Rich Hall, Stewart Lee, Louis CK, Diogenes and Two Jesuses

The American comedian, Rich Hall, had a show in 2009 called “Hell No, I Ain’t Happy”. I mention it because, hell no, I ain’t happy. In fact, I find it hard to believe I’ll ever be happy and, up until this point at which, as I write, I am approaching the age of one half century old, I never have been happy as a settled state. I’ve been concentrating on trying to stay sane although I’m not sure why as being insane would at least relieve me of the burden of being concerned about it either way. In fact, were it not for brief moments of happiness that had strayed way off course and found themselves populating my hellhole of an existence, I would easily be able to believe that happiness is a myth told to to keep us compliant and hopeful.

The British comedian, Stewart Lee, likes to play a character on stage that he refers to in mock interviews and real ones as “the comedian Stewart Lee” and this character is a version of Stewart Lee himself yet, in Lee’s mind, at least, a rhetorically distinguishable version. This version of Lee does comedy exclusively for “an insular cadre of socially challenged, middle aged men” although, as Lee notes as part of his act, to laughter, not as exclusively as he’d like. Indeed, in a more recent show than the one from which this anecdote is taken, the comedian Stewart Lee goes on to say that his ideal room is a completely sold out empty room. He’s got the money, because people have bought the tickets, but he doesn’t have to do the work of bringing them round or appealing to their comedy sensitivities.

I wonder how the American comedian, Louis CK, feels about this. CK is now most famous for deciding it would be a good idea to masturbate in front of women, sometimes asking permission and sometimes not. It seems it never occurred to him to say that it was “the comedian Louis CK” doing these things. As I write, he recently made what is being reported as a come back appearance at a New York comedy venue only for lots of women to complain in public on the Internet that the disgraced Mexican-American should actually have just disappeared forever. These women, it seems, do not believe that CK has yet suffered enough for the crime of exposing a few inches of flesh in the wrong circumstances. The thought begins to dawn on me that, perhaps, they wish he would just go and hide in a corner and, to all intents and purposes, cease to exist as a public individual.

One wonders how the fourth century BCE Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope, would feel about this. Diogenes, so we learn from historical anecdotes, would masturbate openly in public and then remark that he wished it was so easy to fulfill l the desire of hunger as it was to fulfill the sexual desire. A little rub and its gone away until next time. Yet Diogenes would be in jail if he were here today, a pariah and a target of outraged feminist critique, and all because he was dealing as simply as possible with the sexual urge where someone else might see it. But what else could he do, masturbate furiously in his barrel? Diogenes, of course, might have replied to the effect that it is no big deal. Sex is natural and not shameful. Seeing an animal ejaculate is nothing to be frightened of or outraged about just like when your dog licks its embarrassing erection yet, strangely, does not appear remotely embarrassed. At best, it is perhaps something to laugh at, dismissively. Diogenes was a Cynic which means that he thought nothing natural could be a source of shame. His enemy was culture, the artificiality of human beings who codify and make rules for things that take human society away from living “according to nature” in general.

And now, in my fifth paragraph, I come to my fifth man. That man is Jesus, alternatively known as Christ, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Lord, Jesus of Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus H Christ and Jesus, the carpenter’s son. There is no record of the King of Kings ever having masturbated in public, although it seems he did get heckled from time to time, and there is that one saying about chopping your balls off if you are up to it. Yet he did not speak about “the religious figure, Jesus Christ” and neither did he ever say he was happy. But this, it turns out, is not something he could have done anyway because Jesus was not a writer. He did not write and perhaps, most likely, could not have written if he had wanted to anyway. Jesus was almost certainly illiterate. When we bring together the notions of Jesus and writing it is always someone else’s writing about Jesus and never Jesus’ writing about Jesus. Jesus, most likely, did not have the ability or the will to present himself in writing and so it was left up to others, often people Jesus didn’t even know, to write about him instead. Which of us would be happy with that? The religious figure, Jesus Christ, might be happy with that. He has gone on to have the biggest career of all time. But what about Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean?

I strikes me that Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean might be mortified by the career that the religious figure, Jesus Christ, is having. He would, it seems to me, more than likely be banging his head against the wall of his carpenter’s shop shouting “Make it stop!” if it weren’t for the unfortunate fact that he is dead. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean, did not ask to be brought into the White House, the seat of American presidential power, and used as a totem or a proxy for policies of any kind of modern partisanship. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean, did not share some bread and fish with some people so that guys wearing pillow cases on their heads could express their hatred for Jews. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean was a Jew, unlike the religious figure, Jesus Christ, who was a white European-looking fellow and so obviously not a Jew. The religious figure, Jesus Christ, was more the Jesus who would be happy to be at a right wing rally where the supremacy of the white race could be reasonably discussed. As the whitest person in history, the religious figure, Jesus Christ, fits right in there. But not Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean. Stupid Jew. Literally.

Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean was not a modern, white, evangelical businessman. He did not have family values. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean said, “The person who does not hate father and mother cannot become a disciple of mine.” He also said, “If you have money, do not give it at interest. Instead, give it to someone from whom you won’t get it back.” He said that people have nowhere to lay their heads and that people should “Become passersby”. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean was fucking insane. He would not have been accepted into your cosy, well-funded church on Sunday. He would have been chased from the door had he even showed up. He had literally nothing to say about homosexuality, abortion clinics or making America great, either again or at all. He would wonder why there were bishops who had thrones in cathedrals and lived in palaces. But not the religious figure, Jesus Christ. He gets that. In fact, he wants you to hang his portrait up in the palace and have a statue of him in the cathedral. And please use his name as much as possible to justify whatever it is you want to do today.

At this point I should apologise to any female readers because even though Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean may have recommended chopping off your balls for the kingdom of God he was still a man. Very much a man. You don’t see any female carpenters now do you? And the religious figure, Jesus Christ, is basically a huge, shiny penis being waved in your face, Louis CK stylee. The religious figure, Jesus Christ, is the very appendage of life. He wants you to eat him. He insists. So this is a very man-centred essay about a very manly subject. God is not a woman, Ok? That’s just a fact you’ll have to get used to down at the Women’s Rights Centre as you discuss the tax on tampons and misogyny in the computer games industry. So, ladies, if you please, the men are talking about men here. It would serve you well to watch, listen, learn and, fundamentally, know your place. Oh, I know that some churches have female priests and even bishops now but, come on, all the proper churches don’t, the ones that actually have eaten the big, shiny dick of the religious figure, Jesus Christ.

