Wallace Stevens: Spritualist Poetry

In his Adagia, Wallace Stevens talks so much about poetry that I'm starting to wonder if that is his religion. He does say that "Poetry is a means of redemption," but I suppose redemption doesn't necessarily have to be religious (903). Maybe? But since our module is Religion and the Secular, I'll assume for the time being that it isn't religious. I guess it is missing the community aspect at the very least. Anyway... Stevens gives a very interesting perspective on the relationship between the mind and reality.

As stated above, Stevens seems to view poetry in an almost religious manner. At one point, he says, "The poet is a god or The young poet is a god. The old poet is a tramp" (911). I'm not sure what he means about the old poet, but the young poet seems to be people's redemption from the mind, for Stevens states next that "The poet represents the mind in the act of defending us against itself" (911). What's so bad about the mind? Well, apparently life is (or should be) based on instinct rather than "thesis" or intelligent thought (902). However, "The mind is the most powerful thing in the world" and is the means by which things become real (902-903). Therefore, "The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly" (903). In other words, although the mind is what makes things real, one cannot truly understand this unless the emotions come into play as well. This view helps show Stevens' spiritualist tendencies, because reality is subjective--determined by the individual--and emotions are to be intimately connected to knowledge. The importance of emotion is evidenced by the following quote: "It is possible to establish aesthetics in the individual mind as immeasurably a greater thing than religion" (906). Stevens clearly prefers individual "aesthetics," or emotional judgments, to outright religion.

A Different Kind of Sunday Morning

I'd never heard of Wallace Stevens before, but I really enjoyed reading his poetry tonight. His poem, "Sunday Morning," was especially beautiful--though probably too deep for me to understand. However, I do have a few observations about the poem that show how it fits in with our discussions on secularism and religion. This poem demonstrates well how secular individuals can have religious-like feelings without any social or doctrinal aspects of religion.

In the poem, Stevens seems to be worshipping Nature instead of a God, but he's not really worshipping--he's just enjoying a feeling of peace. He displays this attitude in the following passage: "Shall she not find in the comforts of the sun, / In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else / Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? / Divinity must live within herself" (53). The sun, fruit, and other earthly things replace the thought of heaven as a source of comfort. Paradise becomes much like the Earth, simply a more perfect version: it has trees and fruit (55). Interestingly, Stevens seems to appreciate constancy more than change. He notes that no "haunt of prophesy" or any other religious invention will last as long as "April's green" (part of Nature), and he contrasts paradise to the Earth because it is "unchanging" (54, 55). The Earth is full of change--from the birds who leave their warm fields (54), to the maidens getting up off their feet (55), to the "men that perish" and go here and there (56). One interpretation of this aversion to change that Stevens has, evidenced by the stagnancy of his paradise, could be that he is against organized religions because of their propensity to change their doctrines all the time. He might want people to go back to their original religious feelings (peace and comfort) without trying to explain them with theology. The feelings themselves would remain relatively unchanging; they would probably oscillate back and forth, but nothing new would be added to the mix like tends to happen in theological study.

Likewise, Stevens' paradise is marked by "solitude," "isolation," and spontaneity (56). None of these are very common at all in organized religions, which are especially characterized by strong community. In Stevens' worldview, the "religion," if there is one, is just a special feeling that each individual has and enjoys alone without trying to explain it to others or convert others to that same feeling. He sees this situation as bringing freedom that organized religion suppresses. The woman in the beginning of the poem who decides to sit outside relaxing on a Sunday morning instead of going to church suffers for her seizure of this freedom; while trying to daydream, her mind is haunted by Palestine--a remnant of the religion she is trying to leave (53). Stevens wants people to be free from those haunting feelings and able to find peace in whatever thoughts they want.

Art, Religion, and Nietzsche

After a little exploring, I came upon a nice website about the abstract expressionist painter, Mark Rothko. I found something there that supplemented today's reading about Rothko in regards to religion. In the reading, the author describes how Rothko was very concerned about letting his art speak for itself--even without the use of titles or explanations for the abstract paintings. On the same note, this page of the aforementioned website quotes Rothko as saying:

If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas. They are the symbols of man's primitive fears and motivations, no matter in which land or what time, changing only in detail but never in substance....Our presentation of these myths, however, must be in our own terms which are at once more primitive and more modern than the myths themselves--more primitive because we seek the primeval and atavistic roots of the ideas rather than their graceful classical version; more modern than the myths themselves because we must redescribe their implications through our own experience....The myth holds us, therefore, not through its romantic flavor, not the remembrance of beauty of some bygone age, not through the possibilities of fantasy, but because it expresses to us something real and existing in ourselves, as it was to those who first tumbled upon the symbols to give them life.

