a sparrow's chance in hell

To begin, I'd like to say that my favorite line in The Sparrow comes from Father General Guiliani on page 402. After reading through the terrible account of Emilio's final months on Rakhat, I was as emotionally strung out as possible. Then, in response to a simile supposing Emilio had fallen in love with God, comes the following:

"'Offhand,' said the Father General wearily, in a voice dry as August grass, 'I'd say the honeymoon is over.'"

I found this line to be cathartic, a sort of rationalization of everything that had happened in the book to that point. It really cast into relief the meaning of a relationship one has with God...Todorov discusses the impossibility of two-way communication with the supernatural (sorry to refer to something we haven't yet read as a class), but one may interpret nearly anything as a sign from God, and who is Todorov to declare that it isn't? Reality is, at best, defined by our ability to perceive it.

I don't feel qualified to wade into the sort of mucky theological discussions that could emerge from this incredibly dense and complex book. My original plan was to write a section about the religious elements and then a separate section about the sci-fi elements of the novel, but then it occurred to me that the only other The Sparrow post up now features that same distinction, and I assume many others will too. Therefore, I think I'd rather consider the religious and sci-fi elements as all-of-a-kind; after all, we had no problem with it in Dune, where the religious and technological had mixed over millennia. The fact that this book opens approximately ten years from now should serve as no obstacle in this regard.

In case you didn't catch the reading group questions, I'd like to take an excerpt to set the groundwork for Earth circa 2019. This is from section 2:

"This story takes place from the years 2019 to 2060. The United States is no longer the predominant world power, having lost two trade wars with Japan, which is now supreme in both space and on Earth. Poverty is rampant. Indentured servitude is once more a common practice, and "future brokers" mine ghettos for promising children to educate in return for a large chunk of their lifetime income."

By 2060, it is strongly implied, the Earth is straining to support its population of 16 billion. On page 379, Emilio points out the suffering of children as the price humanity pays for individual freedoms. The strict population controls on Rakhat may be horrible, he admits, but at least they do not allow for the starvation of the impoverished. Indeed, it seems that the technological developments on Earth even at that point cannot compensate for the burdens of the masses, as humanity must turn to space to gather enough minerals to support industry. The Jesuits are strong, so Earth apparently retains its spiritual hunger. The citizens of Rakhat, on the other hand, seem to be completely occupied by material concerns; the Runa cannot really imagine anything else, and the Jana'ata are, for the most part, too worried about status (presumably so that they will be able to reproduce) to waste much time thinking about their souls. With one visible exception, even their art is purely hedonistic or practical. Their songs are used to coordinate hunting or to commemorate a particularly memorable tryst. The only exception is the bizarre liquid-painting ritual the Marc observes, which may or may not be a form of worship; Russell never touches on it again.

Although Russell's idea for this novel came from the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage, the differences are immense. Although Columbus explicitly set out to convert other civilizations to Christianity, the Jesuits are on no Mission to Rakhat. As far as we are told, the only time any member of the expedition hopes that any of the aliens may worship God is Emilio immediately before he is first raped.

Really, though, I was surprised at how unlike us these aliens were (concerning religion), considering how ridiculously similar they wound up being in many other ways. I was disappointed by the physiological similarities, especially in terms of nourishment. Having heard about scurvy throughout the bookout, I was hoping that some aspect of the team's diet would be the cause, that I could see something uniquely alien. But it was not to be; while some foods tasted good or bad, it was almost all food, and easily digested by humans at that. My disappointment extended to the immediate physical similarity of the aliens to certain Earth species, their apparently entirely verbal language, their possession of identical sets of emotional responses (right down to, I was horrified to read, laughing!). The differences weren't sharp enough to cause me to feel that this was something alien; rather, we entered Uncanny Valley territory, something human but slightly off. The sad part is that the similarity wasn't obvious right away. Only after learning a little bit about the Jana'ata did I realize we were basically the same, with just a few deviations.

