefs looked if filtered through Eastern philosophy?

All things considered, it shouldn’t surprise you that the text I decided to read twice this summer was the Tao Te Ching, a key Taoist text written by Lao Tzu sometime in the 6th Century BC.

There were two things that struck me about the Tao Te Ching. The first was the profound wisdom found on every page. This is a sacred text for a reason. Passage after passage contains a beautiful meditation on matters ranging from personal virtue to directions for leading a nation. It actually blew my mind. I loved reading it.

But the second thing that struck me was totally unexpected: Taoism is surprisingly Christian. Not in an ethical sense, as pretty much every religion is opposed to murder, rape, theft, etc. But in a theological sense, all the more surprising because because Taoism is generally considered pantheistic (no belief in an anthropomorphic God). Here is one passage from the Bible that will help illustrate one example of this:

“The world was given a beginning by that which could be called the world’s father. To know the father is to know the son, and in understanding the son you in turn keep close to the father.”

But that’s not from the Bible. That’s from Chapter 52 of the Tao Te Ching, only it uses “mother” instead of “father.”

But even more than particulars like this, the similarity lies in the value both texts place on surrender and the greatness of “god.” Throughout the Tao Te Ching, there is an emphasis on knowing oneself by emptying oneself, being a bowl that is ready to be filled, making humility extremely key. All things that are to be known or gained are supposed to come from knowing the Tao, the preeminent force through which all was created, and the Te, the Tao at work in the world. According to the Tao Te Ching, humans have a natural state that they should seek to return to, but instead they seek all sorts of vain pursuits to build themselves up, which causes the world’s problems.

That all sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it? Particularly if you are a Christian reader?

However, despite the sheer volume of wisdom and the striking similarities between Taoism and Christianity, the Gospel is still missing. Yes, the state of humanity and its relation to “god” is there, but the solution through the death and resurrection of Jesus is not.

So does that mean I throw the whole thing out?

There are a few good reasons that might persuade me to never read the Tao Te Ching again and move on. First and foremost: it’s a religion of man. At the end of the day, this is still the work of a human being, and is not divinely inspired. And besides this, while I might use the text as a source of wisdom and enlightenment, Proverbs 1:7 tells us that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” So is there anything that the Tao can teach me that the Bible can’t give me? Shouldn’t I really just read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and James if I want to sound like a wise man?

Additionally, how can I be sure that all this wisdom even fits into Christian doctrine? There is a pervasive notion of action through inaction in the Tao Te Ching. Balance and moderation are key. I have not yet resolved if this is always helpful for a Christian, as Christians are called to take quite decisive action, actions that are often given violent metaphors. Even something like “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run… So run that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24) would never be found in the Tao Te Ching. Isn’t Christianity very much a religion of action?

And, if I am looking for texts outside of the Bible to bolster my theology and doctrine, wouldn’t I be best just reading classics in Christian writing? Just this summer I read On the Mortification of Sin by the Puritan pastor John Owen, and it was life-changing. Are not the perspectives of Augustine, Anselm, Owen, Edwards, Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Piper, Keller, and even Trip Lee the ones that I should seek in order to further my love and understanding of God?

And, quite simply, there’s much ado in the Bible about not serving other gods. Couldn’t too much Taoism get a little dicey?

The above are really quite good reasons to set the Tao Te Ching aside and move on, keeping my Chinophile pursuits on the level of Avatar: The Last Airbender, traditional music, and General Tsao’s chicken.

But I’m not going to. Rather, with all of these reasons in mind, I will continue to come back to the Tao Te Ching, reading a chapter or two every few days (the chapters are really more like paragraphs).

I will do so, for one, because I believe the wisdom there is worth reading. I can’t see anywhere in the Bible that prohibits us from finding good advice from people just because they aren’t quoting the Bible. It turns out that Lao Tzu gives pretty darn good advice. And I’m going to take it.

That being said, I will be sure to compare it to my own scriptures. I will seek to understand how the yin and yang find themselves in the Bible. For they do, I am certain of it (ahem, Lion and the Lamb?). But this will force me to think more closely on both texts, relying on the authority of the Bible but using the Tao Te Ching as a sort of looking glass. Of course I will still hold to sola scriptura, and I will spend much much more time in the Bible, but I will give myself occasional doses of Taoism.

