It has been interesting looking at how these contemporary artists are dealing with the current state of art. In the last hundred years, art has attempted to push the boundaries of ‘what art is’, reaching the limits in the absurd & banale. I have a deep love & respect for art and the power which it has. That being said, I often wonder {especially married to an artist} where art is going, what power it still has in a world which has seemed to try to put the work of art into the personal experience much like religion has been regulated to personal spirituality.

I say all this as introduction to an observation about contemporary art. Through the handful of episodes we have watched, I don’t think one artist was portrayed who didn’t include installation work as part of their emphasis. I find this very interesting, as one artist very rightly described her work as drawing the viewer in, submersing them in the experience of the work, instead of simply letting them view it from afar.

I think this exactly what is needed to bring visual arts back towards the center of culture. The installation forces people to come together to experience it, one can not privately view the installation. The public-ness of the experience I think is wonderful in that it forces the patron out of the privatized experience and into a communal one, even with the multitude of interpretations.

With the advent of much of the technology associated with entertainment, the viewing of art—be it visual arts, or performance arts, music, or anything else—has become a private spectating thing rather than a communal participatory experience. Before the wide availability of musical recording & playback, one had to gather one’s local musicians to hear music. Before Hollywood, one had to go to the theatre to see acting; now a days we can simply go to our tv, computers, or even our phones for our private experience.

With the desire for community slowly creeping back into the desires of people, we are beginning to recreate the institutions which have transformed along with everything else in the last few centuries. We are rethinking what these institutions are purposely for and what they can do for us.

We see these sames ideas & desires being played out in the institution which is the church. Peter Rollins has famously created these installation type experiences with Ikon, that are very far from the traditional church experience. [There is a recent article in the Guardian about this change with church communities.]

If we think about the church world in large scale then we can see certain similarities with that of the arts > modern entertainment. Instead of local sages local teaching local forms of worship, we have exported its production to larger entities. We look to the CCM top 40 to get our latest worship song, instead of expecting original local community crafted material. Instead of having local teachers who do the hard work of crafting material, we instead buy a slick DVD of the latest guru to hit the Christianity Today cover. Instead of relying on the wisdom on the those within community, we purchase it from either a professional by the hour or the self-help rack at the ‘local’ chain bookstore.

We deny the locality of our lives; we think we can simply export whatever is ‘cool’ over there, box it up in slick packaging, & transport it to our native environment. We can experience the same worship as them by just playing their songs, reading their books. Through this process, the individual & also the community as a whole loses its sense of self-expression. The community is then relegated to reproduction rather than an original creational birth of expression.

What I like about the installation, is that it is unique to the locality, be it temporary or permanent the installation is unique to its location. Would the Statue of Liberty or the Arch of St. Louis mean anything if every large metropolitan had one? What is wonderful about what Ikon does is that it is unique, never repeated, yet communally experienced.

I have been thinking about church a lot lately, I’m torn between wanting it to mean much more than it does but also much less. I’m torn between respecting & desiring a liturgically ordered service, where  holiness is found in the repetition; but also finding myself being bored with the sameness of schedule. I am confused about my desires of wanting to meet less often for formal services but also equally desiring more formal events.

So I wonder, is church more like a canvas on the wall which you can purchase & take home with you; or is more like an installation which is fixed to a certain time-space. With either, the permanence of the piece causes it to be disappear. Only the tourist notices the permanent installation. For the local it has long disappeared into the background of the landscape, maybe never to have been seen in the first place.

I wonder how does one construct a church, a fellowship of believers, as to make it a submersing experience while not causing it to become so familiar as to disappear, while creating enough regularity & sameness that it becomes integrated into a holistic faith & way of living.

In Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, while examining Nietzsche he explores the contrast of Nietzsche’s superman centered state to that of the liberal democracy. Nietzsche holds that man is not equal, there are a select who are better and should be given a freedom to exercise their greatness, even at the expense of the majority. We shouldn’t care for the life or death of the ‘weak’ class, they are only meant as support for the exploits of the ruling supermen. This is because it is only on the backs of the great leader that history moves forward. He feels that it is only by the efforts of Napoleon that the 19th century is shaped, never mind the wake of destruction he felt in his wake.

The liberal sees all men created equal and should be treated as such. His efforts are for moving society towards equality, freedom being giving not only to an elect but to all. The central goal is not the exploits of a great leader but rather the happiness of all. Liberals want everyone to be happy; Nietzsche doesn’t shy away from struggle and anguish if it is in the name of greatness. Nietzsche sees liberality as creating equality through a lowest common denominator. Nietzsche wants to create a system that allows the freedom for the greatest to be great, even if it is as a result of injustice towards the masses.