I could have felt joy at the idea that we share so much with these aliens. Unfortunately, I had gotten myself so psyched up over the idea of aliens being truly "different" from us that I found the slightest similarity grating (which isn't to say that the similarities I found were only slight!) Here I'm reminded of the Mulefa creatures from the His Dark Materials series, which lived in a world that had taken an entirely different morphological path in its evolution than our vertebrate history. They were sentient, but communicated physically and verbally at the same time, making it difficult for humans to replicate their language accurately. That is the kind of different alien I was hoping for! Not a bunch of sociopathic ecology nuts in cat suits.

Lastly, I feel that the major thing that caused the expedition to go wrong was its assumption that it would meet with a more intelligent species than humanity, whereas the residents of Rakhat are clearly our technological inferiors. Next time, let's hope they send some sort of vast warship filled to the brim with gung-ho space marines, to better interface with the enemyaliens.

P.S. Did anyone else see any similarities between the Jana'ata and the Ssi-ruuk? Just asking.

This Baliset is Out of Dune

Religion, religion, religion, religion, religion.

Like many of you, I had forgotten how truly excellent Dune is. Part and parcel to that forgetfulness was forgetting the strongest themes of the book, although its place(s) in our syllabus gave me enough of a clue. So, to get back on topic: religion, religion, religion, religion.

Religion receives an interesting treatment in this world. I was particularly fascinated by the chronicle of the creation of the Orange Catholic Bible in the appendix. Other sections of the appendix give clues to religion's place in the "Duniverse":

Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness. (Appendix II, p.504)

The agnostic ruling class (including the Guild) for whom religion
was a kind of puppet show to amuse the populace and keep it
docile, and who believed essentially that all phenomena --
even religious phenomena -- could be reduced to mechanical
explanations.  (Appendix II, p. 501)

Nevertheless, there are few direct references to religious belief on the part of the characters. This makes sense considering how many of those characters are of the ruling class. The only copy of the O.C. Bible that we see is the one presented to Paul by Dr. Yueh, but the gift is rife with foreshadowing. Dr. Yueh's thoughts at the same time undermine the value of the book: "I salve my own conscience. I give him the surcease of religion before betraying him. Thus I may say to myself that he has gone where I cannot go." Then he tells Paul, "You may find the book interesting. It has much historical truth in it as well as good ethical philosophy." (p. 40) The forms of religion, it seems, are tolerated at best by the ruling classes of the Imperium.

The Bene Gesserit, on the other hand, actively cultivate religion as a sort of insurance policy. Most of the religious observances of the Fremen have their roots in the Missionaria Protectiva. Their willingness to exploit the superstitions of relatively backward peoples, along with their millenia-old eugenics program, indicates a cold pragmatism poorly suited to faith. And yet, and yet, when things are at their worst, that Benest of Gesserit Jessica has only one recourse: to pray. How can this be?

I was under the initial impression that a grand collusion of religions would be a crippling thing for belief. Despite recognizing their common commandment of "Thou shalt not disfigure the soul," the religions of Dune share little else but an affinity for flowery language. I also expected that any grand religious convention that was able to come to an agreement of any sort would seek to make the agreement binding over all religions represented there, but that has not happened here. In fact, the sheer abundance of religions suggests that, rather than delimiting religious thought, the democracy of the O.C. Bible has finally opened up religion to acceptable interpretation. All are represented, but it is really up to each person (or each religious group, or whatever) to pick and choose the books that have meaning for themselves. Well, maybe I'm being a bit idealistic. But religious strife, at least, seems to have disappeared. It's just been replaced by much worse strife of a thousand different kinds, but at least all those souls are intact.

The etymology of constitutionality

After seeing the comments on the free exercise clause, I thought I'd take this opportunity to present my somewhat unconventional take on the Constitution's religion clauses. I wrote this as part of the final for a class I took last semester, "Religion & American Public Policy." Normally I wouldn't reuse something, but it's a lot easier than retyping it, and I think it's an interesting point. Let me know what you think.

