November 22, 1996
[A dialogue]
Cat: Now that I am again the official family cat, I think we
should put to rest all this anti-cat talk and just get
along.
Mouse: Yes, yes!
Cat: And also, I want to institute some new pro-cat rules for
deciding what is for dinner, when naptime is, and so on.
Don't you agree?
Mouse: Yes, yes!
Cat: And no more discussions about mouse-catchings, or that
is, alleged mouse-catchings, in the past.
Mouse: No, no!
Cat: In fact, I proclaim that all previous mouse-catchers, or
alleged mouse-catchers, or possibly future alleged
mouse-catchers, can just get on with their lives without
fear of legal harassment.
Mouse: Yes, yes!
Cat: Fish to be served at every meal --
Mouse: Yes, yes!
Cat: -- and cheese to be strictly rationed --
Mouse: Yes, yes!
Cat: -- and NO DOGS.
Mouse: No, no!
Cat: Now that all of that is settled, I am feeling a bit
famished. Hm, you certainly look like a tempting treat
--
[pounces]
Mouse: Mmf, mmf!
Cat: Yum, yum! Yes, I think this bipartisanship stuff is
going to work out very well, now.
To television, qua television, as the expression is, I have -- except for thinking it the foulest, ghastliest, loathsomest nightmare ever inflicted by Science on a suffering human race, and the programs, except for the Friday night fights, the most driveling, half-witted productions ever seen outside of Guest Night at Colney Hatch -- no particular objection.
... P. G. Wodehouse, Punch, 21 October, 1953
"Ich bin ein Berliner." ["I am a popular local pastry."]
... John F. Kennedy [tr. RB]
Well, the talk has already started about sending the troops on another meals-on-wheels mission, this time to Zaire. When will they learn? If you want to kill people, send the Marines; if you want to make people feel better, send the Boy Scouts. Their headquarters is right here in Dallas, Texas. Ring them up, Mr. President, and save the Marines for fighting wars.
Much heavy weather has been made lately of the retirement of David Brinkley, half of the Huntley-Brinkley wit, of his charm (absent), his perception (he couldn't see through a soap opera plot), his wit (nil), humor (base), and intelligence (dense). His supposed gaffe on election night about Bill Clinton's flowery speeches, if it was not an outright scam, can probably be ascribed to a couple of extra scotches before air time. As to Bill Clinton being boring, we do not require that the president be either creative or entertaining, but rather that he be a good steward. Admittedly, this is a bit too complex an idea for the cranky, senile, old Brinkley to grasp.
As to Brinkley's retirement from a team he called "creative" (though they have not had a new idea in decades), it could not come soon enough, considering his conception of objectivity in reporting (licking the boots of rich, corrupt politicians and ward bosses) and of political fairness (sticking it to anyone with the guts to stand up for freedom and the Constitution). One fewer cynical, two-faced, patronizing, news-inventing, useful idiot and tool of socialism in broadcasting is one fewer scoundrel of a skewed-news-reader to avoid on airwaves thick with his facile imitators. Let him retire to Cuba, where I am sure they would be happy to grant him honorary citizenship.
Each year at this time, Dallas, where I live, has to go through yet another Kennedy assassination anniversary memorial. This galling exercise is made even more so by the television networks as they play and replay their shaky, old, black-and-white tapes of all the horrific events. It was, after all, the television event of the century, and they are surely not going to let us forget it. The Kennedy stuff was the networks' big moment: the making of the first television president was followed by the assassination of the first television president. Dallas, of course, had nothing whatever to do with the event, except to provide the turf, but the pelting of Adlai Stevenson and Lyndon Johnson with eggs and protest signs have to be replayed on the air so that Dallas, the so-called "city of hate", can somehow be made responsible for the loss of that icon of Liberal vision, Jack Kennedy. That is their irresponsible contribution to this whole tragedy.
Of course, the entire Kennedy business was made up out of whole cloth: he was a crooked, cynical, well-connected ward politician, who was lucky enough to be born with a comely smile and a full bank account. His father was a criminal of the first order. The son had never had to work a day in his life. So far as I am able to determine, his entire political career was a swindle, from the stolen 1960 election to the disgraceful and cowardly Bay of Pigs scandal. He swindled the electorate by concealing the severity of his Addisson's disease, and then spent his entire presidency high on pain-killers and the psychologically devastating steroids that are the only known treatment for it. His thin and capricious Liberalism and intellectual poverty make his speeches, with a couple of exceptions, literally unreadable today. Even his book, Profiles in Courage, which I thought, and still think, very highly of, now appears to have been ghost-written by someone else.
The deification of Jack Kennedy as a fallen martyr has made it impossible to discuss any of this rationally, even today, at thirty-three years' remove. But the historians of future generations will record that he was better at weaving the soft, sweet lie than the fabric of history. His coming defeat at the polls in 1964 was almost a certainty, his legislative program was a complete failure, and the scandals that the press was just barely keeping in check were already beginning to leak out. The president's weakness caused the so-called Cuban, so-called missile, crisis, which he is popularly credited with solving, but which almost brought about a tragedy so great that it is hard to imagine future generations having any regard for him at all.
I am frankly tired of memorializing a lie, and apart from the tragedy of the assassination itself, that is all the Kennedy baloney was and is. "Camelot" was a deception, his homelife was a shambles and a disgrace, his corruption was manifold, and his whole political life appears to have been the creation of public-relation people, speech-writers, and image-makers. When it is all said and done, the supposed Kennedy legacy was the biggest hoax since Piltdown Man. It provided a mythological foundation for socialism and set back the cause of liberty thirty years.
