Story vs. History

I am about a third of the way through Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment; it's a very long document! (Here's a link to the English version on the Vatican website, if you want to read it.¹)

I find I agree with some of what the Pope is saying, but what really jumped out at me was a comment he makes on the value of story. He's discussing the biblical stories of Cain and Abel and of Noah when he says:

“These ancient stories, full of symbolism, bear witness to a conviction which we today share, that everything is interconnected, and that genuine care for our own lives and our relationships with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others.”

Please note that Francis openly calls these episodes in the Bible “stories,” not histories. And Francis emphasizes the importance of the symbolism in these stories. These episodes are stories because they contain symbolism, a literary motif, whereas histories largely do not—they just report the facts. Also, because of the symbolism in these “ancient stories,” we can share in the meaning of the stories, even though they were first told so many years ago. Symbolism tends toward universal understanding, whereas fact is often specifically local. A person of any faith or of none could understand the symbolism of these stories.

Symbols are images with many associated meanings and values; in that sense they are akin to metaphors, though metaphors have a more restricted relationship between image and meaning. Think of the American flag, which is a concrete image—in our imaginations we can see it, touch it, hear it flapping in the wind. To a patriot, this image is a symbol because it conveys thoughts and feelings of patriotism and respect, of the history of this country, of bloody sacrifice for freedom, and more—all abstract ideas that find an expression in the image of the flag. But our America flag is also a symbol to radical Muslims, though in a very different way. Some of them think of imperialism, violence, aggression, and even the devil when they look at the American flag. So, our flag is a symbol with multiple meanings, depending on who is looking at it but also even within one person looking at it.

For biblical literalists, the story of Noah can be nothing but fact; it is history, not fiction. Despite the fact that many religions and cultures over the course of human history have generated flood stories, some people have looked and are still searching for Noah's ark—the remains of an actual wooden vessel. For these people, this historical event happened once and allows us a limited set of interpretations. But if we see the ark as a symbol, then we have many more possible interpretations that are available to us now and in the future. An ark is a vessel that floats on water; in this story it floats on water that God sent to destroy almost all life on the earth. So, an ark enables its passengers to survive death and destruction of a great magnitude. Sometimes a person (of any time and any culture) will experience radically threatening events in her life or even just in her mind. The story of Noah, if we know it, can help her to find an ark of another sort to get through the chaos and desolation. The ark and the water are images that, when held in the mind and pondered, allow us to conceive of surviving catastrophe. That's one universal symbolic reading, and I haven't even discussed the animals!

When conceivably the most powerful religious leader on the planet speaks of biblical events as stories containing symbolism, rather than literal histories, we should listen. If we don't start thinking symbolically, metaphorically about the world we live in, if we continue to ignore the suffering we inflict upon other living beings in our world because we are so caught up in abstract ideas of profit and superiority, we might just not survive the flood of negative environmental events to come.

1“Encyclical Letter 'Laudato Si' of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home,” news.va, 18 June 2015:

http://www.news.va/en/news/laudato-si-the-integral-text-of-pope-francis-encyc

Nosy "Neighbors"

The title of my blog (“Metaphorical Times”) has a double meaning for me. I mean to comment on how important metaphorical thinking might be in these times of run-away abstract thought. But I also draw on publications, like the several newspapers named the Times, for insight on what is happening in our world and what might be done about it, metaphorically. This morning I had a happy experience of serendipity in my readings: two articles that deal with nosiness in different ways.

I was reading an older article about Walt Whitman in the New York Review of Books, and this statement by J.M. Coetzee caught my eye:

“There is a certain sophistication, governed by unspoken social consensus, whose nature lies in taking things simply for what they seem to be. It is this sort of social wisdom, whose other name might be tact, that we are in danger of denying to our Victorian forebears.”¹

Coetzee says this while discussing the general unawareness by early readers to apparent allusions to homosexuality in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The passage grabbed me, however, because it seems to me to be such an appropriate comment on our increasingly social-media-ized world. In fact, I would say we are not only in danger of denying this generous tact to ourselves, we have largely lost the ability to appreciate it. We seem to think it old-fashioned and not relevant anymore.

