On Making Love and Having Sex
In our time the task of understanding ourselves is perpetually frustrated by the almost instinctive blending we make of two contradictory modes of being: the mechanical and the spiritual. Because we are short on spiritual reality we are long on mechanical models. We confuse the instantaneity of the computer with the timelessness of genuine insight. We think of memory as a form of storage, learning as efficient programming, education as the acquisition of skills and techniques, harmony as smooth functioning, self-development as the accumulation of isolable and multiple capacities like a Black & Decker kitchen-center or a Swiss Army knife, self-expression as a kind of accelerator-pushing to burn off excess fumes. And — the cardinal sin — we consider spirit itself as the free exercise of charity in exactly the same way as a mechanism must be used from time to time without a designated purpose in order not to jam with rust or dust. Our attitude to the super sensible is basically hygienic. We live the disenchantment of the world.
When the Duke in Browning’s “My Last Duchess” says that he refuses to stoop to indicate to his wife just what adjustments to make in her conduct in order to settle his doubts and so preserve the marriage, he is articulating a fundamental humanism. Today we merely visit a counselor, a.k.a. a gender reconciliation facilitator, who listens, ruminates, tinkers, and offers recommendations to repair a marriage gone on the blink — much as a garage mechanic puts his ear to the hood, plays with the engine, quotes various alternatives, and concludes by replacing a few parts to get the buggy on the road again. What we have done is assimilate the evangelical mystery of marriage to the intricate functioning of a twelve-tappet, fuel-injected turbo-Jag. Snafty and impressive as this may be, it is still just a metal case with a lot of repetitively moving parts.
Even the psyche is compared to elaborate mechanical or objective paradigms. For Carl Jung the soul is a telluric mound which must be excavated by the psycho-archeologist who wishes to penetrate to ever deeper levels. For Freud it is a huge and complicated hydraulic system with its pressure-chambers, reservoirs, and manifold displacements. To paraphrase philosopher Gabriel Marcel, it is not a mystery, merely a problem. Psychic health is simply a matter of getting the defective item into the diagnostic clinic and making the appropriate adjustments — unless, of course, the whole engine has seized and fused upon itself in an irreversible psychotic meld.
I am not speaking here of the inveterate and beneficial tendency of language to diffract its meanings through the prism of metaphor. Metaphor, as everyone knows, is the semantic substratum of language and all real communication is paradigmatic in nature. We think and utter in terms of models, figures, and comparisons, effortlessly and unconsciously. What I am drawing attention to is the prodigious emphasis we have placed on one particular category of experience whenever we think about ourselves or our relationships. I don’t know enough about history to chart a convincing etiology of what by now is a fundamental predisposition. The Industrial Revolution seems a likely candidate as the original carrier of the virus until one remembers that pre-industrial novelists created shameless heroines chatting about the size and proficiency of a man’s “machine” and that pre-Common Era philosophers postulated a fine haze of rarefied particles to account for the composition of the human soul.
It’s no big secret that, for decades, many actresses have “slept” their way to the top. The so-called “casting couch” is no myth. And you can understand how they don’t want to be penalized for prostituting themselves to achieve success in Hollywood. Decades ago, actors and actresses WERE penalized for various immoral “indiscretions” if they were caught. So, they had serious incentives to corrupt our country sexually. Thus, we’ve had many movies and TV shows which basically glamorize “sleeping around,” which is just a subtle form of sexual exploitation. If many Americans would rather “have sex” than “make love” you can lay much blame for that on the prostituting actresses and exploitative Hollywood executives who sexually use them.
Stories of women “sleeping their way to the top” have been around not for decades, but for thousands of years … the Old Testament contains dozens of tales of infidelity and/or outright prostitution. And this behavior is by no means uniformly condemned by the Bible’s authors — consider the story of Tamar for example.
It’s a mistake to think there’s much new in modern-day attitudes toward sex … this is the aspect of ordinary human life that has changed least since Biblical times.
Tamar: daughter-in-law of Judah
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamar_(Genesis)
What an original and true insight.
It is exactly this mechanism which has been in play through all media presentations and it is the basis of our cultural decline.
From the very beginning of the “cinema” as a new type of entertainment, its producers used “intimate scenes” to attract even the most conservative audience.
Even “innocent” kisses were “energizing” the watchers.
Step-by-step, when it became clear that one level of “intimacy” is exhausted and the audience wants more, producers were involving more and more unconcealed, more revealing scenes.
Somebody had to perform all thsoe scenes, right? Who? Actors and actresses, of course.
So, step-by-step, kissing, hugging, caressing colleagues not bound up by marriage, became a norm in all film studios.
The glamor of the movie stardom has poisoned thousands of girls and boys who then completely lost the sense of moral boundaries. The trend then spread in the fashion mode world and everything attached.
