So, if we are living after the fact/value split what used to glue facts together with values?
Much of this story is told in Alasdair MacIntyre's seminal book After Virtue. MacIntyre's work is not without its critics, but it's difficult to overstate just how influential After Virtue has been. For my part, After Virtue is at its most powerful and persuasive in its analysis of the Aristotelian and Thomistic virtue traditions, and how we have lost much of that ancient framework. This is relevant for our conversation about how positive psychology handles the virtues, why I called them "zombie virtues."
As I described in the first post, Aristotle called the goal of life eudaimonia, the "good life." Necessary for achieving eudaimonia is arete, "excellences" and "virtues" in living. Virtues for us have a moral connotation, but for the Greeks virtue was as much aesthetic as moral. Living well was like playing an instrument well. Life involved skill. Life was performance. Life was art. Consequently, to achieve the good life you had to be and become a certain kind of person, an "excellent" and "virtuous" person.
The metaphor about playing an instrument is apt because it implies a teleological approach toward life, and this teleological framework is what kept values and facts connected.
Again, as I described in the last post, after the fact/value split we cannot extract value judgments from factual descriptions. But within a teleological framework we can. Specifically, if we know what something is "for"--its telos, purpose, or goal--we can determine through observation if something is "good."
Let's go back to the musical instrument. If I hand you a broken guitar and ask you the question "Is this a good guitar?" your answer would be, "No, it's not. It's broken." Notice how a value judgment--"This is not good"--flows out of an observation about the guitar being broken. A value judgement is flowing from a factual observation. Precisely what I said yesterday could not be done!
So what's the difference? The answer is teleology. If you know what something is for you can determine if something is good.
The ancient world operated within this teleological framework. Aristotelian science was teleological. Everything in the world moved toward its telos, its final goal and ultimate purpose. The telos of an acorn is to become a tree. The telos of a guitar is to play music. And the telos of human life was eudaimonia.
With the advent of the Scientific Revolution science pivoted away from Aristotle. Teleology was replaced by causality. Where teleology looked forward in time toward ultimate goals, causality looked backward in time to trace chains of prior cause and effect. When this shift occurred, the fact/value split was introduced. In denying ultimate goals and purposes, in eschewing teleology, science could no longer say what human life was "for." And without teleology factual descriptions could no longer inform value judgments. The fact/value rift was introduced, along with all the consequences I described in the last post.
This loss of the teleloogical worldview is why Alasdair MacIntyre describes the modern world as living "after virtue." The ancient virtue traditions--Greek and Christian, along with all the other ancient virtue traditions--presumed teleology. Human life had a telos, and that telos allowed us to determine if we were living well or not. Living excellently, virtuously, skillfully, and artfully was moving toward our telos. Fail to move toward that telos and your life was impoverished, even broken, like a busted guitar.
Today, without a teleological vision of life, we lack the capacity to ask and answer questions about the quality of our lives. Am I living well? Who can say? If I don't know what life is for how can I make a value judgment? My life might be a guitar or it might be shovel. So if you see me in the backyard trying to dig a hole with my guitar, who are you to tap me on the shoulder to say I'm misusing my life? If you can't say what my life is for you can't make evaluative judgments about how I'm using or misusing my life. We're living after virtue, after the fact/value split, after teleology.
And this, finally, is why I called the virtues of positive psychology "zombie virtues." As an empirical science positive psychology is committed to the fact/value split. That is to say, positive psychology, as a descriptive project, cannot speak to normative values. Phrased differently, positive psychology is silent when it comes to teleology. Positive psychology cannot tell you what life is for, if anything. And yet, positive psychology presumes to grab ahold of the virtues from the ancient virtue traditions and import them into modern therapeutic contexts. But the virtues, as we have seen, are teleological. Virtues are directed toward a telos. Positive psychology is attempting to transplant teleological plants in non-teleological soil. Positive psychology is preaching virtue in a world living after virtue.
This is why I've described the virtues of positive psychology as "zombie virtues." Positive psychology has grabbed ahold of the virtues but jettisoned their teleological context, the purposes that animated them and gave them life. Without teleology, the virtues become zombies, lifeless and directionless.
In the next two posts, I'll describe what some of this looks like close up.
In the last post I described the virtues of positive psychology as "zombie virtues," virtues that have been torn from the metaphysical matrix that animated them and gave them life. This, as I argue in The Shape of Joy, is an example of how positive psychology, due to its commitment to the fact/value split, routinely fails to give a full and comprehensive account of human flourishing.
Now, some readers might be able to connect all these dots, but if not I'm going to take a few posts to make this story plain.
To start, what do we mean by "the fact/value split"?
You might not know this, but the fact/value split sits behind so many of our modern debates and troubles, from our post-Christian crisis of meaning to the relationship between faith and science to the role of religion in the public sphere. Let me put it this way: the fact/value split is the undiagnosed infection causing our societal fever.
In short, if you want to have a clue you need to know about this.
