I have been thinking of narratives as of late. More so after the riots in Vancouver, where the national narrative of the Canadian people took a gruesome turn. I know the first instinct is to distance ourselves from images of violence that have surrounded the conquest of Vancouver by drunken frat boys, but we must be careful not to separate ourselves from the story that we have been intertwined with. That story is Hockey. My tongue is nowhere near my cheek as I speak this, for, as one professor of mine was fond of saying: When people get out of organized religion they get into weird things. Terry Eagleton expounds
"The history of modernity is, among other things, the history of substitutes for God. Art, culture, nation, Geist, humanity, society: all these, along with a clutch of other hopeful aspirants, have been tried from time to time. The most successful candidate currently on offer is sport, which, short of providing funeral rites for its spectators, fulfils almost every religious function in the book."
Hockey is very close to God in this country. Indeed if we were to measure this by attendance (Church versus arena) I would dare say hockey passed God by quite a while ago. As such we live in an age where “all things [have] become permissible,” to paraphrase Dostoyevsky. In a secular landscape, where there is no true north to navigate by, we are propelled by the power of the self-constructed images that our culture perpetuates to give it a level of cohesion that bolsters our lack of integration. Our fragmentedness is held together by the battles of the Colesseum. Tistin Markle:
"In the absence of any shared collective progressive principles, the BC elite longed for a new solidarity forged from of this “fighting collectivity” of Canucks fans. You could not find a politician that didn’t reinforce the jingoism, not the least with Premier Christy Clark speaking exclusively in hockey metaphors.
But grounding social solidarity in competitive spectacle is a risky wager, as the solidarity can be wiped away by a 0-4 tally. Spectacle is by its nature passive, the spectator powerless (without opportunity to attack the opposing “fighting collectivity”). The latent purely political violence cannot be directed at the enemy, and so Vancouver’s “fighting collectivity” turned on itself, individuals beating each other up on the streets (in place of the Bruin fans), attacking police (in place of Boston police), and looting Vancouver stores (in place of Boston stores). And so Vancouver had its war: it conquered itself."
When I presented the above argument to a friend he stated the obvious truth: that if Vancouver had triumphed over Boston the end result would have been the same. I believe he was correct in that, but that does not dispel the reality of the war of images that exists is our society, a society mediated by spectacles, mythologies that disempower us from ourselves as we play into them. The mythology of hockey provides us with a sense of identity, a place in a wider narrative, it gives us rituals of belonging, victory, redemption, and (certainty in the case of the Canucks) long-suffering perseverance.
This narrative, however. is escapism, it does not bind us to the world but replaces it. There is no influence that the standard hockey fan lends to the narrative of the Hockey Night in Canada, other than the odd painted face splayed across the jumbo screen for a precious 5 seconds of fame. His voice is lent to the cheers of the team, but it is present only in numbers and sound, there is no relationship formed, no struggle, no achievement, in the end the spectacle of the game provides all the redeeming qualities of a passing billboard.
Let us now contrast this with a city immersed in a narrative that does involve them with the world:
"The whole city is full of it: the squares, the market places, the cross-roads, the alleyways; salesmen of old clothes, money changers, food sellers; they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone for change, he will philosophize about the begotten and the unbegotten nature of God; if you inquire about the price of bread, you are told by way of reply that the Father is great than the Son; and if you ask the attendant whether you bath is ready, he will answer that the Son was made out of nothing."
These are the words of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, who observed how the city of Constantinople was afire with the theological discussions of the day, during the Second Ecumenical Council (381). Here we see a citizenry passionate about their collective faith, bound together in the unity of the Body of Christ, and the narrative of Jesus. But why should this make Constantinople superior to Vancouver? Can one narrative be better than the other? Do I have any right to say that Jesus trumps hockey?
These are the musings of contemporary secularists who see each individual tree as having their own entitlements to never be a forest. So I will answer yes: Jesus trumps hockey, and He triumphs much because of the revelations at the Second Ecumenical Council. That God is heavenly and earthly, that to do for the least is to do for the greatest; that how you act towards your neighbours, your teammates, your city, matters.
The speculative narrative of hockey, which is the same narrative that birthed the riots and all the media frenzy that fallowed the children of doctors and dentists home at night, is a narrative that cares nothing for the least, and certainly gives no thought towards the heavens. It is a narrative of denial, a play with no moral, it is exactly what it proclaims to be: a spectator sport. Our faith, by contrast, calls to us as human beings. It calls us by our bodies, that we should help the poor by the work of our hands. It calls us by our emotions, that we should share their suffering as Jesus did. And it calls us by our intellect; that we should have the presence of mind to see through the illusions of this world and not become involved in a mob mentality that leads only towards more suffering and death. Our faith calls us to be fully involved in the world as fully human, not as spectators.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Elizabeth May's (Very) Middle Way
It’s Ash Wednesday and Elizabeth May has a dirty forehead. She greets me cheerfully, as she does every member of her team that comes through the doors of her headquarters here in Sidney by the sea. I’m intrigued by May as she represents my favorite underdogs, idealistically anyway. Of course May would be quick to say that she does not represent the Anglican Communion, drawing a firm line between her role has the federal leader of the Green Party and her Christian practice. When I ask her how her faith informs her politics she walks the multicultural line, aware of her own story within a larger one.
“One answer is: in ever way possible. And the other is: as a leader of a federal political part which is not, and very clearly not, influenced by faith...” May’s been dumped by people who heard talking about her faith, and she’s hyper-congession about the tainted view people have of organized religion in these post-Dubya years. “[T]hey [the public] find out I’m a Christian or they see me talk about faith in a public forum and they say that well I was going to support you but not I’m not because I don’t like to see people in politics who are religious…so much damage has been done to public discourse, not to personify it too much, but it is quickly understood as George Bush style of a religious Christian right in the US [that] has driven a lot of people away from, and become very fearful, of a politician who says they’re Christian.
