on platforms

[gurdonark]

"Christianity has been buried inside the walls of churches and secured with the shackles of dogmatism. Let it be liberated to come into the midst of us and teach us freedom, equality and love. - Minna Canth

"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels"--Pearl S. Buck

When I was a boy, political conventions marked the ultimate showdown between the left wing and the right wing of the politcal party in question. The debate over the stated position of the political party in question had a religious importance.

The "progressive Republicanism" of Nelson Rockefeller differed to a serious extent from the "conservative revolution" proposed by Ronald Reagan. The distance between McGovern and the southern conservative democrats was wider than the distance between the two candidates in this, the most hotly contested election in four entire years. The platform--the words as to the party's goals, were debated with high seriousness, as if the Words mattered.

This election marks a time when platforms are irrelevant. The technocrats won, and we all speak newspeak now.

My topic, tonight, though, is the platforms which hinder people from just being human to one another.



I love the formulae which define life. The code words, the incantations, and the declarations all enchant me. I like the ones I don't even use. I love people who ask questions like "are you washed in the blood of the lamb" or who declare "blessed be".

I love to read theology, although sometimes it is, I admit entirely beyond me. Take tonight, for example. I've been reading this fellow Rudolf Otto, who wrote a book with the intriguing title "The Idea of the Holy". I am all about ideas of things.

He writes a lot about the "numinous"--the rational conception of the irrational ineffable. The structure is almost crytalline in my mind--as if the terms and ideas resulted from hours in the lab, playing with fractals (though, to be appropriately self-derogatory, it's actually just the work of a few moments' indifferently skilled browsing). But I must admit that no matter how much my conception of the holy is elevated by the lexicon Mr. Otto provides, I don't think that the sum and whole of it all puts a single cup of soup in the hands of any hungry child.

I wonder, sometimes, how often my life is filled with positions rather than actual actions. I can write one hundred planks on my personal platform in a good two hours.
But, really, the notion of the extraordinary is nothing like living the ordinary life extraordinarily well.

I'm not disparaging the complex effort to understand things.
I find myself a person who feels himself both extremely simple and extremely complex. I have in mind an upcoming post topic, for that matter, about how I sure am convoluted to be so darn free of whorls.

But lately I wonder if I do not try (ineffectually) to play the harpsichord, when it is the kazoo alone to which I admit any ability to play.

I like songs sung in unison. I like the feel of the sun on my closed eyelids on an August sunset day. I like it when people are kind to me, and talk to me, and I like to talk and be kind to people. Why bother with the extra hassle?

Today my radio told me about people who blew up old people on buses as a matter of dogma. I drove on the CF Hawn Freeway, back from a doctor's appointment in which his advice amounted to little more than "live right and eat healthy", and I passed a Church of Christ. I have no interest whatsoever in joining a Church of Christ, but I thought of their Sunday a capella hymns, and their refusal to discuss theology, because they imagine they don't have any.

Even the person without religion or theology has a religion and a theology, you know. It's a definitional thing. I'm bored of the articulated platforms of dogma. Even freethought, founded on the principle of dogma's rejection, has generated immense quantities of the stuff.

It's viscuous, this dogma stuff, though not nearly as tasty as maple syrup. I wish that instead of theories of the numinous one could just tap into some font of natural good things like a maple tree.

That's where the pop theologian Frederick Bailes comes in.He was a Hollywood religious science minister, decades ago.
He proposes that "there are powers available to man which far transcend those that the average person is using. Their names do not matter as much as their existence does". He proposes, in essence, that the natural order of things is that we all can access what we might otherwise call the supenatural--a set of infinite powers for good.

But I propose instead that a life of service to what matters transcends the need for some extra-sensory deliverance from the oppression of living. I suggest instead that what little good one can do one does while living with one's personal banality, and not in spite of it.

I think it's good to work out what one believes. I think that one's personal meaning, whether in a religion or its lack, whether in certainty or rational acceptance of doubt, is a good thing.

I think that sometimes it's tempting to hand someone a pamphlet,when they really need a kind word. It's tempting to
have a theory of art, rather than just exposing people to things worth seeing.

