by Rod Amis
FAITH & REASON - Rod Amis's seventh post attempts to explain why Gunter Grass's admission is an indication of the larger problem for the "West" as this new century begins.
24 August 2006: I screened the film "The Tin Drum" for myself again last night - Thank the Internet for Netflix.com - because I wanted to look at one of the wonderful results of Gunter Grass's work while considering the international flap over his interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he confessed his youthful service in the German Army was with the Waffen SS.
I read over the compendium of reactions from (in some cases, former) friends and foes, after the screening, at the wonderful German Web site SignandSight for which I have a great deal of admiration.
It was interesting to me to see how this whole controversy was playing out in the intellectual community of the "West," because it reveals a lot about central issues for us - and the topic I have chosen for this project. World Without End.
Salman Rushdie readily comes to Grass's defense, as do many of the author's German intellectual generation. Old friends of his such as Lech Walesa of Poland, say that he should give up his honorary citizenship in Gdansk (Poland - formerly known as Danzig - and Grass's birthplace.) Prominent organizations have called on him to relinquish his Nobel Prize in Literature.
Conservatives around the world have used this as a wonderful example of the hypocrisy of "liberal" intellectuals and enjoyed dancing on Grass's reputation.
I particularly sympathize with the concerns expressed by certain young German intellectuals and writers about when the seventy-somethings, whose only topic seems to be "Hitler and Me," will get out of the way and allow the new voices of their country some lebensraum. But that's just me.
From the chair of this jaundiced Interlocutor, though, the Grass commentary seems but an indication of the on-going and sustained debate between those committed to making Faith paramount in so-called "Western" culture and those who think Reason should be.
In other words, the "Culture Wars" (the Buzzword du Jour) that we have all begun to talk and write about, are not just between Christianity and an aggressively re-assertive Islam but also includes subsets - like this one demonstrated by the Grass flap - within each of those orthodoxies about our weltanschauung. The use of the German term seems appropriate in this context.
This issue of the battle between Faith and Reason is international as we enter this century and cuts across cultures and religions, as the international reaction to Grass's admission clearly demonstrates.
But, again, that's NOT all. When one looks at the chart provided in this article of how people in the "West" view scientific evidence, it becomes clear that there is a great philosophical divide among us. Again, Faith versus Reason.
ASIDE ONE: When those of us familiar with history consider that it was the Islamic world that dragged us back into a scientifically based system of reasoning, along with those monks in Ireland keeping Aristotle alive, a few hundred years ago, the repudiation of science by the Islamic fundamentalists seems tragic. [End Aside]
The situation is no less dramatic in the Islamic world, but I am not addressing "them" right now; I am at the Huffington Post, so I am addressing "us."
I know that this post might have originally appeared off the topic of my discourse in this project, Gentle Reader, but I trust that you see how it relates to my original points about the Eschaton.
The very belief in the Eschaton is a triumph of Faith over Reason. That is where I've been going with this all along. It is only natural that we should come to this point in our discussion and talk about ethics and morality, as well.
ASIDE TWO: I don't focus the opening of this post to either defend Grass - because I believe his youthful affiliation with the SS for a mere year is irrelevant to the power of his later life, though I believe that is true, personally - nor to denigrate his oeuvre because his admission could be taken as a publicity stunt to sell his latest book, though I think it could. (You can find these kinds of opinions from much more prominent interlocutors than myself elsewhere.)
In my view, this is not about Grass at all. It is about us and how we succeed or fail to comprehend the folly and complexity of human existence. [End Aside]
Sigh. I can hear you now:
"Dang! Where is MiniMe? He wasn't just jumping into the heavy stuff right off the bat!"I can understand your concern.
MiniMe: That's what I'm talkin' about!
Me: You're on a clock. I have a few more serious things to say before I'm done.
MiniMe: Yawn. You really think anybody came here to hear your latest pontifications, Dude? You are so clueless they should put butter on your butt and call you a biscuit.