I believe this can help me to understand the Bible and my own theology and doctrine even better. For surely Christianity is not contained in a Western perspective. There is another world of philosophy out there that might temper certain understandings (even though the core of the belief must remain the same). As a result, this will, while increasing my knowledge and appreciation of another religion, actually more firmly establish my own religious views. In a sense I’m using interfaith dialogue to defeat one of the purposes of inter-faith dialogue (a weakening of religious zeal). Basically, by being a sort of Christian-Taoist, I will be even more Christian than I was before, if that makes sense.

And, besides this, keeping the Tao Te Ching, and perhaps some other sacred texts, close to me will further theistic mysticism – which in short is the idea that worship of other gods is preferable to atheism or agnosticism, as it acknowledges the insufficiency of humanity and looks for a solution “out there.” While the Bible spends a lot of time condemning false gods and idols, notably Baal and Asherah, I believe today’s Baal is the self. Humans worship the self and have made the individual a god. While the idols of ancient times were wood and stone, today’s is made of flesh and bone. But perhaps that discussion is for another day.

My final word to you is this: read the Tao Te Ching. Please. It’s quite short – readable in less than an afternoon – and you can find it for free here (although I prefer the Robert Brookes translation that I got for a dollar on Kindle). It will be worth your while.

And I’ll close with this, one of my most favorite passages from the Tao Te Ching, and one that has real similarity to Christian theology. Chapter 50 reads:

“You originate in life, but always return to death.
Three in ten people focus too much on extending life.
Three in ten people focus too much on fearing death.
Three in ten people focus on living life to the fullest
and thus find an early death. Why is this so?
Because such people live to excess.

It is said of the one in ten who successfully preserve their life:
When traveling they do not fear the wild buffalo or the tiger.
When in the battlefield they avoid armour and weapons.

The wild buffalo can find no place to pitch its horns,
the tiger can find no place to sink its claws,
the soldier can find no place to thrust his sword.

Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death in his life.”

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

– Peter

 

Emotional Confirmation and the Addictive Beauty of Art

Posted on by under Culture, General Articles

The Novel Reader

The ideas in this blog post may one day be used as the building block of an academic work (a professor’s suggestion, not mine). If for some reason you want to take some idea from here and run with it, please give credit where credit is due. That goes for all content on this blog, but perhaps especially this one. Thank you.

At times, the consumption of literary, performing, and screen arts has been reduced to mere escapism; some believe that people read books, go to plays, and watch television shows and movies in order to distract themselves from real life in a world that is imaginary. Glib pessimism aside, this might be so. The working person turns on the movie channels to relax after a long day at work. The elementary boy gets lost in fantasy books to forget about bullies. The teenage girl binges on Pretty Little Liars to escape high school drama. It’s not so hard to see how people, for a variety of reasons, turn to various arts in order to transport them away from reality, particularly if that reality is difficult and often if the art is…. less strenuous on the mind.

However, to term this reality-shifting mechanism as escapism – certainly a reductive moniker –  is to overlook what might be a more directed, revealing, and beautiful function of art in dealing with the ups and downs of life. In a sense, to call it escapism belittles the utility of art from something that enhances the mind and emotions into something that tranquilizes them.

Aristotle’s metaphor of catharsis in Greek drama reveals art to be aimed with intent at doing much more for the mind than providing an alternate reality. While scholars disagree on some of the finer aspects of Aristotle’s work, the main idea is that the emotions produced in a play could help purge the audience of their own emotions. The audience’s place in the performance would act as a release of emotion that could provide relief from certain emotions, such as fear. So, seeing something horrible happen to a character on stage, though upsetting, would ultimately act to, by the end of the play, cleanse the audience of their own fears and apprehensions as they felt the character’s fear and trauma but came away unscathed. Aristotle’s theories of catharsis support the idea that art’s work in the human mind is much more than a distraction.

I believe that an aspect of art – in literature but perhaps especially in visual, performed arts like the stage and screen – that makes it such a powerful drug in the human mind is what I will call emotional confirmation. This post is, more or less, an outline for an idea that requires much more expansion and research.

Emotional confirmation depends upon two basic principles of human emotions. They are that 1. humans are emotional creatures that must feel emotions inwardly and express them outwardly and 2. humans have an imperfect sense of what emotions feel like, what they look like, and when they should feel or express them.