This is how that free sex plague has contaminated countries.
And of course, the anti-Capitalism movement that, among other goals, has its goal to destroy the “bourgeois institute of marriage,” was by all means supporting the sexual debauchery.
For instance, Alexandra Kollontai, who later became a renowned Soviet diplomat, was in 1920s a fervent agitator of the so-called “theory of a glass of water”, meaning that “having sex is not different from slaking thirst” (drink a glass of water.)
“The glamor of the movie stardom has poisoned thousands of girls and boys who then completely lost the sense of moral boundaries.”
Isn’t that spot-on. And I suppose if you consider it closely, there are other, similar familiarities that have equally negatively affected us and our culture.
Hollywood: destroying people’s morals since 1910. Over ten billion served…
You muddy WAYNE LELA’s point by pueriley rutting in the issue of sex.
He illustrated the mechanism of social and cultural decay not just of aesthetics, but also of metaphysics, ethics, politics and especially epistemology — the obscuration of which has given us generations of mouth-breathing, undereducated cattle-like citizens.
Oh Wayne, Bocaccio and many of his contemporaries popularized “sleeping around” (or what today’s youth refer to as “hooking up”) as well, without Hollywood’s help.
And David, regarding your ending — surely you are familiar with Karel Chapek’s play “R.U.R” where the word “robot” was first used, and which ends in much the same way — two specimens of otherwise sterile robots discover falling in love as means of reproduction (which the rest of robots are seeking in vain, after humans are wiped out, and with them the recipe of robot-making).
Bocaccio? Are you accusing him of panda-ing?
oh and David, surely you jest when referring to Browning’s Duke as “articulating fundamental humanism”! As the gloss on the page you refer to explains, “This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together”
means that for smiling at too many men he had her killed and now he’s shopping for a new young wife. I am glad that today’s mores are more relaxed than that.
In context, the quote from Browning (above) is meant to suggest that the joyful and lively young countess’s spirit was finally destroyed by her husband’s possessive jealosy—and then she died of an enforced unhappiness. Still your reading of Browning is much closer to the monologue’s import than is Mr. Solway’s. If one wants Browning’s aesthetic philosophy, which may or may not be ‘humanistic’, one can read Fra Lippo Lippi.
I cannot be sure what Mr. Solway means by ‘humanistic’ except that it is reprobative, and I am not sure why that must be so.
Bak2sleep, you are 100% correct: Browning’s poem is about a sexually jealous high-status male who murders his young wife rather than tolerate her perceived infidelity.
From a sociobiological point-of-view, Browning’s poem describes a classic male reproductive strategy.
Exactly why David Solway’s essay references this poem is far from clear—it’s obvious that Browning’s couple would have benefited immensely from counseling and/or divorce.
Of course, that would make for a boring poem!
It is because our fascination with THE MACHINE as a tool of making, transforming our world (and thus making us apparently more independent from God) that we have come to regard ourselves as some kind of machine. We have become the object of our admiration. That’s how consciousness works. The conscious self is absorbed in the object that it is being conscious of. Simply put, whatever you contemplate you come to love.
And, in a way, due to the immense adaptability of consciousness, you become what you love. A scientist (or science buff) loving technology, becomes and thinks himself to be a sophisticated robot. Everywhere he looks he sees proof of his machine-like nature.
A saint (or aspiring spiritualist), loving God and everything to do with Him, become godly in quality (never in quantity). He sees himself as a spark of the divine meant to serve Him eternally as a conscious self.
We are living this disenchantment of the world as you excellently put it, because we have lost our fascination with the Divine and have in turn become fascinated with technology and THE MACHINE.
Once again, we become what we love.
OFFICIAL MINISTRY OF MAGIC CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
***********************************
The PJM/Tatler post “On Making Love and Having Sex” is hereby certified to be free of HUMOR, TOLERANCE, and USEFUL INFORMATION about SEX.
Pursuant to this finding:
(1) Hogwarts students are hereby directed to cease TALKING about sex, THINKING about sex, and ENGAGING in sex.
(2) Henceforth, Howgarts students are directed to conceive of sex solely in terms of:
(a) “worshipful resignation before the inconceivable and the fatal”
(b) “the habit of obedience and reverence before power”
(3) All copies of the heretical textbook Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, that was on-sale last week at the Diagon Alley magic shop “Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes”, are to be confiscated and burned *IMMEDIATELY*.
(signed) Dolores Umbridge
Headmistress, Hogwarts High Inquisitor, and
Director, Muggle-born Registration Commission
***********************************
———————————–
Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation
URL: http://www.drtatiana.com/index.shtml
Is the problem that, because we have figured out an awful lot, we tend to think we have figured out everything?
The immensity of that great sadness to which you refer, that great grief-stricken sadness and peace in the face of eternity. I used to be struck by the awareness of this I found among the people of Morocco (but that was about 40 years ago.)
