Cormac McCarthy's Secular Apocalypse

Andy Tuck, who currently heads up the University of Michigan's Philosophy Club, recently wrote a review of Cormac McCarthy's The Road for one of his classes; I thought it worthy of being read by others who are interested in how literature of the apocalypse reveals something about our views of the world.

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Morality and the Secular Apocalypse in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

The apocalypse as described in various religious traditions tends to reassert the sovereignty of the gods over the realm of morality. In the Christian tradition, for example, the second coming of Christ, in a final disambiguation of who is good and who is evil, will bring perfect justice to a fallen humanity. In the Oresteia, a long string of violence and death results in Athena setting a divine standard for human justice.  

In non-religious apocalyptic literature such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, though, an entirely separate strand of thought is observed: the apocalypse, rather than bringing justice into a world incapable of saving itself, undoes any preexisting order and morality and plunges the world into chaos.

In the post-apocalyptic world of The Road, any hints of human goodness are vestiges of the old world. Every item that alleviates human suffering, from a first-aid kit salvaged from a ship to a bottle of Coca Cola stripped from a dilapidated vending machine, is an artifact of the past. Since these things are the products of civilization, when the apocalypse ends civilization, human suffering resumes. The protagonists of The Road, a father and his son, spend most of their time rummaging through destroyed buildings and vehicles for anything from the old world. Virtually all food and tools they use are remnants civilization; they are completely dependent on the scraps of the pre-apocalyptic world for the necessities of survival.

This stands in contrast with the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic tradition, where the good are granted eternal paradise after the apocalypse, which undoes an unjust and fallen world. In The Road, the pre-apocalyptic world is not described as perfect (it was, after all, the same world that executed the nuclear war that turned the earth into the desolate wasteland portrayed in the novel), but as everything the father and son need to live comes from that time, civilization is inevitably and inherently characterized as being the solution to man’s suffering, rather than the cause of it.

Another item that especially reasserts the goodness of the pre-apocalyptic world is the pistol owned by the father and son. Even this symbol of death and destruction embodies the virtue of the old world: the only thing that gives the frail man and his young son a chance of surviving in a countryside dotted by bands of roving marauders is the pistol—as the adage goes, “God made man, but Colt made them equal.” The gun enables the weak to defend themselves in a world otherwise governed by strength, and in this sense, the gun becomes and emblem of justice.

Furthermore, in a phrase obviously picked up from his father, the boy repeatedly calls the ownership of the gun “carrying the fire” (83, 129, 278). This Promethean image reminds us that, like man’s discovery of fire, man makes life better for himself through his own devices, independent of (or even in spite of) the gods.

If the remnants of the pre-apocalyptic world repeatedly represent the relative righteousness of that time, then it follows that the post-apocalyptic world should be filled with wickedness. Indeed, this is the case; the depravity of humanity following the apocalypse is shown time and again. Early in the novel, the father is forced to shoot a man who is holding a knife to his boy’s throat (66), and has to “wash a dead man’s brains out of his [son’s] hair” (74). This disturbing image is compounded when they soon after run into a caravan of raiders with a dozen or so female sex slaves and “a supplementary consort of catamites ill-clothed against the cold and fitted in dog collars and yoked each to each” (92).

In this terrible new world, such scenes are common: with the restraints of civilization undone, man’s evil is unleashed, and the strong rule over the weak with utter cruelty. In perhaps the most disturbing scene of the novel, the boy and his father, searching for food, break open a locked cellar in a forgotten house only to discover that it is filled with naked, mutilated, people who cry to him for help (110). We later find out they are being kept alive by marauders for food, like cattle (127). Of course, such circumstances are products of the apocalypse: in the civilized world of the pre-apocalypse, not only was there no allowance of cannibalism, there was also no need for it to begin with.

Civilization was the only thing that prevented such degeneracy, and the apocalypse put an end to it. This stands in stark opposition to religious views of the apocalypse, where violence and injustice are human inventions and only undone through divine intervention. God and divinity is mentioned in The Road, but rarely positively. Early in the novel, the father wakes up and curses God, saying “Are you there? Will I see you at least? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally, have you a soul?” (11-12). The man is portrayed as agnostic throughout the novel, so he is likely just being rhetorical, yet this outcry does portray God as being unsympathetic and aloof in the wake of the apocalypse.

