But popular culture is where we go to talk to and agree with one another; to simplify ourselves; to find our herd. It’s like going to the Automat to buy an emotion. The thrills are cheap and the payoffs are predictable and, after a while, the repetition is a bummer. Whereas books are where we go alone to complicate ourselves. Inside this solitude, we take on contours, textures, perspectives. Heightened language levitates the reader. Great art transfigures.
John Leonard, Reading for My Life, 3-4
I have written appreciatively here of John Leonard. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he wrote. I take some issue with Leonard’s comments above, agreeing in part, disagreeing in part.
I appreciate art that complicates. The more I see and hear and learn, the more wondrous, mysterious and complicated life seems. It helps to have music and images and words that help us grasp some of that complexity so our decisions are more respectful of the genuine mystery of the world. Humans often gravitate toward a simplicity that easily becomes simplistic.
With Leonard, I appreciate becoming more complicated. Yet I have some questions. If one were to put jazz in the category of popular culture, I would assert, against Leonard, that this is an art form that complicates. Given the typical sales of jazz music, it may be difficult to place it in the realm of popular culture. One of the things that attracted me to the music of Bob Dylan was the way he worked with words, laying out image upon image in his own unique way. His latest musical offering, Tempest, has a lyrical richness to it that offers varying textures with which to appreciate life. By the way, in another essay in his book, Leonard seems to appreciate some of Dylan’s music, but doesn't much like the man.
So I may or may not quibble with Leonard in defining what qualifies as popular culture. I would also raise this question with him – isn’t it o.k. sometimes to reach for the simple song that puts a smile on your face and a little dance in your step? Isn’t part of the wonderful complexity of the world that we can sometimes find a song, or a moment of film, that jolts our hearts a little, and is something a little bit more than buying an emotion at the Automat?
I confess to having a fondness for sixties pop music, especially some of the psychedelic pop. Here’s a list of songs I burned on a cd not long ago, as a sample of that time (a couple of songs are early seventies). These are mostly one hit wonders, with a couple of notable exceptions, but listening to them lifts me just a little. I think that’s o.k.
Marmalade, “Reflections of My Life”
The Left Banke, “Walk Away Renee”
Strawberry Alarm Clock, “Incense and Peppermints”
John Fred and His Playboy Band, “Judy in Disguise (with Glasses)”
Five Americans, “Western Union”
Every Mothers Son, “Come On Down to My Boat Baby”
The Lemon Pipers, “Green Tambourine”
Lou Christie, “Lightning Strikes”
Bobby Hebb, “Sunny”
The Beatles, “Strawberry Fields Forever”
The Beach Boys, “Surfs Up”
Diana Ross and the Supremes, “Reflections”
The Buckinghams, “Susan”
The Monkees, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”
American Breed, “Bend Me, Shape Me”
Jose Feliciano, “Light My Fire”
Albert Hammond, Jr. “It Never Rains in California”
Jerry Jeff Walker, “Mr. Bojangles”
Rock critic Lester Bangs, in his wonderful essay on “Bubblegum Music” (Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll) wrote: the real truth is that there will always be at least one tender spot deep in the heart of rock & roll which should never grow up and never will. In our complicated world, a world which we need to see in all its complexity, with multiple textures contours and perspectives, there remains a thread of innocent joy over simple pleasures. It is ok from time to time to visit that place – that place of incense and peppermints and green tambourines where Judy’s in disguise, surfs up, Mr. Bojangles dances, and strawberry fields are just around the corner. Nothing to get hung about.
And I think I owe those last sentences to John Leonard.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Deep Faith Deep Respect
When I completed my Ph. D. in 1994, I was free to read just about anything I wanted to. I had enjoyed doing the reading and research and writing for my doctorate. At the same time, it kept me focused in a particular direction – democratic political theory and Christian ethics. Now I could turn my intellectual sights in any direction I wanted to. I chose to read Martha Nussbaum’s book Love’s Knowledge: essays in philosophy and literature. Nussbaum’s book was about ethics, my field of study, and it beautifully wove a concern for ethical reflection and the moral life with a love of literature and an appreciation for human feeling. I have never lost my appreciation for Nussbaum’s work.
