Movie briefly noted: Closer

This movie proves a theory of mine, namely, that sex is the ultimate MacGuffin. (What’s a MacGuffin?) There’s hardly a scene in Closer in which sex isn’t discussed thoroughly and either foreshadowed or reflected upon. And yet, sex isn’t even in the list of top ten things this movie is about. Instead, it’s about how a unruly composite of need, loss, longing, and obsession often masquerades as love; it’s also about power, emotional fidelity, jealousy, dependence, women as the spoils of male conflict, and the power of factual veracity to betray the larger “truths” of love and beauty.

By the end of the movie, the characters in this movie are not especially likable, and some critics have found this to be a fatal flaw which lowers the emotional stakes of the story’s resolution. But “love” frequently brings out the unlikable in each of us, and that’s precisely what I found made the movie so resonating.

I’ve observed before in a different context that, while we usually mean more or less what we say, we regularly say the exact opposite of what we mean. It’s not that we do this the majority of the time, but it is surprising that we do it at all, much less with regularity.

Similarly, it’s not surprising that love can bring out the best in us, quite often if we’re lucky; instead what’s surprising is that it can bring out the worst in us with regularity. This movie ignores the former in favor of the latter, and has been criticized for doing so. But skipping over the obvious to focus on the counterintuitive is what makes this movie so compelling, and so tragic.

"Eye for an eye," forever?

Frequently, when a relative of a person who has been murdered is interviewed for the local t.v. news, she or he will quote the Biblical passage, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” My response to that person is always (or would be, if they could hear me through the t.v. set), to quote Pulp Fiction, “What are you, Jewish?”

Of course, I'm not at all implying Jews are more vindictive. My point is merely to question whether that passage is, as lawyers say, "binding authority" on Christians, or whether it hasn't been superceded by Jesus' own words.

Specifically, Jesus said,

You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; if someone wishes to go to law with you to get your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone requires you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Give to anyone who asks you, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.

(Matthew 5:38-42)

(I could go on quoting Jesus in the Beatitudes, because they are fundamentally revolutionary, and if you want to just go read that now and ditch my post, that's probably a better use of your time. I'll continue nonetheless.)

Jesus said, in that same passage, that he came not to replace the law, but as the fulfillment of the law. There is a Christian doctrine of which few Christians seem to be aware, "progressive revelation." This doctrine holds that God reveals additional truths to humanity as humanity is ready to be taught; God's truth isn't static.

Prior to the Mosaic laws, the primary law in the Middle East was the Code of Hammurabi, a fairly Draconian law which required the death penalty for many offenses. The point of the original "eye for an eye" rule was to introduce an element of proportionality into punishments, i.e., it wasn't head for an eye, it was eye for an eye.

Jesus built on this progression. Prior to Moses, penalties were disproportionately harsh. After Moses, proportionality was introduced. Jesus made a quantum leap forward (as usual) and introduced forgiveness and love as the complete substitutes for penalty and retribution.

We allow certain behavior from children; from adults we expect more. As a boy, I was quick to go to my parents with proof of mistreatment at the hands of my brother. If he hit me, I expected him to be punished; if he'd broken my toy, I expected him to be punished and the toy replaced. Anyone who has spent much time with kids knows they have a very refined sense of fairness and justice. Most of us never grow beyond that.

There was a time merely being proportionate in our punishments was all God expected from us; now he expects more. Are we up to the challenge? Sadly, I'm left to wonder if Jesus didn't jump the gun when he said "Turn the other cheek", assuming humanity was ready for this truth. Two thousand years later, and it still seems he might as well have been talking Greek.

"Nuclear option" should be blown up

For those who don't know about this, see this.

Here is the letter I'm writing to the 6 senators who I believe are most persuadable on this issue. I encourage you to write you own, freely borrowing from this one if you like. And have your like-minded friends do so as well.

I’m writing to express my intense oppostion to any change in the current rules regarding filibusters of judicial nominees.

First, you should know some things about me. I’m a 33 year old white attorney. I am a registered Democrat, but I voted for Bob Dole in 1996, and of the two times I have donated to political candidates, the first (and more enthusiastic) time was to John McCain in 2000.

Second, the reason I’m writing to you is that I feel the Senators from my home state, Kentucky, are hopelessly partisan on this and most other issues.

Third, I’m not especially liberal on judical matters. I happen to believe that the current membership of the Supreme Court gets most issues about right. I didn’t have a problem with Bush v. Gore, even though I supported Gore. (I still had, and have, some lingering animosity towards Bush left over from his campaign’s conduct in South Carolina against John McCain.) I agree with the Supreme Court’s attempts to have religion treated on an equal footing with other interest groups, as opposed to its being at a disadvantage in the public sphere. I’ve been impressed with their good faith attempts to maintain an equlibrium on federalism issues, as well as on civil liberties. In short, despite the Court being unequivocally conservative, I agree with their decisions on a broad array of issues.

All of that having been said, I am completely opposed to Bush’s attempts to get the Senate to merely rubber stamp his judicial appointees. Not only is this, in and of itself, wrong, it’s also misguided for the future of the Republicans. It is possible that the Republicans may be in the majority for 40 years. It’s also possible that, if Iraq and the national economy (due to deficit issues, Social Security issues, dollar valuation, etc.) deteriorate, they may only be in the majority for another cycle or two.