Now Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean, was a poor man. I mean really poor. Destitute, in fact. And he really disliked people who weren’t poor. He would have hated rich men in suits crowdfunding their campaigns to be congressmen and senators whilst greedily snuffling at the trough of corporate endorsement. (You may wonder why I keep referring this essay to American things when I am British but this is obviously because America is the most important country in the world in every respect…. For those reading this who are unaware of the British comedian, Stewart Lee, I don’t think that. I think the opposite of that.) He would have despised CEOs of multi-national companies outsourcing their work to some third world cesspool where people work knee deep in their own excrement for 22 hours a day, not allowed to even go and relieve themselves elsewhere because it might slow down production and reduce the profit margin by 0.0000000000001%. So, this being true, isn’t it somewhat perverse that the religious figure, Jesus Christ, is exactly a friend of all the slimy sons of bitches that Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean never would be? How the hell did that happen?

It turns out that this is what happens when Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean does not write his own PR material. Then what happens is that bozos turn up later who don’t particularly see the advantages of Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean, who likes the poor and encourages everyone else to become it by giving all their money away, but do see the advantages of someone called the religious figure, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, as British motoring buffoon, Jeremy Clarkson, likes to call himself (shouldn’t that be “JC”?) is many times more preferable because, since he never actually ever existed, much like “the comedian, Stewart Lee,” you can actually say pretty much anything you like about him. He is what feminists like to call “a rhetorical construct” and so is very much like “toxic masculinity”. The best thing about being a rhetorical construct is that you can get away with saying anything because you will always be able to fall back on the notion that what you are talking about never really existed. Of course, you should never actually say that because the whole point of the religious figure, Jesus Christ, is that you maintain to the utmost of your ability that he does exist. But, of course, he doesn't really. Just never say that out loud.

All this would have flown over the head of Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean though. He was not up on feminist discourse. He wasn’t interested in corporate endorsements. He couldn’t even write his name. And he didn’t want to. He just got his hammer and chisel and chopped at bits of wood. Sometimes he wandered about and ate food with people. Like a mug. He talked about the kingdom of God and said it was like a weed that infests your garden and draws in birds who will eat all your seed. Then he said it was like mould you put in bread that infects all the bread and makes it rise. Was he off his nut? What is this gibberish? No wonder you never find his picture in palaces or his statue in cathedrals. The religious figure, Jesus Christ, is much more suitable to the task of being our cultural battering ram for all the things that we think but that we can say that he really stood for. Rhetorical construct, remember that.

The religious figure, Jesus Christ, does not mind this because he gets a throne at God’s right hand and he appreciates that kinda thing. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean, said he had nowhere to lay his head and, apparently, wandered about the countryside like some kind of tramp. That message will not play well with the upwardly mobile demographic that we are aiming for as they try to not default on their mortgages and upgrade to the next model of car whilst saving for the newest iPhone. We do not want people to find nobility and blessing in their pathetic lives, much less meaning. We want them to imagine that they can have something better… but not right now. After death. Right now you have to give us all of your money and suffer. Suffering is good. Look, the religious figure, Jesus Christ, suffered. He was crucified, for God’s sake. (Yes, literally.) But he has a throne now. Geddit? Suffer now, throne later. Right now you have to hate homos, baby killers, people who vote left and anyone who hasn’t got a gun. Its what the religious figure, Jesus Christ, would have wanted. You know he’s in charge upstairs, right? How do you think things will work out for you if you get there and you have all the wrong views? “No one comes to the Father except through me,” Ok?

So forget this dope Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean. Forget the poor. Forget giving all your money away, hating mom and dad, loving your enemies, being merciful, not judging, taking the log out of your own eye, and that parable where the king invites everyone to the banquet, “both good and bad alike”. As if! That is all terrible stuff, literally the opposite of the good life in today’s world. If you want a good life then you need the religious figure, Jesus Christ. He hates immoral people and is going to burn them all… and you need never look in the mirror with him. He only cares about the bad people and not us good ones. And remember, Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean was a vagrant and can you trust vagrants? No, you can’t. We arrest vagrants. Just for being vagrants! Vagrants are morally culpable simply for their vagrancy which is a kind of social marker for immorality. Any decent person has their own home. Diogenes was a vagrant and he masturbated in public. Like Louis CK. But the religious figure, Jesus Christ, never once so much as touched his own penis. In fact, he was asexual. Never had a single sexual thought. His mind was pure. He never even had an erection because he was too busy thinking about being good and burning the immoral who have far too many erections. And that’s just the feminist lesbians! So would you really choose Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean over the religious figure, Jesus Christ? Its your ass on the line here.

You never realised all this was at stake really, did you? But there is a reason that God speaks through the religious figure, Jesus Christ, and not the leftist conspiracy fabrication that is Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean. That reason is that God has moral values. God, who is white, knows the value and righteousness of good, white values, of making money, looking after yourself, your family and friends to the detriment of all others whilst bearing arms as a God-given right. That’s why we know that the Jews who killed Jesus are not going to heaven, because the religious figure, Jesus Christ, says so. Remember, the religious figure, Jesus Christ, is alive. He rose from the dead on the third day just like the four holy gospels (who were written by four trustworthy white men) say. But this Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean, he died. He died like a dog on a cross and no one knows what they did to him. Probably eaten by dogs or dumped in a pile of bodies with his face in someone’s ass. Do you want to be associated with that? Do you want to follow assface and wonder around like a tramp spouting parables about seeds or do you want a throne in heaven whilst all the bad people get the hellfire they deserve?

Hell no, you ain’t happy now, are you? Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean isn’t looking so good now. He’s almost a masturbator, that vagrant bastard. You can’t trust anyone who hasn’t got a home, right. They are dangerous. Their vagrancy might be catching. Do you know, he even advised his followers to go knocking on doors so that they might get food? This is why the religious figure, Jesus Christ, asks us to live in gated communities so that we can keep scum like that out. You never know where the hand that knocks on your door might have been. Best to see them stopped at the gate. By the security guard. Let them wipe the dust from their feet. See if I care. We don’t need your fake news kingdom of God communist Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean. The religious figure, Jesus Christ, who is white unlike you, has our thrones ready for us in heaven. Which is also white. What’s that? “Everyone who glorifies himself will be humiliated, and the one who humbles himself will be praised?” Listen, Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean. I am white, the religious figure, Jesus Christ, is white and God is white. If you think I’m living like a tramp in the dirt, relying on whatever I can find to eat and mixing with those who can, at best, be described as immoral undesirables, then you are much mistaken.

Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean made a mistake. He left his PR to other people and now other people prefer the religious figure, Jesus Christ. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean is now fake news, a commie Christ, a socialist masturbator’s wet dream. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean wishes now that he had learnt to write as he lies, mouldering, in an unmarked grave with his denuded face in someone’s bony ass. He cannot believe that he left the job to the four white guys, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They seemed trustworthy at the time but instead of repeating what he said they made up stories and sexed it up until they had the religious figure, Jesus Christ, instead. Weren’t they listening? Which bit of “blessed are the poor” did they not get? Instead, they went with the whole “son of God” angle as if Jesus was a white guy. They went chasing after Roman approval as if pleasing those in charge was what mattered most. Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean never said that big organisations should be created with people living in palaces. He never endorsed telethons to fund churches or expected the pastor to live in a mansion. Which bit of “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must become slave of all” did they not get? Jesus of Nazareth, the destitute, illiterate Galilean hunkered down in his unmarked grave, depressed. He wished he had learnt to write.

Trump and Jesus? Do Me A Fucking Favour!

Only a day after I write my first blog in months I find myself back on the computer writing a second. What reason could there be for this hasty return? The reason is a video that was retweeted by someone on my Twitter feed which reported on US President, Donald Trump, receiving several senior Evangelical Christians at an event in his honour. At this event, it was reported, Trump was presented with a Bible "to commemorate his greatness". The video I saw and subsequently retweeted along with my disbelief was inter cut with some of the statements of those Trump was receiving. As you might expect, these were a mish mash of homophobia, Islamophobia and even some passive antisemitism.  The whole thing, to my eyes was a total mess. In fact, it vindicates the fact that on my Twitter feed I actually have the word "Trump" filtered out. I do not what my existence daily sullied with a knowledge of his. However, thanks to a new tablet I was recently in receipt of, Trump is not filtered out if I check Twitter on there and so this abomination confronted me.

"Well what's the problem?" you might now be thinking. The problem, the thing that has annoyed me all morning, is that anyone might think to associate Trump with Jesus, the nominal founder of Christianity (he wasn't, but that's another story), in the first place. Even if we step away from an historical appreciation of Jesus and simply approach the question at the level of acknowledged Christian texts then Trump is the last person to be associated with such things. Let's look at some evidence:

"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:27-28)

"As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments:  You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions." (Mark 10: 17-22)

"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20b)

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." (John 13:34)

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

Tell me, are these the kind of sentiments, found in the four Christian gospels of the New Testament and the writings of Paul, those we might associate with Donald Trump? Is Trump, factually a serial adulterer with every wife he's ever had, factually a very rich man who builds huge towers he then puts his name on in capital letters, factually a despiser and disregarder of the poor, factually a man who does not love others but demonises them and incarcerates their children, factually a man who preys on differences between people and uses them to stir up enmity between people,  someone we should even rhetorically dare to associate with Jesus in any way? Is he remotely a Christian person by any Christian textual definition of this term, even as we find in the New Testament? To me, it simply beggars belief.  In the text of John's gospel before the words I have quoted above Jesus, thought of most highly by the text of John as a pre-existing son of God, is to be found washing the feet of his disciples and teaching that even the greater should humble himself to perform service for the lesser. Could we imagine Trump performing such a deed or even performing a selfless act for someone else at all?

To be honest, the whole scene sickens me. Its not just about Trump, of course. The Evangelicals reflect nothing of Jesus of Nazareth either. What does it say about people who use the memory of a person to build kingdoms for themselves and cultural empires over which they rule oh and, by the way, please keep on sending in those dollars? Who, reading the text of the gospels, or even of the New Testament, could get from this the notion that what Jesus really wants is for you to become as rich as possible and to pontificate to people in general about issues most of which Jesus himself never even reportedly had a single word to say? (For, of course, not a single word of the New Testament was actually written by Jesus.) Who, reading the New Testament, thinks that what we need to do is not help hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, imprison children, fan the flames of white supremacist hate and utilise the presidency of the United States for their own personal enrichment and aggrandisement? I can tell you without fear of contradiction that it is not people who have taken the canonical texts of that religion seriously. It is, however, people with at least two faces.

So, by all means, be the vile, self-serving, hate-filled, despicable and disingenuous people that you are. But not in the name of Jesus. Not even in the name of those who claim to be his followers (of which i am not one). Your lives and the lack of morals by which you guide them are nothing to do with the man from Galilee. They are your own artificial creations, a travesty of anything the Galilean stood for. On your own heads be it. You are responsible not him.

Partisanship, Collectivism and Individuality

This blog is to be about thoughts arising for me personally from the Avital Ronell affair. The what? you may be asking. Who is Avital Ronell? This, it turns out, is a point well made for those  of us (overwhelmingly most of us) who are not academics and who, much less, are denizens of that very niche location "comparative literature studies".  Ronell is a Professor of German and Comparative Literature at NYU (New York University) who was this year accused of a campaign of sexual harassment of a male postgraduate student under her supervision. This becomes stranger when we learn that Ronell, who is 66, identifies herself as queer whilst her accuser, Nimrod Reitman, thirty years her junior, identifies as gay.  Yet it is not my point here to trawl through the accusations in detail and those who want to do that will surely find several reports detailing this by searching accordingly. Instead, my point here is to raise fairly broad questions about our society that arise from this example for in its juxtaposition of the imagined "usual" roles in cases of sexual harassment a number of rather ugly things crawl from under the rocks.

