Category: Culture Matters

Books and Our Future

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Books are important. Some people feel that the habit, the skill, the pleasure of reading is under threat and that what is threatened is more than just something to pass the time. Britain’s chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks has written: Until recently, national cultures were predicated on the idea of a canon, a set of texts that everyone knew. In the case of Britain they included the Bible, Shakespeare and the great novels. The existence of a canon is essential to a culture. It means that people share a set of references and resonances, a public vocabulary of narratives and discourse.”  The implication is that when this set of references begins to disintegrate then the very fabric of the culture itself will begin to disintegrate.  

There is no doubt but there is uneasiness among us about the coherence of our culture today – in both these islands. It is debatable whether or not the weakening of this canon is a factor. But it is worth debating. The increasing dominance and impact of aural and visual media seems to be the main agent in supplanting our attraction to the written word on the page. Can these media give us what the written word on the page gives – a time and a space for reflection on what we absorb? Perhaps. But until we know that what we might be losing can be sacrificed without risk, it behoves us to do all we can to keep the canon of great books, great music and great art which help define what we are and who we are. In this task the educational curricula of the home and the school are the central pillars.

Pullman Having His Cake and Eating It

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

The problem with Philip Pullman – well, one of them at any rate – is that he wants to have his cake and eat it. Pullman is the author of a series of children’s books which purport to expose what he sees the myths that make up our Christian faith. The first of these has now been filmed at an estimated cost of €120 million. “The Golden Compass” is probably showing at a cinema near you just now. Pullman wants to be an atheist who thinks that “God” is dead and who thinks that religion has brought nothing but suffering for the human race. However he now has a would-be blockbuster film for children to promote and the promise of a rich harvest of book sales on the back of it. If he doesn’t backtrack from his more militant stance and some of his stated intentions – “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief”, he was quoted as saying in the Washington Post in 2001 – his Hollywood producers and his bank balance may suffer. Undoubtedly there are people out there who either think like him on the question of God and religion and there are probably more who don’t care one way or the other. They won’t mind bringing their children to what they see as a well-made film which is a bit of exciting fun and full of marvellous special effects. However, the market place has a lot more to offer if it is carefully manipulated and this marketplace has a large segment of families to whom the meaning and intention of Pullman are important: the nascent faith of their children is not something that they are going to be happy to put at risk for a bit of fun. The cohorts of Pullman’s legion are pulling up behind him in his defence. Shane Hegarty in the Irish Times took up the issue of Pullman’s critics. Mockery was the tactic used as he lined up the easy targets of those who talk about banning Pullman. He quoted Pullman’s own view of his critics – “oh it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world”. My goodness. That’s strong. What would he like to do with them? Lock them up, or worse? And this is the man who thinks C.S. Lewis “was dangerous”. Of course, the notion that anyone might suggest that what he writes is dangerous is laughable. It’s that cake again. The trouble with this camp is that they are not really interested in a debate which might help us arrive at the truth. Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Good) , Pullman, et al, do their utmost to stifle debate by setting up easy targets, those they can label as “fundamentalists”. Dawkins and Hitchens take the extreme manifestations of belief and use them as evidence to condemn those who have already stipulated these manifestations as aberrations and heresies. Nicole Kidman, one of the stars of the film has even had to row in with a fluffy sort of defence. “I was raised a Catholic, the Catholic Church is part of my essence” – whatever that means? “I wouldn’t be able to do this film if I thought it were at all anti-Catholic.”  Poor  Nicole. She shouldn’t say things like that or we might think that “thinking” is not one of her strong points – or that she has not even bothered to read the script properly. In the film, as Mrs. Coulter, Ms. Kidman is the evil emissary of “the Magisterium.” Does she not know that the “magisterium” is the term which Catholics use to identify the teaching authority of the Church? In the end of the day we can’t allow this to be just a battle between those who believe in a world beyond this world and those who believe that this world is all there is – because science can’t take them any further. That makes it too easy for the non-believer since it gives him so many straw men to demolish. It has to be engaged on the level of the truth and the teaching of Christ and the Church he founded.  Apparently Pullman’s next book is going to address the question of whether “people can be helped by something that is palpably not true, is this better than denying the thing that is not true and not being helped.” While this doesn’t sound much like a bestseller it is clear that he has not the slightest interest in honestly asking whether or not something is true. He has already made up his mind and just wants to destroy the “nitwits” who think otherwise than himself.  