The question between these two systems seems to come up on the personal level also. It seems that even in a democratic society for one man to excel greatly it is done on the labour and exploitation of another. What business has risen to significant power without questionable if not out right unethical practices? It seems to be great means robbing from another.

Although there is the complication that it is through these great riches that we have some many of the great edifices of culture. The great pyramids of Egypt or the wonderful cathedrals of Europe couldn’t have been made without the exploitive measures of the powerful from the weak. As Christians we look negatively upon Pharaoh for enslaving the Israelites, but it was through exactly that kind of slavery that the pyramids were built. As Protestants we chide the Catholics for selling indulgences, but it was through that commerces that the Church became rich enough to commission its great works.

The same can be said of Rockefeller a century ago or the Gates of today. Is it better to amass such wealth and power so as to do such large scale constructs?

But what kind of person does it take to be a Rockefeller or a Napoleon? I take it that while you might want these men as acquaintances owing a favor to you, they wouldn’t make good friends. What great man of history is also a great husband or father? It seems that to have success in the area of one’s profession a grave sacrifice has to be made of those who are closest to you, one’s family & friends. Not to mention the certain paranoia that usually accompanies men of power, where when they can they off any other contenders of greatness.

On one level we can say it is a choice, one is not better than the other. One can have professional success or have a rich contented personal life; though many try to have both it seems in the end one has to make a choice. On another level it seems we must make a value judgment, one choice must be right while the other wrong.

This causes me to think about the Kingdom of God, how Jesus showed another way than the way of the world.

I have swung back and forth between the two. When explicitly spelled out, in terms of Christian morality/ethics, it seems that the family man is the right course of action. When you look at the ‘great’ men throughout history they are usually horrible people on the personal level, only through their exploits are they appreciated. Looking at the Christ’s example we can see that he implicitly states that ends don’t justify means. The for the Israelites was a establishment of the Davidic throne. It had been promised, and Jesus came pronouncing the Kingdom of God. Justifiably the people were expecting a revolution, violent and brutal it must be. Jesus through his acts of servanthood (i.e., washing the feet of the disciples) and ultimately laying down his life for the other he shows that the process is just as important as the result.

But was also Jesus who left it all after thirty years of life and lived nomadic for 3 years before being killed. He is the person who said that following him meant leaving one’s family, living everything. So his life while not one of the despotic ruler is still not the banale life of the ‘burbs.

It seems I’ve so often falsely composed this as a dichotomy between the content family man (read boring suburbia life) and the mow everyone else down Nietzschian superman. There is a third way, the way of Jesus which is just a radical but also just as extolling of people & the events of life.

I’m not really sure where to begin, my frustrations over this loom so wide. Let me begin this way. Should not our First Amendment rights to free speech protect us from our employers?

It seems things have gotten to a certain surreal ridiculousness. Point 1, when did we get to the point where we expect perfection of speech from anyone & everyone, especially those in power, leadership, or just simply stardom? No one is allowed the mishap of a Freudian slip, after one too many at the dinner party, without it becoming frontpage news in the morning post. So often these ‘incidents’ become so over blown that they end up causing the said person to lose their job.

Where is the grace. Where is the mercy.

To those who consider this a ‘Christian nation’ I would like to see leading the reins on this one.

Can’t we just allow that people will screw up. Can’t we admit that even today in our ‘progressive’ 21st century world we all still have deep seated prejudices and they will come out on occasion.

Point 2, when did it become impossible for anyone of the above said stature to have wild statements. Why can not the senior editor of Middle Eastern affairs for CNN say something as {wildly benign} as: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah … One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

Oh no, one of us Americans is considering the humanity of one of….them!!!

Come on Americans, we will never get any closer to ending our long struggles in the Middle East if this is the way we will continue to react. We must slow down in our reaction and stop & consider Fadlallah as a person, the same as you and me.

I always wanted to believe that CNN was different than the other network news station, but this only proves that they are simply a tool like the rest.

Octavia Nasr, I’m sorry; they don’t speak for me and my family, we respect your respect of the other.

In his concluding remarks on Hegel, he poses an interesting reflection upon the purpose of the State, contrasting Hegel against Locke.

The State is obviously valuable as a means: it protects us against thieves and murderers, it provides roads and schools, and so on. It may of course, also be bad as a means for example by waging an unjust war. The real question we have to ask in connection with Hegel is not this, but whether the State is good per se, as an end: do the citizens exist for the sake of the State, or the State for the sake of the citizens? Hegel holds the former view; the liberal philosophy that comes from Locke holds the latter.