One aspect of this case that immediately strikes me is that before the case was even made public (by leak from what is meant to be a confidential process) a number of colleagues and supporters of Ronell (from across US academia) had written to her university employers pleading her case. It has subsequently been revealed that they did not have the full facts of the case  at their disposal when they did so. These supporters included Judith Butler, one of the better known feminist academics in the world, who has since had to back pedal on the content of the letter in support of Ronell, not least because the content of the letter intimated that Ronell's status and the quality of her academic work should be held in her favour and also because the letter in part attempted to discredit the male complainant.  One can only imagine  how such arguments and tactics might have played with the co-signees of this letter had the accused been a heterosexual man and the complainant a female of any description. Arguing that status should speak for an accused and attempting to discredit accusers has been excoriated loud and long by many commentators (and rightly so) when the roles are reversed.

This raises the spectre of partisanship and jumping the gun where the individuals in such matters are identified as allies or enemies of the cause. Clearly, those writing to NYU in support of Ronell did so as those supporting someone they identified very much as an ally. Their belief was that an ally should be defended even as many of them no doubt believed her incapable of the acts she was accused of. Some, I'd have no problem believing, no doubt imagined it was all part of some greater conspiracy to bring down feminists like Ronell. But what strikes me is how many on the Ronell side of the fence are those who often write about power, or the operations of power, yet in this case seem totally blind to the fact that, in this situation, Avital Ronell was the one with the power and, according to others, she had been observed to abuse it before. Yet the point here for me is not what Ronell did or didn't do, grievous as that may be in its own right, but that those studying power and its effects become totally blind to their own studies when its an ally in the firing line.  Some, such as Queer Studies scholar, Lisa Duggan, would much rather we focus on "the structural issues". This seems to me like a smoke screen. It is not structures which make people do bad things. There is and always will be bad people responsible for bad things when they are done. Obsessing with structures does not, and should not, let the guilty off the hook. Indeed, if everyone acted appropriately the ideological and idealist structures would be shown up as the excuses they often are. Personal responsibility does not stop because "the system made me do it".

But there is a further unprobed assumption of the Ronell supporters here and its evident more widely in various other debates. This is that, somehow, being gay or queer or feminist is somehow special and that being one or any of these things somehow makes you immune to doing wrong. To be gay or queer or feminist somehow is imagined to make you one of the good guys, ineluctably on the side of right and constitutionally incapable of doing wrong. This belief is casually sown across social media by any number of sympathetic accounts such that the problem in society becomes maleness or heterosexuality or, more archetypally, male heterosexuality, the combo that should not dare to speak its name. At this point Harvey Weinstein might be thrust in our faces to hammer the hackneyed point home that heterosexual men + power = the subjection of all women and the corruption of a hoped for equal society. This attitude, where it raises its ugly head, is nothing other than a crock, a simple shitty belief. But it is instructive of one flavour of feminist agenda.

The problem, however, is that Feminism is not one thing and the word itself has become of doubtful use, in my opinion. For what does "feminism" actually mean? Often, its suggested it means equality but I would reject such a naive equation out of hand. Whilst some feminists, and some feminist agendas, approach and pursue the quite sensible and humanist desire for equality, often trying to avoid confrontation in the process, others are much more blatantly little other than anti-menist in which, according to their anti-menism they dub "Feminism", men are always the problem and removing power and influence from men is always the solution.  Thus, in cases of sexual assault or rape where women are the victim some such people say we should simply believe the woman's account regardless of evidence or any kind of thorough legal investigation.  Check out past Guardian columns of Jessica Valenti for lots of that.  Whether you think this is right or wrong it doesn't look much like equality and you can bet that Valenti doesn't think we should ever just believe men for whom a gender they did not choose has made them constitutionally unreliable in her eyes.

This itself belies an incipient and seemingly thorough-going collectivism in much discourse today as I pondered during my daily walk. Why is it that today no one is seen as an individual anymore, a person with their own story to tell and their own life to lead, a person who makes their own decisions and is their own set of beliefs, desires, hopes and fears? Instead, in much discourse today, academic or otherwise, everybody is designated as a set of labels and descriptors, they are ciphers for a category of human beings. I, for example, become not the name on my birth certificate which designates a person who has led an individual life but am, instead, a British white male heterosexual. And you better believe that there are some people out there who have lots of things to say about British white male heterosexuals and it doesn't matter whether or how much any of these things apply to me personally because if I am a British white male heterosexual then they are both true of me regardless and good enough to pass muster in some conversations. Does this dissection of society have any credibility at all? Because I wonder. What this becomes is lots of people in ideological bubbles talking about their thoroughly rhetorical and ideological creations AS IF THEY WERE FACT which are then applied to real world people as if the rhetoric just slides out of the conversations into reality without a join, a map that naively is the territory it rhetorically claimed to map.  Having watched several George Carlin shows online recently I have found myself becoming more persuaded of his position, which he came to in the 1990s, which is that individuals are fine. How you get on with a person you meet is real world stuff. But groups of people, collectivisims, that is a crock of shit. It is easy to see in much modern discourse, where all that is talked about is ideologically conjured groups that are as idealist as they are ideological, how this has proliferated to our mutual disbenefit if not destruction.

In fact, truth be told, I hate all the partisanship. I hate the social media rhetoric of team this and team that, I hate the idea that we are all allotted our groupings and then we are set free to battle against each other to the death, a real world game of thrones that never stops. Is this the best our greatest academic minds can conjure up? Is this what billions in currency buys us from our educational establishments? Must academics and others set themselves up in fiefdoms from which they direct cultural battle operations? This last item was also evident earlier in the year in the UK when a campaign was started by some female academics who felt disrespected for their imagined achievements and so began pointing out that they had a PhD. They changed their social media accounts to reflect their titles, Dr this and Dr that. What struck me about this was that there were some female academics opposed to this move and who wanted to challenge the notion of status, societal as well as academic, that this might insidiously also communicate.  I wonder if you feel that someone with a PhD has a status which demands some form of special acknowledged respect? For myself, I think being a human being is what demands respect. Titles and social denominations much less so for if we give the first the second becomes unnecessary.

