The Speed of Light

June 15, 2019 (436 words)

Wendell Berry is now 84 years old. The poet, novelist, essayist and gentleman farmer is a well-known dissenter from nearly every aspect of modern life. He was born, raised, and still lives in Kentucky, maintains a healthy distance from any major metropolis, and does all his writing in longhand, with pen and paper.

Some feel the new 1,674 page boxed set of his collected essays, What I Stand On, is just way too much of the man. Critics find him mind-numbingly earnest as he bangs away at the same themes, over and over again. Having so much material gathered in one place only underscores this thematic weakness, in their view.

But countless readers find resonance in what he writes, and feel a strong kinship with Mr. Berry’s principled stands.

Rejecting most of the conveniences and “improvements” we take for granted, Berry the Christian moralist often finds himself at odds with the fashionable status quo. But as a conservationist and champion of local agriculture he does, occasionally, earn the praise of the progressive intelligentsia.

---

more than ever a prophetic voice…

---

“With the planet rapidly warming and the oceans acidifying, Berry seems more than ever a prophetic voice,” writes reviewer Dwight Garner in The New York Times:

”Come for the thunder. Stay, if you can, to dip more occasionally into these writings, rummage around on their ocean floor and return to the surface with gleaming fragments.

The main thing I take from Wendell Berry is the value of slowing down. If we want to figure things out and untie the knots that vex us, if we want to understand ourselves and the people around us better than we do now, it would help if we could stop moving through our lives at such a harried pace.

As the old poster once had it, the objective should be to “stand still and look, until you really see.”

The zeitgeist carries us along with its own intractable momentum. Our senses are engulfed without our fully realizing what is happening. We are maintained, as if in a petri dish or other lab experiment, in a perpetual state of acquisition and – from the male perspective – titillation.

This has us forever poised for the next big thing to buy or do, the next attractive female to fantasize about. Hardly even paying attention to where we are or who we are with at any given moment.

We are constantly being distracted from the care of the ones we should be closest to. And then we die.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
June 15, 2019

Do You Play?

June 12, 2019 (134 words) Can you be considered a musician without actually being able to play an instrument? Random sounds and bits of conversation have always elicited a musical response from me. I can’t help but hear various downbeats in my head, which suggest certain tunes, and before long I find myself almost involuntarily singing the chorus to an eclectic range of songs and hymns, right out loud. Be advised, this is prone to happen at any time. In fact it’s become so commonplace over the years that now I just take it for granted. A pleasant phenomenon, it creates an agreeable presence that turns all my chores into lyrics, rhythm out of all my reasons. The origin of ceremony. Does that count? Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. June 12, 2019

Comic Book Heroes

June 9, 2019 (495 words)

You may be familiar with the popular catch-phrase “you had me at hello,” a line uttered by the female lead of a successful “summer movie” from some twenty years ago. It was part of clever script that combined breezy entertainment with some true-to-life human emotion.

Well, this summer’s mega-blockbuster, Avengers: Endgame, lost me just a few minutes into the picture, when a tinker bell-sized superhero was shown saving a disabled space station and its crew by carrying it and them over her head for “a thousand miles” back to Earth, where she then accomplished a safe touchdown by resting this huge spacecraft ever so gently on landing blocks, to avoid getting crushed herself under the weight of the thing.

My problem, mind you, is not with the idea of a strong female lead. I am still savoring Glen Close’s performance in The Wife, a movie I saw over a year ago. Along with Glenda Jackson’s heroic take on King Lear, which I caught on Broadway this past week. That this tinker bell-sized 83 year-old is cranking out her forceful interpretation eight times a week, for a mere thousand audience members at a pop, is a true marvel.

Then there is Blythe Danner’s beautifully understated turn in the new movie The Tomorrow Man, which I just saw last night.

Leaving the theater the guy ahead of us said to his female companion: “that was the most depressing movie i ever saw.”

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course. And to each their own. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, and all that.

But i must say that having finally taken in one of these comic book hero movies that have dominated the release schedule of our major film studios for several years now, i am starting to have serious doubts about the state of the union.

How many times in one movie can the world find itself saved from total annihilation? How do a superhero’s powers overwhelm an opponent in one sequence, only to then fall short and fail in a subsequent sequence, leaving said hero in ultimate peril? How many legions of computer-generated warriors must be rolled out in a grand panoramic vista, only to tumble and be crushed?

I know, I know, this makes me sound like a terrible snob. “Lighten up, fella, it’s only a movie.”

And usually I am happy to subscribe to that line of reasoning. But having recently confronted the actual mind-numbing product, and contemplating the enormous box office take that product is doing around the world, I can’t help but draw some dire conclusions.

When all our entertainments are mindless, when the masses do not avail themselves of anything more edifying than blaring action sequences or titillating sexual encounters, doesn’t that arrest our development as human beings? Doesn’t that undermine our ability to function as rational, considerate people in a cohesive community?