May’s all about the separation of Church and State, recognizing that government is a secular machine that should not be greased with any religious fervor. She does, however, think it important for voters to have a perspective on what drives an individual politician: “I think it’s appropriate for voters to know ‘What does this person believe in and why? What drives them?’ That’s where I think it’s perfectly appropriate for people to ask me what me religious beliefs are, I don’t feel as if I have to defend them.”
Still I look for intersections where the two may come together, like the press release the Greens issued “applauding the Church Council on Justice and Corrections for its opposition to the Conservatives’ incarceration and prison expansion project.” In it the Greens slam the Harper government for wanting to “spending billions of dollars to throw more Canadians in jail.” When I ask May about it she answers that “if that policy had been put out by the ‘Humanists of Canada’ we would have endorsed. It was a important policy statement regardless of where it came.”
It’s interesting speaking to May on these issues, she walks parallel to her faith careful not to trip into muddy waters least she disenfranchise potential voters. In many ways she is caught in the postmodern trap of our era, maintaining critical distance from what she personally believes and practices so that she can do her job in the secular world. Not much different from any other Christians in the workplace I suppose, still, it’s an odd thing coming from someone who studied for the priesthood - but then there are many odd priests out there.
I ask her about speaking to young generations, coming from this ‘tainted background’ she answers “…a lot of young people have grown up in a time when the awareness of their clout as consumers has over taken their role as citizens in a democracy. And in that confusion of consumerism versus citizenship, when you decided that the theater of politics looks so appalling…if you then decide that you are punishing the politicians and not voting it’s a conflation of that consumer notion with the citizenship notion and it produces the most perverse result of all…rewarding those people you wanted to punish.”
Personal confession time: It has been somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7 years or so since I last voted. I am the great unwashed cynical youth (if at 33 I can still get away with that title) who has plenty of faith in God and His intuition, and very little left over for worldly government. Yet May makes some compelling arguments: “if you look at the last election,” she tells me, “[In] 2008, 41% of Canadians didn’t vote…a larger block of voters than the number of voters who voted for the conservatives… if even half of the people who didn’t vote voted, we’d have a different government.”
Much of what May says is about getting over our disgust with the pettiness we see in the political arena, which I think is a Christian virtue; a learning to live with a falleness that is reflected in the secular powers-that-be, but then going that extra step to say that our participation can help to transform it into something better. I don’t know if I’ll vote in the next election, but I will at least pray for those on the ballot.
“One answer is: in ever way possible. And the other is: as a leader of a federal political part which is not, and very clearly not, influenced by faith...” May’s been dumped by people who heard talking about her faith, and she’s hyper-congession about the tainted view people have of organized religion in these post-Dubya years. “[T]hey [the public] find out I’m a Christian or they see me talk about faith in a public forum and they say that well I was going to support you but not I’m not because I don’t like to see people in politics who are religious…so much damage has been done to public discourse, not to personify it too much, but it is quickly understood as George Bush style of a religious Christian right in the US [that] has driven a lot of people away from, and become very fearful, of a politician who says they’re Christian.
May’s all about the separation of Church and State, recognizing that government is a secular machine that should not be greased with any religious fervor. She does, however, think it important for voters to have a perspective on what drives an individual politician: “I think it’s appropriate for voters to know ‘What does this person believe in and why? What drives them?’ That’s where I think it’s perfectly appropriate for people to ask me what me religious beliefs are, I don’t feel as if I have to defend them.”
Still I look for intersections where the two may come together, like the press release the Greens issued “applauding the Church Council on Justice and Corrections for its opposition to the Conservatives’ incarceration and prison expansion project.” In it the Greens slam the Harper government for wanting to “spending billions of dollars to throw more Canadians in jail.” When I ask May about it she answers that “if that policy had been put out by the ‘Humanists of Canada’ we would have endorsed. It was a important policy statement regardless of where it came.”
It’s interesting speaking to May on these issues, she walks parallel to her faith careful not to trip into muddy waters least she disenfranchise potential voters. In many ways she is caught in the postmodern trap of our era, maintaining critical distance from what she personally believes and practices so that she can do her job in the secular world. Not much different from any other Christians in the workplace I suppose, still, it’s an odd thing coming from someone who studied for the priesthood - but then there are many odd priests out there.
I ask her about speaking to young generations, coming from this ‘tainted background’ she answers “…a lot of young people have grown up in a time when the awareness of their clout as consumers has over taken their role as citizens in a democracy. And in that confusion of consumerism versus citizenship, when you decided that the theater of politics looks so appalling…if you then decide that you are punishing the politicians and not voting it’s a conflation of that consumer notion with the citizenship notion and it produces the most perverse result of all…rewarding those people you wanted to punish.”
Personal confession time: It has been somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7 years or so since I last voted. I am the great unwashed cynical youth (if at 33 I can still get away with that title) who has plenty of faith in God and His intuition, and very little left over for worldly government. Yet May makes some compelling arguments: “if you look at the last election,” she tells me, “[In] 2008, 41% of Canadians didn’t vote…a larger block of voters than the number of voters who voted for the conservatives… if even half of the people who didn’t vote voted, we’d have a different government.”
Much of what May says is about getting over our disgust with the pettiness we see in the political arena, which I think is a Christian virtue; a learning to live with a falleness that is reflected in the secular powers-that-be, but then going that extra step to say that our participation can help to transform it into something better. I don’t know if I’ll vote in the next election, but I will at least pray for those on the ballot.
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