Misinterpretations, Idolatry, and Anti-Manichaeism in O’Connor’s Fiction

When I first read Flannery O’Connor, I thought she was lampooning Southern idiocy, the kind of evangelical buffoonery and racism that’s become a cheap joke. Then I read Mystery & Manners, and thought she was a Christian nut job mashing together the Old Testament God with the New Testament Christ to give her characters and readers some much needed tough love. I believed this lessened the importance and impact of her fiction.

            Oh, how wrong I was.

            Upon further investigation, I realize the problem was my agnosticism as a modern reader. I’d misinterpreted her work at every level. It wasn’t just the generation gap between O’Connor’s redemptive themes and our own cultural mores, but the complex structure of her fiction. And I was no doubt influenced by my flirtation with the New Atheists. Remember, New Atheists: religion = bad. Boogey-boogey-boogey.

Anyway, O’Connor’s use of imagery, vocabulary, and symbols that contain negative cultural connotations only enables further misinterpretation. She cleverly employs this technique, and therefore her true intentions may go unnoticed since her salvational concerns for her characters must find harsh conflict in the worlds they inhabit, ones that lack the Christian values of love, hope, and charity. Of course, this is O’Connor’s theological concern—the world of her characters is our own (har-har).

            In “Revelation”, for example, from her second collection Everything That Rises Must Converge, Ruby Turpin’s excessive judgments in the doctor’s office about Mary Grace seem to suggest Turpin’s fervent Christianity is the cause of this pervasive “othering.” O’Connor’s biting prose reads as if Grace is justified when she tells Turpin, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.” This makes sense as modern audiences tend to see Christians as rabidly judgmental, more concerned with our salvation than their own sins. Of course, this is the modern media stereotype. Westboro Baptist Church = all Christians. You get the idea.

Yet, in Turpin O’Connor examines the horror of human complacency. Turpin is so satisfied in her own beliefs she’s blind to her lack of character and in turn, of true Christian understanding. In the end, standing amongst her hogs, raging at God before the setting sun in a very Job-like scene, Turpin realizes her pettiness. The ignorance that follows complacency has almost ruined her life. Only by defeating her pride and her desire to possess “all the answers” without participating in the continual wheel of confusion/wisdom, does she find redemption.

I guess you’d call it God’s grace.

Many have called O’Connor’s work “good Catholic fiction,” a charge that at first seems ludicrous. Stories about murderers, pedophiles, and mouthy, fat Southern ladies? Really?!

Well, what’s considered good Catholic fiction by the Vatican isn’t necessarily considered such by O’Connor. After all, she often said the Church needs reform. This raises the question, “What is a good Catholic?”

First, let’s understand O’Connor’s vile characters are actually “prophets” in her work. A prophet in literature doesn’t have to stroll into town proclaiming the Good Word. No, he or she only has to proclaim O’Connor’s gospel. Catholic guilt aside, the importance of being Catholic, and thus a “good Catholic,” is to realize you will never have all the answers. In this way, you are imperfect (the Church and Pope’s infallibility is whole other can o’ worms). You’re human, and must recognize this in its totality. You are not a god, but a small cog in a vast, complex machine.

Why would you think you have all the answers?

Well, pride, and fear.

This sweet face writes about murderers.

            For O’Connor, any ideology that blinds one to the realities of the world is pagan worship. In thinking one is always right, one can’t see how often one is wrong. By worshipping one’s ideology, one is worshiping oneself, and putting his or her worth before God’s.

This often results in violent, disturbing, or blackly comic climaxes in O’Connor’s fiction. These “negative” denouements are essential—they’re a form of iconoclasm, the breaking of the individual’s psychological and spiritual idols. To understand this further, you must realize O’Connor’s favoritism of St. Thomas Aquinas’ critique of Manichaeism.