At its most basic, the fact/value split argues that facts and values represent distinct sorts of claims. On the one hand are factual claims, claims governed by scientific observation and empirical methods. On the other hand are value claims, claims about ethical norms, right versus wrong, and transcendental values related to the true, the beautiful, and the good.
Critical to the fact/value distinction is the grounding of these claims. Factual claims are objective, empirical, and public. Value claims, by contrast, are subjective and private. That is to say, "water boils at 100 degrees" is something that can be adjudicated through shared observation. By contrast, "you should not have sex before marriage," as a value judgment, lacks public consensus. Nor is there an empirical test we can conduct to bring this value into public view. Thus, value judgments can only be grounded in personal opinion and private conviction.
Broadly speaking, the Enlightenment gave birth to the fact/value split. On the political side, it was argued that since the state could not get the public to agree upon issues of religion, due to the religious fracturing of the Protestant Reformation, it was best to regulate religion to the private sphere. Thus the fact/value split gave birth to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, that the state would not establish (or privilege) a religion. Consequently, the fact/value split sits behind all our debates about the place and role of religion in our civic life. And while I am not fond of the Christian nationalists, they do raise a legitimate question, one asked by political philosophers from many different persuasions: Can a country survive and thrive without values? And if not, who supplies those values? And how do you get a diverse electorate to adopt one set of values over another set of values? Especially when there is no objective criterion to adjudicate between those values?
This goes to another consequence of the fact/value split. An issue I've talked about a lot over the years concerns Hume's Dictum, that you cannot get an ought from an is. That is, you can't get a normative claim from a descriptive claim. Simply put, science can't tell you how to live your life by way of moral obligations and duties. This subjectification of value sits behind many modern problems. For example, the relativization of morality. If there is no objective standard of value, I'm free to decide for myself what is right or wrong. The societal consequences of this relativization is something we regularly worry over and debate.
As one more example, the fact/value split is also implicated in our modern crisis of meaning. As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, a purely factual description of the world bleaches it of value and meaning. The New Atheists reaped the whirlwind on this score. During their heyday the New Atheists pushed a fundamentalist materialism, an ideology sometimes called "scientism." All that existed and was real was the physical, material world. Well, that season of atheistic evangelism didn't age very well. The implications of the fact/value split quickly came into view. Science is devoid of both moral and existential content. Science cannot tell you how to live, or if there is any point or purpose in living. More, science cannot account for the transcendent values, like human dignity, that undergird the morality of liberal humanism, the go-to moral code of the New Atheists. The New Atheists found themselves stuck on the fact side of the fact/value split only to realize that what makes life worth living was the value side. But the worldview the New Atheists preached--scientific materialism--couldn't bridge the fact/value gap, leaving them with a message that was, in the end, ugly and nihilistic.
Stepping back, I hope you can see that the fact/value split is a really huge deal. The fact/value split is, in many ways, the question of our lifetimes. This crack runs through your life and society as a whole. So many problems trace back to the fact/value split, from politics to the culture wars to our mental health crisis. But this raises a question. If the fact/value split is a split then there must have been a time when facts and values were unified. And if that's true, how were they unified?
We'll turn to that part of the story in the next post.
For almost thirty years, positive psychology has devoted empirical attention to studying happiness, well-being, and flourishing. Much of this research has made its way into self-help and wellness culture. Calls to practice gratitude and mindfulness, for example, are ubiquitous. And yet, as I point out in The Shape of Joy, positive psychology is handicapped in how it treats transcendence. Consequently, positive psychology struggles to give a full and comprehensive account of human flourishing.
As I describe in The Shape of Joy, positive psychology has consistently pointed toward transcendence as integral to well-being. Research concerning meaning in life, hope, awe, cosmic gratitude, mattering, and joy are all examples, locations where making contact with a reality larger than yourself enables self-transcendence. But committed as it is to the fact/value split, positive psychology has nothing to say about transcendence, which leaves an integral aspect human flourishing persistently unaccounted for.
To provide a case study of positive psychology's limitations and failures, in this series we'll take a close look at how the movement has handled and mishandled the virtues.
Right at the start of the movement, positive psychology's investigations into the sources of well-being led to a recognition and recovery of the ancient virtue traditions. Aristotle spoke of eudaimonia (literally, eu = "good" + daimonia = "spirit") which is variously translated as "the good life," "happiness," "well-being," "flourishing," and "living well." Critical to achieving eudaimonia was arete, the virtues. If eudaimonia was the target, arete provided the arrows. The key to achieving the good life was cultivating virtues.
Hoping to recover this ancient insight, positive psychology embraced the virtues. One of the first products of the movement was the publication of Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman. Accompanying the book was the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths, which assessed the 24 Character Strengths identified by Peterson and Seligman. These strengths fell under six virtues, cross-culturally culled from Western and Eastern virtue traditions: Wisdom and Knowledge, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence:
From here, positive psychology began to assess and treat the virtues and character strengths in a trait-like and atomistic way. That is, you take a test to identify your signature virtues and strengths. Having identified these signature strengths, you're encouraged to integrate them into daily life. If one of your virtues is Humanity you might invest more in caring for others, like volunteering in your community. If your virtue is Justice you might become more intentional in your workplace in speaking up about inequities. If Wisdom, you might start taking some classes to satisfy your love of learning. And so forth.