Interestingly, Rothko sees his art as serving basically the same purpose as religious symbols did in the past--"express[ing] to us something real and existing in ourselves." One could say that his art is his religion; despite the lack of community and morality, it does have a core "belief system" of a sort--those deep psychological truths he mentions--and a definite spiritual/mystical feeling. However, if this is his religion, he expresses it much differently than conventional religions do. As I stated previously, he doesn't like to explain the meanings of each of his paintings, unlike typical religions' constant reassertions of their doctrines. There is a common thread, though: the expression of his "beliefs" (if we can call them that) changes over time. It's completely subjective: the truths ("fears and motivations") expressed in the art are timeless and constant, but the way they're expressed changes with time and with the bearer/artist. In the process, they seem to change on the outside but remain the same at the core. This is the same process as we've read about in so many religions: the methods of interpretation change and therefore the outward appearance of a religion may change, but the religion itself remains steadfast (at least in the minds of its followers).

Another reason I find this passage interesting is the fact that Rothko was an avid reader of Nietzsche. I just read some Nietzsche in one of my other classes, and we learned today that he sees all human interpretations of reality as inherently wrong. All of them are projections of the human will onto surroundings. However, he rates different forms of interpretation based on whether they promote "health" or "sickness" in humanity. Religion, to Nietzsche, is just plain sick, whereas art is one of the best forms of interpretation. Art is good because of its master mentality as opposed to Chrisitanity's slave mentality; in other words, art concentrates on the ideal and the good first and only talks about the bad as the absence of the good, whereas Christianity supposedly begins by defining evil and only later defines good. How convenient for Rothko...

Trying to Pull Things Together... but it'll take a while

Our unexpected discussion on Atheism last week got cut short in class, but it's found new life in the blogs. I'm going to attempt to bring together some of the points I've been reading in different blogs--specifically Daniel's, Oliver's, and Sarah M's. Basically, we're all trying to decide whether or not Atheism (but especially it's counterpart, "lower-case atheism") qualifies as a religion.

Before I start, I'll try to explain what I'm considering to be lower-case atheism because I don't think we ever clearly defined that. I guess I see lower-case atheists as people who don't believe in God but don't think of their atheism as a religion. They have the belief in no god (which is, after all, what "atheism" means, as Ted pointed out in class), but they don't consciously base their actions or life on that belief like a religious person would apply his/her beliefs into a religious frame of reference. This is almost like agnosticism (like Emily S. noted), but the difference is that these atheists don't believe they can't know if there's a god; they believe they know there is no god even though they don't elevate this belief/knowledge into anything more than just one fact among many. Basically, atheists believe what agnostics don't, but neither of them imparts any special significance on that belief or lack thereof. And all this is in contrast to upper-case Atheists who, like Catrina, find mystical significance in believing in no god.

And as to what religion itself is, I've found a few different definitions of religion in these blogs:

• Daniel- "the definition of religion is beyond being something tangible." "It is an abstract label for culture." "Religion is a wrapper for cultural objects to make them more 'user friendly.'" "Religion is...a way of gaining truths." (Note: this last one came from an earlier post.)
• Oliver- "Religion is a belief system that is meant to be applied to daily living and allows individuals to share in a common bond (of varying strengths)."
• Alex (in comment to Oliver's post)- "A religion by definition is the set of ideals that a person lives his/her life by."

And in class, we seemed to define religion vaguely as an all-encompassing frame with which to view the world which involves 1) meaning creation, 2) social cohesion, 3) identity, and 4) spiritual experience.