www.positionpapers.ie

Time for Vigilance and Action

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment

The British Government has warned that parents are “ill-equipped” to keep their children safe from violent and damaging influences on the internet. No doubt the same can be said for parents in the remainder of the archipelago outside the United Kingdom as well. Ed Balls, the Children Minister, made the point that they were ill equipped because they simply did not know what was going on in the web or in computer games. Staggeringly only one parent in 20 – a survey revealed – knew that children give out personal details over the internet. But this, surely, is not a matter of being ill-equipped? It is a matter of culpable ignorance. Good parents who relate to their children will not only know what their children are doing generally and how they are spending their time. They will have some idea of the influences which are going to form their character, habits and attitudes. They will be keenly interested in what they are reading, what they are watching and who their friends are. This is a big part of what parenting is about.The British Government has set up a study group to assess the impact of the internet and violent games on children. All very good – but surely we know already what uncontrolled surfing of the net is exposing children and adolescents to and what the likely effects of that will be. What is really needed is something that will help reduce that appalling ratio of one in twenty to a considerably less worrying one. 

Pity the Poor Stock Dealer?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Archbishop – now Cardinal – Sean Brady gave us all something to think about over the summer months. In relation to his address at Knock when he juxtaposed the island of saints and scholars which we once were with the land of stocks and shares, which we have now become, a friend of mine was a little bemused. He is in fact someone who deals in stocks and shares and wondered if the archbishop was suggesting that there might be something wrong with that – or that this activity might be spiritually less healthy than being a scholar, or that it was incompatible with being a saint.  After working through the implications of what the Archbishop was saying we came to the more comfortable conclusion that the juxtaposition was more rhetorical than real and that the teaching of the Church was quite clear – the call to sanctity is addressed to all men and women following any honest occupation, be it scholarly or otherwise. I suppose the drip drip effect of the daily news on shady dealing, rising and falling share prices for reasons which baffle most of us, political representatives hopping in and out of the pockets of wheelers and dealers, does nothing to suggest that dealing rooms would be a place to look for a modern Irish Colmcille or Columbanus. We concluded that Archbishop Brady was throwing down a challenge to modern Ireland to prove otherwise.

A surfeit of moderation?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters2 Comments

I’m not an islamophobe – at least I hope I’m not – but boy do some things about Islam really scare me. I want to understand these people, there are many things about them and their commitment that I admire, but they really do confuse me.

I live in Ireland and I cannot see any evidence of islamophobia here – they have their mosques, our President recently visited their splendid Islamic centre in Dublin and spoke very warmly and encouragingly to them. Significantly however, I thought, she encouraged them to try to help us to understand them more. We certainly need that help – and it is not always forthcoming.

Not many weeks before that address from the President I nearly choked on my Wheetabix one morning when I read a quote from a moderate spokesperson for the Islamic community here. He was talking about the experience of living in this country and how in general things were good for them. However at times, he said, things can get a little tense – like in the aftermath of the “incidents” in September, 2001 in New York and Washington, and the later ones in Madrid, London and Bali. “Incidents”? I looked again. Yes, that was the word he used. What, I asked, is going on in a mind like that? I can think of a thousand words which I would find to describe any one of those horrific atrocities before I would choose the word he chose. I wondered why – and I am still wondering. Does he really think these were mere incidents in the lives of ordinary people or is he using this word because he is looking over his shoulder to see who among his own people might be listening and weighing up what he is saying, finding it wanting in commitment?

To me there is still a huge question mark over the relative silence among what is described as the moderate Islamic world about the numerous “incidents” perpetrated in the name of the Islamic faith. There are those who deny that this has anything to do with faith but that is naive in the extreme. It may be a perversion of faith but if a 12-year-old boy is put on video slicing off the head of his enemy in a ritual execution, calling out at the same time, “God is great”, religion is at the heart of it. The Daily Telegraph reported: “The film, overlain with jihadi songs, then shows him hacking at the man’s neck, before exclaiming: ‘God is great!’ and hoisting the severed head by the hair.”

