Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Some Random Thoughts
Snark about "baby Jesus" has been coming in since I started posting these, from predictable sources. It leads me to think about how often such people go out of their way to express their hatred of babies, which is a pretty telling hatred to have and to so obviously enjoy voicing. Afterall, they wouldn't be here to hate on babies if they'd never been babies. And if it is the habits of babies that lead them to hate babies, what do they think they're being?
When I've heard people mocking "baaaaby JeeeeSUS" they get a kind of sarcastic, disdainful inflection in their voice that they generally don't get when they are talking about adults, even adults they hate.
Having sort of specialized in reading the literature of Darwinism and eugenics, the early and scientifically voiced enthusiasm for infanticide as practiced in Pagan Europe and among what they presented as "savages" came to mind while thinking about this. While, in the Darwinist advocacy for their asserted benefits of infanticide, the murder of those who are disabled comes first to mind, the fact is that most of the infanticide that happened was probably on the basis of gender, most of the babies so murdered, females. And, as I've mentioned a number of times, that enthusiasm for the deaths of babies continued in the literature of cultural Darwinism up till today when advocacy of infanticide by such people as Peter Singer is compatible with a career in academia and on upper market magazine and upper brow talk media.
And then there is the infanticide story that is part of the Christmas season, Herod's slaughter of the innocents. Now, I know there is considerable skepticism about that story as history but I don't think it's necessary for it to have happened in order to think about how it would have been seen among the Jewish-Christians who were a considerable number of those in the early Jesus movement. The story would have been an example of Herod's irreligiosity, the Jewish people being what was likely either the only or among the few people who had a strong ban against infanticide in the Mediterranean basin. It would have been a sign of the extent to which the moral authority of those who ruled over Jerusalem and the Jewish people had become corrupted though association with Roman paganism.
Perhaps one of the strongest contrasts that could come to mind among the Jewish-Christians would be the story of Abraham and Issac, which so many ignorant people around these days seem to believe was an example of human sacrifice in the Jewish tradition. Which only proves, once again, how much of the common received unwisdom of those holding college degrees depends on never having read what they believe they know. The point of the story is exactly the opposite of that, it elevates the status of human beings, even children, those so powerless that they can't prevent their own murders. Through that story human beings are granted a status that few, if any Pagan cultures gave them, certainly not those familiar to the Hebrew people. And it certainly elevates people above the status of inanimate objects which naturalism assigns us, then and now.
In thinking about it in the past two weeks, I think it was the decisive lesson given to Abraham in his conversion from naturalistic thinking to the incredible advance over that which we, in the West, owe to the Jewish tradition. In the story, after a gradual series of lessons in which Abraham is taught a new way of thinking, after God has promised him that he will be the founder of a great people who will save the world, God tells him to sacrifice the son through whom that will happen. Abraham complies in one of the most dramatically structured stories in the Bible and is about to, literally, give everything he hopes for to God when, by God stopping him, he learns that, unlike the gods of Paganism, God isn't that kind of god, the gods that are the product of human projection of their own personality. And in doing that God also distinguishes people from being mere things to sacrifice because God reveals that God is ever so much more than people can conceive of.
In this week during this part of the modern Catholic liturgical cycle, there are readings from Isiah which presents a vision of the perfected world after it is redeemed.
On that day,
A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him:
a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
A Spirit of counsel and of strength,
a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD,
and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.
Not by appearance shall he judge,
nor by hearsay shall he decide,
But he shall judge the poor with justice,
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.
He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
Justice shall be the band around his waist,
and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.
Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,
together their young shall rest;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea.
On that day,
The root of Jesse,
set up as a signal for the nations,
The Gentiles shall seek out,
for his dwelling shall be glorious.
That is the opposite to the world of of Darwinism, and, of course, fascism and Marxism. It's a lot closer to egalitarian democracy than those product of scientism and the Enlightenment. That is the difference between the heritage of Abraham and that of the atomists.