We obsess about trannies and who comes out as gay, as well as who might be having licit or illicit sex with whom. High school kids with relatively little sexual experience feel compelled to declare their sexual orientation in the social media. Sexual activity has left the realm of the private and entered the realm of the public. Thus, Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner is hailed for his “courage” as he underwent his sexual transition by the popular New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof: “Bruce Jenner is now a gold medalist again.”² Why has sexuality become so important a focus in our social lives? I guess we see ourselves as more open-minded about sexual matters than previous generations, but I think it's also possible that we are just more nosy because it has become not only acceptable but even laudable to be nosy. Nosiness is often euphemized as sharing, which begs the question of whether the recipient of nosiness is ok with sharing.

Coetzee considers that Freud's warnings about the bad effects of sexual repression have brought about this situation, but he also notes:

“Pace Freud, it is perfectly possible to refrain from having fantasies about the private lives of other people, even of our parents, without having to repress those fantasies and to bear the consequences of repression—the notorious return of the repressed –in our own psychic life. We pay no psychic price when, for example, we refrain from ruminating on “the intimate details,” “the actual facts,” of what other people do when they visit the bathroom.”³

The problem with our choosing to concern ourselves with the “private lives of other people,” of course, is that while we think we are being open and accepting, any social act of witnessing what should be personal becomes, effectively, a comment on the personal thought or act. It is, inevitably, a kind of social pressure, and it virtually abolishes subjectivity. I keep thinking of the early anthropologists who thought they were observing the natural behavior of certain peoples, when in fact their presence—even if relatively unobtrusive—changed the nature of the experience for those peoples. This is now known as the “observer effect.” A person cannot freely experience her own individuality if her most private thoughts and actions are being observed. One becomes an object, rather than a subject, inevitably. (See my previous post, “Subject or Object?” 14 December 2014.)

After I read Coetzee's essay on Whitman, I happened to read this in the excellent Stone series on philosophy in the New York Times:

“Minding one's own business isn't easy. Most people prefer to live among like-minded others, and most are interested in limiting how different their neighbors are. But life in a free and open society requires living on publicly equal terms with strangers one may well loathe. . . . a free society cannot tolerate those who would disregard the liberty of others to live as they see fit. One cannot harm others in pursuit of one's own ideals, or because one feels deeply insulted by their lives and opinions. The critical question is not whether I judge a person to be radically misguided, or judge her way of life to be morally repugnant, but whether she is a danger to the life and liberty of others.”⁴

“Minding one's own business isn't easy,” but the social media make not doing so a lot easier. Anyone who uses a computer to get online knows that much of her personal life is being monitored and used by social media and marketers. Tyler Clemente found out that a computer could also monitor his sexual activities in his own dorm room, unknown to him, and broadcast those activities to an audience. Was Tyler consoled that the audience would not judge his sexual activities? Apparently not, since he committed suicide shortly thereafter.⁵ The violation of an individual's private life is a serious issue. Celebrities like Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner expect and want such scrutiny, usually. But when any one person's thoughts and actions become acceptably open to the scrutiny of others, then that person has been harmed. And I would go further, to say that the society that would allow and encourage such nosy activities is also harming itself--especially if the individual has asked that such intrusions stop, and those intrusions do not stop. As a very basic minimum, I should be able to control who has access to my bedroom and my activities there. Tyler Clemente did not, and others will not either.

Is society substituting the joys of voyeurism for the pleasures of privacy because we really do not have any choice, in the long run? Do we want the approval and security of the group more than we respect the right of the individual to privacy? Or is it possible that we might someday prefer the hard work of minding our own business, relating to others with tact, and respecting their privacy and individuality? I will continue to hope for the latter.

1J.M. Coetzee, “Love and Walt Whitman,” New York Review of Books online, 22 September 2005:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/sep/22/love-and-walt-whitman/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR+Gaza+Bellow+Roman+glass&utm_content=NYR+Gaza+Bellow+Roman+glass+CID_e02dc102f506ef99351cfb298e787b25&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Love%20and%20Walt%20Whitman

2Nicholas Kristof, “Bruce Jenner's Courage,” NY Times online, 5 February 2015:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/nicholas-kristof-bruce-jenners-courage.html

3Of course, some people do obsess about this; Freud would say they are stuck in the anal stage of development.

4This passage is spoken by Jerry Gaus, professor of philosophy at University of Arizona, and recorded in “The Virtues of Political Disagreement,” an interview by Gary Gutting with Jerry Gaus, NY Times online, 11 June 2015:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/the-virtues-of-political-disagreement/?emc=eta1&_r=0

5See Ian Parker, “The Story of a Suicide,” The New Yorker online, 6 February 2012:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/02/06/the-story-of-a-suicide