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Richard S. Beam

33 I Just Don't Understand (Part One)

6/29/2015

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Every so often something comes along in the news that I just don’t understand.  I suppose that I shouldn’t find that too surprising as I’ve never felt I was brighter than a lot of people, nor do I believe that I know a great deal more than many, perhaps most, others.  In a small number of very specific areas I may know more than the average person on the street, but there’s a great deal that I don’t know anything much about, and I don’t think I’ve ever been afraid to admit that.  Still, I find that it upsets me when, even after some (I think) honest attempts to try to understand both sides of some issue I just can’t figure one side out.

One such instance from the very recent past is all of the turmoil over how the Supreme Court ruled on same sex marriage.  I have no trouble understanding that some people’s religious beliefs preclude the religious acceptance of such a thing.  Some folks do say that the only acceptable purpose of marriage is “proper” procreation and, since that’s not possible in a same sex marriage, then their religion opposes legalizing such things.  Of course, this suggests that any couple which doesn’t create children is unacceptable, so widows and widowers who remarry are “wrong,” as are couples who are childless for any reason, medical or otherwise.  I know of no church which opposes marriage under these circumstances however, as long as we’re talking about a heterosexual situation.  Then there’s statements concerning the SCOTUS decision which I have heard like: “It’s redefining the nature of marriage as established by God.” “It’s one more statement of how we don’t want God in our lives.”  I just don’t understand! 

I’m not aware of any provision in the recent majority decision of SCOTUS that implies that ANY religious group is required to approve of same sex marriages, nor to welcome such couples into their religious communities.  The important idea, it seems to me, is that this ruling establishes that since the various states have established certain legal rights relating to inheritance, custody of children (natural or adopted), kinship for purposes of medical procedures, etc. on the basis of marriage; then it’s reasonable to extend these rights to all couples who wish them, even in the case of same sex couples.  The alternative is to deny some people these legal protections which reduces them to some sort of second class status and gives them no say in who they wish to have those LEGAL rights because of someone else’s “religion.”  That doesn’t make sense to me.  Of course, that’s exactly what has been suggested as proper by recent actions by the North Carolina legislature and, even, some state Attorneys General in stating that public officials can refuse to carry out their (in some cases) sworn duties because their personal religious beliefs somehow trump the law and to suggest that they shouldn’t be able to do this is an “attack on their religious freedom” (or on Christianity as a whole).  [NOTE: I haven’t ever heard of anyone suggesting that these “anti God” rulings constitute any attack on the freedom of Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, or other religions, but that’s really not the point.]  


I confess that I just don’t understand how the granting of legal rights to any specific population is somehow an attack on anyone’s religious freedom.  I also don’t understand how a business can be open to the public, except for people which the owner (or clerk?) objects to on “religious grounds,” like LGBTs.  I thought we had settled such questions a long time ago by suggesting the “separate, but equal” isn’t in the schools and in Montgomery and Greensboro.  This seems to me to be the same sort of question. 

Perhaps the real problem is that government has not made enough of a point that “marriage” is NOT exclusively a religious act or state of being; it’s a legal one.  I don’t believe that I have missed out on the movement not to have states license marriage and not treat married families differently from single people in terms of taxation, etc.  If there IS such a movement, I’m not aware of it, but I may have missed something….

I also have a problem with various political figures (and even some “non” political ones, like members of the Supreme Court) suggesting their displeasure at “activist” judges, “legislating from the bench,”  “defying the will of the people,” “not allowing the people to vote on these issues,” etc.  That sort of thing I just don’t understand! 

As I read Article Three, the function, especially of the Supreme Court, is to be “activist” in the sense that it is its obligation to make the final determination as to what a law says or what the Constitution (and its Amendments) mean.  Now,
 “The Equal Protection Clause is part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws."  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.”  It seems rather obvious to me that allowing these legal “marriage” rights and privileges to be available only to one class of persons and to disallow even the possibility of the availability of such rights to another is clearly in violation of both the spirit and the letter of the Fourteenth Amendment.  The Supreme Court is, therefore, merely doing its job in making a determination that what this Amendment says is what it means: i.e. equal protection is equal protection.  Therefore, I don’t understand how doing your job is being somehow or other “activist” (which I presume we are supposed to think is bad) or is “legislating from the bench,” which I guess we are supposed to think means that they are just making up the law.  It seems to me that the Fourteenth Amendment makes a pretty clear statement that everybody is supposed to be treated equally by the law and the Court simply decided that this wasn’t the case as things stood.  My understanding is that that was their job.