Any sympathetic mention of God describes him as an invention of civilization; he is good not because he is holy, just, or sovereign, but because he is product of human goodness. At the end of the novel, the father dies and the young boy is rescued by a small group of refugees—the first sympathetic characters in the novel besides the father and son. Among the refugees is a kind and motherly woman who takes care of the boy and “talks to him sometimes about God” (286). The boy prefers to pray to his father, and the woman says it’s okay, and that “the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time.”

The woman, the first the boy meets in the post-apocalyptic world, is incredibly tender with him, and becomes a symbol of religion. Furthermore, by asserting the existence of a higher power, and therefore an outside source of morality, she opposes the unruly disorder and chaos of the marauders, whose highest value is strength. God is good here because he represents the order, morality, and love embodied by the woman; the positive qualities she ascribes to God are less a positive affirmation of his character than they are a positive affirmation of her own.

The apocalypse in secular literature such as The Road is not merely different from the apocalypse in the religious tradition; it is the perfect inverse of it. In the Oresteia and in Christian theology, mankind is flawed and, left to his own devices, will only increase his own suffering; human civilization is evil, because humans are evil.

But in The Road, human civilization is our only hope for lifting us out of our primal state of nature. Rather than ending human immorality in a nuclear reenactment of Sodom and Gomorrah, the apocalypse undoes our only chance at managing it. In the secular apocalypse, humanity is both responsible for and capable of his own redemption. The religious and secular views of the apocalypse, then, do not just differ in the details: they present two fundamentally different theories of human nature.

Hitting Us At Our Weakest

I suppose I shouldn't be, but I am continually amazed by the conclusions our society reaches about human life. Exhibit #1: Recently, Peter Singer's blatant call for the legalization of infanticide has regained popular traction after the idea of after-birth abortion became mainstreamed. Here is the core argument:

[W]hen circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible. … [W]e propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide,’ to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus … rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk...merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.” 

There has been some criticism within the media, but it's been a cautious criticism:  most people don't like the idea at all, but as it pushes them to the logical conclusions of their ethics, they start to stumble a bit. The author of the article above, after saying he believes something changes when the baby is born and achieves autonomy, adds, "But I also think that the value of the unborn human increases throughout its development..."  That's a tough position to defend. Perhaps that explains why the article concludes with some questions for other pro-choice hard-liners, questions which the author carefully avoids answering.

Exhibit #2: When the New York Times wrote a feature on babies with Down's Syndrome, they certainly did not choose a neutral tone:

"A growing group of parents is seeking to insert their own positive perspectives into a decision often dominated by daunting medical statistics and doctors who feel obligated to describe the difficulties of life with a disabled child." "The parent evangelists are driven by a deep-seated fear for their children’s well-being in a world where there are fewer people like them. But as prenatal tests become available for a range of other perceived genetic imperfections, they may also be heralding a broader cultural skirmish over where to draw the line between preventing disability and accepting human diversity." 

The idea that the handicapped children have value and worth is a "perspective"; their parents are actually zealots motivated by fear. Later, the NYT finally managed to give at least one sentence to the more serious question underlying the debate: 

"Many participants in the ad-hoc movement describe themselves as pro-choice. Yet some see themselves as society’s first line of defense against a use of genetic technology that can border on eugenics."

 That's how they see themselves, anyway. The NYT promptly followed that up with a paragraph about the selfishness of the parents, but the underlying questions of ethics and eugenics had been cautiously raised. 

Jonathan Cahn's "Harbinger": Deconstructing Isaiah

Jonathan Cahn's The Harbinger is currently #54 on amazon.com (#1 in Religion/Mystery and #2 in Religion/Fiction).  If you have not read it, think of The Bible Code or  The Da Vinci Code without any cool Hebrew language grids, chase scenes or exotic locations.
   
The narrator meets a mysterious guy who walks him through “harbingers,’ impending signs of doom based on two previously under-appreciated verses in Isaiah.  Harbinger's classification as "fiction" is apparently a nod to the style, not the seriousness with which the subject matter is presented or taken. 

 
I'll tell you up front:  I think the book has some serious flaws in its reasoning.  Before I explain why, let me point out the things I liked.
 
The warnings about the pride and arrogance in America, as well as the condemnation of our false gods of wealth and ease, are certainly timely. Cotton Mather once noted that  “Religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.” The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose.

  
I appreciate Mr. Cahn's concern for the spiritual well-being of our nation.  I don’t know him;  he seems to love God mightily, and he apparently wrote this book from a sincere desire to warn America about the dangers of its chosen path.
   
