Rich Jeremiad
Though Advent inclines toward Isaiah, Frank Rich clearly prefers Jeremiah with his morning coffee. His latest reads like an updating of Auden’s “low dishonest decade.”
If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).
Though perhaps overwrought (as jeremiads are wont to be), Rich may offer something worth meditating upon in this last week of Advent:
As cons go, Woods’s fraudulent image as an immaculate exemplar of superhuman steeliness is benign. His fall will damage his family, closest friends, Accenture and the golf industry much more than the rest of us. But the syndrome it epitomizes is not harmless. We keep being fooled by leaders in all sectors of American life, over and over. A decade that began with the “reality” television craze exemplified by “American Idol” and “Survivor” — both blissfully devoid of any reality whatsoever — spiraled into a wholesale flight from truth.
Reality? truth? Beyond the hermeneutics of suspicion of the Pilates of this world: “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Hmmmmm…Jeremiah indeed Father but where is the message of repentance?
Besides, two things can be true at the same time. Tiger did have nerves of steel and a lot of discipline and focus on the golf course. In his personal life, well, obviously he faltered. The only people really affected are his wife and children and I do feel badly for them.
Certainly the others he mentions have their share of human foibles as well.
Still, what of the Shakespearean fatal flaw. These characters can be seen tragic as opposed to having scorn heaped on them. Maybe this is a call for the maturity of the American public. I am reminded of a letter that Flannery O’Connor wrote to Cecil Dawkins who was critical of some priests and religious in the Church. It comforted me in my 20′s and has remained.
“To expect too much is to be sentimental and this is a weakness that ends in bitterness. Charity is hard but endures”
ps
The message she gave is that the Holy Spirit rarely appears on the surface of anything, It requires one to go deeper.
Besides what I take from all of these sex scandals is that there is a very, very human reason why adultery has been condemned in every society and it has nothing to do with prudish attitudes on sex. It has to do with the damage it inflicts on people.
I like the line from Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise where his love interest yells at him, when two people make love their bodies are telling each other they will be together forever.
But like everything else we often fib with our bodies too!!!
Re today’s NY Times: The Business section has a piece titled “As a New manager, Get to Know Your Team.” Its theme is the “manager-as-servant” model. The good manager sees himself or herself not so much as performing a specific job but rather as one “who helps others do theirs.”
Is this model relevant to the relationship between bishop and clergy, especially permanent deacons, or to the overall relationship between clergy and laity? If not, why not?
Given how many leaders, lay and religious, have feet of clay, I guess Bernard is on topic.
If you’re concerned about your governing/power/control, it’s hard to be servant- even if it isn’t what works. Hence the new change in canon law -bishops and priests govern -deacons serve (I guess we’re chopped liver.)
Which sort of reminds me of the thread above and those who applaud being like a child and the infantalizing debate.
We’d all like leadership we can look up to and i guess a lot of times we imagine them to be far better than they really are.
I liked the Rich piece. But I wondered whether in making the Tiger Woods saga the center of his narrative, Rich wasn’t in the end giving too much attention to the kind of phenomenon that he set out so ringly to decry?
This, also in today’s NYT, was for me a good antidote to Rich’s indignant gloom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/arts/design/20herrera.html?hpw
For a different take on the Rich essay:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/j/o/joe_pettit/2009/12/is-tiger-woods-just-another-am.php?ref=reccafe
I assume posting this link is preferred to posting the entire piece. Please let me know if this is an incorrect assumption.
And then there’s the Times Magazine article on Robert George! I noted that his big meeting took place at, if I’m not mistaken, the Manhattan Club, not at the Catholic Worker house. Oh well! That’s just part of natural law.