from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 70

Without hierarchies, whether of grace or power, we fall into the crisis of distinctions where

...each thing meets in mere opugnancy - Wm. Shakespeare, Troilius & Cressida

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 69

Hierarchy of grace or of power...

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 68

Can there be transcendence without hierarchy?

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 67

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 66

Mentioned in this excerpt, Crossing the Threshold of Hope by John Paul II

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 65

the Imitation of Christ...

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 64

“My heart laments that virtue cannot live out of the teeth of emulation”
Artemidorus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - Act 2 scene 3

From the Archives: Famished Craving - Pt 63

Continuing with Robespierre in the role of the martyr as his own sacred executioner; and also continuing "What happens when there are too many 'Alexanders'?"

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 62

Post-modern nihilism's distant mirror - the French Revolution

In this excerpt Gil Bailie references the following texts:




The Sorrows of Young Werther - by Goethe
(this is a public web version from Project Gutenberg)

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 61

Can there be an exception to the rule that finds no basis in the unanchored, self-validating human mind for shared social norms? Carl Schmitt and decisionism.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 60

Is it true that much as one may appeal to universal rationality as supplying the content of ethics, universally shared norms cannot be distilled from the unanchored, self-validating human mind?

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 59

With this excerpt the Famished Craving series begins tape #9 - so Gil starts with a bit of a review and then picks up where he left off at the end of tape #8 with Leo Braudy's comments:

"Alexander was bent on defying any order that he had not created himself"

"What happens when there are too many Alexanders?"

Referenced in this excerpt and the one to follow is a W H Auden poem, Law, Like Love:

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.

Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.

Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.

Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.

Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.

Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.

And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.

If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,

No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.

Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 58

What happens when there are too many 'Alexanders'?

Being Scene - the Self and the sound of two hands clapping...

We have recently posted on the home page of our public website the video of Gil Bailie and Ron Austin's presentation at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology last month of 'Being Scene: the self and the sound of two hands clapping'. The presentation is split into two approximately 30 minute video clips; the first featuring Gil and the second Ron. I am posting the video here as well.

Also, the 5th CD/MP3 in the Famished Craving series being excerpted here is now available for purchase on our webstore.

The Being Scene videos are a serendipitous companion to the Famished Craving series of archival audio excerpts as they both deal with the analysis of fame using the anthropological interpretive tools provided by René Girard and Christian theology. Ron Austin brings an enlightening overview of his experience in Hollywood working with the fame industry.

Over the past months of postings to the blog a number of items have come to my attention that in much the same fashion as Gil used in his original presentation in 1995 illustrate some of the themes being examined. Here are two that I would like to share with our blog visitors:

Lady Gaga (Stefani Germanotta)

A few months ago this pop music superstar phenomenon was interviewed on the 60 Minutes television news magazine. In this interview Ms. Germanotta states that she is a student of the art and sociology of fame. Her 2008 debut CD was entitled "The Fame". She is obviously a talented and smart young woman who seems to understand the game she has chosen to play, as Gil says of Ulysses in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, on the level of 'chess' as opposed to 'checkers'. Again from the 60 Minutes interview, she states unequivocally that an important aspect of the famous person's relationship with her fans is their desire to see the famous one fall, especially to see her die. Also, the ability to redirect attention to what the famous person wants to have the audience see is essential, she says, for her to maintain some modicum of privacy in a world dominated by the paparazzi. In her case it seems all of the attention is directed at her body and how it is displayed. She says one of the characteristics that make her unique among the famous is that she is completely open and truthful with the media and her fans; no lies to hide behind.

Lady Gaga is viewed both by herself and by many of her fans as a kind of icon of empowered individualism, giving them the inspiration to break the chains of whatever it is that holds them in bondage. She believes everyone has a destiny to become a superstar. It is of interest that much of the motivation for this seems to come from a sense of having been made to feel 'different' and 'disrespected' in her Catholic all girl high school.

Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman)

In 2004 60 Minutes' correspondent Ed Bradley interviewed Bob Dylan around the time of the publication of the first volume of Dylan's autobiography entitled Chronicles. Bradley says of Dylan that he "retreated from fame":

At his peak (ca 1970's), fame was taking its toll on Dylan. He was heading toward a divorce from his wife, Sara. And in concerts, he wore white makeup to mask himself.

In the 1960's Dylan was often called the 'voice of his generation' yet he resisted this title. Again from the 60 Minutes interview:

"If the common perception of me out there in the public was that I was either a drunk, or I was a sicko, or a Zionist, or a Buddhist, or a Catholic, or a Mormon - all of this was better than 'Archbishop of Anarchy,'" says Dylan, referring to being considered the voice of a generation opposed to everything.

Dylan was especially opposed to the media, which he says were always trying to pin him down. He wrote, "The press, I figured, you lied to it." Why?