And more to the point, should Frist’s “nuclear option” come to pass, it will completely poison any chance bipartisanship may have had in this Congress. I personally believe that getting Social Security reform passed, if it is done right (i.e., not the way Bush is proposing), more than outweighs the judicial nominee issue, even should it become necessary to replace one of the sitting Justices of the Supreme Court. To be done right, Social Security reform will not only require some Democrats to cross the aisle for the final vote, it will also require substantive input from Democrats along the way.

From my days writing legal memoranda in federal court, I learned that I generally wasn’t going to convince a judge of something he or she wasn’t already open to; instead, my goal was to give the judge a legal basis for ruling in my favor if he or she was already predisposed to do so. I hope you were already predisposed not to support Frist’s “nuclear option” on judicial nominess; I’m merely writing to let you know there are a few of us trying to keep this nation from being too “blue” or too “red” who are paying attention to your stand on this issue.

With best regards,

The six senators are:

Senator Susan M. Collins
172 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1904
Fax: (202) 224-2693

Senator Olympia J. Snowe
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1903
Fax: (202) 224-1946

Senator Lincoln D. Chafee
141A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3904
Fax: (202) 228-2853

Senator John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0303
Fax: (202) 228-2862

Senator Chuck Hagel
248 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2705
Fax: (202) 224-5213

Senator Arlen Specter
711 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3802
Fax: (202) 228-1229

Movie briefly noted: The Incredibles

The movie they show on slow days near the end of term at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. A movie so conservative, it only takes time out from promoting a philosophy of rugged individualism to fit in a plug for tort reform.

But what I resent most about the movie (aside from hearing the voice of Craig T. Nelson (from “Coach”) coming from a beefed-up version of Jay Mohr) was its repeated mantra, “If everyone is special, then no one is.” Is this what we’ve come to? Must achievement be a zero sum game? Whatever happened to, to paraphrase Ray Stevens, "Everyone is beautiful, in his own way" - a slogan for individualism if there ever was one. The movie rightly takes pot shots at the celebration of generic, universal markers for achievement -- having a “graduation” ceremony at the end of every grade in elementary school, for example, as if attrition in elementary school were a significant problem -- but it draws the wrong conclusion. True, there is value in competition, and winning and losing is part of life, but it’s also wrong to sneer at the proposition that just because someone isn’t superlative, his or her contributions to society aren’t worthless. And, yes, everyone is beautiful (and special), in his or her own way.

(Random trivia: Ray Stevens also sang "Bridget the Midget (The Queen of the Blues)")

Not exactly a flattering self-portrait

Several years ago, I friend I'd grown up with died in a terrible tragedy. (We weren't especially close friends, but when you grow up in a small town and it's someone you've known since you were eight, yeah, that counts as friends.)

She had a new husband, they were in the process of building a new house next to her parents', and she was expecting their first child. One night, about three or four weeks before she was due, she and her husband were eating dinner at her parents' house, and she went into early labor. It turned out she had pre-eclampsia: the baby had died by around 10 that night, and the doctors told her that by 2 or 3, she would die as well, which happened.

And my first thought?

I'm ashamed to say, my first thought was, "I'm glad it wasn't me." Sympathy and sadness for her, her parents, sister, and, perhaps most of all for her husband, who went from having a million reasons for being hopeful about his life, only to have everything come shattering down, all theses feelings came later. My first thought was, "I'm glad it wasn't me."

I was reminded of this while reading the stories coming in regarding the aftermath of the tsunami. Once again I thought to myself, "I'm glad it wasn't me."

If I had the power, would I die in the place of my childhood friend or one of the hundreds of thousands killed by the tsunami, or even switch with one of those who lived but whose entire family died? I'd like to think I would, but I don't presume to be 100% confident about that; short of fantasy and science fiction, we don't get to make that choice. It's a hypothetical question at best, and it's about as relevant as asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. That is, asking if we would sacrifice ourselves for others may be an interesting topic for bars and freshman college dorms, but a far, far better use of mental energy would be to ask (i) how can we help those affected by tragedy, (ii) how can we prevent or better manage future tragedies, and (iii) are there chronic, equally tragic but less visible conditions in the world, like the spread of malaria, which might actually be better uses of our money than another million spent on tsunami relief.

Life's tragedies seem to strike arbitrarily and capriciously, but they are fundamentally not a zero sum game; they are completely unrelated events. We're soldiers marching forward in a line, being picked off by snipers in all directions. If we knew where the bullets were coming from, maybe we could jump in front of a friend and sacrifice ourselves. But we don't have that information, and we never will.

I've suffered a bit in my life, more than some, less than many. I've gone through much of my life feeling, for a variety of reasons, as if God has a loaded gun pointed at the back of my head, hammer cocked, just waiting for some random time to pull the trigger - always waiting for the other shoe to drop, to mix metaphors. I'm learning to let that go, to have a bit more fun waiting in line for the electric chair. But if and when the gun goes off, it won't be my fault or anyone else's, and until that day, I'll probably feel a bit of relief when the bullet buzzes by my ear narrowly missing, even if it hits the next person straight on.