The first part is simple enough, right? If you’re reading this then you’ve felt and expressed your own emotions and interpreted others’. In I, Robot, one of the things that Dr. Lanning gave Sonny was emotions, and while they are difficult for him to learn, it is his expression of emotions that make him significantly more human than the other robots. (By the way, that has to be one of the most underrated films of the last 15 years).

But, as Sonny finds, emotions are difficult. This is the second part of the two principles. First, how do you know what an emotion feels like? How do you know when you are scared or just nervous? Amused or elated? Infatuated or in love? Second, how do you interpret the emotions of others? Can you be sure that they are as happy as they seem? Are they depressed or just quiet by nature? What does it really look like when someone is angry, happy, or sad? But what really mystifies all of this is our social conditioning regarding emotions. In short, culture and society teaches us what emotions we should feel as well as how we should display them. (Men don’t cry, for example).

For an emotion to properly accomplish its purpose, it must be correctly recognized by the subject, correctly displayed by the subject, and properly received by the audience. If the emotion is unrecognized, misidentified, suppressed, blunted, ignored, or misunderstood along the way, then at least one human is going to be left in a state of confusion and/or frustration. This confusion and frustration is augmented by the first principle: if humans have an innate sense of emotions and a desire to express and understand them, any failures or ambiguities involved will be stressful and uncomfortable.

Art provides a remedy for this with emotional confirmation. In art, a subject can, with certainty, recognize a character’s emotions. More than this, they can identify with that character and feel that character’s emotions as their own, knowing that they are feeling the proper emotion as well as being in a setting where it is acceptable to feel that emotion.

The certainty of emotions in art rests on the premise that the audience can be sure of what they see. Plainly, this accomplishment is not just a side effect of good art, but a prerequisite. If an author cannot use words to describe emotions, they are probably not going to connect with the reader. Prestigious awards are given every year to actors/actresses that can most vividly portray emotion. Great writing and great acting leave little room for uncertainty. When Shakespeare writes King John as saying the following, there is little question what the king is feeling:

“France, I am burn’d up with inflaming wrath;
A rage whose heat hath this condition,
That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,
The blood, and dearest-valued blood, of France.” (3.1.349-52)

The written communication is almost too easy in this sense. It even works to some extent in bad writing: “He was mad.” The portrayal of emotion in acting is rather certain as well. The following scene, basically on its own merit, won Anne Hathaway an Oscar, mostly because of the sheer power of the emotion she conveys:

To make matters easier, performance can benefit from music, visual effects, and so forth. Side note: I left the above video playing as I continued to write, and when she sings “He took my childhood in his stride” my mouth literally dropped, the chills hit, and I teared up a little.

Whereas in real life, emotions are tough to discern and interpret, in art the emotions are made plain. This alone would be enough to make art desirable; watching movies, seeing a picture or painting, and even reading a book that allows the viewer/reader to accurately perceive someone else’s emotions is, for lack of a better word, fun. It’s healthy. Humans spend all of their social time hazarding guesses and jumping to conclusions about someone else’s emotional state, as their mind works at a million miles per hour trying to interpret myriad signals. Having the chance to safely and correctly view emotions is part of what makes Emotional Confirmation so addictive. Not only that, but the viewer/reader does this subconsciously. They begin to feel sad or angry or happy naturally as they view the art.

However, there is another dimension to Emotional Confirmation that makes the experience so edifying, and it is related to Aristotle’s ideas of catharsis.

Art heals our emotions as it prompts and guides us to emotional clarity, bidding us to emote in a certain way and reaffirming our efforts to do so.

This all depends upon the great mystery of how humans come to identify with fictional characters. This identification is what makes us affected when something happens to a character, and it is what makes us keep reading to find out what happens next. Have you ever stopped for a moment when watching or reading something and asked: “None of this actually happened, so why do I care so much?” It’s because you’ve subconsciously put yourself in the story. That’s one of the first things anyone praises about an author – the ability to put the reader in the story. This is, in part, why we care.

This gives us an astounding amount of immediacy to art. We can find ourselves actually taking the place of one of the characters, or standing in very close to them. When a character gives a tearful farewell speech, we imagine they are giving it to us, not just the other characters on screen. When someone wrongs the main character, we get angry because we feel as though they did something wrong to us.