"I realized at the time that the press, the media, they're not the judge - God's the judge," says Dylan. "The only person you have to think about lying twice to is either yourself or to God. The press isn't either of them. And I just figured they're irrelevant."

On the topic of Dylan's many musical awards:

"That must be good to have as part of your legacy," says Bradley.

"Oh, maybe this week. But you know, the list, they change names, and you know, quite frequently, really. I don't really pay much attention to that," says Dylan.

"But it's a pat on the back," says Bradley.

"This week it is," Dylan replies. "But who's to say how long that's gonna last?"

His success, however, has lasted a long time. Dylan is still performing all of his songs on tour, and he says he doesn't take any of it for granted.

So why is he still out there?

"It goes back to that destiny thing. I mean, I made a bargain with it, you know, long time ago. And I'm holding up my end ... to get where I am now," says Dylan.

And with whom did he make the bargain? "With the chief commander," says Dylan, laughing. "In this earth and in the world we can't see."

Some people believe that in this last comment Dylan admits to having sold his soul to the devil to achieve his success. In his 1980's song "Gotta Serve Somebody" he wrote in the refrain:

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody


Finally, Ron Austin mentions how the changes in Hollywood film stars beginning in the 1950's began to appeal more to the fantasies of adolescents, so that a viewer might actually imagine oneself being someone like Elvis Presley. Here Bradley asked Dylan about how he dealt with the image the public had of him:

"It was like being in an Edgar Allan Poe story. And you're just not that person everybody thinks you are, though they call you that all the time," says Dylan. "'You're the prophet. You're the savior.' I never wanted to be a prophet or savior. Elvis maybe. I could easily see myself becoming him. But prophet? No."

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 57

Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida Act 3 scene 3

That no man is the lord of any thing,
Though in and of him there be much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them form'd in the applause
Where they're extended; who, like an arch,reverberates
The voice again, or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 56

A strange fellow here
Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without or in,
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida Act 3 scene 3

Jesus is Risen - ترنيمة: المسيح قام

At lunch today Kathleen and I were talking about the people of Lebanon. My departed wife Liz was Lebanese and her family retains many ties to that troubled land. When I got home, I saw the link to this marvelous video from Beirut, posted by my dear friend Athos at Four Mass'keteers. What a hope-filled video it is.

If you go to the YouTube version (click below), you can use the up-arrow on the lower right and click on CC for the translation.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 55

Alexander the Great and the emulation of the Homeric heroes

Easter - Oh, first to her...

OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST OUR LORD
OF HIS FIRST APPARITION
- St. Ignatius Loyola

He appeared to the Virgin Mary. This, although it is not said in Scripture, is included in saying that "He appeared to many others", because Scripture supposes that we have understanding, as it is written: "Are you also without understanding?"

The Quieting of Mary with the Resurrected One

What they felt then: is it not
above all other mysteries the sweetest
and yet still earthly:
when he, pale from the grave,
his burdens laid down, went to her:
risen in all places.
Oh, first to her. How they
inexpressibly began to heal.
Yes heal: that simple. They felt no need
to touch each other strongly.
He placed his hand, which next
would be eternal, for scarcely
a second on her womanly shoulder.
And they began
quietly as trees in spring
in infinite simultaneity
their season
of ultimate communing.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Good Friday

From The Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

East Coker

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That quesions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind us of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 54

Get out of my light...

Diogenes to Alexander

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 53

Alexander of Macedonia
the world's first famous person...

from the Archives: Famished Craving Pt 52

Jules Feiffer again:

Ever since I was a little kid, I didn't want to be me. I wanted to be like Billy Whitteton, and Billy didn't even like me. I walked like he walked; I talked liked he talked. I signed up for the same high school he signed up for, which was when Billy Whittleton changed. He began to hang out around with Herbie Vanderman. He walked like Herbie Vanderman; he talked like Herbie Vanderman. And it dawned on me that Herbie Vanderman walked and talked like Joey Hamerlin. And Joey Hamerlin walked and talked like Corky Fabinson. So here I am, walking and talking like Billy Whittleton's imitation of Herbie Vanderman's version of Joey Hamelin trying to walk and talk like Corky Fabinson. And who do you think Corky Fabinson is always walking and talking like? Of all people, dopey Kenny Wellington-that little pest who walks and talks like me!

Gil Bailie at DSPT April 13th....

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 51

God is absent, said Johann Christian Hölderlin; God is dead, said Nietzsche. This means one of two things. Either we have outgrown monotheism, and good riddance; or modern man is estranged from being, from his own being, from the being of other creatures in the world, from transcendent being. He has lost something – what, he does not know; he knows only that he is sick unto death with the loss of it. - Walker Percy

Walker Percy's book, Signposts in a Strange Land, quoted in this excerpt:

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 50

"Ever since I was a little kid I didn't want to be me..." - Jules Feiffer

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 49

The democratization of fame...Andy Warhol's 15 minutes

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 48

"I can't get no satisfaction" Mick Jagger

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 47

Religion is the opium of the people - Karl Marx

"God is not a menace to society"

This is a YouTube video of the Pope's message (the text posted by Gil below) to the group of young people gathered at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris - referred to as the 'court of the gentiles'.