At the end of the book he provides a thorough explanation of the importance of accepting and following Christ.  Considering the astonishing breadth of his audience, he is in a unique position to present the hope of the gospel to many. 

 
My following comments have nothing to do with the author’s character, heart, or presentation of Christ.  I suspect that if Mr. Cahn and I sat down for lunch, we would have far more in common than not. I'm glad we are on the same team. My comments have to do with the manner in which the book leads readers toward particular conclusions. I am worried that its questionable presuppositions and unusual analysis of Scripture set a precedent that may have detrimental fallout.

FOUNDATIONAL FLAWS

The conclusions of the book work only if the foundational assumptions are true. Here are some of the core claims Harbinger presents without a defense:

• America is Israel
• America made a covenant with God like Israel did
• The passages in the Old Testament specifically directed toward a specific group of people at a specific place and time are also for us
• Actual Middle Eastern trees are meant to be associated with similar iconic North American trees
• The Founding Fathers were somehow like the Patriarchs of Scripture
• A private dream can carry as much clout as the Bible
• Everyone in the world is ordered to observe Jewish Years of Jubilee 
• Politicians are prophets unaware, similar to writers of Scripture
• Defiance against terrorism is the same thing as defiance against God
• The collapse of Wall Street is iconically the same as a "breech in the walls" in Old Testament cities
• Washington, DC is Samaria
• The collapse of the global economy was determined 3,000 years ago 
• When the #7 shows up, something spiritual is happening
• There are "invisible" messages in Isaiah 9:10
• The damning “testimony of two or three witnesses” in Scripture refers to the Vice-President, the President, and the Senate Majority leader all saying that America will rebuild 
• People can speak prophetic curses on entire nations unintentionally
• Obama pronounced judgment on America while genuinely trying to give an inspiring speech  
• Because of presidential speeches, the harbingers had to happen
• The narrator in the book - who I assume is meant to be speaking for Jonathan Cahn - is “the son of God’s light, the declarer” because those words were written on a piece of paper in a vision

If all those previous claims are true, then the book’s conclusions would follow logically.  But assuming they are true and showing they are true are very different things indeed. Mr. Cahn rarely makes the case for them; he simply states them and moves on to conclusions based on these unsubstantiated claims. Perhaps he has published other material in which he explains why he believes these things to be true, but this book gives me no reason to agree with him.

Deeper Hungers and Darker Games

 I'm a big fan of honesty in fiction. 

 I don't want cookie-cutter personalities, saccharine love, or shallow stereotypes.  I want the author to convince me to cheer for heroes and against villains - and I want to know why the heroes and villains are worthy of the label.  I want grit and beauty, despair and hope, love and loss. If a story tells me what the world is like, I don't mind if it’s happy or grim.  I want actions to have real consequences, and I want to feel like I ought to feel if the same situation were happening in real life.
   
I want to believe that some things are worth fighting for and some things are not, and I want to be reminded that people can be redeemed though not all will be.

This is why I like The Hunger Games series. There have been some really good posts about these books (Holly Ordway's comes to mind, as does J.W Wartick's); since I would be both redundant and boring if I covered the same ground, I will address an issue I have not heard discussed much elsewhere.

 The Hunger Games is entirely a world without God.

Suzanne Collins does not give even the slightest nod to God or religion. As a result, she has done a stellar job introducing a YA audience to a dystopian, godless future that reveals the horrors of unbridled human nature.  As a Christian, I don't mind that God is absent from the story.  If an author is going to write about a world without God, then show a world without God.  I just want the story to be honest about how awful that world would be - and it is.

•   There is no Higher Power to give objective standard for justice. Neitzsche said that when everybody understands that God is dead, they will know they are beyond such petty labels as "good" and "evil" and will simply exercise power.  In The Hunger Games, what happens when one corrupt regime is replaced?  The next regime moves in with the seeds of corruption already sown. The State kills people without benefit of trial or proof; so does President Snow.  So do the rebels.  Gale might just be the ideal Neitzschean Superman, finally able to move beyond attachments and emotions and wield his power on behalf of a regime that is new, but not that different.

•   There is no Higher Standard for morality.  Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote: “If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner.”  Neil Postman noted, "Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."  Collins’ world without God captures both these possibilities. Those in the Capital who are not abusing or being abused by power are consumed with ease and pleasure.  The rebels “fight the system,” but what can they offer to replace it?  They are already intoxicated with the power they have. The distorted pleasure will follow, as we see foreshadowed in the agreement to have yet another Game.  