Locke established the classical liberal stance towards the state, the state is established for the people. It is concerned with protecting the rights & freedoms of the people, individually.

Hegel in contrast sees the people as being for the state. Using some complex logic, he argues that the State is the Absolute, the highest form of truth. The state isn’t concerned with seeking the fullest expression of each individual, but rather seeking to establish something like “the realization of Spirit as Spirit”. Some individuals might fully envelop this Spirit within their work, but they are few and far between {and probably only found in great military leader, Hegel offers Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon as examples}.

This question can rightly be applied to the Church also.

We can look to different sects of the Church today to see these two interpretations being played out. The church is about me, my spiritual health. I come to church to a) save myself &/or b) become a ‘better person’. Much of the self-help of Christian bookstores is of the vein. A broad spectrum of churches as of this variety, from the seeker friendly mega churches to the turn or burn saving souls focused southern baptist, even the many Charismatic circles which focus on the experiential Holy Spirit and especially prosperity gospel televangelist.

The opposite direction can be seen in movements centered around religious right or fundamental cultural war sects. There is a battle going on, an us against them war raging in this country. We need your vote, your donation, your support in fighting the evil liberal secular humanist who is destroying this country.

There is much in the liberal Christianity of many mainline churches of a similar vein though a different target—things like global warming, aids in Africa, 3rd world poverty take center stage. The Church then becomes about helping transform the world in the a better place.

But these are all negative examples which though may have some aspect correct seem to be missing.

I say all this to ask the question which has be plaguing my thoughts for some time now:

Why do we go to church? Why are we a part of this thing we call Christianity? Are we there for ourselves or for the other?

I feel the question creates a false dichotomy, in that the answer is yes. The Church is about me for me, we are promised much which Paul writes much about why we can be confident in those promises, but it is also about something bigger than just me. I come to the Church because I seek the divine; but that is exactly the reason why the Church is bigger than my own salvation & transformation—Christ promises us the the world will know the Father through this bride that is the Church. The Church’s end then becomes the abiding presence of the divine, the indwelling of the Spirit.

The trouble that Russell rightly sees with a philosophy which exalts the State over the individual is that is creates an environment ripe for despotic rule, where a ruler sweeps a nation into their vision of the State. Russell points to Nazi Germany & Soviet Russia as examples of this.

I’ve personally seen this on a much smaller & civil-er scale within a church community. A certain charismatic leader takes control of a community’s vision & purpose. He repaints their dreams and rallies them under his over controlling command. There is usually a certain spark of excite at first as this are quickly changing, though it doesn’t take long before the poison of control & power causes them to turn against any opposition from within.

So what is the purpose of the Church?

My Christian life is like
the ridiculous consumer driven
‘green eco-friendly’ products.

We Americans are an idealistic lot on the whole. We like to dream big. We like to talk about change—though the actual following through is where we often fall short. How often have we all watched the olympics, gotten inspired to do some great athletic feat, only to make it to the gym once, if at all.

Take the ‘green’ movement sweeping the country. It didn’t take long for the large corporations to jump on the band wagon. Now with just about any purchase you have the opportunity to do your part in making a clean planet. So instead of actually making substantial changes in how we live, we just buy this light bulb instead of that one or this car instead of that one. Somehow all this is justifiable to ourselves & others. I’m outraged at the state of the gulf coast, so damn it I’m boycotting B.P! Make no mention of how I’m not going to stop purchasing petrol, lessen my consumption, nothing that would actually cause some inconvenience or substantial change of my lifestyle.

So is any different with spiritual life, my relation to the divine? None.

How often have I tried to buy my way out of actually changing? Instead of walking the difficult road of transformation I take the interstate {paved with comfort & good intentions}. It is much easier to show up every Sunday to Church (& maybe even teach a Sunday school class) than it is to live by faith. Maybe for some going to church is an act of faith, though for me and anyone else who has grown up in the church it is far from an act of faith, rather simply an act of repetition.

A faithless Christianity can include lots of things that on the surface seem spiritual or pietistic: Bible reading, formal prayer, giving, service, or even leadership. There is much I can do to make myself look very spiritual though without much if any spiritual transformation.

Transformation is much harder, impossible to truly quantify—as it then would become objective, rational, & therefore definable, thus losing its power—even harder to accomplish through our own powers.

