Love, lust and lying: can Christians respond without jerking their knees?

A recent THES publish and interview with the author of Love and Lies, Clancy Martin. I've put the book on my 'to get' list. Meantime there is the interview to go on and which has raised issues for me which I'd like to explore a bit more 'out loud' as it were. The article tells us that basically the book

"argues that the double-dealing at the core of every great swindle is also at the heart of erotic love. "

I think this means that loving people implies lying to them, necessarily. Of course, this is a hard idea for Christians (and others) to swallow. We are, ostensibly:

those who would rather believe Thomas Merton’s claim in Love and Living that “the beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image”

 Doubly so, because it is based in apparently good research and some extended thinking.

to confront with chilling clarity the sociopathy that silently underpins most of our average lives. “The sociologist Erving Goffman identified that in his famous book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,” Martin says. “We are always playing roles. // So the good liar and the good lover “must be able – or must strive – to see her- or himself through the eyes of the person she or he will come to love”, Martin continues. “The kind of mind control they practise is the same: it’s not strictly coercion; it’s seduction. It’s convincing the person who is the object of the mental manipulation that he or she wants to participate in the illusion being created. Long-term committed erotic love will evolve into something different, something still more complex. But falling in love depends on these kinds of artistic illusions.””

I don't think that I see playing roles as negatively as that. I don't think that it is duplicitous. It's not duplicitous because, as I understand Goffman, the point is that there isn't some other 'real' us hiding behind the masks: we actually are the different roles we play: there's no neutral inner-self observer who hides a true identity by acting a part. We are the collection of roles. The task is for us to integrate them. Of course, this is a bit idealised: sometimes we do fake and lie and deceive. But what I'm saying is that such is not inherent in role playing. We can learn to 'play ourselves' in different situations. We should also recognise that we are who we are in relation to other people which means that we are formed in our relationships -with all that implies in terms of self-presentation; learning to trust, beginning to disclose more of ourselves etc. We do all of these processes a grave disservice if we interpret them simply as mendacious and therefore morally reprehensible. Or, alternatively, because there is a degree of less-than-full-disclosure that this means it is somehow okay not to attempt to be integrated and to strive for honesty and transparency.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that the research as presented perhaps pays too little attention to what love actually is.  Surely the point of the quote from Merton, above, is to critique some versions of 'love' by reference to agapaic love. And so, I think that the point raised in the next quote is very interesting because it does seem to make that point to some degree.

Love allows us – requires us – to envision possibilities that at one point seemed impossible: the possibility of becoming a person who is capable of making promises that stick, the possibility of creating a lasting home of our own, the possibility of understanding another person’s inner life. But at the beginning of love, none of these possibilities has been actualised so we work together to create the illusion.

Is "illusion" fair? I'm not sure that it is. In other areas of scholarship we might talk about "shared imaginaries" which function to draw people together to create a different (hopefully better) future and in co-ordinating effort and desire to form us/them: change us to become more like what we would see to be desirable.

But my mother never harmed me or told me that she wanted to do so. Instead she lied to me. She told me, quite convincingly, that I was loved unconditionally, always. (“A very common, very useful lie that parents tell children,” Martin reassures me.) I lie to my daughter not out of some diabolical plan for her, or even a well-meaning paternalism. I lie because I want to maintain the story that we are somehow better, more patient, more loving, than we actually tend to be. Some things are better left unsaid.

I think that perhaps this does not give enough credit to both the desire to be and to become the loving person and the power of the story to achieve that to some degree. Of course Christian traditions also contain a strong critique of human love which would very much also want to say that we do fall short of our narrated ideals, that we do indulge in self-deception. But that, I contend is not quite the same as simply saying that we are lying. We are both trying and lying. We need to both continue and be self-suspicious. However, we need, the Christian tradition tends to contend, to bring together our narrative with that of the loving God in whom that faithful unconditional love finds fulfilment and source, embodiment and force.

Universities & 'lad culture': calling time on harassment

I grew up  thinking, because everyone else around me seemed to think or take as read, that what is now being called 'lad culture' was something we just had to accept. And while I was sometimes encouraged to be part of it, I felt that drinking to the point of illness and bullying relatively random bystanders didn't seem such a good thing to me. Though I have grown to understand that there's something about bonding with mates and telling stories about it afterwards which is the 'good' thing that appeals and holds it together over time. On the other hand, I suspect strongly that a lot of the claims not to recall events are no more than claims: it's a way to distance themselves from embarrassment and give mates a chance to 'admiringly' diss them.