• There is no Source of Hope outside ourselves.  Where does one find hope in the midst of the brutality and pain?  The only thing the book offers is relationships with others.  While I believe in the meaningfulness of community and companionship, that is the only hope in the story. Justice is either brutal, corrupted, or vigilante, and no ultimate justice will one day make things right.  There are no miracles, no unblemished saviors, no trustworthy authority figures.  There is only others - and even the hope found in them is broken. (The last chapter in the series is simultaneously hopeful and tragic - a measure of peace has been found, but it's a broken hallelujah). 

•  There is no Purpose to history.  In Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited, White, the nihilistic atheist, says: “The darker picture is always the correct one. When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different.” What will happen in Katniss’s world?  No way to tell, really, but White appears to be correct.  If there were a Book Four, I suspect we would see the new government looking more and more like the old regime.  Even the best of the rebels seemed to lose their soul by the time the revolution was complete.  The Mockingjay can only repeat what it knows; just like the iconic bird, the individual characters appear to be only echoes of the people and events that have formed them.  Why should governments be exempt?

This list might leave the impression the series is not worth reading, but that is not the case at all. The series has a lot to offer in a world awash in worldview battles. Collins did not shy away from the reality of the world she created. There were no false moments.  If one can learn truth equally well through a story that shows compelling good as well as disgusting evil, The Hunger Games has done a lot in the service of truth, even if the story is disturbing and grim.
 

 Contrast this approach with another recent YA phenomenon: Twilight. The series is full of bizarre distortions of reality - it never does the story, the characters or the reader the honor of allowing something real to happen.
 
Young, impressionable teenage girls absorb the message that putting all one’s self-worth in one boy is okay; that stalking is romantic; that ordinary, boring friends are losers; that a love triangle involving a teenage girl and two really dangerous men (one who is much older than she) is really cool; and that rough sex is okay if he loves you (you only bruise the ones you love!) No, thank you.  I am not entertained.

Let's not kid ourselves; today’s youth know that life is grim. They already know that parents die, friends can turn on them, power can corrupt, and even the best relationships are full of tension and pain.  For many, life looks so overwhelming at times that the only thing they can do is hide for a while and wonder how they can possibly be made whole.  Maybe they are drawn to this story because it does them the honor of giving them truth.

I'd much rather they read a story that takes life seriously than one that insults them with beautiful twilight lies. At least now we are in the realm of truth, and the truth of Christ has the ability to bring hope, life, and light into very dark lives indeed.

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Recommended Reviews of The Hunger Games:
Christian Reflection on the Hunger Games Trilogy - very thorough post from J.W. Wartick
The Hunger Games, Ethics and Christianity - another post about the role of luck
Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy - good overview and perspective of the series as literature
Blood-Stained Ink has a three-part series worth reading
From Emily Torres' Dystopia Ministries - a series of short articles on how our culture is intersecting with the Capital.
A series based on The Hunger Games and Philosophy begins here.

Logic and the Art of Reason Rallies

I teach an introductory logic class to high school students.  Each year, I have to explain to  a new group of students the difference between a valid argument and a sound argument.  

   
 A valid argument is on in which the conclusion must follow necessarily from the premises because the argument is framed correctly.  For the sake of determining validity, we grant conditional truth to the premises.  The goal in determining validity is not to decide if the argument is true, but only if it is valid. 

     
A really strong argument needs truth in order to be sound in addition to being valid.  My students can construct the best logical fortress in the world, but if their premises are not true, the argument collapses.

Arguments need to be valid and sound.

     
As I write this, the Reason Rally is in full swing unless the weather has hindered their plans. As the rally has raised the bar pretty high by claiming what appears to be exclusive rights to reasonableness,  I have been looking for thoughts from their leading lights that display valid thinking based on truthful premises.  I must admit, I am having a hard time with the material available.

EXHIBIT A

     From P.Z. Meyer, who is upset that Christians would like to participate in reason too:  

“Goddamned annoying evangelical Christians. I’m beginning to feel like my long-standing personal policy of not intruding on their church services needs to be questioned, because man, is this ever arrogant and obnoxious…."  His advice?  "Calmly and politely take their rubbish arguments apart with much soft-spoken malice and cruelty… I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This gathering will certainly attract swarms of mindless parasites."