I've gone on long enough for what is just a personal blog. Yes, of course I acknowledge that there is a world out there and that the struggles are often real.  There is pain, unfairness, inequality. I agree we should lessen pain where we can, decrease unfairness and increase equality. But I don't think you have to sign on Feminism's dotted line to do it. In fact, I don't equate Feminism and equality at all. Equality is a humanist value in my understanding and the ethical goal is to respect a human being for being a human being in all their particularity. I simply don't go along with all the sectarian collectivisms that we have conjured up. That is what leads to people writing letters of support for an ally before they even know the facts. It is what leads to Nationalism. It is what leads to the notion that we, but not they, should be "great again". Collectivisms make life about those like me and those not like me and that, in blunt language, is partisan bullshit. I, like Diogenes before me, am a citizen of the world. I am not to be reduced to a British white heterosexual male. I'm another person, a human being. We all are. So you can keep your categories and collectivisms. I'm not interested. I will continue to treat people as individuals with their own integrity and regard them accordingly.  I would suggest you do the same, for all our sakes. But in the end that's up to you.

Three Things are Appropriate

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers is a book by Benedicta Ward which collects and catalogues the sayings of Christian ascetic monks in Egypt in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. It interests me primarily as an observer of human behaviour and as one seeking to make sense of it. One can read through the book even at random and begin to get a sense of the mentality of these people, how they think, what they value, what their aims in life are, and so on. I find in them a strange mix of the philosophical, the theological and the very human. One saying in particular has stayed with me since I first got the book and not least because it is attributed to a namesake, Abba Andrew:

Abba Andrew said, “These three things are appropriate for a monk: exile, poverty and endurance in silence.”

I must admit that I have stared at this apophthegm many times and found in it many pathways of thought. I note several things initially. For starters, the saying does not say that its three things are good; it says that they are “appropriate” and for a monk. It is, thus, not focused on people in general but on those who have taken a specific religious vocation and what is appropriate, not good, to it. Next I note that the three appropriate things are things which cut the monk off from society in general. A monk is exiled, economically bereft and uncommunicative. There is a sense here that the monk is perfecting himself, taking responsibility for his own existence and not expecting things to just happen except by attention to them and focus upon them. Third, I note that this is a kind of “how to be a monk” saying. There is no reference in the saying to anything outside of this. “Monk” thus seems to be a very single-minded vocation - and perhaps one in which the monk separates himself (it was usually a him) from society and community. It seems a vocation in which the individual life looks beyond itself to an eternal context in which it becomes the thing at stake. Here the existential and the eternal seem to meet and interact, in fact, and in a way in which the temporary and ephemeral existential are not extinguished by the sheer awesome overwhelmingness of the eternal but in which it is, in some sense, purified or perfected by it. We see from numerous other sayings of the Fathers that to take this vocation was to take suffering as a vocation and Christians, in Jesus, have from their very first writings taken their God as their paradigmatic forebear in such “perfection through suffering”. A Christian is led to think, “If Jesus suffered then why shouldn’t I?”

But I turn to Andrew’s three things in turn now beginning with “exile”. Exile is a prominent theme throughout the Jewish and Christian scriptures where the exile is from God but also from his promises such as “land” or “salvation”. We may sum up the notion of exile here as being cut off from God. Meanwhile, both modern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and theologians such as Tom Wright have used “exile” as a metaphor in their own academic work, the former perpetuating an argument about language as an alienating and exiling force whereas the latter has argued that Jesus was God’s agent of the end of human exile from Himself in a theological interpretation of the historical Jesus. If we ask ourselves what the monks are exiling themselves from the answer must be “society” and so, basically, outside influence or temptation to straying from the existential path the monk has set before them. This is not an inconsequential choice or an easy path to take, as anyone who has ever been alone for a decent period of time will likely testify. It is noteworthy, however, that here exile is regarded as a positive thing, something which gives the monk space and time to go about their monkish business. Often exile is perceived religiously as a punishment or in a negative light in contrast to this.

So why is exile appropriate for a monk? Because they are those who have single-mindedly chosen to focus on a vertical relationship with God which, they believe, will result in their own eternal good. But in choosing exile from society they have also chosen exile from friendship, from comfort, from diversion from themselves, from simple help, for such monks historically lived alone in cells. Exile is a choice to bear one’s existence alone without assistance, to forego the horizontal  community for the vertical eternity. This puts oneself under a terrible microscope in which hitherto unnoticed details about the self become apparent. It seems that Abba Andrew finds this entirely appropriate for the monk who must seek to root out all insufficiencies from the one who seeks to dedicate himself to a God thought perfect. That one cannot be of God and of the world is an old Christian thought and so the monk is to choose exile from the world in an attempt to better approach God instead. Abba Arsenius is reported to have heard God say to him, “Flee from men and you will be saved.” This is the attitude that Andrew also preserves here. Human society in general, so it is thought, can only distract and contaminate thought that should be on higher and more eternal things. “The perfection of the self cannot be carried out amongst the distractions of the crowd” is the thought at work here.

Next in the list of things appropriate for a monk is poverty. Monks should not have “things” in general and for much similar reasons as to why they should not have neighbours: they can only act as a distraction from the focus required for the task at hand. Abba John the Dwarf is reported to have said that “if a man goes around fasting and hungry the enemies of his soul grow weak” and we see this thought in Andrew’s imposition of poverty upon the monk. Theodore of Pherme said, “It is best of all to possess nothing,” another desert witness to the same thought. Here possessions are simple distractions, unnecessary things which can only take up time and thought and get in the way. Having things or wealth are those things which will demand attention of their own which the monk can ill-afford to give away since he must always be watchful. Interior peace is regarded by many Desert Fathers as something necessary and how can one have that if one is worried about his possessions - or has possessions to worry about? Better, then, not to have any and here we see the very ascetical bent of the Fathers brought to the fore. This ascetical poverty is an enforced simplicity, a mindset of “having enough” as being good enough. If one survives then one has achieved one’s goal and one, by very definition, has had enough, all that was required, to do so. Here “excess” would be any more than this bare minimum. This poverty would seem to enforce a necessary simplicity and humility upon the monk in his reduced circumstances. And this, in turn, reminds me of the second two of the “Three Treasures” from the 67th saying of the Tao Te Ching, those being frugality and humility.