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
June 9, 2019

Love’s Austere and Lonely Offices

June 5, 2019 (1,002 words) While there are certainly historical antecedents for both the sexual revolution and women’s liberation, the post-WWII boom of the late 1950s into the 1960s saw these movements really hit their stride and go mainstream. What inspires these popular rallying cries is a bedrock belief that sexual activity between consenting, un-attached adults is a healthy expression of the human condition, and should not be constrained by social constructs of propriety, or religious-based objections to casual sex outside of marriage. Doing what feels good, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, sounds like an agreeably egalitarian motto, in line with our society-wide emphasis on personal autonomy and personal growth. But the second part of that proscription is not as easy to pull off as it sounds. In actual practice the being considerate of others, especially when those others happen to be the aforementioned casual sexual partners, sort of runs directly counter to the pursuit of one’s own sexual gratification. It turns out the beliefs and conventions we inherited, and have since confidently discarded as being hopelessly passé, grew up and evolved around the human person for a reason – and it wasn’t just to cramp our style and stop us from having fun. So while the #MeToo movement is shedding much-needed light on the deplorable behavior of a generation of wanton men who have taken advantage of their relative positions of authority to indulge their untethered passion, it fails to properly acknowledge the root cause of all this unwanted attention or downright abuse. Which is to say the sex drive, particularly where the male of the species is concerned, is inclined to run wild, and when it does social havoc usually ensues. This is one of those ancient truths we enlightened moderns felt could be discarded without suffering any unintended consequence. But suffer we have. And not just the women who have found themselves imposed upon, or worse. Lascivious behavior is undeniably pleasurable for a man in the short term, but undermines his integrity and sense of self-worth in the long run. It eats away at his soul. Does that sound preachy? Sorry to bum you out. But sooner or later that’s where this ends up. Not to mention how it also can’t help but irrevocably damage the marital vow made to one’s betrothed spouse. The playwright David Mamet describes the situation thusly: “every society has to confront the ungovernable genie of sexuality and tries various ways to deal with it and none of them work very well.” (This is not technically true, of course, since Christian society did pretty much have this figured out, even if many a Christian struggled with the logic. But all that has been erased from the collective memory bank, so it’s understandable even an accomplished wordsmith like David Mamet no longer considers Christian sexual ethics a legitimate point of reference on his compass rose.) Mr. Mamet’s remarks are prompted by a new play he has written, that take up these very issues, and debuts this week on the London stage. It’s called Bitter Wheat, and features a Harvey Weinstein-like character as the protagonist It’s being described as a farce, which is raising eyebrows in some circles because, well, there is nothing farcical about rape. Also of concern to certain observers is how this middle-aged male playwright is giving middle-aged male monsters yet more stage time, when the #MeToo movement should be about amplifying the voices of women victimized by such men. Personally i am less concerned about who is getting stage time, and who is being allowed to speak, than i am with what is being said. The allure of an attractive female never fades, even if it does become slightly less intoxicating over time. One eventually comes to realize the opposite sex is – like us – much more than a mere physical representation. They, too, are endowed with an immortal soul and are each put on this earth to pursue a destiny. They are not just eye candy. And they are not our handmaidens. Despite the popular claim that monogamy is un-natural, and nearly impossible for the average, red-blooded male to achieve, monogamy represents our higher calling. But as with many truths first encountered in youth, when one is prone to dis-belief, so much hinges on the gift of faith. It’s important to live according to the law, so that one might grow to finally understand the underlying truth contained in that law. Which brings this conversation to a consideration of a line of poetry: “what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” It’s from a short Robert Hayden poem that describes the late-in-life appreciation of a certain kind of harsh parental love, as offered up by a certain kind of inexpressive blue-collar father, and experienced by a young boy who would “rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house.” But to talk of love’s austere and lonely offices is to contemplate the most profound sort of love, isn’t it? Take marriage, for instance. It’s not a simple, happy-go-lucky arrangement, centered on the pursuit of mutually agreed upon pleasure, even if that’s how it usually starts out. With time the unitive and procreative aspects of the coital act work their magic, and a bond is forged between two diverse and independent individuals. Commitment and responsibility become the hallmarks of this bond. This observation is not meant to argue against pleasure, or diminish its enjoyment. Only to say that in the end, the things we do for one another are done because they are there, and need to be done, and constitute the right thing to do. Without regard for what we might gain back in return. This is so even when we are having a rough time of it, because things are not going our way. Even when we are left to our own devices and think no one who knows us is watching. Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. June 5, 2019

At a Loss for Words

May 23, 2019 (24 words)

It seems the most important realizations we experience in life are beyond the power of words to express. But it’s still fun to try.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
May 23, 2019