Of course, another aspect of the lad thing is sexual. But given that there have been bawdy songs, jokes and banter that imply that women are merely breathing sex dolls with no real agency, then it seems likely that those who are encountered by the lad pack who don't fulfil that role are likely to be treated that way anyhow. And not everyone has the ability to hold their own verbally and attitudinally.
So given those sorts of 'facts on the ground', it probably is about time that we looked at lad culture.

One in four students (26 per cent) - and 37 per cent of women - had also suffered unwelcome sexual advances such as groping and touching, it added. Two thirds of respondents said they had been aware of students putting up with unwanted sexual comments, with just under one third bearing witness to verbal harassment because of a student’s gender. From: Universities must unite to beat 'lad culture' sexism on campus, claims NUS - News - Student - The Independent

There is another side:

the NUS looks set to undermine one of the best things about campus life: the chance to engage with fellow students and, in doing so, to grow and become a more rounded adult. This means experimenting, talking openly, making friends, sometimes being hedonistic. In trying to straitjacket students by regulating their behaviour through ‘zero tolerance’ policies, the NUS is doing the students it claims to represent a great disservice. from Spiked-online.

Though personally, I find that 'conclusion' (for it is the last paragraph of the article) a little disingenuous given that it does earlier acknowledge that it could lead to taking more seriously certain behaviours: "misbehaving students who ‘catcall or grope women students or undress themselves’ potentially facing disciplinary action, or even expulsion." In context it could almost seem that they are condoning groping or creating unpleasant harrassful environments for others. While it's true that sometimes talking openly can make things awkward and it is right for that to be the case. Sometimes talking openly is just plain bullying or wanton harassment with no mitigating public goods. Sometimes being hedonistic can also be done without abusing others, but when it is making sport of other people, that's a different matter. I don't think those things really contribute to growing and becoming more adult -unless they are challenged effectively. They are actually continuances and reconfigurations of rather childish and adolescent behaviours. By all means discuss them and test them, but something does need to be there to protect and safeguard the vulnerable from bullying.

Christ-centred creation and prodigality

This excerpt from a talk by Tom Wright resonated with some things I've been thinking about in relation to the nature of creation centred in time and space on Christ. +Tom says:

... if creation comes through the kingdom bringing Jesus, we ought to expect it be like a seed growing secretly. That it would involve seed being sown in a prodigal fashion in which a lot went to waste, apparently, but other seed producing a great crop. We ought to expect that it be like a strange, slow process which might suddenly reach some kind of harvest. We ought to expect that it would involve some kind of overcoming of chaos. Above all, we ought to expect that it would be a work of utter, self-giving love. That the power which made the world, like the power which ultimately rescued the world, would be the power not of brute force, but of radical, outpoured generosity. We ought to expect, in other words, that the creation would not look like an oriental despot deciding to build a palace, and just throwing it up at speed, with his architects and builders cowering before him. 

What I find helpful in this is how our attention is drawn to the prodigality of it all. One of the minor objections from creationists is the wastefulness of the processes that the rest of us believe we discern in the geological records and other related evidences. Linking the debate in the way that +Tom does here; to the parable of the sown seed, helps see a kind of implicit endorsement in Jesus' own teaching of a prodigal creative process in which there is some 'hit and miss' element to it all. It kind of finds in creation a prodigality, which Jesus draws attention to and thereby endorses rather than questions. And while this doesn't add up to saying 'this is the meaning of the parable' it does take Jesus' acceptance of the wastefulness of both the creational type and the parabolic antitype as at least the possibility of seeing that generous endowment in which there is more and to spare as the way things are and develop.
I'm finding that really helpful to think further about.

Empathy and its prayerful discontents

The focus of the article that is linked to the title is different to what I'm thinking about here. But I did find it helpful to see someone else articulating my own concerns about the 'magic bullet' that is empathy. And in fact extending it a bit. I want to consider the flaws in empathy in relation to our praying, particularly praying together.