The mid eastern mentality seemed to understand that great awareness so much better than the crass materialism and superficiality of western culture.
I identified so much more closely with that thinking, and still do.
But what has gone wrong with the west, undoubtedly the best and the most advanced civilisation to have ever happened?
Indeed, I think it is our very technological brilliance, success in the realm of the material, that has resulted in our blindness to the eternal.
Which is why I like this question which I think probes that great fallacy: Can order occur spontaneously in randomness?
I don’t have a problem with behaviourists, or determinists as I am certain that if one did indeed know everything (have all the data) one could indeed know exactly what would happen. In the material world it makes sense that for every action there is a cause.
It is when one seriously explores what caused order to occur in the first place, the order that came about in what was presumably complete randomness and that created the most basic structures such as the force of gravity, that one begins to understand, in my opinion.
And, sad to say, it will in no way enhance my credibility with most people if I tell you that I believe in the Lord Jesus.
Just a few comments to some of these interesting talkbacks. bak is right to mention Capek, and perhaps I should have been more explicit. I thought the implication would be sufficient since the play is so well known, but I guess I was wrong here. And bak, Don and physicist, as for Browning’s poem: I regard Browning as one of my cherished poetic mentors and have taught this poem for years in my classes. A few years back I published a lit/crit book, Random Walks, which contains a chapter on “My Last Duchess” called “Dukes and Duchesses,” in which I present an alternative reading of the poem in question. I was encouraged by the response of several Browning experts who admitted that they had never entertained such a revisionist analysis of the piece, based on solid evidence from the historical register and from the “shadow zone” of the poem itself. (A reading of Daniel Karlin’s book on Browning’s courtship with Elizabeth is also helpful.) I obviously don’t have the space here to present a thorough and would hope convincing exegesis–it required 17 close-packed pages in my book–but if you can get hold of the book from McGill-Queen’s University Press and glom the chapter, you might be surprised. Only if you are really interested, of course. But I do appreciate your comments.
David
Sounds very interesting. I think you would have done well to note in the text that your own reading differs from the usual take.
Historical context is everything.
Sound judgement has become ” judgemental ” thus herd mentality supplants the individuals right to reason for himself. The end result – mothers that murder their children are set free.
Holy Matrimony becomes simply marriage so partnership with The Almighty in the creation of life is supplanted by the quest for orgasm with whomever one chooses.
The end result- men marrying men and women marrying women.
And of course there is the new religious war as one type of worship seeks to impose itself on others as ” Democracy ” replaces Religious Freedom as the barometer of a healthy society and provides a fig leaf for duplicitous political hacks.
Society is crumbling and the degeneration is happening at lightening speed. As the world community wallows in filth the great cleansing is imminent. The pain is only beginning.
” The rapid changes on both a technological and sociological level will result in a great social upheaval. The cataclysmic changes will result in considerable suffering, often referred to as the Hevlei Mashiah or Birthpangs of the Messiah. If the Messiah comes with miracles, these “birthpangs” may be avoided, but the great changes involved in his coming in the manner adopted by Maimonides may make these terrible travails inevitable.
Since in a period of such accelerated change parents and children will grow up in literally different worlds, traditions handed from father to son will be among the major casualties. The Talmud describes at length how there will be general dissatisfaction with the values of religion-in such a rapidly changing world, people will naturally be enamored with the new and dissatisfied with the old. Thus, the sages teach that neither parents nor the aged will be respected, the old will have to seek favors from the young, and a man’s household will become his enemies. Insolence will increase, people will no longer have respect, and none will offer reproof. Religious studies will be despised and used by nonbelievers to strengthen their cause, the government will become godless, academies will be places of indiscretion, and the religious will be denigrated.
In the generation when the Messiah comes, young men will insult the old, and old men will stand before the young [to give them honor]; daughters will rise up against their mothers, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law. The people shall be dog-faced, and a son will not be abashed in his father’s presence. It has been taught, R. Nehemiah said: In the generation of the Messiah’s coming impudence will increase, esteem be perverted. [Sanhedrin 97a]
The Wisdom of the learned will degenerate; fearers of sin will be despised; and the truth will be lacking. Youths will put old men to shame. [Sotah 49b]
Judaism will suffer greatly because of these upheavals. There is a tradition that the Jews will split up into various groups, each laying claim to the truth, as the Talmud says, “Our truth shall be divided into flocks” (Sanhedrin 97a). This will make it exceedingly difficult, almost impossible, to discern true Judaism from the false. This is the meaning of the prophecy, “Truth will fail” (Isaiah 59:15).