Manichaeism, developed in the third century, took God’s second commandment to heart: it deplored graven images. God is neither a man nor a physical being, and cannot be artistically depicted. St. Thomas Aquinas viciously opposed Manichaeism. While he agreed God is a spirit, and to worship images is sinful, he thought that just because someone renders an image of God doesn’t mean that person believes the image contains God. To Aquinas, Manichaeism concerned itself too much with materiality and failed to see the glory of the Divine picture, human dignity, and love. 

For O’Connor, “Parker’s Back” illustrates this. Parker, in an attempt to win the favor of his wife, Sarah, gets a Byzantine tattoo of Jesus Christ on his back. Although he acts as if he could care less about the fanatically religious Sarah, he actually wants her to see him as her lover, husband, and friend. He knows the tattoo is just a tattoo. Yet, when he shows it to Sarah, she condemns it. “He don’t look,” she says. “He’s a spirit. No man shall see his face.” Not only is Sarah’s conception of God problematic (if He is a spirit, how does he have a face?), she’s blinded by pride. Like Ruby Tuprin, she only sees the world through her disapproval of others. She cannot understand the difference between a picture of God and the Divine Mystery, of which she is part, and therefore cannot truly see her husband, understand his love, or even herself.

Much if not all of O’Connor’s work can be seen as a battle between self-idolatry and true spiritual insight. Modern readers may misunderstand her purpose because of their inability to separate her intentions from her religious affiliation. She has no traditional “Catholic agenda” or ideological mission. By creating characters so convinced their doctrine is infallible, you’d think O’Connor is saying that their dogma is anything but. However, her point is that the human mind and all the wrathful deities within is where real fallibility lies. This type of stubbornness (ie, the fear of realizing this fallibility) must be broken. She smashes it with truth and irony.

Or if you’d like, God’s grace.

Big, Bad Muslims: Part One—24: Season Six

James Bond. Jason Bourne. Jack Bauer. Contemporary film and television’s top spies epitomize Anglo-physical perfection: blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, toned bodies. 24’s Jack Bauer, however, is the ideological anomaly. While Bond battles international megalomaniacs and Bourne defends himself from his country’s own agents, Jack Bauer remains quintessentially hawkish. Unlike Bond, he’s unconcerned with sex or witticisms (he tells the women in his life ‘I’ll be right there’ before running off to fight terrorists and smiles maybe once per season). Unlike Bourne, he’s unapologetic in his use of violence (when he decides to hack off his daughter’s lover’s hand to defuse a bomb in season three, he doesn’t even blink). Unlike both Bond and Bourne, he often sacrifices friends, family, and coworkers for the American good (like killing his boss to stop the spread of a lethal virus). Truly, Bauer embodies post-9/11 neoconservativism: a strong America assured of itself and uncorrupted in its ‘values’. Always, Bauer battles the ‘other’, a seditious force intent on taking American lives and civil liberties. In characterizing the villains of its sixth season, the show exploits the fear of Muslim terrorists operating freely on American soil. 24 could be accused of simply embodying the Bush administration’s homeland agenda but for its reliance on Orientalist stereotypes uses harmful parody to color its Muslim characters.

To understand 24’s conservative agenda, one must grasp its hero. In a 2005 USA Today interview, the show’s producer, Howard Gordon, said Jack Bauer “taps into the public’s ‘fear-based wish fulfillment’ of having protectors…who will do whatever is necessary to save society from harm.” This usually involves torture. “‘[Bauer] is a tragic character. He doesn't get away with it clean. He’s got blood on his hands,’ Gordon says. ‘In some ways, he is a necessary evil’” (Bauder). Calling him an anti-hero undermines Jack’s political importance in the fear-mongering Bush-era in which he was born. “The disturbing appeal of Jack the Torturer reflects a wounded and frightened national psyche, a desire to lash out at those responsible for 9/11, and the frustration of a superpower unable to defeat a ragged band of terrorists” (McCormick 17). Bauer’s dramatic core, however, is similar to the Hollywood cowboys of Wayne and Eastwood. Though a government agent, Jack distrusts politicians and bureaucracy, and operates by his own moral code. Yet, after saving the day, he most always returns to government service.