The religion clauses of the First Amendment leave much to the imagination in terms of how they should be applied. Divided into two parts, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, they theoretically describe the whole of possible religious interaction in which the federal government may take part. In practice, they are often misinterpreted due to their confusing word choice. The Establishment Clause, for instance, is regularly read as prohibiting Congress from passing laws having to do with religion in general. This is a gross misreading of the Clause as it was intended; take as evidence the etymology of the word establishment. Its root, establish, comes from the Latin stabilire (to make stable). There is a clear difference between 1) a stable, enduring religious body and 2) assorted religious principles (which so often find protection under this clause). As early as 1731, there is evidence of the use of the phrase established Church as a common principle; although that connection has vanished today, even as late as 1923 the term’s meaning had only changed to “ruling people and institutions”.[1] Establish has always carried the connotation of a permanent institution; based on this logic, it is ridiculous to conclude that the Establishment Clause extends to preventing Congress from addressing religious activity in general. Only legitimate churches or similarly situated religious organizations, which are well established and permanent, are illegal targets of legislation. The Free Exercise Clause falls victim to another linguistic confusion; Congress is only prohibited from making laws which explicitly hinder the free exercise of those religious establishments. While the common understanding of this clause is, “Congress shall make no law prohibiting the right of the people to freely exercise their religions,” a more critical reading proves this is incorrect. The proper interpretation is, “Congress shall make no law prohibiting religious establishments from freely exercising.” Exercise, in this case, means “the condition of being in active operation."[2] In other words, the power of Congress to legislate with regards to religion is explicitly limited to everything that happens outside of establish religious institutions, but within that one restriction, Congress may pass any law it wishes! With this evidence, it is apparent that laws banning OR requiring forms of religious expression in public are completely constitutional: the clauses refer to churches, not their members. Religious expression that occurs outside of a building owned by permanent religious organization or an event sponsored by one of those organizations has no protection whatsoever. While the definition of “permanent religious organization” is harder to pin down, it can be understood that cults and newer religions, which have not proven themselves to be historically viable (established), do not enjoy the same protection as churches which have been around for hundreds of years. Similarly, the government may endorse any religious activity so long as it endorses no established religious institution. Therefore, under the terms of this argument, Christianity may be the subject of legislation, but the Presbyterian Church may not.

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[1] Establish, Online Etymology Dictionary. 2001. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=establishment&searchmode=none

[2] Exercise, Online Etymology Dictionary. 2001. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=exercise&searchmode=none

Also, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon of hating on Apple, so here's a poem I wrote:

My Trip to the Apple Store

The story I tell here,
Entirely true,
Could easily happen
to any of you.

When my PC failed me,
its hard drive ascreech,
I went to the store
of which hipper men preach.

With turtleneck black,
and eyes oh so cold,
The Apple man bought me
'fore I knew I'd been sold.

He spoke of its features,
He spoke of its price
Assured me that nothing
was nearly this nice.

The plastic, fantastic;
And firewire, too?
It also holds pictures
and clips from the zoo!

Sound editing, easy.
Photo touch-ups, a snap!
To use this computer
takes no thinking cap.

"But hold on," I asked him,
"What makes this so good?
These are all functions
That a PC could-"

"Blasphemy!" yelled he,
"It's got such ease of use!"
To prove it he made up
A widget-shaped goose.

His fingers were flying,
Slowed only by need
To press that strange button.
I missed right-click's speed.

"Now wait up," I begged,
"Can't I change or adjust?"
The interface seemed stagnant,
and I despise rust.

"Absurd!" was his charge,
"What change could you need?
It's a perfect design
for all people, indeed!"

He told me, "No viruses!
Macs will prevail!"
I asked about hard drives,
heard "Oh, those still fail."

"Now slow down," said I,
"This all seems quite fine.
But can't I go outside
your neatly drawn lines?"

He straightened and frowned,
Then gave me my hat.
Said, "Sorry, sir-
thought you were cooler than that."

Yes, it's biased.