Maimonides, in his Epistle to Yemen even predicted that many will leave the fold of Judaism completely, without mali ciously intending to do harm to the Jewish people, and the nation shall suffer immensely as a result of their actions. This is how our sages interpret the prophecy, “The wicked shall do wickedly, and not understand” (Daniel 12:10)..
Of course, there will he some Jews who remain true to their traditions. They will realize that they are witnessing the death throes of a degenerate old order and will not be drawn into it. But they will suffer all the more for this, and be dubbed fools for not conforming to the liberal ways of the premessianic age. This is the meaning of the prophecy (Isaiah 59:15), “He who departs from evil will be considered a fool” (Sanhedrin 97a).”
http://www.moshiach.com/topics/what/the-moshiach-in-our-time.php
For centuries the wisest sages have advised: “Perish all those who calculate the end; rather let a man wait and believe, and the good is bound to come.”
Silver was better known for his political and social activism than his Torah scholarship. As a leader of the ” reform movement ” which has wreaked a path of destruction and assimilation in the Jewish world ( we have a better view today than Silver in his lifetime ) I wholeheartedly reject his religious pronouncements. His own ” pathetic eagerness ” in adopting foreign elements and spoon feeding them to his congregants resulted in decimation. Many of his political views and certainly his support for Israel I view positively however his rabbinical opinions carry little weight. He is not my Rabbi.
Two last comments-
” Reform rabbis ” routinely conduct ” weddings ” between men and men and women and women.
Most of the ” rabbis ” being ordained today by HUC are lesbian.
“Though the Messiah tarries, nevertheless I await her patiently and with perfect faith!”
What you have said is true, son of Jacob. However, the apostasy is nothing new. This transgression predates the destruction of the Temple. What is the transgression? It is in fact the Talmud itself! Why do I call the Talmud transgression? Because, “You nullify the Torah for the sake of your tradition.” Do not misunderstand- mercy does not nullify the Torah, but rather fulfills it. However, mercy is forgiving those who have harmed you, not depriving a man of justice. When the Torah calls for a man’s eye to be gouged out if he blinds another man, it is mercy if the victim does not demand the penalty be enforced (assuming, of course, that there is no compulsion involved). On the other hand, it is injustice to do as the Talmud instructs- compel the victim to be satisfied with monetary damages. How can one do equal justice to rich and poor under this system? The rich assailant could buy his way out of any crime short of murder, while the poor assailant is made into a slave- to say nothing of the victim, who cannot restore with money an eye that has been damaged beyond repair!
It is sad, to say the least, that a people so zealous against idolatry has made an idol out of the words of their own teachers. You long for the Messiah, but you do not find Him, because you have listened to blind leaders of the blind, rather than the Tanach that you have in your own house. “Why was no one there when I came?” asks the Lord. Has not the Word of the Lord reached the ends of the Earth? Why then, do His own people not hear it, or rather, “hear, but do not understand?”
Buster, I will not debate you because you lack basic understanding. The Talmud does not replace The Torah. It is a multi-generational discussion and attempt to understand what The Torah means. For instance ” an eye for an eye ” was never meant literally. In ancient times the accidental removal of a persons eye, when the person survived such a catastrophe, could never be compensated for by the removal of the other persons eye. In those days such a procedure could well cause death. An eye for a life is not what The Torah says.
Neither does The Talmud hold the life of a wealthy person dearer that that of a poor person. In fact Jewish Law based upon Talmudic decision guarantees the rights of the poor far beyond any other moral code and forms the basis of of many of those same rights and laws today.
Your replacement theology offers nothing to Jews and rather than look for faults in our traditions you might better spend your time reflecting on the shallowest of a creed that demands only belief not good actions and offers absolutions for the most heinous crimes based on the mumbling of a few words.
At least get a grip on the fundamentals. Your presumption of superior dogma betrays a self assuredness unearned.
Extraordinarily well said.
What replacement theology? I don’t believe in replacement theology. I just quoted what the Rabbi said about the Pharisees nullifying the Torah for the sake of their tradition. They said such things as, “If one swears by the alter, he is not bound, but if he swears by the gift on the alter, he is bound.” That the Talmud slanders the Rabbi by calling Him a sorcerer is the natural extension of the fact that the Talmud speaks absurdities and twists the Torah into knots.
Again, I ask you- what transgression did Israel commit that caused the Diaspora? We can cite Jeremiah to see what transgression led to the Babylonian Exile, namely, that the land was filled with idolatry and Judah would not repent despite many warnings. In fulfillment of the word of the Lord revealed to Moses and Ezekiel, the Diaspora is giving way to the Great Regathering, the Second Exodus, just as the exile to Babylon came to an end. So no, I do not believe that God has abandoned Israel- if He had, Israel would have perished in exile, but for the sake of His Name, He has not destroyed His people, but instead preserved a remnant to return to the Holy Land, so that ultimately, they will return to Him. However, if you claim there was no transgression, you are a blasphemer, because the Lord promised that exile from the Land would occur only because of transgression, so claiming that your ancestors were exiled unjustly amounts to calling God a liar and unjust.
http://www.jewishlaborcommittee.org/LaborRightsInTheJewishTradition.pdf
Abraham Lincoln gave a famous campaign speech that largely accords with the post of Menachem Ben Yakov. One year after giving this famous speech, Lincoln was elected president.
