2016

Seeing Only Ourselves in the Past

One thing everybody knows about Rome is that it fell. Just why it did is still debated. Classicists can count 200-plus reasons for the dissolution—or evolution—of what was once the known world’s superpower. Fall, however, is a sexier word. It goes well with caricatures of Neronian debauchery fondly promoted in 19th century moralizing paintings or in movies like Fellini’s leering Satyricon. And it evokes that other Fall in a long-ago garden.     Taking cues from Gibbon, we graft decline onto fall and use it as a stick to beat ourselves. Continue Reading
On Agee, Debates, & Douthat

James Agee was a fierce critic. His movie reviews for Time and The Nation, written in the 1940s and early ‘50s, are among the best—no, they are the best—in the annals of American film criticism. W.H. Auden admitted to reading his reviews to spare himself having to go to the movies. Agee did not squander column space on productions he anticipated would be a waste of time. He knew the plot line, the habits of individual directors, the range of talent of the actors. Continue Reading
Crucifixions

In response to the previous post—specifically, to fusty reactions to Roman Cieslewicz’ poster image—a priest friend writes:
I, for my part, am simply too jaded to be offended.  I noted, of course, the strength—the shock—of the image in question. That’s the point of the various memento mori, after all.  And in our time—much more than for those medieval and later artists—the linking of sex with death has become poignant.  We deal with things of which they could not have conceived. And precisely because so many people have become complacent with what not long ago would have been considered monstrous, it is sometimes necessary to shock them.
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Danse Macabre, Then & Now

We are accustomed to thinking that verbal discourse (written or spoken) and visual communication are complementary. Word and image accompany each other, so we believe, in the same struggle to get to the truth of things. But maybe not. Could they be not only distinct but antagonistic ways of understanding? Or are images mere accessories to words, meaningless without verbal explanation?   What set me wondering was a flurry of unsmiling emails that came in response to the previous post. These were ones that said nothing at all about the written content but took exception—quite breathy in some instances—to the images. Continue Reading
Hesitance Comes For The Archbishop

A tragic fault line runs through the approach of the American bishops to the 2016 election. On one side lies their traditional sympathy for immigration, extended now to embrace what amounts to open-borders and a reluctance to distinguish between legal immigrants and illegal ones. On the other is the indispensable Catholic opposition to abortion. However much buttressed by religious language and attachments, one is a historically conditioned political position. The second is bedrock, a fundamental moral position the Church cannot abandon without losing its soul. Continue Reading