 My argument with P.Z. Meyer is not that his thinking is invalid; my argument is that his thinking is not sound.  Even if Christians are damned by a God he does not believe in, and are in fact annoying, arrogant, obnoxious, mindless parasites, it does not follow that their arguments for God are either invalid or unsound and deserve to be taken apart with malice and cruelty.  I have heard plenty of adjectives attached to the stars of  Jersey Shore, but if any of them say  2+2 =4, I wouldn't pick the claim apart with malice and cruelty. Neither soundness nor validity hinges on likability. 

So, let's grant that Christians can really be lousy people. Does that matter?  Surely P.Z. Meyer is aware that top notch Christian philosophers present perfectly valid arguments for God’s existence - and some of the people are even nice, if that helps.  In his post he links to a website offering Christian literature to the Reason Rally as well as a list of names of the authors who contributed. Here is the partial bio of just one of the authors, William Lane Craig:  

Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology...dual M.A.s from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham (England), and a D.Theol. from the University of Munich... taught Philosophy of Religion at Trinity... moved to Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain.  

I get that Meyer doesn't agree with Craig, but calling him a mindless parasite with rubbish arguments is hardly the kind of language by which glowing homilies to reason are constructed.  Not a great publicity post for a Reason Rally. 

EXHIBIT B

According to Yahoo News: “And while there are plenty of critics of atheism, CNN reports the only group to have officially registered for a competing spot of land to protest the rally is the Westboro Baptist Church, a group infamous for its picketing of funerals of American servicemen and servicewomen.”

CNN and Yahoo News got this story wrong by leaving out a crucial detail:  The Reason Rally invited WBC.  That’s right, in spite of being contacted by Christian philosophers and apologists who asked to be part of a reasoned discussion, the Reason Rally went out of its way to reject those overtures and pursue the most inflammatory, irrational Christian group they could find. They are inviting the weakest possible opponent to showcase the strength of reason.  Odd...  

This pursuit of the easy target is not out of line with past approaches by those connected with the Reason Rally.  Bill Maher, one of the featured guests at the rally, made a movie called Religulous which featured predominantly really unfair representations of genuine Christianity. If his film was all we had to go on, I suppose his conclusion might have been valid:

"The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people - by irrationalists - by those who would steer the ship of state, not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken." 

That's a very thoughtful analysis.  Wait - no, it's not. That film did absolutely no justice to the breadth and depth of Christian history and philosophy. I simply cannot find a way to make a purported celebration of Reason coexist with the decision to invite WBC and speakers whose analysis of faith is far more visceral than rational.  

EXHIBIT C

 Richard Dawkins is the headliner for the rally.  In an interview with PBS Dawkins stated,

“Even if you are in some sense a determinist -- and philosophically speaking many of us may be -- that doesn't mean we have to behave as if we are determinists, because the world is so complicated, and especially human brains are so complicated, that we behave as if we are not deterministic, and we feel as if we are not deterministic -- and that's all that matters.”

So we are determined, but we don’t have to behave as if we are, which sounds like we aren't (?) Even while we deceive ourselves into thinking we are free – but wait, I can’t choose to deceive myself, because that’s determined, I guess – we can comfort ourselves with the idea that we at least feel free, and apparently that Noble Lie is all that matters.  

(To read more about Dawkins, follow this link to read about an event in 2008 in which he tried very hard to walk carefully through the ethical maze of vegetarianism, alas to no avail.)

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My point is not to contrast irrational atheism with rational faith.  There are plenty of irrational people of faith, unfortunately, which is one reason I teach a logic class at a Christian school.  I merely intend to point out that no one owns the domain of rationality.  We can all be involved whether we claim faith or not.

Perhaps we could cover much more ground if we could agree that people from a huge range of worldviews have the ability to think rationally.  At the most basic level of reasonable discourse, we ask if the reasoning of an argument is valid.  

If the answer is "yes" - if conclusions logically follow from premises -  perhaps the debate can move more quickly to the soundness of the different premises contained in worldview systems.  If all parties are brave enough to look at themselves and their arguments honestly - and the ways in which they think - then we have nothing to fear from a pursuit of the truth.

Frontiers and Tumbleweeds

There's always gonna be another mountain

I'm always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be a uphill battle

Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there

Ain't about what's waiting on the other side

It's the climb. 