So here's what this article says about the downsides of empathy (selectively quoted by me).

1. Ineffective EmpathyWhen our heartstrings are pulled toward a multitude of charitable and social justice causes our resources become spread and diluted, decreasing their ability to make an impact. ... In short, empathy--a compassionate desire to help--doesn't always lead to actual helping. ...
2. Empathy and Violence... empathy can lead to violence. ... it causes us to demonize people. A lot of our politics is motivated by empathy, care, and concern for the suffering in the world. But that empathy creates moralistic aggression toward political opponents. Angelic Good Guys fighting against demonic Bad Guys. ...  
3. Empathy and Sacrifice... we can feel loads and loads of empathy but still not do anything. ... Empathy is vital, but it's a far cry from self-sacrificial love. We're addicted to compassion. We take a pass on agape.
4. Empathic Distress... When we witness the distress of others we sympathetically feel their distress in our own bodies. ... empathy creates an emotional and somatic burden. As we watch social media [etc] day after day, ... sympathetic stress leads to empathy burnout. Chronic anxiety. Depression. Physical exhaustion. Emotional numbness.

So, there are quite a few reasons to be wary of empathy. It isn't a short-cut to thinking about agapaic love, it may lay a foundation for developing it but only as part of intentional formation to swerve by its downsides. My own earlier concerns are represented in the list above particularly in the one on violence: empathy as a group-building, identification solidifying thing actually lays foundations for distrust and demonisation of out-groups, perhaps related to ineffective empathy (the first of the list) because all our empathic consideration and attention is taken up by the close exposure to and concern for those closest to us. Hence the need for the parable of the good Samaritan, I suppose...

Mindfulness and men and spirituality -or culturally masculine at least

I've been leading mindfulness and more general meditation for a while now; quite typically two or three times a week in the university I work with. Sometimes further afield. One of the things I had realised recently was that the groups' gender composition reminds me a bit of the churches I work with; more women than men. There are some men who come along but typically there are women only or only one or two men in the groups. And it turns out that in research on mindfulness, there are gendered differences which may be related to cultural gender constructions.

... stereotypically, women ruminate and men distract," Britton said. "So for people that tend to be willing to confront or expose themselves or turn toward the difficult, mindfulness is made for [improving] that. For people who have been largely turning their attention away from the difficult, to suddenly bring all their attention to their difficulties can be somewhat counterproductive. While facing one's difficulties and feeling one's emotions may seem to be universally beneficial, it does not take into account that there may be different cultural expectations for men and women around emotionality."

I'm interested in the further research and thoughts about how to identify the composing elements of mindfulness and to package them in a way that might be more accessible to men who actually do fit to some degree the cultural stereotypes of masculinity.

Obviously, I'm wondering whether there may be factors in common with the churches' experience of gender engagement in worship and other activities. In my mind too arises another set of images: Muslim prayers where the situation is pretty much reversed; men pray in our quiet rooms, not so many women do. And I have got to wondering whether the 'forcible' engagement of men in prayer by tradition and scriptural interpretation actually acts as a kind of cultural bulwark to encourage men to be religious. I guess in asking that it seem obvious that the answer must be 'yes' (though there are nuances and caveats to be recognised). I'm also reflecting on my time as one of the conveners of an alternative worship group which was very much weighted towards men participating. Not deliberately, it was just something we noticed after a while. We wondered whether in that set up it was something about using technology and deploying hands-on activity as part of the liturgy which some was enabling of men in the cultured-masculinity of our society.

All of which has me interested to see how the further research works in terms of finding ways to engage men. It's a health and wellbeing issue for that research but I wonder whether there may be insights to be gained for the churches too.

Forgiving an accidental death

Another story of forgiving. In this case of a man forgiving the driver of a car which killed his wife. The central part of this seems to be this:

[I]f things had been just a little different I might have killed someone too. So in a certain way, I don’t think that we are that different.

In this I see a crucial move to recognising a common humanity ('not that different') based on a recognition of common frailty ('...just a little different I might...') sometimes expressed as 'there but for the grace of God go I'. In this case the insight seems to have arisen from a conversation in which the potential for himself being at the wheel in such an accident was mentioned -and in fact strengthened by a what-if comparison in that the actual driver was not intoxicated whereas the forgiver had driven under the influence. In that the 'there but for the grace...' dimension was strengthened.