The third item in Andrew’s list is “endurance in silence,” a composite notion that needs unpacking. “Endurance” suggests something that needs to be endured and in the notions of both exile and poverty we have suitable referents for neither are simple matters easily negotiated. “Endurance” here also suggests to me the New Testament Greek word (the Fathers were Christians after all) “makrothumia” which is longsuffering, forbearance, fortitude (sometimes simply rendered “patience”). It is literally makro - long - and thumia - temper - and so cultivating a “long temperedness” as opposed to being short tempered. Paul gives makrothumia, the ability to calmly play the long game, as one of the “fruits of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22. But here the endurance is “in silence” and this is not an unimportant addition for, once more, talk is seen as a problem because it is a distraction, something else to be concerning yourself with instead of the thing the monk should be focused on. To be a monk is, as one Father says, “to be always mindful of God.” Another, Abba Pambo, was asked by the brethren to say something to Theophilus the Archbishop when he came to visit the Fathers in their desert cells. But he replied to them, “If he is not edified by my silence then he will not be edified by my speech.” Here silence is taken as having better things to do with one’s time than talk and is indicative of a more important communion than oral discourse. “Endurance in silence” is then an inward attitude of silent resilience without distraction yet also a witness to something beyond words.

Having given brief thoughts I now want to change tack and interpret this from a Taoist / Zen perspective. Consider the following Zen / Taoist sayings culled from a popular Twitter account dedicated to tweeting such things within 24 hours of me writing this:

Mirror facing mirror. Nowhere else. - Ikkyu

If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it. - Taoist proverb

The art of simplicity. - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Without the Tao, kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice. - Lao Tzu

The supreme form of wealth is contentment. - Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. - Zhuangzi

The valley stream's rushing sound is the eloquent tongue of Buddha. The mountain's vibrant colours are nothing but the Buddha's form. - Dogen Zenji

If you let go a little you will have little happiness. If you let go completely you will be free. - Ajahn Chah

Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. - Lao Tzu

Silence is proactive. - B. D. Schiers

When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much. - Zen proverb

Fundamentally, the marksman aims at himself. - D.T. Suzuki

What mindset, what attitude, what worldview, is being cultivated and recommended by these sayings? How does it compare with that put forward by Abba Andrew as an example of the Desert Fathers? One big difference is that the Desert Fathers, as Christians and monotheists, have personalised the infinite and eternal, that which is beyond them, whereas Buddhists and Taoists in general have not. Taoists, for example, have “the Tao” which translates loosely as “the Way” and it is thought to be in, around and through all things. “Buddha” itself is a title (like Christ is whether applied to Jesus or not) meaning “the awakened one” or “the enlightened one” and not a name and the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, is not a god within Buddhism but merely the most enlightened human being who ever lived, one in balance with all things and at perfect peace. This latter point, however, is a point of possible contact with the Fathers who also seek peace yet through communion with their god. Yet we may say, in general terms, that there is a very different point of emphasis for these two ways. The focus of the Desert Fathers is God and they themselves are regarded as those who need to be perfected to be in perfect communion with him. Along the way they may expect to struggle, to have to purge themselves of sin or evil desires and this will more than likely be a painful experience. In contrast, the Buddhists and Taoists might be represented by the quote of Zhuangzi above: To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. Here the focus is the individual themselves, albeit in the context of absolutely everything else one may experience or encounter. Neither Buddhists nor Taoists seek communion with a being but perhaps they do seek it with Being, an ineffable oneness with all things in a peaceful harmony. Peace or serenity we may see as a, if not the, goal of these latter paths.

Here the mention of silence in both traditions is interesting and worth exploring. From both Abba Andrew’s words here and those of some of my Zen and Tao quotes we can see that words have their limitations. For Andrew words were confusers or distractors that pulled the monk from the place he needed to be. Yet for both Abba Pambo and B.D. Schiers silence itself is saying something, perhaps plenty, yet without words. In both these religious traditions more widely conceived it seems to me that there is just so much room for what cannot be said, for acknowledging that words fail and language reaches a limitation. One need not be overtly religious to reach this conclusion either since 20th century philosophers of language, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein, both seemingly come to similar conclusions should you read their work. I see in both of these ways, that of Christian Desert Fathers and that of Zen Buddhists and Taoists, that neither perceive of everything as a mass of facts scientifically understood, a very instrumental and detached mode of thinking. The world, existence, could not for any of these people potentially be tagged and catalogued so that one day we could imagine that everything could be logged, known and worked out. Both operate with a much more experiential and even existential understanding of knowledge than that. For them, we are in a world of experience and not one of subjects and objects where the former can, with ingenuity, skill and patience, learn all about the latter. I see the importance of silence in all these traditions as related to this. I see the recognition that words stop as a recognition that “knowledge” stops too. It is not the supreme need, the major requirement. It is merely a tool but the true riches are so much more than it can ever provide. Words are inadequate to experience as knowledge is inadequate to understanding.

So what happens when the talking stops? For one thing, other things then become possible such as listening and thinking (the latter perhaps being a kind of listening to yourself). In the Zen proverb quoted above “understanding” takes one beyond the realm of words so that even one is too much, or, perhaps, never enough. Thinking like this even seems to make something like a Derridean deconstructive operation something of religious significance. Here, according to Derrida, language is itself insufficient to the task it sets for itself. In use we find that it cannot fix the price of things. It sets out to say something but, in the act of so doing, we find that it disrupts its own operation. It can also be seen to say other things it did not mean to say, it can be subverted and used against itself, it falls short of its target. This, in philosophical guise, is not far from the monkish notion that silence can be more edifying than speech or the Zen notion that even one word is too much. According to one Buddhist proverb “the no-mind thinks no-thoughts about no-things” which expresses this mode of thinking perfectly. Not only is there no-mind but there are no-thoughts and there are no-things. How would a knowledge-based, instrumental, objective, scientific mindset cope with something like that? Neither tradition here has to worry about that, though, since, I argue, they are experience-based mindsets and not epistemologically-based mindsets. They are focused on experience not facts. Experience, unlike facts, is not simply known; it is felt, it is intuited, it can be instinctive, it embraces more than intellect. Experience gives cash value to the lives, and the pathways those lives take, of every thinking being.