So... Oliver's and Alex's definitions seem to fit in with our class definition of an ultimate reference frame, but Daniel's is a little different. He seems to see religion as completely intertwined with culture so that as a reference frame, it depends a lot on other aspects of culture and isn't a frame in itself. (At least, that's how I interpret it.) Sarah M. discusses a similar idea in her post, suggesting that the so-called "half-assed" believers in any religion can share their ultimate frame with other things--these things being secular parts of the culture. This would mean that their actual religion is a combination of their nominal religion and their secular idealism.

Sarah also gives some possible reference frames that lower-case atheists might have instead of Atheism--such frames as environmentalism, capitalism, and secular humanism. Because their belief in no god is not important enough to them to qualify as a refrence frame, lower-case atheists need to have something else "properly ultimate," in Sarah's words, to shape their views of life and the world. In this view, lower-case atheism would not qualify as a religion because it lacks that importance in people's lives.

However, even if lower-case atheism in itself is not a religion, it does open the door to other religions (the aforementioned environmentalism, etc., as well as philosophies like Ayn Rand's objectivism and other variations of humanism that take on religious significance for their followers). In class, we seemed to be talking a lot about how science takes the place of religion for Atheists, but I agree with Daniel that science isn't the only form of Atheism. I wouldn't go so far as to agree that "science has no special tie to atheism whatsoever," however, because science and rationalism had such a huge influence on the rise of Atheism and many Atheists cite science as one of their main objections to religion. But I do agree that it's a mistake to think that science is the only difference between Atheism and [other] religions. We established in class that members of almost all religious groups accept scientific theories as part of their worldview (though, of course, partly influenced by their religious frames).

What I'd like to say is that lower-case atheism in itself is not a religion, but because it displaces all theistic religions by definition, it needs to have some other reference frame (unless we've decided that it's possible to live without one, which I personally doubt...). And this reference frame, though it may not be consciously grounded in the belief that there is no god, will have to be influenced by that belief because it naturally has to fit in with that belief to be accepted. In other words, their reference frame is a combination of their atheism and whatever other secular element of society they find particularly important. This is basically the same description as I gave of "half-assed" religious believers, so does that mean I think lower-cased atheists are just "half-assed" Atheists? I think the difference is that Atheism/atheism is so varied in its belief system as opposed to organized religions with their specific doctrines that atheism is more of a different sect than it is a different level of commitment. Atheism could be to lower-case atheism what Catholicism is to Non-denominational Christianity. In both cases, the members of both groups are equally committed to what they each believe; it's just the beliefs that differ. Atheists believe that the fact that God doesn't exist means certain things that lower-case atheists don't believe (i.e. the mysticism and greater significance).

I think that's all I have to say. I'm sorry it turned out so long. :( But thank you if you read the whole thing! ;)

Connection to "The God Fuse"

I came across a web article today called "The God Fuse: Ten Things Christians and Atheists Can - and Must - Agree On" by David Wong and it seems to relate to our discussion in class today about the movie Red. I highly recommend reading this article--it's both insightful and entertaining. As the title of the article indicates, Wong discusses where Christians and Atheists have common ground, and one of the biggest issues is morality. We ended our class discussion today on the point that religion can be viewed as one way to strengthen the connections between people that seem to be at the core of human life and that there are other, secular, ways to do the same thing. With religion, God is at the center of human relationships, but without religion, people can still seek to recognize and nurture their relationships with other people. Likewise, in the Wong article, religion is one way to approach morality--and atheism is another.

Wong emphasizes that regardless of one's religion, everyone feels the same moral "baseline," namely, "the value of human life." In addition, this moral has no proof or logical reason for existing: "[T]here's this invisible rule that [is] supposed to be followed, that everybody [is] supposed to be aware of, that can't be proven by logic. Whatever it is, wherever you think it came from, you can't deny that it's there. Your own behavior would make you a liar." Whether atheist or Christian--or anything else--everyone has the same moral conscience to respect human life. This tendency is innate (except in psychopaths...), so it's not intrinsically part of religion; instead, religion arises out of it (or, at least, that's one interpretation). Wong states that "at the very worst, the Christians are just taking that same moral impulse and applying it to the God question.... If they're wrong about God, they're only wrong in that they've taken that absolute morality and put a face on it, made an idol out of it. Taken it one step too far." According to Wong, the morality is there whether or not God has been added to it. This is like our discussion of Red in which the characters clearly seek love and connection with their fellow human beings without having any metaphysical reasons for doing so. The baseline fraternity instinct, if you will, is there despite the lack of religion.