- Miley Cyrus, "The Climb"

When I played this song to my class at school, all the kids knew it. Half of them hated it, but they could still sing the lyrics with a catchy sarcasm.  No matter their opinion of Miley, there is something about finding every moment of life meaningful that captures the imagination. I suspect that in a world of broken homes and damaged lives, the idea that even the most daunting climb matters resonates as well.
 
As compelling as the message may sound, there is a better and deeper perspective. Every journey has a destination; that much is true.  We will all arrive somewhere, and unless we want to be terribly disappointed we should probably know where we want to end up.  The journey is important, but the destination matters too.

"Something of this longing for what is not here, this joy of the pilgrimage, has set deep roots in the soul of Western man.  But it has become detached from an end to the pilgrimage. We thus lose a sense of home, both the eternal and the temporal. So we seek new frontiers to discover and to master, but without any point beyond the assertion of mastery.  We praise ourselves for our mobility, meaning that we can move, without noticing that without any sense of ultimate meaning, without any Person to whom we grant ultimate allegiance even in the smallest acts of our everyday lives, me must move.  We are under compulsion of perpetual mobility precisely because, without God, to settle means to acknowledge defeat, and to rest means to die within...

We change towns, we change schools, we change houses, we change husbands and wives, we change churches, we change faiths.  We go off into the distance, and we set at at a distance those nearby things we still pretend to cherish, as, for instance, our children.  We look down upon women who 'stay home,' thinking of them rather as creatures who are stuck in mud.  We almost treat as pious heroes those who are determined to leave their homes and never return, yet who still claim some tenuous and sentimental attachment to what they have abandoned.

It is doubtful whether, without steadfastness, without devotion to this place, this work, this spouse, this land, we can enjoy even a decent human life.  A tumbleweed is not only rootless.  It is directionless.  It is blown about by the chance of the wind, quitting here, divorcing there, forgetting here, abandoning there.  In following our own purposes, regardless of the claims of steadfastness upon us, we lose our purpose, and turn with every turn of the fickle heart."

 - Anthony Esolen, "God's Place & Ours," in Touchstone

The Zombie Thread: Extinction Event Ethics

    I am a fan of The Walking Dead (the series, not the comic).  I don't care for the gore, but it's not really the heart of the show. The writers are using extinction event drama as a sobering backdrop for a serious tour de force through an pockmarked ethical landscape.

    After last week's episode of The Walking Dead, Karl Meszaros (a friend and a comic book genius extraordinaire) started an email discussion about this show with Scott Smith and I.  Karl reads the comics; Scott and I watch the show. What follows is a discussion covering worldviews, ethics and morality, parenting, the Iraq war, and the Kardashians.  I hope at least some of it is insightful. If you like this topic, feel free to keep the thread going in the comments section.
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 Karl Meszaros: Tell me what you think of this - http://tv.ign.com/articles/121/1219955p1.html

Scott Smith: Couldn't agree more.

AW: I don't agree with all of the article.  They were going to execute a man; Dale should have been the gadfly he was.  He was the only voice on that side of the argument - and he was right.
     I thought the vote, the almost execution, and the decision to imprison were awkward plotting. No way was Rick going to be willing to execute somebody that quickly.  The show should have given a couple more episodes to Rick becoming hardened, or desperate to keep his wife and put Shane in his place.

SS: I don't think it was that clear cut an issue. Not that executions should be such an easy option, but saving a bad guy without any consideration of the consequences is equally idiotic. If they really wanted to do this issue justice, it could have been handled much better by actually presenting  arguments. Like the article said - go straight into group discussion rather than all this junior high nonsense.
     What drives me nuts is that many of these issues are their own creation. This wouldn't be an issue if Rick wasn't so indecisive and weak.

KM: Just remember, this is comic book show.  One of the main rules in comics is “heroes don’t kill.”  Rick is the hero.  Shane is the villain.

SS: That's good to keep in mind (even though it's a silly rule - and one Rick has already broken). Do you think they intend us to see Shane as the villain?

KM: Shane is definitely the villain.  That’s why they had him sleep with Ricks wife.  This is a comic written for guys as seen from Ricks point of view.  Sleeping with the wife is a no-no.

SS: Yeah. He's definitely a bad guy in that sense. Most senses, actually. I asked because even though I think he's immoral and an idiot and I'm ready for a walker to take him, I don't see him as evil. I agree with him more often than I do Rick, but for different reasons.