Identifying with characters allows us to cheer for bad guys. Some of the most popular characters in recent television history have been bad guys, or at least guys who do bad things (Walter White, Tony Soprano, Dexter, Stringer Bell). The reason we can want these bad men to succeed is because we’ve taken their side; we’ve come to identify with them and with their cause.

This means that, in many cases, when a character displays an emotion, and a viewer/reader accurately identifies it, the viewer reciprocates the emotion as if they were in the character’s shoes, or at least standing right besides them as a close friend.

Why is it so powerful when Samwise says to Frodo, “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!” and then picks him up to walk the final distance to Mount Doom? It’s because we have put ourselves on the journey with Sam and Frodo (and Gollum). It’s as if Samwise is picking us up, not just Mr. Frodo. That’s part of why it’s so powerful. Also Howard Shore’s score.

The coup de grace: the art tells us its okay to feel that way.

Perhaps some social situations will still prevent some people from displaying some emotions while viewing art. This is probably why, and I know I can attest to this, the affects of art are usually augmented when viewed in solitude (that may be another paper).

But, generally speaking, art gives the viewer/reader a safe place to feel and express emotion. Not only that, but it encourages it. Art draws our emotions from us, and makes it so that we can do so easily and willingly.

And that experience, of clearly seeing and feeling an emotion, and being free to express it, is a powerful drug. And, according to Aristotle, upon realizing it is all fictional, our emotions are healthfully cleansed in catharsis.

Of course, all of this may be significantly more nuanced, detailed, researched, and supported. And, of course, there are exceptions in art that confuse or contradict my assertion. For instance, what of character’s like Hamlet, whose emotions are much more difficult to identify?

But for now, I stand by my outline of the concept of emotional confirmation. Entertainment in the form of movies, plays, television, books, and even music (though that’s another thing) is much more than a distraction. It is a place to settle the tumult of emotion that we live in every day, elucidating these troublesome variables and giving us a safe place where we are encouraged to be hit in the feels, as they say.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

– Peter

Enlightenment via I-94

Posted on by under Culture

Chicago River Skyline in Black and White

–I took a trip to Chicago. That’s bound to get a writer thinking–

A prevailing dichotomy in American society has been urban:rural. Of course this is much more nuanced, with many of us taking up residence in suburbs or small towns and in cities of varying sizes. However, post-American Civil War, American life has remained largely divided into city matters and country matters (and I don’t mean that like the Shakespearean sexual innuendo (readers of Hamlet will understand)).

Notions of urban and rural have evolved over the last 150 years, as has the associated meanings and connotations that go with the setting and the people that inhabit those places. Not as specifically as what it means to be from New York, Boston, Chicago, or Los Angeles versus Appalachia, the Plains, or the Northwoods, but what it means to be from “the city” or not from “the city.”

Where I’m from – definitely not “the city”- there exists a measure of aversion to the city. While many of the youths complain that there’s “nothing to do here,” overall the city is treated as a strange and corrupt place that is by no means preferable to the calm tranquility of small town/rural life in communities of rolling fields, fertile woodlands, and waterfront real estate. The city represents fast life full of loud noises, bright lights, crime, vice, black people, and big buildings. I can picture any number of people I know standing over Chicago like Old Ben over Mos Eisley calling it a “wretched hive of scum and villainy” (but in less sure-handed English). By extension, the peace and calmness of the non-city takes on a level of ethical and moral superiority, which in turn can give life to notions of spirituality and religiosity. This is nothing new, as anyone who has studied American literature can tell you.

Every time I go to Chicago, I go through a time of sensory adjustment. For the first hour or so, I find myself uncomfortable as I am immersed in a setting that is bigger, faster, and louder than the one I am accustomed to. It actually freaks me out a little, and is an uncomfortable transition. While things feel natural after a short while, there is a time where my surroundings become something so different that I can’t help but feel it.

Once I adjust to a level suitable for my short-term visit, I begin to see the brave new world that is the big city.

It’s a world that is a real shame to miss. In fact, I’d say that to ignore the concrete jungle just beyond the dirt path is to turn a blind eye to an integral part of the human mosaic. It is to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and choose to look through binoculars rather than enjoy the panorama of spectacle.