Where is the outcry? Why are there not statements of outright rejection coming from around the Islamic world? Why are there not mass demonstrations proclaiming “Not in my name and certainly not in God’s name do you do this”?

Nearer home this week we heard Scotland Yard’s Peter Clark, head of its counter-terrorism command, appealing again for help from within the Islamic communities in Britain to protect the British people against more terrorist attacks. Is the root of this reticence a tacit support for the terrorist or is it the effect of terror itself within these communities?

All this reminds me of an encounter with a student from Eastern Europe 30-odd years ago. He was doing post-graduate work here in Dublin. He was open and friendly in all things until it came to anything which touched on the politics or way of life in his own communist controlled country. He was not a communist but clearly he was afraid to say anything which might be negatively interpreted back home – and he wasn’t taking any risks that anything he might say should reach back home. It wasn’t that his life was necessarily at risk, but he certainly felt that his state-funded studies and his promising career back home were at risk.Militant Islam is an even more ruthless and lethal controlling agent than Communism ever was. That it draws on the great and inherently good power of religious conviction makes it even more lethal.

We must pity the unfortunate moderate Islamist who wants to practice a benign version of his faith. We might hope that one day the inherently false religion which is manifested in the malign version of the militants’ Islam will implode as Communism did. Do we hope in vain? Our hope would be stronger if we could see some of the courage among moderate Islamists that we did among the dissidents who helped contribute to the fall of Communism.

Days of Heaven, Reviews from Hell

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment

I found myself getting very annoyed the other day – with something written almost 30 years ago. I had just watched – for the fifth or sixth time – Terence Mallick’s Days of Heaven and felt as rewarded as on the first occasion I watched it. Indeed, even more so because, as is the case with really good films, books or plays, the depth becomes more perceptible with the closer examination multiple encounters offer.I then did a little internet trawl to check out if many felt the same way about it. In doing so I cam across the September 14, 1978, review by HAROLD C. SCHONBERG in the New York Times.  How wide of the mark can you be? I thought as I read it.  I also thought how terrible an experience it must have been for Mallick on reading it. Had it anything to do with his failure to make another film until he made The Thin Red Line in the 1990s? In those 20 years, of course, it became clear to many that those like Schonberg who consigned Days of Heaven to the rubbish heap had completely missed the point. Malick today stands out as one of the truly great poets of cinema – along with Andrei Tarkovsky, Ermano Olmi and, perhaps, Terence Davies.This was Schonberg’s judgement:“Some years ago Terrence Malick produced, wrote, and directed
Badlands, a film that created a certain stir. Now comes Days of Heaven… it obviously has cost a lot of money; it is full of elegant and striking photography; and it is an intolerably artsy, artificial film. “At the beginning, it is as though this is going to be a film about European immigrants in the early days of President Wilson’s presidency. Then it switches to the Texas Panhandle, where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope still play. Migrant workers, fleeing the big cities, help reap the wheat harvest of a young, wealthy farmer. There are all kinds of special effects, including a plague of locusts and a prairie fire. There is a romance, in which the girlfriend of a young worker, who poses as his sister, marries the farmer. What results is jealousy and murder. “But Days of Heaven never really makes up its mind what it wants to be. Back of what basically is a conventional plot is all kinds of fancy, self-conscious cineaste techniques. The film proceeds in short takes: people seldom say more than two or three connected sentences. It might be described as the mosaic school of filmmaking as the camera and the action hop around, concentrating on a bit here, a bit there.”  