It is both regrettable and peculiar that today’s far-right “red meat” ideologists vehemently repudiate Abraham Lincoln’s ideas … thereby dismissing the very same ideas that historically were the foundation of American conservatism.
Lincoln’s Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society
Abraham Lincoln on-line
URL: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/fair.htm
Very, very nice, David.
(To PJM–more of this, less of the negativity.)
This recalls to mind C.S. Lewis’s monitory essay The Abolition of Man.
Or perhaps, even more tawdrily, of performing “preventive maintenance” on it.
The adventure and danger inherent in sexual contact is almost inexplicable to anyone born since 1970.
“Metaphor, as everyone knows, is the semantic substratum of language and all real communication is paradigmatic in nature.”
Everyone? Oh yeah, my teenage sons are constantly harping on this, sort of like Michael Palin, “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.”
What? Wait just a moment: Where has it been tried and found wanting?
+1 & LOL! to both of you.
David, if ontogeny truly recapitulates phylogeny, then you have nothing to fear. We shall survive ourselves since our artifacts shall become us, given enough time, and supposedly, funding for the space exploration.
You have posed the issue articulately and beautifully. Thank you.
I really like wine.
Few months ago someone invited my wife and I to a wine tasting club. For about an hour I sat in front of an empty glass while hearing a lecture on tannins and the 4 acids that go into wine. There were discussions about clarity, nose, color and a bunch of other things I cant remember. Finally a bottle was opened I drained my glass pretty quickly and there was another discussion. This went on for awhile longer. The cheese puffs were very good and we didnt have to talk about those.
Then there is my cousin the collector. He has this whole wine celler with little tags on the bottles and he can tell you about where they all came from and how much they cost. He never opens those special bottles and serves up the regular stuff for company.
To each his own I suppose but I would rather drink it.
David,
The fact that so many missed your fundamental message and instead focus on issues of politics, literature and religion simply proves your premise.
Beautiful column, thank you.
A pseudo-culture based on the pseudo-philosophy of nihilism has led many in the dark lands you describe.
You so accurately describe how we no longer stand before one another as mysteries, but as problems to be solved. We view each other as complex mechanisms which we must figure out (calculate) how to operate. Gone is our mystery to one another and gone is any wonderment of discovery and unexpectedness. No wonder people are bored in their relationships.
The mystery cannot be restored if the only metaphor we have left is the machine. Because art in the Western world is now reduced to “Piss Christ” and other similar images, our art can no longer restore us to the richness and mystery of the world or one another. We cannot blame science or scientists for the way we perceive one another. I see our present difficulty as a failure of art. Today’s artists, dribbling paint on canvases on the floor or arranging pieces of junk in piles, have no vision, see no future, and so they take away even our present because they do not love anything in the world enough to find it beautiful.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (Keats) For a treatise on beauty, love and truth read Mark Helprin’s “A Soldier of the Great War”. Should have won a Nobel or at least a Pulitzer.
Artists who make beautiful art are no longer appreciated by those who decide what constitutes art. We are taught in art school that art should “challenge traditional thought.”. Those of us who don’t want to do that, who are inspired instead to create pretty things, are relegated to the title of “craftsperson” or “illustrator.” We sell our stuff on etsy and in craft shows or to ad agencies to advertise soap. Or we paint for friends who love our work.
Married for 24 years
Would settle for either
If you can point to it in the Sears Catalog, somebody, somewhere, wants to sleep with it.
Thank you for a an eminent article, Mr. Solway. And your comment, Gloria, I think you are pointing to much of the essence of what has developed of the Western Culture. I think that when Man starts to look upon himself as the only creator of things, he forgets that EVERYTHING is created before Man. When respect and humility for The Creator of all things isn’t there anymore, Man ends up in nihilism and “ego-trips”. This you can see in all culture life.
The God I believe in was satisfied with His creation, and I perfectly agree with Him. When Man thinks that he’s above The Creator (and cannot accept what a frail human being he/she in fact is) mystery and visions tend to disappear and leaves Man very mechanic and alone.
“that most profound and unsearchable of mysteries, a spouse.”
You must be talking about my wife.
My take on your article – the tension between a mechanistic/performance based world and a relational/spiritual world. Different worldviews and different outcomes. Basic problem with mechanistic perspective – it doesn’t take into account man’s profound brokenness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bjLv0Huk-k
“Love/Sex”
By Tom Rapp
I want to meet somebody,
That I can talk to.