"Hey, brother. Long time no see" - Jack's brother discovers family reunions aren't what they used to be.

In post Abu-Ghraib America, 24 takes great strides to prove that for whatever diplomatic laws Jack breaks, he suffers for in his personal life. Through eight seasons and a TV movie, Bauer loses a wife, coworkers, friends, and estranges his only daughter. His politics, however, remain 24’s driving force. Jim McDermott humorously dissects Jack Bauer in America. “Yes, he tortures prisoners and shoots co-workers in the head, but he’s not a bad person. He’s just caught in a bad situation” (23). Still, the show enforces his rationale: his ends justify his means. “[Jack] demonstrates what few may care to admit: in the war on terror, the conservative movement has become willing to sacrifice principle to passion and difficult moral reasoning to utility” (Dougherty 9). Jack Bauer is not “America”. He does, however, represent values 24 believes sacred, ones entrenched in American lore: self-sacrifice, results before diplomacy, and an unbending “sense” of right and wrong opposed by those too weak to do what is “right”.

In season six, 24 cherry-picks this sense of right and wrong with abandon. A New York Times column “compared 24’s focus on domestic terror threats to the Bush administration’s focus on Iraq” (Bauder). Whether Jack Bauer is a sadistic sinner or patriotic saint, in the 24 world America is unique, and its villains need to clearly wear the black hat or else its sense of right and wrong might be complicated by nagging realism.

In Part 2, I’ll examine the villains in previous seasons of 24 and how they adhere to us vs. them U.S. geo-political archetypes.

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.

Oliver Stone Speaks at Kent State University

Two weeks ago was the 43^rd anniversary of the May 4^th Kent State shootings. To celebrate, the university opened the May 4^th Visitor's Center, an interactive multimedia museum in Taylor Hall, and Friday night had PBS’ Gwen Ifill host a discussion panel about the shootings’ significance in local and national history. Events continued throughout the weekend, one of which my wife and I were fortunate enough to attend Saturday night in Cartwright Hall. Academy-award winning writer/director Oliver Stone spoke to an auditorium of five-hundred students, faculty, staff, and local residents about the importance of the shootings and his use of history in his films. It was an interesting evening, one that got me, my wife, and students talking.

            The KSU shootings took place during an on-campus student protest of Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. What happened next is well-known: riots and looting of businesses on Friday May 1^st and the arson of the ROTC building on Saturday the 2^nd. Eventually, the Ohio National Guard killed four students and wounded nine others. Two of the dead were merely hurrying to class. One was an ROTC member. The shootings led to protests throughout the country and the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of the dead Jeffery Miller is forever engrained in our cultural memory. Prior to the shootings, Nixon called the protestors “bums,” to which Allison Krause’s father famously retorted, “My daughter was not a bum.” Neil Young would pen “Ohio” about the massacre, and the KSU shootings provide a key sequence in Oliver Stone’s 1995 bio-drama Nixon. 

Talking to community members about the shootings will invariably give you different opinions. No one says the students “deserved it.” It was a tragedy, but many feel slighted that the protests overshadow the destruction caused to the community during that week, most of which was committed by student activist groups from around the country. Considering the Justice Department’s dismissal of a 30-year old audio-recording that purports to show the ONG’s order to shoot was based on gunfire manufactured by an on-campus FBI informant, we may never know what really happened.

Still, four kids died.

That was Oliver Stone’s point throughout the evening. What led to their deaths? How have we moved on? What did those kids die for?

Stone maintained they died in the social-civil war between “those who asked questions” and Nixon’s “moral majority.” He emphasized that he was born into an Eisenhower-Republican household and enlisted in Vietnam because he felt it was his duty to fight communists. He was told all his life by the educational and political machine they were our enemy and threatened our way of life. If you’ve seen Platoon or for that matter any of Stone’s work, you know that war changed his ideology. Even after the KSU shootings, Nixon won a landslide election in 1972. Stone said those numbers show that Nixon could lay claim to the majority, as “immoral as they might have been.” The importance of the students’ deaths was that they died during a time when our country fought among ourselves ideologically.