I discussed above how, for the Desert Fathers, exile was primarily a matter of separation from the world for the purposes of personal devotion to God and the cultivation of that vertical relationship. The figure of exile applies in Buddhist and Taoists contexts too but here it is in the guise of alienation from the Tao, if Taoist, or “all things” if we talk more generally. The aim of these religious paths, it seems to me, is therapeutic: they aim at universal peace and harmony and so rest which becomes understanding or enlightenment. Their aim is the dissolution of a grasping, desirous existence which can only lead to conflict and turmoil. As Ajahn Chah says above, the aim is to “let go completely” and here the notion of Wu Wei, the action of non-action, plays a large part. Here again we can see how knowledge or fore-knowledge is consequently deprioritised for in these traditions we are not knowing subjects who progress through our existence by the manipulation of objects we know facts about. Indeed, it is hard to see how these traditions are based on knowledge at all as an essentialist, foundationalist or realist (in the philosophical sense) might understand these things. This idea of letting things be is totally alien to a modern Western mentality based on knowledge about things and this knowledge as the means to their instrumental use. For the Taoist, for example, it is not our job to impose our will upon things. The viewpoint here is much more holistic than many are capable of being, the idea is that, in a meaningful sense, everything is already a part of everything else and it a part of that in return. So when D.T. Suzuki says that, fundamentally, “the marksman aims at himself” he really does literally mean it. “Mirror facing mirror. Nowhere else” says Ikkyu, to change is to ruin, to hold is to lose, runs another Taoist proverb. The worldview here is one of movement, of constant change, of the idea of knowledge, beloved of others, being one that is static and ossifying and so not at all true to the world of experience for that is never still and always changing. A Buddhist or Taoist experiences exile, alienation, when out of this stream of existence, not in balance with the way of all things. This is not something we know facts about and so attempt to control; it is that which, with non-action, we become one with.

The Taoist and Buddhist alike also know about Abba Andrew’s “simplicity” (which he calls “poverty”) and they would see its necessity. I have already mentioned that the Taoist Tao Te Ching regards frugality and humility as two of its “three treasures” - and this is not merely for monks, those dedicated to a life of religious devotion, but for all to be in accord with that which is beyond them, be that a Way or a God or simply the Everything. For neither religious tradition here, the Christian and the Buddhist/Taoist, is the personalised, self-concerned form of existence that we experience all that there is. For these traditions, Man is not the measure; instead human beings are part of a much greater whole the overwhelming majority of which is unknown and, to all intents and purposes, perhaps even unknowable. For a Christian their God is not reducible to human minds and understanding anymore than for a Taoist the Tao can be put in a box and explained. Both retain concepts of the Beyond, the Ineffable, That Which Can Be Experienced But Not Known. Its also worth pointing out that this isn’t necessarily about us doing anything either. It is about our not-doing. “Do your work, then step back,” says Lao Tzu, suggesting that we just go about our business quite matter-of-factly. In these traditions simple things become sacred things, not because they are special but because the whole, everything, anything, is, in that sense, special. Here we partake in the All just because we are, because we exist. We seek peace within it not by grasping it and bending it to our will but by flowing as it flows. Unlike the God of the Desert Fathers, the Tao is not a will and so it is not a matter of using our will or bending it to that of another. Instead, its absence and negation is sought. “Simplicity” here is a life of non-action lived without will, an openness to all things. And if we are open to all things then the value of specific things dissolves accordingly. Things are made simpler. Less is more.

I have not wanted to suggest in this brief essay that Christian Desert Fathers and those of Buddhist or Taoist persuasions are versions of the same thing. This essay has been far too brief for even a cursory evaluation of such issues and my intuition is that, if such an essay were attempted, it would find areas of common interest but also others of conflict and differing agendas. But what I would take from the words of Abba Andrew, and from the Buddhist/Taoist interests that I introduced to discuss those words, is that exile, poverty and endurance in silence are not merely matters for monks in the desert in the conscious gaze of their god nor Eastern mystics seeking enlightened harmony with all things. They are matters for all of us. Exile, alienation, is very prevalent in the world of anybody who looks out of the window. The question of what is needful for a human being, and if the economic treadmill so many willingly climb onto, and to which so many others are either coerced or forced, is beneficial or necessary, is very apparent. That people’s experience of life is disregarded and vilified to their detriment for a mentality of “knowledge is power,” the logical conclusion of an epistemological approach to life, takes its toll upon the existence of many who are regarded as inconsequential casualties of progress or as natural wastage, those who couldn’t keep up.  “Exile,” “poverty” and “endurance in silence” my seem very objective things in Abba Andrew’s statement but when read through any number of real lives they come to have consequences far more far-reaching than Andrew himself can ever have imagined. They also come to be relevant to every human being.

Human society is constructed from an ever growing number of human beings. Each, by means of any number of connections, is connected to all the rest. Each, by virtue of living in a shared space, has consequences for the rest. It is my intuition that it would do us good to concentrate on these notions of exile, poverty and endurance in silence, and their consequences, some of which I have teased out in this short essay, and that doing so would be to our common good. It is my view that we each have our part to play in the world and that any “change” that we think the whole needs begins with each one of us. You cannot change a system if you cannot change the people within it and so positive change of any kind is a matter not merely of changed circumstances but of changed people. Abba Andrew recognises this in the monk when he requires him to completely change his lifestyle in order to change society for, in fact, the Desert Fathers were taken as examples by many of how to devote oneself to God. They acted for many as examples of devotion and commitment. We may not believe in God but the point remains that to change the whole it starts by changing yourself. (Of course, it may be granted that Christianity in general has had a mixed record of effects upon society in general and that all but the most bitter of its critics would admit that these were not all bad.) The Buddhists and Taoists, too, recognise this in that their thinking is about a program of personal change which works a holistic harmony through the dissolution of both individual wants and an obsession with knowledge as power. No one can force people to change themselves. No one can even enlighten them to the notion that they need to be changed. Yet it remains my own personal, perhaps spiritual, conviction that when people change, societies change. And if they can change then why not for the better? The battle is not merely at societal level but, fundamentally, at the personal one as Abba Andrew, sundry Zen Buddhists and Taoists  seemingly know so well.

This essay is taken from a forthcoming collection of philosophical, theological and hermeneutical essays I am writing called Being-in-the-midst: Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Tradition.

Walking and War

Yesterday I went for a walk as I often do. Normally I have in my head the route I will take, this being chosen as I put on my shoes and go through the various several routes I have taken over the previous few years. This was also the case yesterday and as I set out I had pre-selected one of the shorter routes. But about 15 minutes into the walk, as I was walking through my local park, a thought suddenly occurred to me. This thought was that my next hour had been planned out in my head ahead of time by my decision. By pre-selecting the route I knew where I would be going, probably what I'd see, etc. I thought about this as I kept walking and compared it to what would be case if I'd not pre-selected my route and just set off at random, not deciding ahead of time which direction I would take at junctions and, therefore, not knowing where I'd be going. The second option seemed suddenly more attractive, especially the not knowing and the consequent unfolding surprise such a walk would be. 