I want to meet somebody,
I can make love with, not to.
Bodies on bodies
Like sacks upon shelves.
People are using each other,
To make love to themselves.
And we all use our bodies
As a place to hide
And meet all the other bodies
With people hiding inside.
If all that is touching,
Is just what you wear,
I guess that not sharing,
Is the only thing we share,
Somewhere.
Somewhere we lost real love,
Somewhere along the line.
They say get it while you can,
Get it while you can,
But don’t get left behind.
And if you don’t love
The one that you’re with
Why don’t you just
Wait for the one that you love?
And she’ll love you, too.
Today I met somebody
That I can talk to.
Today I met somebody
I can make love with, not to.
She says love will get you
Through times of no sex
Better than sex will get you
Through times of no love.
We wrote that on the wall,
We wrote that on the wall,
We wrote that on the wall,
And why don’t you
Write that on your wall, too
Two conceptual problems: soul/body dualism, and the over-use of analytical thinking. We are not souls trapped in bodies, but a unity of these best illustrated in the theological study of the person of Christ. Also, the dominance of analytical thinking in society since DesCartes has caused us to slice and dice things that defy analysis, but we do it anyway, the result being a Freudian alphabet soup of incoherent and contradictory ideas. It’s like the guy with the pumpkin head in Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas trying to understand this Christmas thing by breaking down Christmas tree ornaments and doing chemical analysis on them. Two valuable resources: A theology of the Body by the late Pope John Paul The Great, and De Docta Ignoranta by Cusanus.
I have Asperger’s Syndrome and I have to say I’ve found the mechanism metaphor and it’s psychological iterations extraordinarily useful in decoding speech that is, for my part as a listener, largely devoid of non-verbal content and so difficult to get at it’s meaning. The inability to note the vast majority of facial and body language changes (which my brain simply doesn’t recognize as having ocured without stroke inducing mental focus that borders on mesmerism) has been a very serious inhibitor and overcoming it is an ongoing project (35 years and counting). All that is to say what you bemoan here has been very useful to me personally. That said, I consciously recognize the metaphor as a tool for that is how I use it and not as meaning itself as that’s what I’m trying to find.
I would also add that the mystery you find wondrous is for me torturous in that I have more mystery than I can handle. And that includes currently even having all the tactics I’ve acquired in sorting out human behavior and speech over the last 35 years. Which is to say I sympathize with those who would treat the metaphor as reality in that, pragmatically speaking, it’s easier to live with than the unbounded alternative. More pleasant? I don’t know as I don’t know what “normals” experience except at a serious remove. And it certainly brings some downsides with it, but it works, again pragmatically, and I’m not sure what the viable alternative is. Humility and awe in the face of the unknown is a romantic idea, but the instinct is to fear. And fear leads to the embrace of the metaphor as reality because then at the least you have something that can be confronted and “worked on”. And activity, whether mental, emotional, or physical is what most people consider “life”.
I realize that my AS and my contending with it has me focusing on one particular aspect of what you’re getting at here, but it seems an important part overall. Why the embrace of the mechanistic metaphor? Because it’s effective and our daily life and what we think of as “life” reinforces it as well. Whereas humility in the face of fear/the unknown/unknowable isn’t effective in that it doesn’t effect anything (call it affective?). And that leads me to question whether we ever lost what you allude to in the medieval age. I know even less of history than you do I’m sure, but I know from experience that language in itself is insufficient to describe the world around you today and was then as well. And given that most of what we know of that age was learned via writing I wonder if we’ve missed an enormous number of assumptions the authors never saw fit to articulate as they were too obvious to verbalize. Is what you’re implicitly calling for really all that human? Has it ever existed in humans at all? And if so, how?
And doesn’t that last question just get us back where we started.
As to the distinction between “having sex” and “making love” my experience is that people use the latter phrasing when the emotional content of the act is being explicitly recognized and they use the former when, whether present or not, it’s being ignored or assumed. That assumption can be cooperative in a context of extraordinary familiarity and thus casual or the assumption can be made out of fear that it isn’t really reciprocal. At any rate, my experience suggests that this particular linguistic artifact isn’t necessarily indicative of what you’re suggesting. Though it works as an illustration if your premise is correct.
I would be interested in any thoughts you have on these ideas though.