Agony in a Rocky Garden

On Randy's recommendation, Kathleen and I just saw "Of Gods and Men." It is an extraordinary film, a perfect entry into this year's Holy Week. It's Christian faith dramatized.

Pope Benedict XVI: The Court of the Gentiles

In inaugurating the "Court of the Gentiles," the deep faith and generous spirit of Benedict XVI is worthy of our notice. Here is what he said in his video message to those, mostly young people, gathered in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris:

Dear young people, dear friends!

I know that at the invitation of Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris, and of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, you are gathered in great numbers in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. I greet all of you, together with our brothers and friends from the Taizé Community. I am grateful to the Pontifical Council for having taken up and extended my invitation to open a number of "Courts of the Gentiles" within the Church. This image refers to the vast open space near the Temple of Jerusalem where all those who did not share the faith of Israel could approach the Temple and ask questions about religion. There they could meet the scribes, speak of faith and even pray to the unknown God. The Court was then an area of separation, since Gentiles did not have the right to enter the consecrated area, yet Jesus Christ came to "break down the dividing wall" between Jews and Gentiles, and to "reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility in himself". In the words of Saint Paul, "He came and proclaimed peace..." (cf. Eph 2:14-17).

At the heart of the "City of Light", in front of the magnificent masterwork of French religious culture which is Notre Dame, a great court has been created in order to give fresh impetus to respectful and friendly encounter between people of differing convictions. You young people, believers and non-believers alike, have chosen to come together this evening, as you do in your daily lives, in order to meet one another and to discuss the great questions of human existence. Nowadays many people acknowledge that they are not part of any religion, yet they long for a new world, a world that is freer, more just and united, more peaceful and happy. In speaking to you tonight, I think of all the things you have to say to each other. Those of you who are non-believers challenge believers in a particular way to live in a way consistent with the faith they profess and by your rejection of any distortion of religion which would make it unworthy of man. Those of you who are believers long to tell your friends that the treasure dwelling within you is meant to be shared, it raises questions, it calls for reflection. The question of God is not a menace to society, it does not threaten a truly human life! The question of God must not be absent from the other great questions of our time.

Dear friends, you are challenged to build bridges between one another. Take advantage of this opportunity to discover, deep within your hearts and with serious arguments, the ways which lead to profound dialogue. You have so much to say to one another! Do not turn away from the challenges and issues before you!

I believe deeply that the encounter of faith and reason enables us to find ourselves. But all too often reason falters in the face of self-interest and the lure of profit, and is forced to regard the latter as the ultimate criterion. Striving for truth is not easy. But each of us is called to make a courageous decision to seek the truth, precisely because there can be no shortcut to the happiness and beauty of a life of genuine fulfilment. Jesus says as much in the Gospel: "The truth will make you free".

Dear young people, it is up to you, in your own countries and in Europe as a whole, to help believers and non-believers to rediscover the path of dialogue. Religions have nothing to hear from a just secularity, one that is open and allows individuals to live in accordance with what they believe in their own consciences. If we are to build a world of liberty, equality and fraternity, then believers and non-believers must feel free to be just that, equal in their right to live as individuals and in community in accord with their convictions; and fraternal in their relations with one another. One of the reasons for this Court of the Gentiles is to encourage such feelings of fraternity, over and above our individual convictions yet not denying our differences. And on an even deeper level, to recognize that God alone, in Christ, grants us inner freedom and the possibility of truly encountering one another as brothers and sisters.

Our first step, the first thing we can do together, is to respect, help and love each and every human being, because he or she is a creature of God and in some way the road that leads to God. As you carry on the experience of this evening, work to break down the barriers of fear of others, of strangers, of those who are different; this fear is often born of mutual ignorance, scepticism or indifference. Work to create bonds with other young people, without distinction and keeping in mind those who are poor or lonely, unemployed, ill or on the margins of society.

Dear young people, what you can share is not only your experience of life, but also your approach to prayer. Believers and non-believers, as you stand in this court of the Unknown, you are also invited to approach the sacred space, to pass through the magnificent portal of Notre Dame and to enter the cathedral for a moment of prayer. For some of you this will be a prayer to a God you already know by faith, but for others it may be a prayer to the Unknown God. Dear young friends who are non-believers, as you join those who pray in Notre Dame on this day of the Annunciation of the Lord, open your hearts to the sacred texts, let yourselves be challenged by the beauty of the music and, if you truly desire it, let your deepest feelings rise towards the Unknown God.

