Metaphor Country

Blaspheming Santa, And Other Religious Matters

Mollie at Get Religion reports on this suggestion by Dell deChant -- that the Christmas wars aren't being fought between secular and sacred.  Rather, the conflict is between rival religions.  Speaking as someone who thinks that a lot of religious energy gets focused on secular matters -- like, for example, socialism or Nazism or buying stuff -- I say, yeah.  Good on you.  And to Santa worshipers everywhere -- best wishes for a prosperous holiday season.

Meanwhile, over at Andrew Sullivan, Ross guest-blogs (scroll down) about the need for highbrow religious dialogue -- and is upset about the lack of it:

What we need, then - and by "we" I mean Christians, though I obviously think there would be benefits to non-Christians as well - is a more highbrow Christianity, and one that doesn't prostrate itself on the altar of political correctness, as token highbrow Catholics like Garry Wills are wont to do. Perhaps "culture war" is the wrong word to use in this context, since we don't necessarily need more Christians making the case against same-sex marriage, or pushing all their chips into the battle over courthouse displays in Alabama. We need more Christians writing good novels and essays and doctoral theses, and television shows and movies and music - all of which might inter alia make the case for a Christian understanding of, say, sexuality, but which would be primarily works of art and intellect and not polemics, creating a cultural space rather than just a political movement.

I'm not sure if things are as dire as he makes out.  Obviously not in a Christian context, and not at a major-culture level, but nevertheless -- we seem to be maintaining our intellectual chops here.  We may not be highly visible, but I don't think we're alone -- in this or other traditions.

When I want to know where I stand relative to the ultimate and the absolute, I reach for YHWH-brand religion...

Sorry -- conflating my stories, there.

Pay it no mind.  Go on about your day.

LATER: And then there's this.

Transit Strike, Day 3 and Out

Day Three of the transit strike -- more trying (as usual once the novelty wears off).  Appointments in midtown.  Ridiculous to get the car out (this isn't the suburbs -- it takes the garage guys a half hour to dig it out, and then you've got to garage it someplace else once you get where you're going).  So, cab arbitrage.  Exorbitant fees.  And lots of people left at the curb, because cabs aren't going to Brooklyn or the Bronx.  Maybe Queens, if they're heading to their garages at the change of shift.  The stranded are, as usual, the ones who can least afford it.  And the cab drivers aren't making much, either -- fares are high but there's lots of idle time, and after the rush, empty streets, because, again, the networkers are staying home.  All of which suggests that, pace Instapundit and the Tech Central Station crowd, free market improvisation and techno-libertarianism are great if you're an upscale Manhattanite, and much less so if you live in the other four-fifths of New York.  A role for government in our lives, perhaps?  Points to Glenn, though, for this, which links to this, raising the question of class conflict between the working class and the government-worker class.

As you've already heard, it's over -- the union folds, Bloomberg stands by his "thugs" remark, and I guess Pataki leaves it to the professionals again.  A plague on all their houses.

Happy Holidays Et Cetera

To keep in the spirit of the Christmas Wars (which yeah, I know, I promised I wouldn't mention) I've been reading this.

But for a shorter version, go here.

Designing the Center -- Intelligently, Of Course

I've been avoiding this year's religious debates -- in contrast to a year ago, the Christmas Wars seem entirely manufactured by vested interests.  Or maybe they were a year ago, too, and it's just that my vested-interest radar is better than it was.

This piece, however, on yesterday's Intelligent Design decision, is worth a look.

Here as elsewhere, the action is in the center.

Someday, somebody's going to notice that and build something -- say, maybe, a political party? -- that points in our direction.

Or at least, we can hope.

Transit Strike, Day 2

As anticipated -- my wife and I have spent the day working from home, networked to our offices.  Which only helps prove what I suggested yesterday -- that given the state of technology, the ruling and secretarial classes will be much less affected than the working poor.  Which means that this is on target.

Glenn Reynolds offers a long post that reports popular reaction on the TWU blog (comments now seem to have disappeared), touches on the value of exurbs, and the likelihood that transit workers will be replaced by robotic systems.  All of which seems more than a little depressing to this hard-core New Yorker. 

But then, I seem to be part of the trend.

Meanwhile, in the New Republic, Joel Kotkin and Harry Siegel say, shockingly, shockingly, that the Democrats are to blame.

Anybody win any bets on that one?

Transit Strike, Day 1

Have been lucky when it comes to transit strikes.  Was just short of my sixth birthday for the Lindsay edition in '66, so wasn't much affected.  Was in college for the 1980 edition -- lived off campus, but in walking distance.  Today, was out of the city on business and had to drive back in -- expected the worst, but by 7:30 p.m. the northbound Jersey Turnpike was a ghost village, and so were the GW Bridge, the Henry Hudson, and the West Side in general.  So made record time.

Tomorrow?  Who knows?

Over at Andrew Sullivan, Julian Sanchez links to coverage at the World Socialist Web Site, which calls the strike "the biggest class confrontation in the US in a generation."  Uh-huh.  So far I can report that my dry cleaner has been forced to close, with resulting loss of income.  And am doubtful for the financial health of convenience store staff, home health aides and such.  Meanwhile, my urban professional colleagues from financial services and related sectors are networked from home, and still productive.  The capitalist structure trembles.