So this is why I’m a Toyota Prius. All to often I find myself faking it, trying to buy a transformation through my broken cisterns. All too often I deny the reality of my faults, to the harm of those around me {read: faulty pedals/computer systems} all the while boasting of my excellent qualities of goodness. Only after my faults have reached a critical mass will I acknowledge my failures.

Maybe we should all look to the simple answers for these problems. Environmental problems won’t be solved simply through scientific discoveries, but through people radically changing the way the live their lives. The same goes for our relation to God, we won’t find the answer to our problems in the latest Christian 5 steps to glory but rather through the simple process of abiding, following the simple command of loving God & neighbor.

It is strange that the last men of intellectual eminence before the dark ages were concerned, not with saving civilization or expellig the barbarians or reforming the abuses of the administration, but with preaching the merit of virginity and the damnation of unbaptized infants. Seeing that these were the preoccupations that the Church handed on to the converted barbarians, it is no wonder the succeeding age surpassed almost all other fully historical periods in cruelty and superstition.

Has the Church changed in the last 1500+ years? Are there not large sects of American Christianity who are concerned with virginity & unbaptized infants? We have modernized haven’t we? We now aren’t so fearful of sex, we even embrace erotic readings of Song of Solomon in certain settings. Though we are still holding to abstinence until marriage. And though we Protestants aren’t so concerned with infant baptism we are still very concerned with their damnation, though we turned the damnation from the hand of God to that of the abortion doctor.

Interestingly such proponents of this ideological focus say that it is a result of the lack of morality in these areas that will bring the demise of society. While Bertrand Russell seems to be implying that it was because of this focus while excluding or not wholly focusing on such things as systemic injustice, the poor & the weak, that the demise occurred.

I would say this passage should give us all pause as to where our priorities lie and as to what emphasis we place with each. Cautionarily, we must remember our priorities are rarely ever fully in sync with God’s—even if or despite the fact that God may work through the impure motives & actions.

The Jewish pattern of history, past and future, is such as to make a powerful appeal to the oppressed and unfortunate at all times. Saint Augustine adapted this pattern to Christianity, Marx to Socialism. To understand Marx psychologically, one should use the following dictionary:

Yahweh  =  Dialectical Materialism
The Messiah  =  Marx
The Elect  =  The Proletariat
The Church  =  The Communist Party
The Second Coming  =  The Revolution
Hell  =  Punishment of the Capitalists
The Millennium  =  The Communist Commonwealth

The terms on the left give the emotional content of the terms on the right, and it is this emotional content, familiar to those who have had a Christian or a Jewish upbringing, that makes Marx’s eschatology credible. A similar dictionary could be made for the Nazis, but their conceptions are more purely Old Testament and less Christian than those of Marx, and their Messiah is more analogous to the Maccabees than to Christ.

My name is Jonathan, though I have been called many things over the years. I’m also rather peculiar about who calls me what. Here’s an example, back when I knew my bride in high school, her and a few others began calling me Jon. I didn’t mind, or rather I wasn’t going to argue with a cute girl over what she called me.

So I then slowly became known as Jon to a circle of friends. This was fine until a new person came along, then being introduced as Jon seemed not quite right. After getting married, I’ve talked with her about how I prefer being introduced as Jonathan to others, even if she calls me Jon at home.

My thesis is that naming can only happen in relationship, only through experience with another do we gain the ability (knowing what they should be named) and the authority (that people would acknowledge the name as legitimate).

We have many different names depending on the relationship; son/daughter, sister/brother, father/mother, employee/employer, etc. In each of the roles we gain a new name. I might go by Jonathan in each of the roles, but what it is that people are naming is going to be different. The call of my wife would be quite different than the call of a patron at a restaurant if I was a waiter; each is calling for a different Jonathan in a different role.

I believe this is why nick names are so dear to people & relationships. That name speaks of a certain relationship between the parties. The names given not only speak of that person in that role, but the whole of the relation. Think of a famous person with a nickname, does not just thinking of their nickname bring a flash of other related images?

Another example is from grade school. Back then I was a scrawny awkward kid—completely different that I am now—so as you can imagine I was picked on a lot. As a result I had quite a few {not-so-nice} nicknames; a few of the most memorable being Johnny (Apple Seed) and Ghost. The latter is probably the stranger of the two. It was done by a few hispanic kids, who enjoyed poking fun at the white kid—though I’ve always tanned quickly so wasn’t the pasty white kid. The former, also done by the same group of kids, started as reading a short story about the original Johnny.

