| - From the fact that I am posting twice in one day you may gather that I, for once, have something to say. Brace yourselves.
This is a result of the copious amounts of free time I have had recently, which I, out of habit, fill by watching FoxNews instead of doing more profitable things like reading people who matter. NONETHELESS, I did use to care about politics and a few things recently have made this History-major-convert very angry.
1. Last week I went and saw Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven with one of my friends from home. Now, I am not a medievalist (yet?), so for correction on the movie's multitudinous historical inaccuracies, I refer you to either Dr. Moye (if you have the guts) or Thomas F. Madden's article, Onward PC Soldiers, this week on NRO. (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/madden200505270751.asp) Quite notably, however, Sir Barisan of Ibelin (his name was not Godfrey- Scott is a couple of centuries too early...) died at least thirty years before the date Scott canonizes him in the film. Regardless, even if Scott had gotten his dates correct, the movie amounted to a two-hour-long anachronism.
Hollywood is inaccurate, you say. I understand. And we all know Crusade history is difficult anyway. HOWEVER, his point flies in the face of almost anything that has ever been called good or virtuous, not to mention Western: conviction of anything but opposition to conviction amounts to fanaticism.
Just one example: The Knights Templar are presented as naive for believing that they fight for a [C?]cause greater than themselves. Beyond the naive veil of their conviction, Scott argued, (whoa I have written way too many historiography/seminar papers recently) the Templars were merely bloodthirsty hounds who couldn't defend or fulfill their own convictions. (Caveat: yeah, the conviction is a hard one to fulfill, no? But still... and NB: This reeks of DaVinci Code...dude, pick on your own medieval chivalric order.)
News for Scott: conviction does not mean fanaticism. In fact, fanaticism is a betrayal of most convictions. Pietas and fatum go right along with temperance and justice. And today is Memorial Day. Not that he cares, but where would we be without the convictions of those like the 17-year-old Martin Treptow? Now I also realize that Athens and Rome are not Jerusalem. But, Mr. Tertullian, they cannot be completely separated, either. To paraphrase someone a lot wiser than me, the blood of the martyrs cries up from the ground, yes, "Fight the good fight!" but also "Turn the other cheek!" And, as our trusty Reader tells us, Religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government. (HST 104 name-that-quote round 2!) So said the Founders- conviction is good; persecution, bad. Ditto Lacy.
Maybe the problem isn't conviction, but human beings.
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2. This ties in nicely to my second tirade: Memorial Day.
[The Constitution and God? The Deism of the Founders? Whatever.]
I saw someone on CNN complaining about Scriptural references during the Memorial services at Arlington. As any good Hillsdale student knows, the phrase separation of church and state was the invention of Thomas Jefferson and is found nowhere in the founding documents. So we are left with "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of religion" and 5 (I don't remember Kalthoff quite well enough, am I right?) references to God in the DOI, the crazy-enlightenment document. America is heir to, as we know, Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, and London- it is Western. My most sincere apologies. But still, anyone can come if they want. That doesn't mean we can or should detach ourselves from thousands of years of heritage (what am I talking about- a Scriptural quotation is not oppression- it's good literature, too, for Pete's sake, not even necessarily "heritage"...) because we decide to be modernists. We're nowhere near establishment, last time I checked. And for the record, abstractions, my friends, make strength hideous.
I'm sorry if you read all of this. I've officially lost it. Blame it on the short haircut. |