I have a proposal, namely, that we drop all the Kennedy nonsense and recognize this day, November 22, as the anniversary of the passing into glory of C. S. Lewis. As it happens, it occurred on that same fateful day in 1963 and was unfortunately obscured by what was taken at the time to be the more newsworthy event. What a contrast! Lewis, unlike Kennedy, took virtue, intellect, and faith seriously, leading with his life as well as his words. Lewis' particular gift was the putting into familiar and accessible words the ideas of theology and faith that had for years been hidden in quaint, obscure language, the patter of professional theologians and clerics. He articulated the fundamentals of the Christian faith in clear, concise terms, and caused thousands of people to confront the reality of their spiritual life. He was not the only such person, but in the English-speaking world, he was one of the most important.
Among the many significant points that he illuminated was the important distinction between various religious beliefs and what he called "classical Christianity", namely, the belief in a personal, salvific faith in Jesus Christ. He urged us to look beyond religious formulae and theological speculation to a total, personal commitment to the risen Savior. He tackled tough issues: why there is pain in the world, why must the innocent suffer, why it isn't enough just to try to be good, and so on. He wrote and spoke with reason, intelligence, vision, and fervor about the way that God cares about us, what He has done about that, and how we can benefit from it.
This was a man who came to grips with life and the Christian faith: he reasoned, he doubted, he prayed, he experienced joy, disappointment, and grief. Then he wrote about these things, so that every person who passes through these experiences could know that they have a predecessor who did likewise and found the answer in Christ. (I, too, owe Lewis a debt that can never be repaid; I hope to speak to him of that, someday.) He was a sinner whose whole life was redeemed by God; his scholarship, his art, his philosophy, his faith, and his life have enriched and illuminated his age and ours in a way that can scarcely be claimed for anyone else.
It may seem odd, shocking, or even sacrilegious to speak of Lewis and Kennedy in the same context, as though the worldly pursuit of politics were somehow comparable with the saintly pursuit of theology and the holy life. And, after all, it is an historical accident that binds these two figures together; or is it? The God Who demands righteousness in life draws no particular distinction between the public and private versions. He calls saints and sinners alike to the same high standard at which we all fail. He offers His saving grace to each on exactly the same basis. And when the last jot is written, the history of humanity will be one story, not two; one account of the redemption of mankind by a loving, forgiving God, not two; one procession of chosen and anointed people towards a destiny that only He knows, not two. There are not two kinds of life, only one: the life of the spirit is not separable from the life of the flesh, and the story we write with our own lives has only one substance and one end.
John F. Kennedy, may he rest in peace, has already begun to become that which, in his life, he deserved to be: a footnote in history. I am sorry he came to so bitter and untimely an end, but he had a chance, more than most people, to make a better account of himself. By contrast, C. S. Lewis' contributions to the human race are both greater and more permanent. Wherever English-speaking people debate the truth of God, wherever classical Christianity is preached with devotion and intelligence, wherever good and evil struggle against one another, there Lewis' ideas, apologies, and insights will be remembered. If the 22nd of November is to be an important anniversary for us, let it memorialize this wonderful man whose life and words have touched so many for good.
As some of my readers never tire, seemingly, of pointing out, my prognostication last summer of this month's presidential election was somewhat wide of the mark. In predicting the election of Bob Dole ("slam-dunk", I believe, was the ill- advised term I used), I did not count on the huge masses of people with a will to be swindled. In point of fact, my crystal ball was on the fritz at the time, and I was having to do this entirely out of my head. These things happen.
One writer I read recently made the point that Bob Dole gave up his moral authority, and hence, lost the presidency, when he failed to criticize his opponent's character flaws. I think that there may be something to that. If one cannot strongly make the case for replacing an office-holder, one can hardly expect the electorate to see the reasons for themselves. More to the point, the Presidency is, like it or not, a position of moral leadership; if Dole could not bring himself to criticize his opponent's morals, he lacks the capacity to lead.
As to the re-election of that nefarious mountebank, Bill Clinton, and his egregious wife, to the CoPresidency of these Suffering States, the news has me stirred, but not shaken.
In celebration of C. S. Lewis's Day, I offer a handful of my favorite of his quotations:
Men (and still more, boys) like to call themselves disillusioned because the very form of the word suggests that they had the illusions and emerged from them -- have tried both worlds. The claim, however, is false in nine cases out of ten. The world is full of imposters who claim to be disenchanted and are really unenchanted -- mere "natural" men who have never risen so high as to be in danger of the generous illusions they claim to have escaped from."
... Rehabilitations
Take care: it is so easy to break eggs without making omelettes.
The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There's not one of them which won't make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it isn't. If you leave out justice, you'll find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity", and become in the end a treacherous man.
... The Case for Christianity
I fully embrace the maxim that "all power corrupts". I would go further. The loftier the pretensions of the power, the more meddlesome, inhuman, and oppressive it will be. Theocracy is the worst of all possible governments. All political power is at best a necessary evil; but it is least evil when its sanctions are most modest and commonplace, when it claims to be no more than to be useful or convenient and sets itself strictly limited objectives. Anything transcendental or spiritual, or even anything very strongly ethical, in its pretensions is dangerous and encourages it to meddle with our private lives.
... "Lillies that Fester"
All contents © Copyright 1995, 1996 by Redmon Barbry ¶ 12:50 PM