Stepping back, this is what virtue looks like hands of positive psychologists, a natural endowment you lean into to cultivate a happier life. This is virtue after the fact/value split. Virtues are tools in a self-help regimen, a means to achieve your best life now.
We are, here, a long, long way from Aristotle and the ancient virtue traditions. In appropriating the virtue traditions positive psychologists have failed to appreciate the worldview that made those traditions coherent. This is, as I describe in The Shape of Joy, a prime example of positive psychology's inability to account for transcendence. The virtue traditions were articulations of a metaphysical worldview that integrated fact and value. By pulling the virtues out of their native metaphysical context, positive psychology has rendered them incoherent. Simply put, the virtues of positive psychology are zombies. Shuffling corpses that have lost touch with the life that once animated them.
Telling the story of how that happened is the object of this series.
“You sons of bitches, we were so close. We were so close!“
After a string of godawful mediocrities and outright turds the likes of which the canon hadn’t seen since the earliest years of the millennium, the opportunity was ripe for Disney to start filling the executive-grade wicker basket with heads and put some people in charge with fresh ideas and real talent.
But noooooooooooo.
Disney pulled the old “take the first three episodes of a scrapped TV show, wash it off and serve it up as a new movie” trick they used to pull in the direct-to-video sequel era and what did you do? Did you laugh? Did you scorn such obvious desperate chicanery? Did you hell!
ONE BILLION AT THE BOX OFFICE. FOR THIS.
We could have had another Renaissance with a bit of luck. Instead, I’m going to be reviewing Frozen 13 when I’m in my nineties. Because obviously the reason Strange World, Rayaand Wish flopped was not that they were poop on a bun, it’s because they were original ideas (kinda). I mean, it’s hard to make the argument that quality was the issue when all it took them to make a billion dollars was to put the number “2” after the title of one of their most popular films.
The future is bleak, and I’m not just saying that because the proliferation of AI slop online means that every time I search for images to use I run the risk of seeing something that will make me want to put my head in a mouse-trap.
If you want to imagine the future, picture pregnant cross-eyed Moana stamping on a human face, forever.
Okay, okay. Let me dial back the vitriol a little.
Is it the worst Disney canon movie?
No.
Are there elements of it at least that I like?
Yes, actually.
Is it kind of impressive that they were able to wrangle three episodes of a TV show into something that looks like a conventional movie structure if you squint in a few short months with panicked execs screaming in their ears like wounded buffalo?
Yeah, honestly.
Does that change the fact that its success is nonetheless a portent of doom worthy of wailing and gnashing of teeth?
No. But there it is.
Anyway, remember the end of Moana where Moana was leading a massive flotilla of her people to discover new islands after centuries of isolation because of Te Ka’s curse?
Well forget all about it. Never happened. Or if it did, they reached those islands and decided to head straight back.
Or maybe everyone except Moana was eaten by ravenous dodos. Anyway, the voyage failed. It achieved nothing.
All of the islanders are back on Motonui and Moana is now exploring other islands with Pua and Hei Hei. Pua, you may remember, is Moana’s pet pig, who was cut from her voyage in the first movie because the creators decided he added nothing. They were correct, and we were all wrong to doubt them.
I’d call him Happy Meal Bait, but since this was planned as a TV show there were no Happy Meal toys for Moana 2. The pig is just there. He’s just THERE.
So I do have to give credit where credit is due. If I hadn’t known that this animation was originally intended for a TV show I would not have been able to guess. It’s not quite as good as Moana but definitely of a canon-worthy standard. Mostly. It’s a little inconsistent. Lighting and water effects are fantastic, human skin sometimes looks a little plasticky, hair is a mixed bag. But overall, yeah. Movie looks really good. If looks were everything, this film would be doing just fine. On an abandoned island Moana finds an old clay pot depicting human figures and excitedly takes it back home to Motonui. We meet some returning characters like Moana’s parents, and some new characters; grumpy old farmer Kele, storyteller and Maui fanficcer (yes, the movie actually calls his work “fanfic”) Moni and Bronze Age quirky STEM girl Loto. Of these three Kele is by far my favourite, simply because in a franchise so youth-obsessed as the modern Disney canon, having an old grumpy character feels like a welcome call-back to Disney’s earlier years and also because I just vibe with this guy.
HE’S LITERALLY ME!!!
We also meet Moana’s new little sister Simea who I do not care for at all.
Don’t look at me like that.
Simea exists in what I have just right now decided to call the “Uncutie Valley”, something so obviously and deliberately designed to be cute that your brain rebels. Sorry Disney, you overplayed your hand. Maybe it was the buck teeth. Maybe it was the eyes or the precocious manner but I just find this character insufferable. Bah, and also humbug. Simea sucks.