As to the charge that the decision was “defying the will of the people” and that it is wrong not to let the people of the states vote on such matters, I think the ground is even more slippery.  A “right” isn’t supposed to be something which we vote on.  In fact, many have suggested that the point of the Bill of Rights was to make clear that all citizens have certain freedoms which can only be altered with considerable difficulty, so that the minority is protected from the “tyranny of the majority.” Now, apparently, some political figures seem to think that “rights” should be up to the states to decide, so that a “right” in one state might not be one in another, or even that they should be up to a popular vote.  This seems like a poor way to establish “rights” (fundamental principles) to me and I would suggest that supporters of this notion might wish to be careful about encouraging it too strongly.  If we’re going to put some “rights” to a popular vote, we really should do the same for all of them.  Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a very good idea, at least to me.

The other “hot” topic at the moment is the use (or misuse) of the Confederate battle flag.  I confess, since I am from the North (born and raised in Illinois) when I moved to the South (North Carolina) in 1971 and even while I was in graduate school in Georgia a few years later, I believed what I was told: that the Confederate flag was simply a symbol for honoring those who were on the side of the Confederacy during what is sometimes referred to in the South as “the late unpleasantness.”  [One COULD, rather unkindly perhaps, point out that since making war on the nation is treason, there is little to honor, but I really don’t want to get into that aspect of the issue.  After all, the Founding Fathers of the USA were, in fact, traitors to the British crown.] 

However, I have heard a few things and done a bit of research in the last few days.  I have discovered that the battle flag, in fact,  wasn’t particularly commonly flown or supported as a symbol of Southern heritage until the late 1950’s and early 1960’s when it was apparently adopted as a symbol of resistance to the black civil rights movement.  Given that, I confess that I have to wonder about the sincerity of what I had been previously told.  If the Confederate battle flag was not in common use in the flags of the states of the deep South, nor had it been flown prominently in public places in these states until after the civil rights movement started to “stir things up,” then it seems difficult to accept that the use of that flag was “always” just “to honor the bravery of our ancestors,” and the like.  Looking a slight bit deeper, I discovered that even the Ku Klux Klan made at least as much (perhaps more) use of the US flag as of any version of the Confederate one up until about this time.  More to the point, however, I just don’t understand how anyone who sincerely believes in the Confederate battle flag as only a symbol of Southern heritage could have just sat on the sidelines while their “proud symbol” was coopted by racist, white supremacist, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish ideologues and used for purposes of hatred and intimidation.  That makes no sense to me.  If someone can explain this to me, I’d appreciate it.

LLAP

P.S. I’ve included (Part 1) in the title of this post as I may find myself similarly confused about some thing(s) in the future, so I’m leaving myself the option of using this title again.  RSB  

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32 Some Thoughts About Awards in the Theatre, etc.

6/16/2015

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Well, the “Awards Season” is (I think) over for another year.  As some of you may know, I’ve never been a supporter of awards in the theatre, especially for “Best ?+*&^%$@! in a whatever” awards, and, especially, in educational theatre where I’ve spent virtually all of my career.  That’s partially because I have a problem with the idea that the most important thing about educational theatre has anything much to do with who is “best” at much of anything.  I think that educational theatre is supposed to be about growth, improvement, increasing skill, etc.  If that’s true, shouldn’t we be rewarding (assuming that we HAVE to have awards) those who have come the furthest, grown the most, and so on?  Isn’t it true that, most of the time at least, the awards tend to be given to the most popular students, for the most popular roles?  That the “tech” awards go to the person whose work contributed to the show with the biggest cast?  That’s not to say that such people don’t deserve to be given some sort of recognition, but it’s a difficult determination to make, especially when the awards are made based on voting by people who have an emotional involvement in some shows and not (or less) in others.   


 Even in the world of commercial theatre, or movies, where the awards are as much about marketing as about quality, I’m not so naïve as to suggest that popularity doesn’t play into them.  At that level, though, there ARE steps to try to maintain a focus on quality of work.  The Tonys are nominated by a rotating, select nominating committee coming from across the spectrum and people aren’t supposed to either vote in a category where they haven’t seen all eligible productions.  In the case of the Oscars, the nominations in most categories are made by the members of the specific craft involved (directors nominate directors, etc.).  Final voting is wider, but there is an attempt to eliminate the “popularity contest” aspect of award giving.   