What I found also interesting is the recognition of common humanity in the face of death and loss.

What has become clear to me is that sooner or later we all have to face the reality that we will loose everything and everyone we care about, and that when the time comes, we all have to die alone.

It seems to me that this recognition plays a significant role in framing the issue of loss in such a way as to give it a manageable proportion in the longer term (and this was 3 years after the event). Seeing ourselves modestly, not at the centre of the universe, and seeing ourselves against the tragic threads of life helps us to be emotionally resilient.

I was also struck by these words at the end of the speech.

This world being the way it is, I think it’s best if we spend our days loving each other, doing what we can to be a force of good

It seems to me that this is an attitude consonant with how I understand the relevant clause in the Lord's Prayer (Forgive ... as we forgive, in case you were struggling!). In the context of the will of God and the Kingdom, we know that we are called to love our neighbours. We know from the parable of the Good Samaritan that our neighbour is one who needs our help (or forgiveness). We are called to be in the cycle of being loved and loving -which includes being forgiven and forgiving.

And of course this helps us to recognise the sense in the final gesture of the story.

I walked over and shook his hand, then I gave him a hug and told him it was ok. I did it for myself as much as for him, I think

Forgiving is also about being able to move on and not be defined by the tragedy we are recovering from.
In other posts I have made about forgiveness, all of these elements have in the aggregate been seen. It is perhaps in seeing this that we begin to see the big picture about forgiving. It is about discovering our own frail humanity and our commonality with others. It is about becoming able to let go for our own sakes as well as for others' and about learning to embody lovingkindness even in the tragedies.

The only thing not in this recounting is anger. Quite possibly that was there in the living of the aftermath even if not in the story. After three years, perhaps any anger had abated. Though it may even have been that, living with compassionate attitudes before the incident, had prepared a mental and emotional backdrop which disabled deep and abiding anger from taking root.

Rules for Revolutionaries: a book review

I have a back history in coming to this book which I think I would be well to declare upfront. I'm a bit of a lefty. There: what you could probably guess by looking at other posts on this blog is now openly declared for this review. Furthermore I have been so for a long time and as a result of my Christian convictions. So this book was interesting at first sight to me because it promised to help show what was learnt by the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 (and a bit before). In this I have not been disappointed. Though it should be noticed that for Brits like me some of the details are a bit hazy in terms of comprehension and as a result there were some points in the middle of the book where I felt that I was getting more detail than I really wanted or at least could cope with.

What I do take away from this book though is an insight into the way that a mass movement can develop and be organised without the initiative being taken away from the ordinary people who matter, rather, in fact empowering them. I was a little reminded of the Podemos and Syriza campaigns in Spain and Greece respectively which I believe shared some of the same characteristics of people having distributed ways to organise around issues that matter to them.

It makes me think about the role of political parties which I think have traditionally been the way to try to pull things together under modernity. However, in the Bernie campaign and the Podemos and Syriza phenomena I think we see the start of a kind of 'party' organising that is more democratic and participatory.

The other thing that has left an impression on me is the analysis of the traction of the Bernie Sanders campaign. The stand-out for me is about laying before people something big and world-changing versus the careful incrementalism of contemporary managerial triangulation politics. The authors attribute the rapid gain in momentum of the Sanders campaign to the big ideas and the call to be a part of changing things. It seemed to me that this is something we in the churches should consider more fully. Perhaps too much of what we do is to triangulate Jesus' call on us rather than letting the whole Kingdom of God thing hang out...

Link-Love for this Review: 
Rules for Revolutionaries website
Rules for Revolutionaries at Amazon
Rules for Revolutionaries on Facebook
Becky Bond on Twitter
Zack Exley on Twitter
Robcast Interview - the conversation between Rob Bell and Zack Exley
BrandNewCongress.org  - Becky and Zack's new Big Organizing non-partisan initiative to upset the power balence of Congress in 2018! 

Tag as #RulesforRevolutionariesSpeakeasy

I do solemnly declare that although I got this book free as a review copy, I am *not* up to no good with it: I have commented freely and as honestly as I know how for good or for ill, for better or for worse.