“Good for you, Mouse. You show that small child who’s boss.”
Meanwhile the action shifts to Maui, played by Dwayne Johnson, presumably inbetween shoots for the live action Moana and pre-production for Moana 3, because we’re all trapped in this crazy Moanaverse together and there’s no escape. Maui visits a strange shadowy realm where he is taunted by a mysterious figure made of bats and quickly defeated.
“But…my contract! I have a “no-lose” clause!”
Back on Motonui, Chief Tui announces that Moana has been granted the title of “Tautai” or wayfinder. At the ceremony, Moana’s ancestor Tautai Vasa appears to her in a vision.
“Moana. You must go to the Dagobah system.”
Vasa tells her that she must reconnect the people of the ocean by finding Motofetu which was sunk by the god Nalo which separated all the tribes whoah whoah whoah whoah.
Back the fuck up. The tribes were already separated by a god. Remember? This bitch?
And sure, Vasa gives this a cursory acknowledgement by saying “restoring the heart of Ta Fiti was just the beginning” but do you mean to tell me that two separate gods put two separate curses separating the peoples of the ocean? One curse could be considered misfortune. Two smacks of carelessness. And oh my God, Motofetu was “connecting” the tribes? How? How?!
IT’S A FUCKING ISLAND. NOT BEING CONNECTED TO THINGS IS ITS PRINCIPAL CHARACTERISTIC.
You might say it was a necessary waypoint but come on, these are Polynesians!
They looked at the largest expanse of open ocean known to man and said “Nah, I’d win.”
“Wowza, who’s that?!”
“Nobody. It’s just a map. They don’t all have souls.”
And it’s so frustrating! The end of Moana had plenty of places to go. Maybe the defeat of Te Ka could have left a power vacuum to be filled by an even worse threat that could menace the new explorers. But instead we’re basically given a complete reset. All the people are on one island, Moana has to go on a quest to defeat a god and open up the ocean. Again. Maybe this time the bugger will stay open, who can say? Oh, by the way, when was Nalo sinking Motofetu supposed to have happened? It has to have been after the flashback we saw in Moana during “We Know the Way” because Vasa was alive then and we know he drowned trying to reach Motofetu. But if Nalo separated the people before Maui stole the heart of Ta Feti, how did anyone even know he’d done that if they were already seperated by Nalo?
Shoddy world-building, I call it.
Anyway, a comet appears in the sky and, like any good video game protagonist, Moana gathers her party and follows the waypoint marker. Seriously, Moana 2 is the second Disney canon movie after Raya that feels like it has a plot better suited to a video game and, not to sound like a grumpy old man but maybe the scripts for these things would be better if Disney hired writers who watched movies or maybe, I dunno, had read a book at some point.* She convinces Kele, Moni and Loto to go with her along with Hei Hei, Pau and of course Ocean. So, add “character bloat” to the list of similarities with Raya.
Oh, but there is something that Moana 2 has that Raya doesn’t! Songs!
Alright, fair’s fair. Last time this category was less “rock bottom” than “down in the kingdom of the molemen” so let’s be clear: yes, the songs in Moana 2 are better than the ones in Wish. Unfortunately, they are less memorable. This is the Thanks I Get is a lyrical catastrophe but I can at least hum the tune. All of the songs in Moana 2, with the very, very, very slight exception of Get Lost washed over me without leaving so much as a note in my memory. But, they’re not unpleasant. So, yeah, trending positive at least?
Sidenote, this thing has absolutely consumed me and I started imagining if Disney just bought it and animated it in the style of Hunchback of Notre Dameand I’m sick I don’t live in that universe.
Our heroes embark on their journey, following the comet until it explodes in the sky and they cross paths with the Kakamora.
It has been eight years since I told you that in Irish, “Kakamora” means “Large Shits”. This remains true.
The little guy up there, by the way, is Kotu, who is my favourite character in the whole film. He’s the Prince of the Kakamora and is an absolutely adorable little badass. You almost forget he’s a little coconut person because he is so freaking cool. I love him. Anyway the Kakamora are trying to get through a massive clam because they’re trying to get home and it’s in their way.
It’s in their way.
In the ocean.
If only there was some way to avoid going through. If only.
When their raft gets caught in the clam’s wake, Moana grabs a rope trailing from the Kakamora ship and uses it to pick up speed, with Loto exclaiming “she’s using centrifigul force to increase our velocity!”
The Kakamora use poisoned darts to incapacitate the crew but when they realise that Moana is trying to reach Motofetu they decide to help her because they were also separated when Nalo sank it. So, for those keeping track at home, they were one of the things Te Ka was using to separate the humans, while Nalo had already separated them.
Because OBVIOUSLY there is no other way past this obstacle, Moana agrees to help the little coconuts, who reverse the effects of their paralysing darts by having a giant slug slither over Moana and her crew, covering their half-naked bodies with green translucent slime.
Kotu joins the crew, and now I’m invested.