AW: Shane is the ultimate Darwinian pragmatist. Dale called out his "survival of the fittest" life on the last episode. Rick is a good representation of a genuinely good man who finds himself mired in no-win moral dilemmas.  He may be indecisive, but it's because he recognizes what is really at stake more than the rest of them.

SS: True, but there is a place for some pragmatism, don't you think? Rick would have continued the search for Sophia forever, no matter how many people died or were injured in the process, even after all hope was gone. And then, he refuses to deal with Shane who is probably a bigger threat to the group than the walkers are.
     I think he is more level-headed than the rest, but I think that even a shred of imagined hope distracts him from reality and often paralyzes him from making proper decisions.

AW: In contrast to the rest, who have abandoned hope, refusing to see it even when it is there.We are seeing a downward spiral of all the characters who are willing to give up on people or devalue individual human life.  Shane kills a dude to get away, and he is now spiraling out of control.  Rick's son has lost perspective, and now he's taunting walkers.  The psycho redneck is a loose cannon.  It's the ones who refuse to give up on the living who maintain their humanity. The rest are becoming monsters.

SS: I actually like Daryl. He is a bit of a loose cannon, but look at his progress. When you see his backstory, I think this process in actually civilizing him. His erratic behavior is because he is having a hard time learning how to act in a group since he essentially raised himself.
    Carl is broken because he isn't being parented by anyone and his mother is insane. I don't think Lori or Shane are spiraling. I think they were rotten people to begin with, and the current circumstances are merely allowing that to shine.
    The show has been focusing on the nutjobs recently. We haven't seen much from Maggie, T-Dog, Glenn, Carol, or Herschel. They are all relatively stable people. I think the show just focuses on the grease fires lately rather than ensemble issues like it did earlier on.
    Prediction: If what Randall said about the other group is actually true, I predict that Duane is among them. That will make for some more conflict for Daryl.

Good Christians and GCB

If ABC aired a show called "Good Muslim Bi*****," what do you think would happen? If history is any indication,  this, this, this, this, and this.  What about a show called "Good Scientologist Bi*****"? Or "Good Jewish/Buddhist/Hindi/ Neo-Pagan/Girl Scouts/Knights of Columbus Bi*****"? Any guesses on the fallout?

We'll never know, of course, because ABC would never air shows with these titles. (In ABC's "defense," they very cleverly dropped the book's original title and renamed the show "Good Christian Belles" before settling for the oh-so-compelling "GBC"). These alternate shows I listed would get neither sponsors nor airtime; if they did they would not get glowing reviews from Hollywood Life. 

In fact, of all the reviews I read, very few reviewers were upset by the casual, almost indifferent obnoxious of the show.  The greatest crime was lack of compelling characters, the waste of good talent, or the tragedy of not having a show that would pick up the "Desperate Housewives" torch.  The distortion of ordinary Christian life was not a problem that even made the radar in any review I read - and I read a bunch.


I'm not actually very upset about this show.  It's no secret that Hollywood and religion are uneasy bedfellows. Most entertainment does not understand faith, let alone take it seriously enough to embed it realistically into the ordinary lives of characters and stories. I don't count on Hollywood to invigorate me spiritually. I long ago lowered the bar so far that I am pleasantly surprised when I find a show or a movie that takes religion seriously - and there are at least a few (and I don't mean Left Behind).

On the other hand, I have talked to enough people to know that the Christian stereotypes captured by entertainment have an impact. It hard to have a productive conversation with people whose best analysis of the faith comes from Dogma or Easy A - and now this.

Here's the thing: we don't worship the Bible. We don't worship the church. We don't worship morality.  We worship Christ, and even when He is insulted, we eventually relax because we believe truth will win in the end. Christians will not resort to bombing as we respond to the belittling and mischaracterization of our faith. I grow weary of the constant reference to Christian terrorists (“Radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam”) and Christian Sharia law.  The Bible could not be more plain: our biggest conflicts are not physical, but spiritual (see here for Jesus' words; here for Paul's).

The battle lines are drawn in our souls, not in our streets.  Jesus made it clear that I am to think of those with whom I disagree as my neighbors, not my enemies.  We all bear His image, even if we go out of our way to diminish or distort it.

ABC is welcome to air its adaptation of Good Christian B****.  We who are seeking to represent Christ in the world should see this as an opportunity to prove ABC wrong.  If we can't, the problem is ours, not theirs.