New found delights: DM Stith.

I was recently put onto this guy by a friend. He makes me feel like my mind is fizzing away like a Berroca. It's a good thing.

That will be all.

Aaron Weiss (Mewithoutyou) gives some advice to the youngsters...

Apart from the nominalism, some great wisdom from Brother Weiss.

Some random thoughts on the 'femme fatale'...

I am currently in the middle of a bunch of assessments for uni so, as you could have imagined, I have been re-watching episodes of Joss Whedon’s spin-off series of Buffy, Angel. This got me to thinking about the archetype of the femme fatale in modern pop-culture.

Apparently there has been some criticism (or a couple of online columnists have been generating the impression of criticisms) of a film that I have been interested in seeing for a while called Sucker Punch on the grounds that the film is ‘sexist’. The reported criticisms stem from the fact that a great deal of the story takes place in a brothel and depicts women being abused and subjugated by men. In response to such allegations the film’s director and cast have claimed that the film is actually empowering to women as it shows the central characters overcoming their oppressive environment with the strength of their minds- a strength visualized with various elaborate kung fu fights against giant CGI robots etc. Now, I haven’t seen the film and am therefore not in a position to pass judgement on whether the criticisms (if they actually exist) are valid, but this kind of defence against accusations of potential exploitation on the basis of empowerment reminded me of an issue that I’ve had for a while with the presentation of women in pop-culture, and, in particular, sci-fi. Film-makers, such as Snyder (Sucker Punch) or Whedon are constantly claiming to be (and are praised for) creating powerful female figures, in order to develop role-models for young women and to subvert assumed gender-roles in our culture. However, it seems to me that people like Whedon (or *shudder* Rodriguez), choose to create powerful heroines and villains specifically to add a legitimacy to their exploitation and objectification. As long as the woman in question is smart, strong and confident, we sensitive postmodern men can feel comfortable with the fact that our heroine is nothing more than a compilation and projection of male desire and is just as enslaved to masculine expectations as good old Barbara from Night of The Living Dead or even Tabitha from Bewitched.

What do you think?

(P.S. For the most blatant example of the kind of thinly veiled exploitation that I’m talking about, check out Whedon’s latest show, Doll House!)

May we reasonably hope that all people may be saved?

Your thoughts?

Stanley Hauerwas on The Life of The Theologian.

I came across this interview while thinking about the next post I was going to do and after watching it felt compelled to show it to as many people as possible. It goes for about an hour but is well worth watching if you can spare the time.

Homosexuality and The Church...

Same Sex: Homophobia and the Church from CPX on Vimeo.

What I have learnt.

I was talking to a friend of mine recently about the fact that I was coming to the end of five long years of Philosophical study when he asked me a rather terrifying question- "so have you come to any conclusions?" Wow! What a blow that was! I didn't for the life of me know how to answer him! Surely after all this time, after all the books that I've had to read (or half read), surely I must know something!

Well after pondering this cruel question for some time I find myself sheepishly returning to the old Socratic cliche that "I only know that I know nothing". Perhaps a little hyperbolic (in that I have actually learnt a few particular things), but true none-the-less. We live in a culture where epistemic humility is perhaps the most under-rated of virtues, where vocational training is mistaken for education, where politicians are accused of flip-flopping if they change their mind, or of being political idealists (as if this were some kind of evil) if they "stick to their guns", and where conclusions are assessed by the desirability of their outcomes rather than by the strength of their arguments. Perhaps the most damaging outworking of this lack of intellectual virtue to our souls, however, is the tendency of experts in particular areas of inquiry to use their understanding of their field to sell wholesale worldviews. A physicist or biologist feels that her understanding of the mechanics of the universe (or a small part there of) qualifies her to speak on the meaning of it, the psychologist takes his understanding of the factors that are likely to bring about subjective well being and believes that he is qualified to speak to what it means to have a worthwhile existence, or, perhaps most puzzling, the economist takes their understanding of the exchange of goods between persons and makes claims as to what it means to have a just society.

What I have learnt is that the healthy soul makes no unjustified claims to Truth, but more importantly, that the place of truth in our culture is lamentable.