Off-the-point Monday

 Off-the-point Monday (yesterday once more) 

“Listen to this,” Axel said: “Quote: ‘Mr. Hawley denounced Pelagius for teaching that human beings have the freedom to choose how they live their lives and that grace comes to those who do good things, as opposed to those who believe the right doctrines.’”
     “Yes.”
     “What’s wrong with it?”
     “It’s wrong?”
     “Clearly.”
     “Who’s Mr. Hawley?”
     “Josh Hawley, the brown-nosed trumpophant. But it doesn’t matter who Mr. Hawley is. I’m asking, ‘What’s wrong?’”
     “Read it again.” He did, “‘. . . that grace comes to those who do good things as opposed to those that believe the right doctrines.’”

     “It misunderstands,” I hesitated. “It misunderstands orthodox objections to Pelagius,” I said, the words stumbling clumsily out of my mouth. Winter light seeped through the windows and trickled down the walls then out as if through drains in the floor, not quite reaching the middle of the room where I sat with the phone. “Is that right?” I said. “We can no more command God’s grace by right belief than we can by right action.”
     “It is right. She misunderstands. Willfully, maybe. Polemically. Or ignorantly. It doesn’t matter. In whatever the case, damn right.”
     “My guess is it’s polemic. Where’s it from? Who’s she?”
     “I suppose you’re right. It’s from the Times. Op-ed by a Katherine Stewart, a religion writer. You didn’t see it?”
     “No. Let me find it. Wait a minute till I get upstairs to the computer.”
     “Okay. But call me back. Nils is on the other line. Let me get rid of him.”

* * * * *

I said to Axel, “Isn’t it Hawley that’s saying it – we’re not saved by right action but by right thinking – Hawley has it wrong, not Stewart? At least that’s what she seems to be claiming.”
     “So, maybe. But she should be clear: she should explain how wrong he is – and how he’s wrong. But she doesn’t care, she wants to rush on without stopping to explain what he must mean, nothing to do with grace at all but with the destruction of pluralism by blind fundamental orthodoxy. Though I’ll have to add, it’s hard to believe he can think that.
     “But what neither of them understands, nor do they want to, any more than Pelagius does – what none of them understands is grace. Because it’s what the faith has to offer that the world doesn’t want: it’s too scary to believe that anything can be forgiven – anything at all! –  that she could forgive him and he her, that a pluralist could forgive a tribalist, that a midwestern conservative could forgive an eastern liberal – and on and on: Too much forgiveness like that could lead to chaos. Grace: that God forgives the self-righteous jack-and-jill-assery of both Josh and Katherine though that doesn’t mean that their meannesses don’t have consequences that are harmful each to each.”
     “But how much harm is there?” I asked.
     “What do you mean?”
     “Well, it is assery, isn’t it? That's what you're saying. They don’t care what they are saying, you say. Right? They just want to show each other their asses?”
     “Yes. I guess.”
     “Well, don’t give it so much importance, then. Let’s just admire them, or pretend to, however beautiful or ugly they are. Admire them from afar. Can’t we just leave it at that? ‘Josh, how lovely your muscular bumhole!’ ‘Kat, what a wrinkled delight your prim anus!’?”
     “Hmmm.”
     “If it’s assery, it doesn’t ultimately matter. It won’t matter tomorrow!”
     “You may be right.”
     “Unlikely, but it would be a nice change.”

* * * * *

“This is not off the point, by the way,” Axel said as if he could read the tab on the file into which I was putting our conversation. “It’s an example of perfectly woke. Let’s explain to the dunderheads what we want them to understand whether it’s correct or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s correct. They can’t understand it anyway.”
     “I’m still not sure you’ve got it right. But, is that the apocalyptic temperament? ‘The ends justify the means’?”
     “Maybe so. Maybe that summarizes it in a nutshell. But I’m waiting to hear from Gaspar.”
     “It won’t take him long, I wouldn’t think.”

* * * * *

I thought after, though again I could be wrong. But I thought:
     It’s amazing how often the “ruling” class – the pundit class, the political class, or he that went to Stanford/Yale and she that went to Bowdoin/Harvard –it’s amazing how they become so certain they understand those they decide they can caricature when they don’t understand them at all. Education doesn’t teach understanding.
     It’s true, they may be misunderstanding on purpose, in order to create the caricature, but it’s lazy: the caricature is only neater and more convenient than the truth. It’s so much easier to move flat characters around on a two-dimensional page. Round ones might roll off, even fall on the floor and roll on under a table or chair. How inconvenient to have to leave one’s laptop, get down on hands and knees to search for them. To hell with it! There isn’t time. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s close enough for government work, close enough for newspaper work.

01.12.21