Dear Alabama
Just read your fascinating and valuable comment–it’s past 11 here and I’m part way through a bottle of superb Scotch, so I’m not sure I can respond clearly. I have a friend, a very fine poet, who also “suffers” from Asperger’s. I use inverted commas because he doesn’t consider it an affliction but as an ambiguous boon that has helped him in generating insights into both life and language and perhaps has materially contributed to his poetry. Neither of us know how to get beyond metaphor and neither of us are inclined to spend seven years sitting under a Bo tree to accomplish the feat. And perhaps what we call mysticism is only the higher form of romance. I started writing this article one day when I was thinking about the spiritual aberration of the pre-nup, which turns marriage into a contract rather than a covenant and begins by assuming the worst rather than being a leap of trust. Obviously,from the perspective of society, it is a contract, but from the perspective of the frail, baffled and inherently lonely individual, it has to be far more than that. When one binds oneself to another person, it needs to be sub specie aeternitatis–that absolutely has to be the presumption, even if in the sequel it doesn’t last. Otherwise it isn’t a melding of souls before the terror of existence but just an alliance, a “deal,” not a marriage in truth but a “marriage of convenience” which is no marriage at all. The problem is, of course, that we are all liars from the egg, so the odds are stacked against us anyway. I figure that love is the only way out of the trap. But then, ultimately, what do I know?
David
I agree with your friend’s perspective on AS so far as insight into life and language goes and said insights apply broadly to writing in general, poetry included though I don’t write any. My characterization of AS is informed by the fact that I wasn’t diagnosed until @ thirty years old so didn’t know what was “wrong” with me for most of my life nor did I seek or receive any outside help for that problem (until my late twenties) beyond very loving parents and teachers and friends which was no small thing I assure you. But the mechanistic metaphor, in addition to others, was instrumental in developing coping skills and “workarounds” for my deficiencies before I ever had a name or an articulation for what they were. Though the metaphors are insufficient to account for the real in it’s entirety so the new metaphor of symptoms and biology has been a welcome addition to all the others (theological, philosophical, mechanistic, and poetic).
And I don’t think there is a need to get beyond our metaphors. They serve their purpose when we call on them and so long as we understand that they are no more complicated or effective than we are they are useful. God gave us the ability to create and so we do. Confusing our creations with Creation is where we get in trouble (beware philosophers bearing gifts). But as I said before, there are good reasons we do so and so I won’t mourn our lapses.
I like the origin story for this essay. In reading (briefly) on the history of prenuptial it seems the pre-nup is very nearly as old as marriage itself and was meant as a solution to the problem of our being liars from the egg. We are very creative indeed. Marriage is more than a contract, but it is also still a contract, even for the individual as anyone who was neglected by a spouse (and the sense of betrayal that follows) or has gone through a divorce (and the economic and emotional damage that ensues) can attest. Formalizing that part of the bond is a natural response to a commitment made sub specie aeternitatis by entities which our bounded by time and space and all the limitations that follow. Or should our metaphor of eternity and a love that never dies be taken and lived literally? I contend that even seven years under the Bo tree is insufficient to get beyond that metaphor. Convenience mustn’t be damned even though it isn’t sufficient on it’s own. One cannot live on love alone any more than bread alone.
And so to love as an answer/remedy. Judging from the way people use the word it seems largely to signify an emotion. But nothing is more transitory than emotion. Emotions rarely last more than a few minutes and when they do last longer it’s usually just a recurrence after a brief break. Intense grief can work like this. It comes and goes. Moreover, emotion isn’t homogenous. This can be hard for men to understand as we’ve such a strong inclination towards compartmentalization. But when you are afraid you are also a little bit angry and a little bit excited along with other things. Our tendency as men is to focus in on one aspect of what we’re feeling, usually whatever makes the bulk of our emotional palate or what is most useful at the moment. Anger is more useful than fear and so some of us fight back instinctively when we’re afraid even though the majority of our feeling is fear. Women find this ability to focus in on one aspect intensely attractive in men. Particularly affection, adoration, and desire. Women tend to feel the entirety of their emotional palate as it exists in a moment and so can be overwhelmed at times or confused by this instinct to validate and express every aspect of what they’re feeling. These are both valuable skills for different reasons and we’re probably supposed to teach each other. That’s my own pet theory anyway and I’ve found it to be reliable thus far.
And capacity is a none too significant variable here as well. There are actual exercises in building emotional capacity for traumatized or neglected children that professionals treat. I’ve some experience with this as my natural instinct is to form emotional attachments with ideas, abstractions, and concepts instead of people, places, and things. This definition of love (taken from usage) seems to me too fragile and temporary a description for a concept like love. How is love to be patient if it never lasts more than a few minutes? I think love is not an emotion, but rather an attitude and a pattern of behavior. There is a feeling that occurs only in the context of the attitude and behavior called love that’s referred to as being “in love” and while the emotional (and visceral) sensation is real I think “in love” is a misnomer that results from a poor definition of love as a feeling. I’ve gone on at length about this in order to make the distinction that if love is to be the escape from the trap that’s fine, so long as we’re talking about something more substantial than the feeling you get for a few moments looking across the table at your beloved. I can assure you that that feeling will not work as a defense against the terror of existence as you put it. And terror is as good a word as any in describing the prospect of lifelong isolation and distance that comes with being even mildly autistic.