I'm not saying that we should all have none but the most basic beliefs. I treasure the kaleidoscope of opinions and religions and politics and views.

But sometimes I wonder if there aren't enough positions in life, and not enough actual actions in light of the true situations in life.

But even as I say that, it sounds like one more platform.
I'm pondering tonight how to move beyond ideas and positions, but I have not gotten past pondering yet.

Comments

[corivax.livejournal.com]

Come visit me, and I will let you play my harpsichord. Everyone should play a harpsichord, and a steel drum, before he dies; they're instruments it's impossible to make an ugly sound with.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

back when i was trying mightily to be an extra-good catholic, back in my 30s, i spent vast amounts of time reading religious books and such. my mother asked me, rather pointedly, if reading the bible and all those books was making me a better person. i had to admit that it was not. you're right that theology without kindness is a pretty empty thing.

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

i wish for a leader with a heart such as yours

with true compassion and not just 'compassion speak'

with kindness as intention instead of words disguising greed

this is a lovely post for today

i had a friend in high school who played the harpsichord, he even composed a song for me on it

i still have that, wish i knew someone who could play it to me as i lost track of him decades ago

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

Beautiful.

Not familiar with Minna Canth. I will check Amazon, but feel free to make recommendations.

I've talked often with my NY-bred girlfriend about New York State Republicans of the 1960's and early 70's like Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits, along with other moderate Republicans from other states. And the 1968 and 1972 conventions of both parties, shaping our adolescent minds, when coverage began at 9 a.m. on one morning and continued until three on the next morning. Lots of talk about hammering together "planks" of platforms.

Thanks for this post.

[mesawyou.livejournal.com]

The harpsichord. Really. I learned all sorts of Bach stuff that was meant to be played on a harpsichord. FUn times I tell you.

Then I discovered Chopin and the joy of Bach was gone.

[reneesarah.livejournal.com]

"This election marks a time when platforms are irrelevant. The technocrats won, and we all speak newspeak now."

While I will vote for Kerry I pretend no enthusiasm for either party. Both parties engage in so much hollow posturing I get the idea it is all newspeak. Even the gov from California talking about girlie men again and making reference to his movies... So much about form over substance.

I actually thought that Bush's comment that the War of Terror can't be won was perhaps refreshingly and momentarily honest. It least it can't be won in how it is most commonly conceptualized and stategized. So long as the conditions that breed terrorism continue to exist troop strength and bombs alone will not "win" it.

I wonder how the conventions are playing in the international press? I should go look that up. I read some rumblings from England that they are thinking about impeaching Blair....hmmmmm.....

[drowned-books.livejournal.com]

I'm an atheist, but like most people I have my own set of values and 'beliefs' (in the sense of 'things/issues that are important to me'). I think you've hit on a very interesting point - for some people religion seems to be almost entirely about their own sense of spirituality rather than being about their relationships with other people, how they treat others, etc.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think that a landing in Nassau, where a steel drum quartet was playing (songs, by the way, from a different island altogether), taught me conclusively that steel drums equal joy.

I have nevr played with a harpsichord! I always thought they were something that one could break--or that broke one's fingers :)!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes. I am not really saying that theology is an empty thing, because I believe in things seen and unseen. This is really a Corinthians 13redux, I suppose, or a pep talk to myself.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

You should track him down! Nothing is more fun than intense google searching!

I am bored of words disguising greed, too.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Minna Canth was a 19th Century Finnish feminist and "revolutionary thinker". Many of her "revolutionary thoughts" are things we now take for granted today.

Those platforms were so important to the process. In the 1968 convention, or even the 1980 convention, the platform was seen as a bid for the "hearts and minds" of the party. I think that Bill Clinton showed, to some extent, that a platform is more a target than an asset, and both parties learned that lesson well this time.

But it is sad that we are reduced to sound bites on positions.
It's hard to recite what either party might do with the budget, for example, while in power. Kerrey has made proposals, but they are back burnered for coverage, and Bush has not really set forth a solid agenda at all.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

My piano days involved so little talent, all that I can recall is a fun minuet by I can't remmber who, in 2/2 time, which I could play like clockwork.