What can one say about all that? Essentially it is a hopeless case of a person reading a film totally on the surface and failing to grasp any of the suggestions, the nuances, the allusions which go to create its deep layers of meaning and observation of human existential experience and what lies beyond it. It is like someone coming to The Waste Land and complaining that it is all over the place, does not quite know what it wants to be – funny, pathetic, apocalyptic or whatever. So be it. A man sees what he wants to see – or is able to see – and disregards the rest, because he has no choice. But what a pity that an authoritative paper like the New York Times should allow a review like this to be inflicted on an artist of such sensibility as Mallick.On a first viewing Days of Heaven presents a visual feast. The cinematography and direction are flawless in their marrying a vision of nature, human tragedy, social description and an historical epoch. The economy of expression – which Schonberg mocks as “the mosaic school” – was superb. Take for example the very short scene where Woodrow Wilson’s campaign train passes through the Texas Panhandle and the migrant workers line up to see it as it passes. One can imagine Schonberg and his ilk asking, “What was all that about?” While you can’t say they should know, at the same time you know what they miss because they don’t know. This is the cinema of allusion and if we are unable to connect with such allusion we are the poorer for it.

The Times and the BBC both report (Monday 26 Febru…

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters2 Comments

The Times and the BBC both report (Monday 26 February) that the British Council is cutting its budget for work on the European mainland to allow it to put more into its work in the Arab and Muslim world. Surely this is a good idea? There cannot be much more that Europe needs to know about British culture than it knows already – at least not much more that an organisation like the BC can help with. With the language as dominant as it is and with the BBC so far ahead of any other broadcasting organisation in terms of quality and penetration, all the BC can be doing in Europe is preaching to the converted.

The Muslim world is really the critical frontier. But as the experience of living with Muslims in Britain seems to show, it will not be easy. It is fashionalble to laugh off the idea of a clash of civilizations. Don’t be fooled. There really is a clash – and the BC’s initiatives are likely to exacerbate it in the short term. In the longer term, hopefully, it will be resolved.

The problem of course is not the mainstream of Islam. The problem is the radical fringe which will see any effort to introduce the faithful to Anglo-Saxon-Western values and way of life as a corrupting exercise – and they are right. Radical Islam cannot go to bed with Western values and survive. This is a fight to the death for the radical Muslim. This is what is going on in Afghanistan and in many other places. The outcome is pretty certain but there will be casualties and the resolution will take a long time. More power to the British Council.

In the same issue of the London Times I see that AA Gill is declaring that “gayness is not a sin. It’s not even a faux pas”. Is this more of the deliberate muddling of Christian morality which we get so much of from the “liberal” wing. I do not know any serious moral teaching that says “gayness” is a sin – no more than being hot-tempered is. Sin has to do with willful acts, acted out or otherwise. It comes only with surrender to tendencies which are contrary to an ordered human nature.

The Catholic Church shocks some people when it describes gayness as a disorder. We find lots of disordered tendencies in our nature – greediness, laziness, anger – but we do not get offended when it is suggested to us that we deal with these appropriately. Gays who deal with their gayness will be on the right track when they do the same – just as I will be when I deal with my laziness by getting out of bed in the morning when I don’t feel like it.

Christopher Howse in the Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago put his finger on the problem of course, writing in the context of the pickle which the Anglican Church has got itself into on this matter. The moral confusion, he suggested, all stems from the rejection of the moral principle that sexual acts are sinful if they are radically dissociated from the act of procreation. In other words, if deliberate contraception is not sinful, then no consensual or individual sexual act is sinful. Is it fair to say that the great moral divide of our time is the gap between those who believe this and those who don’t?

Finally, on a more uplifting note: what a special weekend we had here in Dublin.
The papers are full of historic musings about how our two islands, our two nations which share such an overwhelmingly common culture as to be really only remotely two nations, came together paradoxically in a great act of reconciliation on the battlefield of rugby. Needless to say our equivalent of the Taleban, continuity, real – or whatever they want to call themselves – IRA were hanging around the fringes of our celebrations. Mercifully, their day is gone at last and never did “tiochaid ar lá” sound more foolish.

We all wanted to put the past behind us – and we did. Whether or not we thought the 1916 rebellion was a wrong turning in our history, diverting us from the legitimate path to self-determination which we had hopefully entered on a few years earlier, we put those thoughts aside. Perhaps the long and painful saga of our invention of a false and forced national identity as “anything but British” might finally be petering out and we will be able to get on with genuinely being ourselves, accepting all those elements, Irish and British – to name but two – which make us what we are.