 I’m not alone in my lack of enthusiasm for awards, however.  There ARE others who are less than enthralled with awards, even in the commercial world (where I see much less potential for damage than in education).  Witness below from an interview Time Magazine did with Paul Newman (and Tom Hanks) a few years ago.   

Time: Paul, you usually don't go to the Oscars even when you're nominated.  Why? …  
 
NEWMAN:      I don't understand why competition has to exist between actors.  Some guy starts with a marvelous character, and the script is all there.  All he has to do is show up.  Another guy digs it out by the goddamn roots with a terrible director and turns in this incredible performance.  And someone says one is better than the other.  That's what's nice about car racing.  It's right to a thousandth of a second.  Your bumper is here.  That guy's bumper is there.  You win. 

I think Newman had a real point.  Acting (directing, design, etc.) isn’t a race and its value shouldn’t be based on what’s “best.”  A great deal of what we consider to be great art and/or great music wasn’t considered “great” when it was first created.  Shakespeare (rather well thought of as an author today) was fairly well known before the end of his career, but he wasn’t considered the “best” of his contemporaries as either a poet or playwright.  In fact, his plays were considered pretty “old-fashioned” by the time they appeared in the First Folio and were virtually always performed in “improved” versions from the time of the Restoration until fairly late in the Nineteenth Century, because they were considered to need assistance to make them palatable.  Yet, today, his works are considered by many (including me) to include some of the greatest dramatic works ever written. 

But who cares?  The plays are there, whether one likes them, or not.  They’ve been preserved because, over time, a lot of people have thought they contributed something to the theatre, to art, to life, to whatever.  If they hadn’t been viewed this way, they’d be as forgotten as a lot of other’s works.

I’d suggest that what theatre (and motion pictures) are really all about is that they represent an author’s ideas translated by other artists and craftspeople into a theatrical experience for the purpose of having some effect on an audience.  That can be as simple as just providing a diversion for a time.  Or, it can be as complex as changing one, or more, people’s lives completely in some fashion.  I’ve been struggling with how to express this idea for a long time.  I finally had something close to what I was trying to say hit me when I saw the movie, Saving Mr. Banks a couple of years ago.  Now I had seen the ads for it on TV for quite a while before I got around to actually seeing the movie and, I confess, while I was expecting a bit of diversion, there’s this scene, fairly near the end, which just leapt off the screen and hit me in the face.  In it, Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks) has followed P.L. Travers to London in a final, last-ditch attempt to convince her to let him make a movie of Mary Poppins.  He says:


Give her to me, Mrs. Travers.  Trust me with your precious Mary Poppins.  I won’t disappoint you.  I swear that every time a person goes into a movie house - from Leicester to St Louis, they will see George Banks being saved.  They will love him and his kids, they will weep for his cares, and wring their hands when he loses his job.  And, when he flies that kite, oh!  They will rejoice, they will sing.  In every movie house, all over the world, in the eyes and the hearts of my kids, and other kids and their mothers and fathers for generations to come, George Banks will be honoured.  George Banks will be redeemed.  George Banks and all he stands for will be saved.  Maybe not in life, but in imagination.  Because, that’s what we storytellers do.  We restore order with imagination.  We instill hope again and again and again.  (emphasis added, RSB)

I think this comes as close to what I’ve thought for years as I’ve ever seen (or heard).  We are “storytellers.”  We make (or try to make) order out of chaos.  We try to instill the hope that humans are worth something and that we are struggling to understand ourselves, and each other, because that’s important and the arts are one way of doing that.  That’s not about being “best.”  It’s about trying to accomplish something, knowing that we probably won’t ever succeed, certainly not for everyone and all times, but trying anyway because that’s what we do.  That’s why theatre is an incurable disease.  Once you have “caught the bug” you’re stuck!  From that point on, you need the “something” which comes from doing your art/craft.  You know that there isn’t a permanent solution, but that doesn’t stop you from trying to alleviate the symptoms temporarily with your work on whatever is your current project.  As with other artists, one doesn’t do theatre because she/he wants to, not really.  You do it because you can’t do anything else and achieve any real satisfaction with Life; it’s the only way to do something about those symptoms.  It’s because you are just a little bit crazy.