Finally, as to melding souls – as soon as you locate yours you’re a third of the way there. All that’s left is to locate someone else’s and then find the alchemical process by which the two are made one. I think it’s more likely that any soul melding that occurs is more a consequence of marriage and the attitude/behavior of loving your spouse than anything you actually endeavor to achieve. So I wouldn’t worry about the quasi bad faith move of prenuptialization interfering with a good marriage. Unless it somehow acts as a disincentive to make a good marriage, but I don’t see how that would work.
Post Script – I have a tendency to be relentlessly contrarian and pedantic. It was an instinct I developed in trying to get peers to verbalize more precisely because I lacked so much of the context, both non-verbal cues and socialization. So my writing here may come off as more disagreeable and argumentative than it actually is. I enjoyed your essay and appreciate your response however we may disagree or agree and just thought I’d go ahead and make that explicit.
Biomechanization as a human goal is as old as humanity itself. It is linked inextricably to the human tendency to mimic creation and hostility towards it is only Ludditism.
Mechanization and technology are inherently neutral, if at this time we feel a reaction to it, then it is the current intention and not the process of discovery & invention alone that is objectionable.
We have left the Garden, you cannot put the genie back in the bottle. In the Torah it speaks of “zim-zum”, the sound created as God retreated in order to make room for the undivinity of humanity. The sound of zim-zum is the sound of a less than perfect machine.
PS: try to find Michael Johnson (of “Bluer than Blue,” but far more… see http://www.mjblue.com) doing Rapp’s fine Love/Sex song; it’s transcendant and worthwhatever you need to do to obtain it…. he’s the best guitarist/singer – best at both – of anyone known to this aficionado….
I’m suddenly reminded of one of my old Professor’s description of most theoretical physics, as a mental version of that thing the church says will make you go blind.
I’m also reminded of what a monk I knew once said about mysticism. It begins in the mist, and ends in schism.
Bet you never thought you’d see those two things quoted in the same post. I know I didn’t.
LOL … funny post!
Voyager, for further discussion of what math and physics are all about, please let me commend to you Bill Thurston’s essay at the beginning of Daina Taimina’s book Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes:
Gosh … does this mean that doing mathematics can be like making love and having sex?
The answer is … absolutely “YES”!
————-
Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes
URL: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~dtaimina/hypplanes.htm
Math p*rn … more dangerously addictive than any other obsession.
Julia Robinson and Hilbert’s Tenth Problem
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4x9XKNAYjU
Is this not the oldest story we have? The Garden and the tree of knowledge? Adam and Eve? Cain and Abel? Cain representing the evolving “modern” or technological/agricultural man and Abel the bucolic shepherd and non-mechanical man. The original schism that happened when man rose above his animal nature? Which one was more pleasing to God?
“pre-Common Era philosophers”
I am afraid you have lost me there and then, Mr Solway. You can mangle the language as you like, but conceptual abominations I shall not have.
While accurately characterizing Freud, who indeed was a materialist, Solway is a little unfair to Jung, who was very much aware of the mysteriousness, the sheer ineffability, of the unconscious–which, of course, means that which cannot be known. The unconscious is not to be analyzed like a mechanism, but to be confronted and engaged like a living partner, or, as Jung put it, to be “understood.”
Solway should rethink Jung’s telluric image and try to see it as a metaphor, or, as Jung himself would say, a symbol, which presents in a partially graspable manner that which cannot not be fully comprehended.
two words to contribute: Trust and paradox.
For a marriage, trust is the most important missing word. In marriage, quantum mechanics and theology, paradox is the missing word.
Ideally you marry your opposite, one who sees what you don’t see. Then spend the next 40 years seeking to see truth through the eyes of someone you trust.
My best arguments with my wife are when we are both right, because it requires we both work to see what the other sees. Learning to listen is both blessing, danger, journey and joy.
One of marriage’s paradoxes: It is both contract and covenant. Before one of our sons was diagnosed, we agreed we would do whatever was necessary. We didn’t know what we faced, but agreed to do all we could. Our marriage survived. It was only later i found the divorce rate of parents of special needs children is 90%. It was only our commitment to do what we had no idea was coming, helped us survive. That and some divine intervention.
A contract assumes you know what you are doing. I will… if you… A covenant commits to a journey to a place you’ve never been.
Presbypoet, your post is wonderful … sincere appreciation, deepest respect, and heartiest congratulations are hereby extended to you and your wife.
Good gracious me, David. I love your writing, your metaphors, but godamighty, how can you live in a world where there is
“the terror of existence”, and you think
“we are all liars from the egg”?
Sounds Gothic to me. Do you sport a long black raincoat and black safari hat?