They sail into the clam and incapacitate it with the Kakamora’s neurotoxin and the raft gets swallowed and ends up in a strange spirit realm which just so happens to be where Maui is being held prisoner.
The gang are split up and Moana finds herself face to face with Matangi, Nalo’s enforcer.
And, I’m not gonna lie, guys, my interest was piqued.
Cool design, cool concept (Polynesian vampire god, that’s fucking nifty), great voice performance, introduced with the best song in the whole movie. Within ten seconds of her showing up I was thinking “holy shit, we might actually get a great Disney villain for the first time in twelve years“.
And that really depends on your tolerance for twist villains.
And then! Matangi unveils her devious plan!
Giving Moana some very useful advice and setting her, Maui and her crew free so they can continue on their mission to thwart Nalo. Which she does at heroic risk to her own life.
Excuse me, what?
You know, Disney have queer-baited plenty of times before but I think this is the first time I’ve ever been villain-baited. No wonder the villain community was outraged by this movie and released a statement beginning “FOOLS! WE SHALL DESTROY YOU ALL!”
Ah well, all will be forgiven as long as Nalo is actually an interesting villain and not just a Marvel style light in the sky.
Of fucking course.
Okay, let’s wrap this up. Moana realises that Nalo’s curse will be broken if a human being manages to touch Motofetu. She dives into the ocean and is struck by Nalo’s lightning just as she manages to touch the island. She’s killed but Maui is able to summon Vasa’s Spirit and those of all Moana’s ancestor’s and they restore her to life. And the movie ends with with the people of the ocean free to explore again. Again.
***
Kind of impressive given the constraints it was made under. Visually very nice. Musically unobjectionable.
Harbinger of the fucking apocalypse (yes, I know I’ve been saying that a lot, it’s a big apocalypse).
Animation: 17/20
Not at the level of its predecessor, still probably the peak of the CGI canon era animation-wise, but not too shabby at all given its origin.
Leads: 14/20
Ho boy. Okay, Chloe Auliʻi Cravalho is still excellent in the role but the character has no real arc. Also, the character is now feels so 21st century American in her mannerisms and dialogue that it really detracts from the film’s sense of place.
Villain: 00/20
If you don’t show up to the exam, you don’t get the points. Fair?
Supporting Characters: 09/20
Too damn many, but there are some here that I really do like.
Music: 09/20
The songs are boring and utterly unmemorable, but after Wish that’s kind of a relief in and of itself. It’s the Biden administration of soundtracks.
The Stinger (wait what?)
In his secret lair Nalo (oh! thanks for deigning to show up!) threatens Matangi for her part in his defeat and they are interrupted by Tamatoa who thinks that his being here has something to do with Spider-Man and that they should team up.
And the audience went
Are the actual fucking villains going to be post-credits DLC now?
Hey, what’s Nalo doing?
Nalo is sitting on his chair.
Great. Twenty films of THAT to look forward to, can’t wait.
FINAL SCORE: 49%
NEXT UPDATE:08 May 2025
NEXT TIME: Hey, it’s the live action Peter Pan that everyone forgot about that came out before the live action Peter Pan that everyone forgot about but after the live action Peter Pan that everyone forgot about.
[I]f we see things in existence and do not in the same act see that they are held in existence by God, then equally we are living in a fantastic world, not the real world. Seeing God everywhere and all things upheld by Him is not a matter of sanctity, but of plain sanity, because God is everywhere and all things are upheld by Him. What we do about it may be sanctity; but merely seeing it is sanity. To overlook God's presence is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity, like overlooking anything else that is actually there...
God is not only a fact of religion: He is a fact. Not to see Him is to be wrong about everything, which includes being wrong about one's self...
...We live, indeed, in a vast context of things that are, events that have happened, a goal to which all is moving. That we should mentally see this context is a part of mental health. Just knowing that all things are upheld by God is a first step in knowing what we are, so a clear view of the shape of reality is a first step toward knowing where we are. To know where we are and what we are--that would seem to be the very minimum required by our dignity as human beings.
This is what I believe is at stake with the empty tomb. What is the nature of reality? Get this first and most fundamental question wrong and everything downstream will go off track. Your life will never quite "fit" or "attune" with the cosmos. The melody of your existence will be discordant and off-pitch. You'll be singing the wrong song. Your life will never quite "work." Much of this dislocation will be manifested in your mental health, a buzzing in your ears, something jagged in your soul always snagging. You'll try to fit different keys to the lock of your existence only to discover, over and over again, that none of them work.
Last week, with Psalm 97, I described the pagan vision of the natural world, all of creation animated by spiritual powers and potencies. The poetry of the Psalms echoes this vision with its anthropomorphized descriptions of the natural world. For example, in Psalm 98 the rivers clap and the mountains shout.
These images could be mere metaphor. The material world, in such a view, is inert and dead. Rivers do not clap and mountains do not shout. Any such descriptions, therefore, are romantic indulgences and poetic pretending. We import a subjectivity where it doesn't exist.