I have just finished her most recent work, The New Religious Intolerance, which reflects on the overwrought fear of Islam in Europe and the United States. She argues that “without fear we’d all be dead” (20). Yet, “fear is primitive” (55). It is “an intense focus on the self that casts others into darkness. However valuable and indeed essential it is in a genuinely dangerous world, it is itself one of life’s great dangers” (58). Her book makes the case that we need to manage our fears by combining principles of respect for human equality, offering arguments that are not narrowly self-serving, and by nurturing curiosity, friendship and sympathetic imagination (21).
In the course of her book, Nussbaum offers this statement: Religion is central to people’s sense of themselves (102). I certainly think religion is intended to be central to one’s sense of self, that is, if one is part of a religious community or proclaims a religious faith, it is intended to be an important part of one’s self-understanding.
I think many struggle with this, however. In American society, we are encouraged, in many ways, to keep our faith private, to consider our religious identity one hat among many we wear. I think a number of church people see being part of the church as one thing among many others that defines them – along with parent, spouse, coach, job, friend. Rather than being central to all these, religion can be just one “role” among others.
One source for this psychic marginalizing of one’s religious identity is found in experiences of intolerance. Many of us have seen a certain kind of religious self-certainty become an overbearing self-righteousness – “we are right and you are wrong and there is a terrible price to be paid for your wrongheadedness.” One reaction to this can be to make our religious identity a little less central. It is one way to avoid becoming overbearing.
It is not, however, the best way, I think. As a pastor, I deeply appreciate these words penned many years ago by Daniel Day Williams. It can be truly said that the pastoral task is so to minister to people who have lost the power of a right use of Christian language that this language can be restored to them with reality and with power (The Minister and the Care of Souls, 49). A right use of Christian language is to understand that who we are in relationship to God is central to who we are as human persons. To see ourselves as persons created in the image of God, and who continue to struggle with living into that, is central to who we are as human persons.
Our task in a religiously pluralistic society is not to marginalize religion, but instead to combine deep faith with deep respect. It is to embrace the centrality of our religious identity while at the same time fostering a genuine respect for others, curiosity about others, and friendship toward others.
As a Christian, trying to live the Jesus way is central to who I am. I can offer testimony that the Jesus way is a good way. One evidence for that assertion just might be my ability to befriend others on other ways.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
I have just finished her most recent work, The New Religious Intolerance, which reflects on the overwrought fear of Islam in Europe and the United States. She argues that “without fear we’d all be dead” (20). Yet, “fear is primitive” (55). It is “an intense focus on the self that casts others into darkness. However valuable and indeed essential it is in a genuinely dangerous world, it is itself one of life’s great dangers” (58). Her book makes the case that we need to manage our fears by combining principles of respect for human equality, offering arguments that are not narrowly self-serving, and by nurturing curiosity, friendship and sympathetic imagination (21).
In the course of her book, Nussbaum offers this statement: Religion is central to people’s sense of themselves (102). I certainly think religion is intended to be central to one’s sense of self, that is, if one is part of a religious community or proclaims a religious faith, it is intended to be an important part of one’s self-understanding.
I think many struggle with this, however. In American society, we are encouraged, in many ways, to keep our faith private, to consider our religious identity one hat among many we wear. I think a number of church people see being part of the church as one thing among many others that defines them – along with parent, spouse, coach, job, friend. Rather than being central to all these, religion can be just one “role” among others.
One source for this psychic marginalizing of one’s religious identity is found in experiences of intolerance. Many of us have seen a certain kind of religious self-certainty become an overbearing self-righteousness – “we are right and you are wrong and there is a terrible price to be paid for your wrongheadedness.” One reaction to this can be to make our religious identity a little less central. It is one way to avoid becoming overbearing.
It is not, however, the best way, I think. As a pastor, I deeply appreciate these words penned many years ago by Daniel Day Williams. It can be truly said that the pastoral task is so to minister to people who have lost the power of a right use of Christian language that this language can be restored to them with reality and with power (The Minister and the Care of Souls, 49). A right use of Christian language is to understand that who we are in relationship to God is central to who we are as human persons. To see ourselves as persons created in the image of God, and who continue to struggle with living into that, is central to who we are as human persons.
Our task in a religiously pluralistic society is not to marginalize religion, but instead to combine deep faith with deep respect. It is to embrace the centrality of our religious identity while at the same time fostering a genuine respect for others, curiosity about others, and friendship toward others.
As a Christian, trying to live the Jesus way is central to who I am. I can offer testimony that the Jesus way is a good way. One evidence for that assertion just might be my ability to befriend others on other ways.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
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