Most people think of this as a quote from Steve Jobs because he was responsible for its use in a series of ads for Apple a while back, but it’s really a poem by Jack Kerouac:


Here’s to the crazy ones.  
                                                                                                            
The misfits.  The rebels.  The troublemakers.                                                                                       
The round pegs in the square holes.  
                                                                                                   
The ones who see things differently. 
                                                                                        
They’re not fond of rules. 
                                                                                                          
And they have no respect for the status quo.
                                                                                        
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,                                                                    
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
                                                                                                              
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
                                                                    
Because they change things.
                                                                                                        
They invent. They imagine.                                                                                                                 
They heal.  They explore.  They create.  They inspire.                                                                     
They push the human race forward.                                                                                                   
Maybe they have to be crazy.  
                                                                                                              
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
                                                 
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
                                                                 
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
                                                                             
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
                                                   
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
                                            
are the ones who do…

Welcome to the theatre!

LLAP


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31 Religion and Politics

6/2/2015

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A couple of weeks ago I ran across a book in my local bookstore entitled: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse.  What brought it to my attention was that someone had turned it around on the shelves of new releases so that the cover was facing backwards, so that it was not visible as one simply walked by.  My guess was that someone didn’t want the casual shopper to see the title and hence become interested in the content.  This didn’t work for me, but I didn’t buy a copy immediately, I just was intrigued enough to look it up when I got home.  After some online research about it, the next time I was in, I got a copy, took it home and read it.  Okay, I’m enough of an historian that I found the premise interesting, but I also have a “thing” regarding the relationship between conservative politics and conservative Christianity in this country in the recent past that the premise of this book struck me as interesting from an historical perspective.

I won’t attempt to capsulize the entire book, but, according to the author, an Associate Professor of history at Princeton (which would seem to give him reasonable credibility) the history of the current notion that “America is a Christian Country; founded by Christians and, primarily, for Christians” is, at least in large measure, a result of politically conservative corporate influences use of conservative Christianity as a force against the social agenda of the New Deal starting back in the 1930s.  Certainly this rather well-documented book makes a pretty strong case for this, although it also goes into some detail about how this movement has morphed into the combination of conservative religion and politics which has become a feature of the contemporary political/social scene.  This is something that I view with considerable concern, especially since it has led to the rather widespread belief that this is exactly what was intended by the Founding Fathers.

As the descendent of two of those who were persecuted by during the infamous Salem Witch Trials in 1692, I have strong feelings regarding the dangers of excessive interpenetration of religion into the political/legal system.  It has always been my belief that the reason for the First Amendment clause regarding freedom of religion and the Jeffersonian notion (which may actually come from Locke’s idea of a completely secular state) of a “wall of separation between Church and State” was specifically to prevent religion from having official influence on the secular actions of government.  Certainly the use of “spectral evidence” during the Salem experience was encouraged by religious leaders, although the trials were held under (more or less) civil authority as the Colonial Governor did establish the “Court of Oyer and Terminer,” which tried the cases, making them, at least technically, civil trials. 

Now there is truth to the idea that many of the early colonists (possibly all of them) were, in fact, believers in religion and that many of the colonies which became the US were founded by religious people.  That shouldn’t be too surprising since most of the colonies were founded by English people and England had an established religion; the Church of England founded by Henry VIII and supported by the English monarchy.  However, many of the early colonists didn’t really support the “official” church.  I believe that only New York, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia were, at least officially, supporters of the Church of England.  Some of the other colonies were founded by groups of Dissenters, Separatists or Calvinists; although Maryland was heavily Catholic and Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers.  Perhaps surprisingly, a number of the colonies had no established church and some which did, had no requirement demanding the following of the dominant religion.  That, of course, was not true in England where attendance at the “official” church was required by law, at least at times.

By the time we get to the latter part of the Eighteenth Century (the time of the American Revolution and the creation of the Constitution), even a quick examination of the evidence seems to make it clear the many of the “Founding Fathers” had religious beliefs, although it is argued as to how many of them (and which ones) were specifically Christian (at least in the way that the term is used today).  Certainly some seem to be essentially Unitarian (a movement which, traditionally, recognized Jesus as important, but not divine) or Deist (acknowledging the existence of God as manifested through nature and reason, but not through miracles, etc.).  Of course, at this time in history, it would have been difficult for anyone to advocate against all religions in any meaningful way. 