Haphazard Men

May 19, 2019 (1,017 words) Whenever David Brooks riffs on our wayward culture in the op-ed section of The New York Times I am always at full attention. (His political commentary, offered on television as a guest panelist for various cable news outlets, is less captivating from my perspective.) I love the way he clearly senses something is amiss with the prevailing ethos, and how he wrestles with what can be done to improve upon it. He works from a slightly different angle than his fellow scribes at the paper. Mr. Brooks is said to be a “conservative voice” at the Times, I guess because he usually steers clear of causes that have become de rigueur among enlightened members of polite society today: marriage equality, reproductive rights, and the like. My favorite columns are when Brooks focuses on the fault lines in our economic/political arrangement, and hones in on the excesses and oversights that reduce the “humbles” to just so much flotsam and jetsam. An optimist by nature, his criticism stops short of questioning the broad outline of “liberal democracy” that fuels the American Experiment. His specialty is to appeal to our better angels so that we might regain our cultural equilibrium. I always find myself agreeing with David Brooks, with his examples and case studies of what a just and equitable society should look like. I certainly agree with his sentiment that what we have now is far from a desired ideal. But I part company with Mr. Brooks in one important regard: His bedrock assumption that our economic/political rules of engagement are inherently good, if only we would abide by their inner dictates. To my mind David Brooks – like so many well-intentioned “conservative voices” – is too accepting of the historical American status quo. This lack of discernment results in a misreading of the tea leaves, and prevents him (and them) from properly identifying the true source of our cultural malaise. Take the following example, from his May 14 op-ed piece:

”A society is healthy when its culture counterbalances its economics. That is to say, when you have a capitalist economic system that emphasizes competition, dynamism and individual self-interest, you need a culture that celebrates cooperation, stability and committed relationships.

“We don’t have that. We have a culture that takes the disruptive and dehumanizing aspects of capitalism and makes them worse.”

Here Mr. Brooks captures the essence of our economy and our culture, but he gets the relationship between the two exactly wrong. It is impossible for culture to counterbalance economics, because economics dictate culture. The “dehumanizing” aspects of capitalism Brooks references have been there from the beginning. For centuries now it’s been an ongoing tug-of-war between the “dynamic” quality that successfully promotes self-interest, and the corresponding “disruptive” quality that undermines the very things most people think make life worth living: a sense of cooperation, stability, and committed relationships. David Brooks wisely chalks up The Rise of the Haphazard Self to more than just an economy in which formerly middle-class or “working-class” men can no longer provide the same standard of living that their fathers could provide. He rightly identifies “cultural forces” that have also played a role in the way such men now shy away from committing to being in a full family unit, and show no qualms about walking away from the women who bear their children. He points out this blue-collar phenomenon is part of a larger, society-wide emphasis on personal autonomy, focusing on one’s personal growth, and rebelling against any constraints on that growth. After all, the under-employed white guys at the lower end of the socio-economic scale Brooks is talking about are not responsible for creating the “personal autonomy” paradigm. They are merely internalizing the signals sent out by the dominant culture, as defined by those on the higher rungs of the ladder who benefit from our cut-throat, every-man-for-himself economy. I applaud Mr. Brooks for bemoaning the way a new, irresponsible ethos “has replaced the older, working-class ethos of self-discipline, the dignity of manual labor, and on being a good provider.” And he is correct in assigning a portion of the blame for this turn-around to the celebration of the individual that has taken center stage in every strata of society. But this is not a new thing. Rejecting custom and tradition in favor of “personal emancipation” is what “liberal democracy” is all about. It’s encouraging to read Brooks has co-founded an organization called Weave: The Social Fabric Project. “Part of the work is to build thick communities across the country so everybody, including detached young men, will have a chance to be enmeshed in thick and trusting relationships. But another purpose… is to get people to think differently. It’s to get more people to see that the autonomous life is not the best life.” It’s a praiseworthy effort, a first step in an arduous journey: Convincing a generation of haphazard men to honor their commitments, and repairing the damage done to a generation of young people when Dad up and left. Also encouraging is how Mr. Brooks sees the need for what he describes as “better economic policies, like wage subsidies.” And sure, that’s one possible tool that might be used to try and recalibrate from without, in an attempt to address the drastic economic inequities that have derailed so many formerly middle-class white guys, and sabotaged their better angels. But achieving the cultural restoration David Brooks heroically calls for will require more than a few tweaks to the existing Leviathan. We need to reconsider the basic assumptions built into the competitive model. We need to rethink “liberal democracy” from the ground up: the ethos of personal autonomy that undermines committed relationships, and the ethos of self-interested economic behavior that leaves the social fabric in tatters. These two fit together like hand and glove. If a re-boot is required, what should the new blueprint be? Well, we could take our cue from the third verse of America the Beautiful:

---

Where all success is nobleness and every gain divine

---

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. May 19, 2019