I was coming to the path at the bottom of the park where I would be forced to turn either left (as I'd preselected) or right and suddenly in my head there was a jeopardy for, suddenly, I imagined not knowing which way I would go. I thought to myself that I would go left anyway, as I wasn't feeling particularly energetic and this way was the shortest. I settled into this idea for a minute. But then the possibility of turning right and going the longer, unprepared for, way began to reassert itself as a possibility. I vacillated back and forth, not knowing what option I would take. Then, annoyed with myself, I determined to stop this nonsense, enjoy the moment of my walk and let a momentary decision decide when I actually got to the point a few hundred meters ahead of me when I would have to make a choice. I did notice, however, that the rest of the walk then became better as a result of this choice, this not knowing what would happen, this living in the moment rather than having my immediate future pre-planned and decided.

The last book of the Christian bible and so, logically, the culmination of the bible's story, is a vision of a cosmic war. One of the things this book describes itself as is a prophecy by which, in common parlance, we take it to mean a foretelling of the future. It is a fact you may become aware of in the unlikely scenario that you ever take a course in biblical studies that "prophecy" is not usually regarded as "foretelling"; its more a case of "forth telling" but I digress. In any case, should you be one of those who thinks of prophecy as foretelling the future then Revelation presents itself as the story of the end of the world, the way God wraps up the whole story of this creation he has, according to the script of the bible, made. It is not a pleasant scene. Here God sends his champion, that Jesus fella who was formerly in the bible saying "Blessed are the poor," healing sick people and telling people to turn the other cheek, on a big white horse to slaughter all the unrepentant people who don't believe in God. Basically, what we have is the notion that, at the end of all this "God is love" business you might have heard of, God is actually just going to kill all the people who haven't done what he wanted. Its divinely sanctioned violence. That is the story of the world, that is our future foretold.

Now as with my walk, I'm not too happy about this when I realise that someone has written a story in which "the end" is apparently foretold. (Put aside the question of if its true or not. Its not, but that doesn't matter.) In my new, post-realisation mind set, not knowing things gives a better opportunity for a fresh look at and appreciation of life than one that is planned out. And then there is all this violence business. Its bad enough that actual people will be violent to each other without the gods joining in. But do I have this the right way round? I wonder how many Christians over two millennia have read Revelation, seen that the way the story ends is by God killing all the bad guys, and then thought, "Well if that's what's going to happen in the end anyway then what's the problem with dusting off a few unbelievers right now?" 

Since Revelation was written we have had Crusades and an Inquisition and I sense a latent desire from some good old white Christian boys across the water (and not just across the water) to kill the unbelieving Muslims because they are on the wrong side of this pre-decided history. Preachers of hate such as Britain First, a ragtag band of self-aggrandizing troublemakers made more famous when Trump retweeted their error-strewn material, have expressly used "Christian" imagery in their ideological war against immigrants as, apparently, it is their lack of "Christian values" that marks them out as not like us the most. Which "Christian values" are these, I wonder, the ones from Revelation where all the ones not on our Christian side will be slaughtered for making the wrong choice?

So there is a problem with divine violence in Revelation and its not a Muslim problem or a problem of any other religion (although I won't deny their problems with a similar thing either): its a Christian problem. Revelation, so at least two New Testament scholars I respect have said, is "the most violent book in religious history." The problem is that by telling us the violent end of the story this book has apparently mandated violence in the name of its God and religious violence is probably the most insidious form of violence for how do you stop someone convinced that a divine being has authorised their activities? As I intimated before, its only bumping up the schedule if we good Christians dust off a few bad guys now, its not fundamentally changing the script. And what's worse, God is actually shown to be approving of violence in Revelation. Revelation acts as a divine endorsement of divine violence. Jesus, that nice fella from the gospels who was, in the time-worn phrase, "meek and mild" is not very meek and mild in Revelation. He is a Terminator or a Predator hunting down all the people who don't follow a certain religious path. And chopping their heads off. No more "King of Kings," he is now "Warlord of Warlords". In fact, as someone who has worked on "the historical Jesus" at university for PhD studies and written a couple of books about it, I don't recognise this guy. Whoever wrote Revelation has a massive hard-on for killing and death for Revelation is a major revenge fantasy. They've taken Mr Meek and Mild and turned him into a violent killer and called it "good news"!

I mentioned earlier that, of course, Revelation is not true. I also said it didn't matter because, as with any literature, what matters is what it disseminates and motivates and not whether its true or not. Things don't need to be true, they just need to be believed. Have we not learned this lesson by now? Does it matter if Revelation is true if Christians across the centuries see in it a warrant to kill the enemies of God? I imagine the writer of Revelation never figured as he wrote his revenge fantasy of the Christians beating their persecutors that before too long the Christians would actually be running the show and could begin the timetable of Revelation a bit early. Oops. But there we are, what's done is done. I do wish, however, that the writer had not decided to tell us the end before we got there because, in a way, he has ruined everything and there's blood on his hands. In retrospect, isn't it just better not knowing and trying to enjoy each moment we get without worrying about ultimate destinations? Do we need to exist in our own version of the Final Destination films where we know there will be a grisly death and its shadow blights everything we do? Ends can always cast mighty long shadows and not really for any good. At least, that's how it seems to me. 

So, there are some stories we human beings probably shouldn't tell for, in the end, we cannot blame gods for them. Revelation, on the face of it a tale about how God subdues and takes over everything, making it wholly divine, is actually a story about how God just becomes a man, a man like us, a man who, when things haven't gone his way, resorts to killing to resolve his problems. Revelation is a book which shows God as very manly, aggressive and violent. Go on son (of God), knock him out! We here on planet Earth still have our own violence problems, of course, and many still envisage themselves or their countries as in a violent struggle for resources as, apparently, that people from one country prosper and survive is more important than that people from another one do. I wonder where such people see their story ending and what destination they have pre-selected? Is it in Orwell's perpetual war of 1984? On the other hand, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

PS I turned right.