The city displays the color palette of humanity, both literally and figuratively. The range of ethnicities, languages, shapes, sizes, and styles goes walking to and fro on the busy streets. The entire tax bracket comes into view as people sleep on the street outside corporate skyscrapers and luxury outfitters. The skyline is outlined by steeples and mosques. The giant McDonald’s is just down the street from the Brazilian steakhouse.

Yes, the city is often defined by what it has to offer, from sporting events to live music to clubs to food to _____. But what makes the city the amazing thing that it is lies within the people. Not just in the surface level stories told by stats that inform the homogeneous small town dweller that the city contains this many Asians or that many poor people, but the realizations that strike the visiting individual when they find something new.

Oh, there are people who look like that… People talk like that?… I didn’t know people live like this… That’s a thing?

While a particular city, like Chicago, might be just a small part of the world, and while it may have its own unique characteristics, large cities are still snapshots of the height and breadth of humanity. In at least some sense, the gap between individual cognizance and the existential nebula of “being a human being” is bridged as a mass of humanity gathers to live life in a shared space.

And this is good. This is natural. Humans began as hunter-gatherers in small communities, but for the most part decided that forming larger communities and building civilization was a smart move. Despite the trade-offs, humans all over the globe have made a natural movement to living in bigger communities. People are social beings, and the move to form cities is a part of our DNA.

To contain your life to areas outside the city is to deprive yourself of much of the range of humanity. In the countryside and small town, much of life tends to move towards moderation and homogeneity. The city forces the individual to experience the world that colors outside the lines of what might have once seemed natural or comfortable.

And while the city is perceived by many Christians to be a place of vice and evil, we should have a heart for the city because God loves the city. The city was designed to be a place to glorify God among the peoples, but mankind’s corruption has taken it away from this purpose. But the city is full of people that God cares for, and therefore we should care for it too. Its function as a great tool for reaching lost souls is not lost; it just lies dormant as mass quantities of people gives rise to what we might generically call sinful activities.

However, while I am encouraging those outside the city to see the world that exists beyond theirs, the converse story is worth exploring as well. City folk hold a view of country bumpkins that is not always so complimentary. The world outside the city is sometimes viewed from within as being simple, ignorant, prejudiced, backwards, and the like.

City-dwellers experience an adjustment like the one I mentioned earlier when entering a new setting. Whilst riding around Sturgeon Bay with a current starting fullback in the NFL, he seemed fixated on the peculiarities of his new surroundings. He mentioned not seeing a black person since leaving Milwaukee, recounted how bored he was in Green Bay for an away game, and asked if I wanted to move away because there was nothing to do where I lived. It was clear that the small town had an entirely different feel from the places he spends most of his time, and there was also a sensible level of discomfort. He could just as easily have talked about something else, but he went right to what he felt was strange about life away from the city.

While the city enhances humanity, it comes at a cost. Some things are lost when we turn 40 acres into 40 stories. City life is loud and fast and can be cold and impersonal. The sense of community is weaker and people are naturally more suspicious of each other. And the overwhelming sense of “man-made”-ness in the city distracts people from the characteristics of life, humanity, and spirituality hidden in nature and in the intimacy of small communities. There are parts of our being that are made all the more lucid and beautiful when in settings surrounded by the natural world and within a smaller community of people.

Yes, my mind was enriched by my time in Chicago, but some of the best times of this summer have been spent sitting on the patio in my tree and shrub-lined  back yard, alone, at night, under the moon and the stars, with the bats and the lightning bugs, listening to the night insects and water a couple hundred yards off,  searching my soul and thinking on life and God and this great big world and the universe beyond. I don’t know that I would find that opportunity in the city.

What I mean to say in all of this is this: the city and the not-city both have worthwhile lessons for us. If you live in the city, take a trip out of town. If you’re an out-of-towner, make a few pilgrimages to the city. You may find yourself to truly be a country boy or a city girl, but just know that parts of yourself are hiding in another place very different from where you currently find yourself. Seeking to experience these places will bring you a better understanding not only of yourself, but of the world around you. Your preconceived notions of what it means to be urban or rural might be dashed in the process, being replaced by profound realizations and awakening sense of one’s place in this world.

Soli Deo Gloria

– Peter