It's approaching the anniversary of our nation's declaration of independence, the one day out of the year that the entire population (more or less) feels obliged to wear red, white, and blue; to wave flags; to run about stuffing their faces with both food and drink while saying "God bless America." The time of year when those of us in the tourist industry in colonial cities gear up for the influx of patriotic visitors seeking something extra-special and extra-American. Good, clean, wholesome family fun.
The time of year when the site at which I work digs out a Union Jack and prepares to badmouth the historic Patriots. We tell the other side of the story. Which, I might note, is both interesting and horrid.
As children, we learn about "no taxation without representation," about the protests against British imperial rule, about the Liberty Tree and Paul Revere's famous Midnight Ride (except we don't learn about William Dawes or poor Samuel Prescott). We don't learn just how horrifying being tarred and feathered is (think second and third degree burns over your whole body); how the Patriots lied and stole their way to independence; about the lootings and burnings of Tory houses; about the murders and executions of Tory Loyalists; or about the massive financial and psychological hardships endured by those who believed themselves doing nothing more than being loyal to their King.
That's my job. I - and my staff - tell the other side of the story.
Most of the time, people think it's really interesting. Sometimes, you see them grow a little bit horrified at the thought of what their beloved Patriots (particularly the smuggling pirate John Hancock) were up to. You see them realizing that the British citizens forced out of the colonies were suffering, too.
An hour or a day later, of course, these lessons and memories fade, but for a little while, at least, they recognize that there are always two sides to every story. There are always victims, even - especially - in the greatest of victories. That nothing new can be born without bloodshed.
I have no problem with patriotism. What I have a problem with is blind patriotism. With beliefs that disallow the questioning of the dominant ideological paradigm simply because it is dominant. With the automatic vilification of the Other Side. Love your country, but don't hate all others. Don't create a cookie-cutter image of the "American" and antagonize everything that doesn't fit into it.
Our country was born out of diversity, forged in the heat of a war of rebellion, and tempered by blood and gunpowder. We as a nation came about precisely because we were able to reject the strictures we found suffocating. Our founding fathers did not make this nation so that it might stifle itself under dictates of what we must think or speak or feel.
Love your country. But love it as a parent - firmly, sternly, and with the knowledge that when it needs correction, it is better to correct than to allow it to become uncontrollable. Love it as an audience - applaud its good performances, but when it fails, boo it from the stage. Love it as a child - recognize that it has brought us this far, but that we cannot forever remain under its strict control; respect it, but recognize that change, that evolution, is necessary to life; remember that it has loved and nurtured us, but know that it has come to need our care.
"Words fly up, my thoughts remain below."
black and white, Angels and demons.
We aren't two sides of the same coin.
We're the gold into which those sides are imprinted."
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Book of Martyrs
I've recently been reading about the Jesuit missions to England in the 16th and early 17th centuries, specifically, as they relate to the Gunpowder Plot. I find it interesting how the majority of the authors I've picked up seem so sympathetic toward the Jesuits, and critical of the Elizabethan/Jacobean governments.
Is it that we, as a society, tend to automatically vilify the dominant regime? To root, as it were, for the underdog? The Jesuits lost in England - not only did they not succeed in converting the nation back to Catholicism, they failed to assassinate Elizabeth and to blow up James (though to be fair, most of them weren't out to blow up anything). Underdogs. But... not really. The Catholic Church isn't much of an underdog. And yet it occupies a strangely liminal position between supremacy and oppression.
That particular role, it seems, centers around the concept of the martyr.
Martyrs are attractive. The notion of self-sacrifice for a cause, the willingness to give up even one's life in the pursuit of a noble idealism, is lauded, praised, and sanctified by our national and religious cultures. "So-and-so died for his/her beliefs/country" is the highest of praise.
I wonder. If our biological ancestors had been into self-sacrifice, our species very likely wouldn't exist (with the notable exceptions of dying to save one's young or the rest of one's pack).
In The Lion's Court, Derek Wilson suggests that “Martyrs are seldom made by events. There has to be something deep within a man’s soul to prepare him for, or impel him towards, the ultimate sacrifice... To welcome death in a righteous cause was the surest way to avoid the everlasting torments prepared for the worldly. There is always an element of selfishness about the martyr’s preoccupation with his own eternal well-being” (377-378). I find his point about selfishness to be particularly interesting.
As did the Jesuits. And - as I learned at a session at Kalamazoo this year - the missionaries to the Muslim East in medieval times. The latter were much disposed to going to the Middle East with the specific intention of getting killed. Sure-fire one-way ticket to heaven. How do we know this? Because as long as the missionaries in question didn't preach close to a mosque (in the instances recounted in the paper), they'd be left more or less alone. They chose to do so anyway. They were disemboweled, decapitated, etc. No surprise to anyone. The Papacy elected to stop canonizing them - and to discourage the praise of said individuals - to keep more people from going out and dying. Same deal in England with the Jesuit missions; they actively encouraged people NOT to go unless they felt that the priests in question were capable of deception and espionage.
But that never seems to stop people. People want to become martyrs. And why?
I have to say that here is one of those points at which my atheism leads to my incredulity. Perhaps if I believed in another, spiritual life, a reward, a heaven, martyrdom would make more sense. As it is, I just don't get it. Martyrdom seems such a waste. Why give your life for something when you could devote the time and energy of that life TO it?
Is it that we, as a society, tend to automatically vilify the dominant regime? To root, as it were, for the underdog? The Jesuits lost in England - not only did they not succeed in converting the nation back to Catholicism, they failed to assassinate Elizabeth and to blow up James (though to be fair, most of them weren't out to blow up anything). Underdogs. But... not really. The Catholic Church isn't much of an underdog. And yet it occupies a strangely liminal position between supremacy and oppression.
That particular role, it seems, centers around the concept of the martyr.
Martyrs are attractive. The notion of self-sacrifice for a cause, the willingness to give up even one's life in the pursuit of a noble idealism, is lauded, praised, and sanctified by our national and religious cultures. "So-and-so died for his/her beliefs/country" is the highest of praise.
I wonder. If our biological ancestors had been into self-sacrifice, our species very likely wouldn't exist (with the notable exceptions of dying to save one's young or the rest of one's pack).
In The Lion's Court, Derek Wilson suggests that “Martyrs are seldom made by events. There has to be something deep within a man’s soul to prepare him for, or impel him towards, the ultimate sacrifice... To welcome death in a righteous cause was the surest way to avoid the everlasting torments prepared for the worldly. There is always an element of selfishness about the martyr’s preoccupation with his own eternal well-being” (377-378). I find his point about selfishness to be particularly interesting.
As did the Jesuits. And - as I learned at a session at Kalamazoo this year - the missionaries to the Muslim East in medieval times. The latter were much disposed to going to the Middle East with the specific intention of getting killed. Sure-fire one-way ticket to heaven. How do we know this? Because as long as the missionaries in question didn't preach close to a mosque (in the instances recounted in the paper), they'd be left more or less alone. They chose to do so anyway. They were disemboweled, decapitated, etc. No surprise to anyone. The Papacy elected to stop canonizing them - and to discourage the praise of said individuals - to keep more people from going out and dying. Same deal in England with the Jesuit missions; they actively encouraged people NOT to go unless they felt that the priests in question were capable of deception and espionage.
But that never seems to stop people. People want to become martyrs. And why?
I have to say that here is one of those points at which my atheism leads to my incredulity. Perhaps if I believed in another, spiritual life, a reward, a heaven, martyrdom would make more sense. As it is, I just don't get it. Martyrdom seems such a waste. Why give your life for something when you could devote the time and energy of that life TO it?
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