Update: 2 comments:
steve simelsDecember 2, 2015 at 10:49 AM
"Snark about "baby Jesus" has been coming in since I started posting these, from predictable sources. It leads me to think about how often such people go out of their way to express their hatred of babies,"
Okay, it's official -- you're completely bonkers.
Replies
The Thought CriminalDecember 2, 2015 at 10:52 AM
I may make a long list of examples, for now, here, from Amanda Marcotte:
I don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding. No matter how much free day care you throw at women, babies are still time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness. No matter how flexible you make my work schedule, my entire life would be overturned by a baby. I like my life how it is, with my ability to do what I want when I want without having to arrange for a babysitter. I like being able to watch True Detective right now and not wait until baby is in bed. I like sex in any room of the house I please. I don’t want a baby. I’ve heard your pro-baby arguments. Glad those work for you, but they are unconvincing to me. Nothing will make me want a baby.
Any normal person would just say, "I don't want to have a baby."
"Snark about "baby Jesus" has been coming in since I started posting these, from predictable sources. It leads me to think about how often such people go out of their way to express their hatred of babies,"
ReplyDeleteOkay, it's official -- you're completely bonkers.
I may make a long list of examples, for now, here, from Amanda Marcotte:
DeleteI don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding. No matter how much free day care you throw at women, babies are still time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness. No matter how flexible you make my work schedule, my entire life would be overturned by a baby. I like my life how it is, with my ability to do what I want when I want without having to arrange for a babysitter. I like being able to watch True Detective right now and not wait until baby is in bed. I like sex in any room of the house I please. I don’t want a baby. I’ve heard your pro-baby arguments. Glad those work for you, but they are unconvincing to me. Nothing will make me want a baby.
There is something about the internet that makes people want to discuss their every thought, isn't there? Some ideas are worth considering in public; some deserve to never see the light of day.
DeleteI presume Amanda Marcotte feels pressured to have children, but the modern response to that is not to knuckle under to societal pressure, but to live as you choose. The ugly alternative is to scream and yell about how people won't let you live as you choose because they aren't just like you.
It's that alternative that more and more populates the intertoobs. And, of course, that drives most people off the internet, leaving the screamers more convinced than ever that they are right and everyone thinks just like they do!
I remember how Television was supposed to open us to the world, and teach us to accept difference; to some extent it did. More and more the intertoobs are pushing us to retreat into enclaves and growl at anyone who dares pass by. Sort of like those dystopian futures where all civil order has broken down and gangs control small patches of ground, driving away all who are not of that gang.
The stories of Abrahamic hospitality are important here, too.
I strongly suspect that the pressure she reports for her to have children is an invention so she could write a post that would get attention.
DeleteThe only person who ever pressured me to have a child was a friend of mine who was a lesbian. When I told her I thought it was immoral for a man to father a child unless he was involved in caring for it and bringing it up n a daily basis she changed her mind. Which was funny as I was the one with experience of taking care of babies. She decided to concentrate on her one niece who she could hand back to her sister when the child got sick and had to be sat up with, etc.
I'm glad that someone as self-involved, selfish and childish as Marcotte doesn't want to have a baby, I'd encourage her to resist any pressure she might imagine someone is placing on her.
I seemed to have missed where Marcotte mentioned the Big J anywhere in that quote.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, it stands -- you're officially completely bonkers.
Oh, this is too funny. You're denying that Amanda Marcotte hasn't become best known for her anti-religious, primarily anti-Christian screeds in the style of an angry 13 year old brat. If she'd never written stuff such as got her canned from the Edwards campaign she'd be unknown, today.
DeleteAnd that makes her a perfect example of what I was talking about. I wonder if I comb through the Simels record what I might find on the topics of babies, but not enough to make me want to mine through the crap to discern that particular line of crap.
Otherwise, keep providing the evidence into that weird reading disorder you have that turns everything you pretend to read into what you want it to say instead of what it really says.
Everybody you dislike is by definition an atheist.
ReplyDeleteLike I said -- you're bonkers.
I think it would come as a surprise to Amanda Marcotte for her to find that it was I instead of she who defined her as an atheist.
DeleteThere really needs to be a name for your disorder.