Me: You know what, MiniMe? If there were NO pop culture, you would not be able to carry on an intelligent conversation!
MiniM e: Getting a little testy, are we? Feeling sad that more people come here to "hear" what I have to say than read your latest pearls of wisdom? Boo-hoo!
I'm the funny one, Dude. You should just let me take over your next project and show you how it's done. Whaddaya say?
Me: As far as I can determine, "Dude," your only estimable value in this project is to demonstrate that I can not only comment on what I determine as questionable reasoning but also my ability to tolerate questioning of my own reasoning from others.
MiniMe: I'm leaving now. I'm gonnah take a sauna.
Me: Oh no! Please don't go! Is it something that I wish I'd said?
This Writer has received a number of comments about this series of posts (or essays) from various people of Faith attempting to explain the why question posed in the introduction to this project. Many have been very personal, thoughtful and heartfelt - and not for public consumption.
Some have raised issues that allowed me to qualify and evaluate my own thinking and reflect on larger issues and I am grateful for that.
The one e-mail that I could make public on this issue, I have done so recently at my own Web site.
Considering the heavy Catholic Church subtext in Grass's The Tin Drum, it's appropriate that the publicly shared e-mail should come from a devout Catholic, in my view.
At the end of the day, as the old saw used to go, or the end of an essay of this nature, we come back to the central issues of ethics and morality. Reason can, indeed, be "bland," as my South African friend suggests. That is one of its great weaknesses.
But I would suggest, along with my kindreds - Voltaire, Twain and Swift - that sometimes a lack of charisma, a lack of emotional certainty, is more healthy and productive than the opposite.
With my concluding question, Gentle Reader, you will find my emotional - perhaps even charismatic - reasons for feeling this way.
I give you the example of my own nation, the United States, two generations ago, when a respect for scientific achievement and predominance was respected. Within ten years of the goal being set, the United States was speaking to the world from its moon.
Now, that very same nation has gone, under the influence of the predominance of Faith over Reason, from being the Star Trek Nation to being that of the Morlocks.
This is where we are today because of a decades-long embrace of eschatology, if you bother to connect the dots.
But once, once, in the eyes of the world and ourselves, we were looking toward the stars and the destined future of humanity.
As soon as we turned our eyes away from the principle needs of average people, people who "work hard every day and play by the rules," we sacrificed part of our souls.
EVEN WORSE, as soon as we forgot that how we treated "the least of these [people]" was the definition of our own inherent humanity, we lost ALL of our souls.
CONCLUSION: I would say to the eschatologists, the people waiting for The Rapture, the coming of the Mahdi or Messiah - of ANY stripe: "What is your rush to Judgment? If you wish to be judged by your deeds, you will be found wanting.
"You are in the dance of death in a world crying out for people committed to Life."
What have you done, this Interlocutor asks, about water, food, the very air we breathe? What have you done for the widowed, the orphaned, the refugees, the sick, the injured?
What have you done?
This century has begun with wars of a length unparalleled in two hundred years and refugees who languish without relief.
If this is your definition of mercy, then we must discover a new and more extreme definition for cruelty.
While seeking your vengeful path toward your personal "heaven," what have you done?
How should we, your fellow people, judge you, let alone whatever Most High you believe in, based on your actions and your certitude that ONLY suffering and death is the path to "salvation"?
And do we get a choice, if we don't agree?
What have you done, while claiming to bring this "End of Days" that you so crave onto all of the rest of us who just want a roof, a crust of bread, clean water, a day without death?
What have you done?
Now I can say it: World Without End, Amen.
Good night and good luck.
Introduction to World Without End
World Without End Two: Other Necros
World Without End Three: The Mahdi
World Without End Four: The Messiah
World Without End Five: End of Days
World Without End Six: Dance of Death
G21: The World's Magazine
Rod's First Project at the Huffington Post
Rod's Second Project at the Huffington Post
Rod's Third Project at the Huffington Post
Technorati Profile © 2006, Rod Amis.
E-mail your comments to rod@g21.net.