I haven’t experienced anyone calling me Ghost since 4-5th grade, but Johnny is a different story. It apart from my experience it is a rather fun playful variant. It even has greats associated with it, Johnny Cash & Johnny Carson coming quickly to mind. So people have used the name in this playful manner though, I tend to snap at this naming. I am unable to disassociate that naming from the bitter persecution I received years ago.

And isn’t this how it is? We could all probably sit and tell stories all day, just simply deriving them from the names we have picked up over the years. The names we receive and those we give don’t just simply designate people but create the story which live.

Would you agree? What nicknames have you had or have currently, are they universally used or just in certain circles?

Guevara had a rather keen eye to the political-economic realities which the Latin American world faced. He seemed to realize the difficulties lying around one’s economic/political ties to the U.S. For instance, pre-revolution Cuba’s economy was predominately agrarian, with sugar being bought by in large by the U.S. at a inflated rate.

Guevara saw how this adversely affected the Cubans, one, it basically puts them in the pocket of Washington without much autonomy. Two it limits their economic abilities. They focus their energies producing crops, rather than creating a balanced self-sustaining economy which doesn’t need to rely on foreign imports or exports.

During his time of political office in Cuba he spoke openly and often about how to create a strong Cuba. He spoke about the need for industry, for Cuba to be self-sustaining instead of agrarian and servile to another nation.

He also spoke of the place of the individual within this system. He realized that for socialism to work it wasn’t simply about nationalizing land or industry but furthermore about transforming the way of the people. He desired to work towards a nation where monetary gain wasn’t seen as the central virtue but rather moral character. He was probably too foolhardy to realize how difficult {if not impossible} it is to transform the lives of men is, in any true & lasting way.

While I will simply say I don’t think violence is the answer, I have to respect his clear vision of the political landscape. Though I think his failure is a result of a certain misconception towards the conditions of change.

I would say one of the most important things which allowed the revolution of Cuba to succeed where he failed in Bolivia or Congo is he didn’t realize the embeddedness of the Cuba revolutionary leader Castro. Castro was Cuban, he was of the people for the people. What Che was able to follow along was work which had taken much time to create.

Whereas with his later revolutionary enterprises he failed because among other reasons he was a foreigner. You can’t expect to get the trust and allegiance of a people without being of the people. (As an aside, many leaders haven’t been, but they faked it/covered up their nationality enough to be considered one of the people—I can think of Hitler & Napoleon as two such examples.)

But it isn’t just about what your birth certificate says; rather it is about living with people, embedding one’s life with another that is important. The authority of critique comes from a certain respect which grows out of lived experience. I can only truly speak for a people when I have been a part of them & they a part of me.

Lastly I think Che has become so iconic in part because he plays the John Wayne character set so well—Lone Ranger, trying to take over the imperialistic world through his own will. If we desire to bring about the change which we love so well in the idealist-revolutionary Che Guevara then we need to be the ‘new man’ which he spoke and wrote of, living the life for the other.

But now I am talking about much more than Che Guevara or the Cuban revolution.

Raffoul concludes his examination of responsibility by looking at Derrida. One point that he made reminded me of Kierkegaard, especially in Fear and Trembling. Derrida speaks of how the decision is only a decision when it goes beyond ethical norms or the law, when it goes beyond the possible into the impossible. It is there that the decision is a decision. Relatedly he speaks about how in regard to hospitality, we can’t invite the guest, the guest must simply show up. When we invite them we have regulated our welcome, creating restrictions. There has to be this unboundedness to ethics which goes beyond ethics.

Isn’t this exactly like what Kierkegaard describes as the state which Abraham finds himself in his book Fear and Trembling, having to go beyond the ethical, having to go beyond the approval of another because he can’t speak of—let alone explain what it is he has to do.

I really like this idea of the going beyond the standards, especially considering the state of things today—or looking at history any day for that matter. The ethical norms hold up a certain status quo which propagates injustice, exploitation, alienation, or rather I should say violence against the Other—who is ironically the very person we are told by Jesus that we will find him in. (Zizek’s short book Violence is a great introductory look at this.)

These 20th century continental philosophers love to describe this state of man, the naked vulnerable man standing before the Other, before being, before life, before the decision. I am very partial to this way of thinking, but I wonder moving forward how does this way of thinking/living create community? How does continual de-constructing ever construct a way of living with the Other? How do we create community under a Levinasian sense of responsibility for the other—it seeming to get the closest to this, yet seemingly there being something withheld or missing.

Maybe I should even question if real community is possible, seeing how all these thinkers see an unbridgeable gulf between me and the other in their complete otherness.