And yet, borrowing from David Bentley Hart's recent book, the pagan vision of creation, where "all things are full of gods," may be more faithful to the Biblical imagination than scientific materialism. And yet, this appreciation and rehabilitation of the pagan worldview will be worrisome to many Christians. As I mentioned last week, viewing the world as full of spiritual powers and potencies raises concerns about idolatry and the demonic. Two very legitimate concerns. But the presence of temptations here doesn't mean the cosmology isn't true. In fact, these worries admit the validity of the pagan perspective. We would't be concerned about such things if none of it was real.
There is also goodness in this vision of the world as well. As I described last week, the imagery of the Psalms opens up the possibility of a baptized paganism, viewing the powers of nature, visible and invisible, as subject to the lordship of Christ. I described how C.S. Lewis presents a vision of baptized paganism in The Chronicles of Narnia. A lovely illustration of this comes from The Magician's Nephew where the children bear witness to Aslan creating the world:
The Lion opened his mouth, but no sound came from it; he was breathing out, a long, warm breath; it seemed to sway all the beasts as the wind sways a line of trees. Far overhead from beyond the veil of blue sky which hid them the stars sang again; a pure, cold, difficult music. Then there came a swift flash like fire (but it burnt nobody) either from the sky or from the Lion itself, and every drop of blood tingled in the children’s bodies, and the deepest, wildest voice they had ever heard was saying: “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters."
It was of course the Lion's voice. The children had long felt sure that he could speak: yet it was a lovely and terrible shock when he did.
Out of the trees wild people stepped forth, gods Fauns and Satyrs and Dwarfs. Out of the river rose the river god with his Naiad daughters. And all these and all the beasts and birds in their different voices, low or high or thick or clear, replied:
“Hail, Aslan. We hear and obey. We are awake. We love. We think. We speak. We know.”
Lewis blends nature mysticism with Christianity. Creation is awake.
As Psalm 98 says, the mountains shout and the rivers clap.
Seriously, just look around. Does it look like the meek are inheriting the earth? Does it look like those who hunger and thirst for justice are being filled? Does it look like the merciful are being shown mercy?
Last post in this series reflecting on enchantment and disenchantment in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
The main thing I want to point out, here in the final post, is how the vampire genre has become increasingly disenchanted.
The evil in Stoker's novel is very much enchanted, and sacred objects, especially the Host, repel the vampires. The battle is explicitly supernatural, a struggle between Good and Evil. In Dracula the Christian faith is true and provides the means of resistance.
But as the vampire genre has developed and evolved over time, Stoker's privileging of Christian metaphysics has been displaced. You see this whenever the Christian weapons from Dracula, like the crucifix, are portrayed as impotent and powerless. In many modern vampire stories, the vampire will laugh at you if you hold a crucifix aloft and will chid you for being superstitious. In modern stories, vampirism is often given a biological explanation, like a genetic mutation. The occult has been eclipsed by science. The effects of garlic, silver, and sunlight are described as severe allergic reactions. In much of the modern vampire genre God is dead. The world is wholly disenchanted.
You also find the disenchanting effects of Protestantism in modern vampire stories, a loss of the sacramentalism in Stoker's novel. For example, in Stephen King's Salem's Lot crosses are effective against vampires. But there are two changes. First, these are crosses, not crucifixes. A very Protestant change. Also, there's a scene where Father Callahan holds aloft a crucifix, but because the priest lacks faith the crucifix proves ineffectual. Notice the shift away from the robust sacramentalism of Stoker's Dracula. What matters in Salem's Lot isn't the power of God but the power of faith. The weapons against evil have shifted from the objective to the subjective, from the ontological to the psychological. Recall how the most powerful weapon in Stoker's Dracula is the Host, the Real Presence of Christ. A real, material power. But in Salem's Lot, the power shifts toward the human and the mental, something wholly subjective. As Barlow says to Father Callahan in Salem's Lot, “It is your faith against my faith, Father. Is your faith enough?” The center of power now resides the human heart. Do we have enough faith? Sola fide! Believe! God is in your mind!
All this to share how you can trace the influence of modernity in the disenchantment of the vampire genre since the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula. And this is an easy test anyone can conduct: In the vampire story you're reading or watching, when the crucifix--or cross!--is held aloft does the vampire even care?
The indifferent reaction of the modern vampire to the cross reveals much about the modern world.
As I mentioned in the last post, Bram Stoker's Dracula is a liminal book, in plot and when it was published. The book sits at the cusp of the Old world and the New, poised between ancient superstitions and scientific progress. The novel dances been skepticism and faith.
That dance is mainly played out between Dr. John "Jack" Seward and his former professor Abraham Van Helsing. Seward, as a psychiatrist, is a modern man of science. But when he is stumped by Lucy Westenra's symptoms, he calls upon Van Helsing, his former professor. Van Helsing soon begins to suspect that something occult is going on, but he refrains from disclosing his thoughts to Seward. Knowing him to be a modern, scientific man, Van Helsing knows Seward will be skeptical about Van Helsing's diagnosis of the problem. Consequently, as things unfold it's between Van Helsing and Seward where the issues of faith and doubt in the modern world come out in the novel.