Good going, workers of the world.

More to follow.

Quick Notes on the Search for Meaning

Looked for meaning over the weekend.  Sometimes found it, sometimes didn't.

Saturday morning, stopped by here for a quick, yet not quick mediation on "How awesome is this place."  Genesis 28:17.  You could look it up.

Saturday night, here, for this.  Netrebko is the real item.  Villanzon might be -- but whatever he is, he's not the next Domingo.  Cut the guy some slack.

Sunday afternoon here, for this.  Jammed to the rafters.  The usual mixed feelings about the democratization of art -- a great thing, but not when you actually want to look at the drawings.  Yes, unfair and contradictory, I know.  Sue me.  By the way, Van Gogh is a painter, not a draftsman.

At the end, tired but in a good way.

Awesome place, dude.

Globalization and Other Jewish Questions

The "panorama" section of The American Scene links to this, which provides an overview of this.

I'm not one to judge a book by its cover -- or by a gloss in The Nation, no matter how thoughtful.  Better to go to the source.  That said, I have a question about what seems to be the fundamental thesis -- that Jews, and other mobile, border-dwelling groups like them, are "Mercurians," natural intermediaries between settled groups and nations, and are therefore natural globalizers.  Maybe.  But the argument seems to depend on the assumption that Jewish identity is basically secular -- a set of social and political and economic characteristics that play out in trade, so to speak -- and can be linked to the characteristics of those other Mercurians, without considering how Mercurian tribes might differ from one another. 

If, on the other hand, you start thinking of Judaism as -- pause for effect -- a religion, then it gets more difficult.  Because then you have to consider a religious identity that sets limits on secular activity, engagement in trade, and such.  A question -- if your sense of Jewishness involves your withdrawing from commerce and trade one day a week -- if you believe it's more important on that one day to connect with something greater than yourself -- and if as a result you miss that important conference call -- are you a good globalizer or not?  If globalization means business without limits -- well, that sounds a little Egyptian, doesn't it, in the Exodus sense of the term?  Does that mean I'm a good free marketeer, or not?

These questions come to mind because my synagogue shopping expedition has led me here, largely as a result of this.  Pretty strange, to me at least, the notion that Judaism might turn out to be a religion after all.  And that maybe all these years I've been a Jew without portfolio.  Not sure.  It's a work in progress, as they say.  But I'll keep you -- and all my fellow globalizers -- posted.

Changing Times, Et Cetera

One of the nice things about having been away from the blog for a while is that you find you're less caught up in the day-to-day or hour-to-hour shifts of opinion, which might mean that you're better able to see the big, long trendlines developing.

Case in point -- the long slide of the Bush administration.  From a remove it looks like this: post-9/11, a bunch of us are willing to support them because a) we're staggered and b) whatever else we think about them, they seem competent.  That sense of their competence erodes slowly in Iraq -- then gets wiped out altogether during Katrina week.  The result?  A new story -- we shift from "competent" to "flailing."  And events that we would have considered separately before -- like Cunningham -- now become part of the picture because they fit the picture.  And on the other hand, all the backdrops and all the uniformed audiences in the world can't help set things right because the fundamental story has changed.  A year or a year and half ago, those staged events would have looked like more evidence of mastery and control.  Now they look like part of the desperation.

Times are, to coin a phrase, changing.  The whole cluster of sensibilities -- executive leadership, command and control, the market system -- that used to be a support and a comfort, now seems disconnected from a negative, uncertain lived life.  Yesterday in Slate, Edward Jay Epstein wrote about Hollywood's tendency to vilify business.  Why do they do that?  For want of more challenging targets?  Maybe -- let's not underestimate Hollywood's gift for superficial emotionalism and simplification.  But there's also this -- an increasing sense that all those business values that we staked so much on haven't actually done us a lot of good.  If there's a rise in communitarianism, post-Katrina -- and there will be -- then entrepreneurial individualism is going to suffer.  It's a long time since I've agreed with Krugman, but in this case I do.  A worrisome sign.

On Sunday afternoon I went to see Syriana.  There's plenty wrong with it.  I'm not a fan of strong conspiracy theories, the kind that require lots of collusion in smoke-filled rooms.  No one can believe in active conspiracies who's tried to arrange a conference call that stretches across more than one time zone -- people just aren't that competent ("what do you mean, 2 o'clock Central?")  I lean toward weak conspiracies -- conspiracies of neglect, conspiracies of compromise, conspiracies that happen on their own when people can't stand up to the corrosive effects of money on the table.  Those reservations aside -- I was struck by the size of the crowd and the amount of energy in the theater.  This is not exactly mainstream entertainment, but it packed the house.  Granted that 10023 isn't the heartland -- and it'll be interesting to see how the film does when it opens there on Friday -- but there really seemed to be something in the air that hadn't been present before, even here on the lower Upper West Side.  Anti-Bush, of course, but also anti-business, anti-corporate, and strongly in favor of getting to the bottom of what's wrong -- and something seems decidedly wrong -- with our quality of life.

A year ago my friend Joe Apocalypse kept telling me that "the center is going to move left."  I didn't believe him at the time -- but now, he's got me wondering.  Joe, bless his dark heart, has been right before.

So step lively, and watch the changing times.