As I understand it, at this point (during the “Age of Reason”) the existence of at least a deity was viewed as rather clearly established by simple reason.  In other words, Reason suggested to them that God may have been the force which created the laws of nature, but there was no reasonable evidence that this Creator was directly involved in the everyday events of each detail of human existence.  Given this, the recognition of a “Creator” who endowed us with certain unalienable rights seems perfectly in keeping with the overwhelmingly dominant ideas of the time, but doesn’t seem (at least to me) to imply much more than that.  Nor does the phrase “Nature’s God” (also in the Declaration of Independence).  That would seem to suggest that the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration were not stating anything about a religious basis for the Declaration, they were just following the common practice and beliefs of the day.

This being the case, and given the quick adoption of the First Amendment’s provision that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”, it seems likely that the Founding Fathers were as concerned about religion playing too strong a role in what they saw as secular affairs as they were about people being able to practice whatever religion they desired without government interference, unless such practice constituted a violation of peace and good order.  (See the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.)

Unfortunately, in the current political scene, I seem to see a number of instances where religion (dominantly in the form of conservative Christianity), has teamed up with socially, economically, and/or politically conservative forces (often wealthy individuals and/or corporate forces) to maintain that their social and/or political ideas are what the Founding Fathers really intended and, hence, any ideas which differ from theirs are “Anti-American,”  non-patriotic, or against the “religion which the Founding Fathers used as the basis for this country,” etc.  As Kruse points out, this notion appears to have largely been encouraged by these forces, initially, to protect their own self-interest against FDR’s New Deal, which COULD be seen (is by some) as largely an extension of the Nineteenth Century notion of the Social Gospel (which suggested that the function of religion was more about doing good works and less about obsessing over personal salvation).  The insistence by these forces that such ideas as Social Security, protection of worker’s rights, anti-trust laws, regulation of industry to avoid monopolies, environmental concerns, etc., are “anti-American, atheistic Communism” seem out of place.  One can certainly suggest that there are Socialist ideas involved, although I seem to remember Jesus saying something about “Doing unto others,” which suggests that the notions of the Social Gospel might have some sort of religious validity, in spite of the fact that it is a good deal like Socialism.    

What I see as the biggest potential danger with the current mixing of conservative Christianity and conservative social/economic policies is the emergence of a set of behaviors which come dangerously close to fascism.  Now that’s a word which is bandied about all too commonly and with much too little understanding of what it means (which IS complicated by the fact that its definition isn’t terribly specific and varies depending on the sources consulted.  Here’s the one I prefer:

"A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."  [Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 2004]

So how does this seem to be working?  Well, I see a relatively small number of extremely wealthy people (traditional elites) funding PACs (and other organizations) for the purpose of convincing the masses that they need to become “committed nationalists” to protect themselves from “decline, humiliation or victimhood” by abandoning “democratic liberties” and pursuing “redemptive violence” against anyone whose beliefs differs from theirs, even when there is no logic or reason to the espoused beliefs.  For example, the death penalty is good (in spite of the fact that there is considerable evidence that it is ineffective as a deterrent, expensive, and subject to mistakes) but the government should control a woman’s ability to opt for an abortion because “every life is sacred.”  If life is sacred, then Life is sacred, especially since we know that innocent people have been executed by mistake.  Another example, it’s perfectly okay for MY group to show up at someone else’s place of worship (armed to enforce our rights) and create a demonstration intended to be as religiously offensive as possible (like making obscene drawings of their religious founder).  Of course, it is impermissible even to think of allowing them to do the same thing to US.  All this reminds me of the antics of the Westboro Baptist Church which came to Cullowhee when we presented The Laramie Project a number of years ago. 

I’m concerned that if rational people don’t start to speak (and vote) in a rational manner, the prediction often (but apparently incorrectly) attributed to Sinclair Lewis, “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross.” just could come true. I don’t pretend to be so naïve as to think that an individual’s politics will not be influenced by their beliefs.  It would seem productive, however, to think through the implications of one’s beliefs, to establish some degree of logical consistency and to consider that any time you take action against another because she/he is in some way different from you (be it in his/her religion, politics, race, ethnicity, sexual preference, whatever), you are establishing that that person has the right to act against you for the same reasons.  You don’t have to agree with someone to tolerate his/her right to have an opinion.  It’s supposedly (but apparently also incorrectly) Voltaire who said, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”  Whoever said it, it seems like an appropriate attitude for Americans.

I was raised to believe in loving my neighbor; that one will reap what she/he sows; to do unto others; to do no harm; to judge not.  These have always seemed like good advice and I have tried to live by these principles.  Maybe, we should all encourage others to consider them….

And, really, Corporations are NOT people, too.

LLAP


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