For example, early on, in discussing Seward's perplexity at Lucy's aliment, Van Helsing says to him:
"You are a clever man, friend John. You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain."
Such a great line: "It is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain."
Later in this same conversation, Val Helsing asks Seward to open his mind, to set aside his scientific prejudices, so that Val Helsing can disclose what he thinks is happening:
"Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this, I want you to believe."
"To believe what?"
"To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith, 'that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe."
This passage captures how Van Helsing is a man of two worlds, a man of science and a man of faith. Seward's epistemology, by contrast, is small and asymmetrical. Science, for Seward, has collected a pile of pebbles we call "facts." But he lets those small truths, even a single pebble, derail the entire train. The granular, factual, and small blinds Seward to larger realties.
Van Helsing also values science. All those facts, those small truths, we keep and value them. But we don't let this handful of facts trick us into thinking we have in our possession all the truth in the universe.
If you like the work of Iain McGilchrist, Seward is left-hemisphere dominant. Seward can see the granular but he can't see the larger whole, pattern, or Gestalt. Seward's attention is too narrow. He can't see big pictures. Van Helsing, by contrast, is more balanced in his cognitive processes, able to let his right-hemisphere piece together a mosaic from the bits of the factual.
In short, in the novel Dracula Van Helsing, as the hero of the story, presents us with an epistemological ideal. As a man of science, Van Helsing is firmly planted in the modern world and is at home there. But as a man of faith, Van Helsing is also able to perceive larger and greater realities that his more modern student, Dr. Seward, cannot. Seward can only see illness. Van Helsing can see both illness and evil, and this greater perceptual range makes him the champion of the story.
There's a huge fortune to be made manufacturing tents and barbed wire and shackles and chains for the authoritarian regime. ProPublica looks at one profiteering tent-maker.
Over the Christmas break I went with my son Aidan to see Nosferatu, the modern remake of the 1922 silent film. The original film was a pretty bald ripoff of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. So much so that Stoker's widow sued the German film makers for copyright infringement.
When I went to see Nosferatu, I had not seen the 1922 original. Nor had I read Stoker's novel. But in watching the movie I was struck by its themes of enchantment and disenchantment. The story is set in a world coming of age. Science, medicine, and technology are advancing. And yet, emerging from the shadows of the Old World there appears a spiritual terror. Something dark and menacing still haunts the modern world.
Stoker published his novel in 1897. And as the author of Hunting Magic Eels, I'm interested in our culture's drift from enchantment to disenchantment. So the liminality of Nosferatu caught my attention. And given that Nosferatu basically borrowed Stoker's novel, I decided to read Dracula for the first time.
Here's what shocked me. Bram Stoker's Dracula is a very Christian novel. I would even say that Dracula is one of the greatest Christian novels of all time. Christianity suffuses the book. Faith is the air the novel breaths. Fans of the novel, of course, are aware of this, but the pious devoutness of the story caught me by surprise. However, if you've not read the novel, here's a selective survey of its Christian content and themes. I've tried to avoid spoilers.
First off, the main characters are Christian. The Harker's, the couple at the center of the drama, are Protestant. Professor Abraham Van Helsing is a devout Catholic. The group trying to defeat Dracula pray together and explicitly view their battle against Dracula as a spiritual conflict. As Van Helsing says at one point (by the way, Van Helsing is Dutch so his English is broken), "Thus are we ministers of God's own wish. That the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise. And like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause." Before the climatic encounter with Dracula, the group prays with Van Helsing: "We men all knelt down, Mina lying prostrate; and Van Helsing lifted his hands and said:—‘O God, give me light in the darkness!’”
Second, the reality of heaven plays a key role in the drama of the story. The status of Lucy Westenra’s soul is at risk if the group cannot free her from the curse. As Val Helsing explains, "When this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free." When Lucy's soul is freed, Van Helsing declares, "For she is not a grinning devil now, not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil's Un-Dead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!"
Third, and this is something I think almost everyone knows, the weapons used against Dracula are spiritual weapons: Holy water, rosaries, crucifixes and, most importantly, the Consecrated Host. This last bit surprised me. In vampire movies you often see crucifixes held aloft. But the Host, by far, is Van Helsing's weapon of choice. The Host is used to repulse a vampire from attacking. The Host is used to despoil tombs and coffins so they cannot be used by vampires. The Host is used to determine if someone has been tainted by Dracula's blood. And crumbled bits of the Host are used to create protective circles that Dracula cannot enter. Even more than crucifixes and holy water, the Host is the most powerful weapon against evil in the novel.