Who won? Well, the military industrial complex is stronger than ever, and we have more influence and control abroad. Who do you think?

Stone made sure to point out how history changes depending on whom guides cultural memory. Ronald Reagan knew that the first Gulf War might erase the soured-impact of Vietnam, and that with a new enemy to fight, the old grudges would be laid to rest. The cultural fears after 9/11 and initial enthusiasm for the Iraq War only enabled media and government agencies to propagate American exceptionalism and imperialist policies. Stone cited recent polls that show 51% of American young people feel the Vietnam War was justified. This flabbergasted him, and was one of the reasons he co-wrote and produced the Showtime documentary series The Untold History of the United States. He was appalled by what his kids were taught in schools, and hopes to change it.

During his one-on-one discussion with a JMC professor (I forget the guy’s name, oops) Stone did not want to rhapsodize about his movies. He doubts his films have made any real cultural impact. When asked which of his films he likes best, he replied he can’t pick a favorite. Each is one of his babies. Stone spoke of media bias at length, ripped Time Magazine and Walter Cronkite, and made it known Obama has continued the policies of Bush, Jr., albeit with different rhetoric. He said in his travels it has been enlightening to see how America is viewed abroad and encouraged students to get on the internet and learn to find out what foreign and domestic policies are actually doing, and to combat disinformation. “We’re dealing with some real scum,” he said, which got cheers and giggles from the crowd. He finished by repeating that the KSU shootings should always be commemorated by this campus so that we—maybe I’m going too Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young with this—teach our children well. If not, then the immoral majority will have won, and those kids will have died for nothing.

After the talk, I milled about the lobby with my wife and students. A few of my kids—ah, listen to me, calling them “my kids”—were put off by Stone’s “strong opinions.” However, most said his words inspired them to question what they are taught. In days since, many went to the Visitor’s Center and were deeply moved. They all talked about the draft board, where you can “get your number” to see if you would’ve been drafted in Vietnam. Many would have been, and they were deeply disturbed.

The question Stone has me pondering is—What is history? Is it concrete? Moldable? Without witnessing an event, will we ever know the exact details? Is history a stone thrown into a pond and can we only be sure of its impact by studying the ripples?

It was an exciting night. When I met Mr. Stone, he signed a copy of his Untold History and posed for a picture. I don’t know what I said to him, probably fan-boy rambling about how much I like his movies, but after he signed my book, he told me I seemed like a very nice young man. I’ll take that.

Back Online

It’s been nearly two years since I’ve posted on this site. Why? Over ambition.

Originally, way wayyyy back in the summer of 2011, I had grand plans to blog, continue grad school, teach college classes, and finish my master’s thesis. And all with time to spare!

Well, something had to give. Fortunately, it was Intrinsic Gratification.

Since then I’ve got my MFA, wrote my thesis, and finally, finally secured a full-time college teaching gig. Now, I’m at a place in my life where I can blog again. Yet, this time I have a significantly different attitude. Now, I feel comfortable blogging again.

When I started blogging, I’d been discussing philosophy with a good friend for years, and we always wanted to spread the conversation online. But we ran into the same questions. What would we be adding? What would we say that hasn’t already been said?

I plowed ahead anyway. I always loved reviewing movies, books, and music. Couple this with a passion for politics and religion, and a craving to get everyone to “see the light”—whatever the hell that meant—and you get a young man with serious intentions that burns himself out too quickly. Three months after starting the blog, I simply gave up and said, “Who gives two shits what I think?” It was a real concern. I guess you could call it a cop out.

This time, I’m blogging for fun. Sure, I want to spread intellectual discussion online. I’m still addicted to art, ideas, and “investigations of a spiritual variety.” But I’m not coming at it with an ideological plan of attack. I’m doing it for me. If you want to join, please do. I appreciate the feedback and love the conversation. All is intrinsically gratifying (duh-dum-tish). And…go.