I am happy to have been able to speak to you this evening for the inauguration of the Court of the Gentiles. I hope you will be able to join me for the other events to which I have invited you, especially the World Youth Day to be held in Madrid this coming summer. The God whom believers learn to know invites you to discover him and to find ever greater life in him. Do not be afraid! As you walk together towards a new world, seek the Absolute, seek God, even if for you he is the Unknown God.

And may this God, who loves each and every one of you, bless you and keep you. He is counting on you to be concerned for others and for the future, and you can always count on him!

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 46

Crash Worship....continued

Islam is as Islam does.

Bloodstained Image of Christ
(Church of Saints in Alexandria, Egypt)

Click HERE to read George Marlin's summary
of how Christians are being treated
in Muslim majority cultures.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 45

Revival of the sacred...among the 'new generation' in 1995 Germany; the young people are reading Heidegger and Nietzsche. In America we skip the books and go straight to Dionysus...e.g.



(the article Gil references in this excerpt I do not believe is available on-line. For the adventurous - click on the image above to read an interview with one member of Crash Worship.)

”The mind that has fallen into the stable disequilibrium of a false rationality thereafter falls into the unstable disequilibrium that leads to delirium.” René Girard

History as Apocalypse

Randy encouraged me to post an occasion excerpt from the manuscript on which I am now working. I cannot let him do all the work on the weblog after all. So here are a few sentences from the piece I have been tweaking today.

We could say that history – in a generic and straightforward sense – began when our most remote ancestors stumbled upon what René Girard has termed the surrogate victim mechanism, the late Paleolithic “discovery” which, over the course of time, our most ancient ancestors slowly learned to ritualize, thereby securing the cultural beachhead which could sustain the fragile order that the scapegoating violence first achieved. Another way of putting this is to say that history began with the discovery of the sacrificial procedures for warding off the apocalypse, the latter defined as violence for which there is no adequate arresting or quarantining mechanism. Subsequent ritual re-enactments of this procedure functioned to continually ward off or postpone the apocalypse thus understood. History in the rich biblical sense, on the other hand, begins -- on Mount Moria -- with the attenuation of these same cultural mechanisms for postponing the apocalypse. In this sense, the beginning of history in the biblical sense is the beginning of the apocalypse in the sense of uncontrollable violence.

"When sacrifice disappears," writes Girard, "all that remains is mimetic rivalry, and it escalates to extremes." Well, that's not all that remains. For the same Gospel that undermines the "sacrificial protections" that ward off and postpone the apocalypse brings about a conversion of the heart and a restoration of relationships distorted by sin. This is the leaven that works inconspicuously to fashion a new order of things, a culture of love based, not on sentimentality, but on truth.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 44

If this doesn't make you cry ... nothing will

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 43

Historiography...continued

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 42

What is historiography?

The SF Examiner article referenced in this excerpt may be found HERE.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 41

Damascus - the locale of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and in 1995, a Time magazine interview with Fathi Shakaki....

The Time magazine article/interview may be found HERE.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 40

Gil references the following book in this excerpt:

Shahbaz Bhatti 1968 - 2011

'I only want a place at the feet of Jesus. I want my life, my character, my actions to speak for me and say that I am a follower of Jesus Christ'

No doubt most of those who come to this blog will already be aware of the recent murder of Shahbaz Bhatti. I had read the newspaper account and listened to NPR's story last week. However, I came across another blog over the weekend that contained some short videos of Mr. Bhatti that I felt would be appropriate to direct attention to.


The link to the blog Bangor to Bobbio is HERE


Resquiescat in pace

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 39

The conundrum of "Modernity"....what is it? And what follows 'post-modernity'?

Jeff Hendrix

My old friend Jeff Hendrix was interviewed on the "Journey Home" program on EWTN earlier this week. It was a marvelous interview. Jeff is an extraordinary man and a model Catholic. He will be undergoing yet another surgery next week. Please keep him in your prayers.

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 38

Continuing with 'the need for faith' in the Famished Craving series, the vine and branches discourse in John 15...

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 37

For those who may be interested in a couple of musical interpretations of John 15:1-8
I offer the following links:

Reverend Gary Davis

Arvo Pärt

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 36

Ignatius of Antioch, martyr



On the old sacred system as well as post-modern nihilism:

There is not one element of this distorted mysticism that does not have its luminous counterpart in Christian truth. - René Girard

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 35

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 34

fame's protean display: "desperately sacrificial" - "desperately individualistic" - "desperately suicidal"

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 33

Modern Palestine, Samson Agonistes, and fame...continued

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 32

The text with commentary of the Milton poem Samson Agonistes is available online HERE

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 31

Here is a link to the original New York Times article Gil references in this excerpt:

Palestinian Martyrs: Defiant and So Willing

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 30

from the Archives: Famished Craving - Part 29