The power of the Host in Dracula has been of scholarly interest and debate. Bram Stoker's religious views were opaque. We do know he was raised Protestant in the Church of Ireland. Given the Protestant and Catholic debates swirling around the doctrine of the Real Presence during his lifetime, some have wondered if Stoker had a sacramental agenda in writing Dracula. Or even a Catholic agenda. For example, in the novel we see the Protestant protagonists coming to accept and embrace Catholic objects, like the crucifix. Very early in the story, before Jonathan Harker goes to Dracula's castle, a peasant woman, fearing for his safety, gives him a crucifix. Later on, upon finding himself trapped in the castle, Jonathan finds comfort in the crucifix. This comfort causes Jonathan to question his Protestant misgivings about the object:
It [the crucifix] is an odd thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavor and as
idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that
there is something in the essence of the thing itself [the crucifix], or that it is a medium,
a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some
time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind
about it.
Beyond Protestant misgivings, Jonathan is standing here, early in the novel, in that liminal space between the old, traditional faith and scientific modernity, poised between enchantment and disenchantment. He wonders if the crucifix possesses spiritual potency--"something in the essence of the thing itself"--or if it's just a comforting memory. As the story progresses, Jonathan's doubt will be dispelled. The crucifix, along with other holy and consecrated objects, do possess spiritual power. Sacramentally speaking, there is, truly and powerfully, "something in the essence of the thing itself." And the Host, as the Real Presence of Christ, is the primary example of this sacramentalism throughout the story.
All that to say, given this sacramentalism in Dracula, scholars debate if Stoker had a theological agenda in mind in writing the novel. Regardless, a sacramental imagination suffuses the book. Which, as I mentioned, surprised me. I picked up what I thought was a horror story and found myself contemplating the Real Presence.
As I said, Bram Stoker's Dracula ranks as one of the greatest Christian novels.
While rereading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I was struck by how much passages of the book reminded me of Jordan Peterson.
(For new readers, I am both appreciative and critical of Jordan Peterson. Any given post I write about Peterson never captures my whole view. This post is in the appreciative category.)
I had recently read Peterson's latest book We Who Wrestle with God, so his ideas were in my head when I picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
One of Peterson's big ideas, a repeated refrain, concerns how facts are insufficient to guide human life. In any given moment we face a blizzard of facts. Which ones should we attend to? Which facts have meaning for us? Can a fact even be a fact without that meaning? And so forth. What we need, according to Peterson, are values which help us rank and sort through the facts we encounter. These values, says Peterson, are ranked hierarchically. Some values are more important than others. Continuing, if you keep walking up this hierarchy of value your reach the highest value, the highest good. This is the Logos, the value that governs all other values and determines which facts have value for us in directing our choices and actions.
These ideas are found throughout Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Here's a sampling of passages:
"Our structured reality is preselected on the basis of value."
"Reason was no longer to be 'value free.' Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality."
Quality (Value) "is the generator of everything we know."
"The facts are there but you don't see them. You're looking right at them, but they don't have enough value...The facts do not exist until value created them. If your values are rigid you can't really learn new facts."
Here's an extended passage where Pirsig describes how value rigidity blocks our ability to see facts. This is an example that Peterson has used in his own work:
I keep wanting to go back to that analogy of fishing for facts. I can just see somebody asking with great frustration, "Yes, but which facts do you fish for? There's got to be more to it than that."
But the answer is that if you know which facts you're fishing for you're no longer fishing. You've caught them. I'm trying to think of a specific example...
All kinds of examples from cycle maintenance could be given, but the most striking example of value rigidity I can think of is the old South Indian Monkey Trap, which depends on value rigidity for its effectiveness. The trap consists of a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole. The hole is big enough so that the monkey's hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice in it to come out. The monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped--by nothing more than his own value rigidity. He can't revalue the rice. He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it. The villagers are coming to get him and take him away. They're coming closer...closer!...now! What general advice--not specific advice--but what general advice would you give the poor monkey in circumstances like this?
Well, I think you might say exactly what I've been saying about value rigidity, with perhaps a little extra urgency. There is a fact this monkey should know: if he opens his hand he's free. But how is he going to discover this fact? By removing the value rigidity that rates rice above freedom. How is he going to do that? Well, he should somehow try to slow down deliberately and go over ground that he has been over before and see if things he thought were important really were important and, well, stop yanking and just stare at the coconut for a while. Before long he should get a nibble from a little fact wondering if he is interested in it. He should try to understand this fact not so much in terms of his big problem as for its own sake. That problem may not be as big as he thinks it is.
A little bit later, Pirsig describes how we avoid value traps like this: "You've got to live right too. It's the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts." Living right helps you see the right facts. This is Pirsig's case for virtue ethics and echos Peterson's own interest in "rules for living." We can only come to see the right facts in life if we are "living right," living in accordance to the Dao and the Logos.
Peterson has listed Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as among his influences. You can see that influence in the passages above. Specifically, for both Pirsig and Peterson, value comes before facts and helps us select which facts we shall attend to. More so, value creates facts. Value creates our experience of reality. Consequently, in order to live well be must "live right." We must live in accordance to value. For only in living right can we see aright and find the answers to the problems and challenges of life.
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