It was not quite "Smoke on the Water", but it'll do.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

The downfall of Blair is, I think, inevitable. I feel badly about that, because I see Blair as an okay guy who made some horrible choices. I certainly think his "new Labour" is a real alternative to the two extremes in the UK. But moderation this time did not pay off for him, as he ended up in an extremely immoderate foreign policy in the name of allegiance to allies. I can't help but feel badly about that, but I wonder what he was thinking.

The war on terror can't be "won" like any war, and 'war' is almost a misnomer. I'm as irritated as anyone with the manipulation of the "code yellow", "code orange" and "code red" terms by the government, but the sad truth is that for the immediate foreseeable future we are always on "code red".

I am a Democrat, but could not sit through most of their convnention.
With the Republicans, I can sit through even less, though it is not any worse, really--it's just the rerun pheonemon.

I wish the protesters, by the way, were instead registering voters in West Virginia, Florida, Ohio and Arkansas. It's easy to conduct agitprop--but not so easy to actually make a difference.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm a theist, but I've never found that my atheist friends lack values or beliefs. I've always found that particular "charge" of some religionists hollow (and anhistorical, given some cultures which do not depend on belief in "God" per se for cultural coherence).

My point here is exactly that--whether one's "religion" is Christianity, neo-conservatism, communism, Buddhism or simply getting rich, so often the theory and attention to self overshadows other people.

I guess I'd like to see a general religion of kindness as the primary plank in the platform. It seems as though one has less baggage to contend with about the myths and theories if one is just kind.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

hmmm, maybe 'empty' was the wrong word. sterile?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I wasn't meaning to criticize your word choice. Empty and sterile are both right in context, but I didn't want to suggest that I think that all religion is sterile or empty.

But in the context, the kind I meant is....

[reneesarah.livejournal.com]

When Hillary Clinton was interviewed on "This Week" by George Stephanipoulos about the demonstrators she noted that the election will be won or lost by votes cast in November and not by protesting in front of the Republican Convention. She hoped that all the people protesting remembered to vote. I also wish they were out registering voters.

[drowned-books.livejournal.com]

I do find it quite hurtful, if I'm honest, to be assumed as having no - for want of a better phrase - moral values, just because I have no religious beliefs. My ideals are probably not that far removed from your average Christian's, just without the religious context. Kindness is good and desirable, cruelty - in all its many forms - is bad. It's a basic creed, but covers most eventualities :-)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I can easily understand that you find that hurtful.
I think it's a primary error that some religious people make.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

You and I agree. I don't want to take away from protest, but it is votes, and not signs, that matter now.

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

i have tried web searching

perhaps not intensely enough, hmmmmm

what does that entail? looking at every page on a find?

[mesawyou.livejournal.com]

Hrmm fun minuet. Let's see. Bach, Haydn or Mozart would be my guess.

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

There's something to be said for a doctor who says "live right and eat healthy", although I'm all for better living through chemistry and the occasional high tech test or procedure where appropriate. (Open MRIs are pretty cool, as are all the things that can be done with ultrasound.)

Religion, well I quite like what you've written here but that's a hotbed of another color.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I always find Roethke interesting--layers within layers. I should read more Roethke.

I like the documentary ("weapons of the spirit") about the little town in France that shielded thousands of Jews from the Germans.
When asked why these villagers did, when so many did not, they did not claim that they "tried" to be good. They said that they could not imagine any other way to behave. I'd like to be that kind of kind, but I am not, I'm afraid.

I like to look outward, while showing my inward ideas,so I am grateful for the compliment. I'm impressed what with all the newness at your home that you have the stamina to read and write on LJ!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I am all for complicated procedures, too, but it is true that sometimes the simple things make a big difference.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

If you know his interests and his regions, sometimes you can back into someone that way.

things like bigfoot can be helpful.

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

i'll give it a try

thing is i have no idea where he is

last i heard, some 30 years ago, was SF