To try to keep this post a reasonable length, I won't elaborate on the many other intruiging aspects of this article (although I might do that in my essay), but I again urge you all to read the article itself.

Changes in Morality

It was harder than I expected to find religion on the Urban Experience in Chicago website, but luckily, I eventually came across something relevant. In Jane Addams' piece, "Filial Relations," she discusses how different people have different opinions on what's morally right and what isn't. These moral consciences are the result of different experiences and environments. Even in the same place, not everyone experiences the same things, and this causes people to have different moralities. Addams references the story of St. Francis of Assisi, who rejected his inheritance in order to become an ascetic for his faith and offended his father in the process. St. Francis' father didn't understand that this calling from God to become ascetic was a "higher claim" than for Francis to fulfill his duties as a son. He would've had to be "touched by the fire of the same revival" as St. Francis was in order to change his moral values like that. As it was, St. Francis' father was highly offended by his son's behavior even though he, too, lived in the same cultural environment. Addams asserts that "the notion of a larger obligation can only come through the response to an enlarged interest in life and in the social movements around us." The social movements of the religius revival that brought St. Francis to his asceticism did not affect his father; his father didn't have that "response."

Addams compares St. Francis to college-educated women who want to make a difference in the world through social work instead of holding house-keeping as their life goal. These women have experienced something that changes their morals--adjusts them to the current time period. She sees this adjustment in morality to see social justice as more important than uphold the family name as "progress" in the institution of the famliy: "The new growth in the plant swelling against the sheath, which at the same time imprisons and protects it, must still be the truest type of progress. " Morals depend on the historical context, and for Addams, the ethical code which holds the family above all else is outdated--"a most flagrant example of the ill-adjustment and misery arising when an ethical code is applied too rigorously and too conscientiously to conditions which are no longer the same as when the code was instituted, and for which it was never designed."

This is exactly like what historical Biblical critics do: they look back in history to see the specific contexts of different Biblical passages and use that historical background to try to find the real meaning that passages and commandments had for their original, intended readers. Although Addams is using historical criticism for an ethical code and not a text, it's the same process. With the plant analogy she uses above, the meaning of the text/moral code would be the seed, the context the sheath, and the current form the growing plant itself. Therefore, moral codes can change with time as the contexts in which they're used change. However, the basic core (seed) of them--arguably--remains the same. Also, these contexts are not just dependent on time, but also on the individuals who are hearing the message--people listen differently.

Jane Addams and Christian Humanitarianism

In our reading on the Hull House, Jane Addams doesn't discuss religion very much at all until the end of Chapter 4. There, she describes "Christian humanitarianism" as one of three main causes of a revival in social activism like her Hull House. (The other two are "the desire to interpret democracy in social terms" and "the impulse, beating at the very source of our lives, urging us to aid the race progress" [125].) According to Addams, humanitarianism is a natural part of Christianity and was there from the very beginning (122). What she doesn't explain is how or when that humanitarianism ever left so as to be able to have a revival. I agree with her that on of the core aspects of Christianity is love of neighbor and service to the poor; after all, Jesus was famous for his loving treatment of social outcasts and preached that the second-greatest commandment is to "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mt. 22:39), even saying that all the Law and Prophets hang on this along with the greatest commandment--to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Mt. 22:40, 37). Addams discusses the early Church with their extraordinary love and generosity as the embodiment of this Christian humanitarian ideal, but she doesn't mention the modern Church at all. I would agree with her that many modern churches are much less socially active in the way that the early Church was. The early Christians, according to Addams, were so driven by the feeling of "continuous revelation" that they were constantly sacrificing their own comfort to help the less fortunate. They believed that continuous revelation not only spreads to others through their social work, but also that doing the service work would increase their own revelation (122-123). Of course, with a belief like that, it's no surprise that they were so active in their communities, advocating the poor and downtrodden. It brought many rewards to them spiritually.

Therefore, the reason Christians became more passive and apathetic toward social justice is probably that they stopped believing in it as an essential part of their faith. This would have to happen through a shift in doctrine, or at least in emphasis in doctrine. Addams claims (and I guess I agree) that what Jesus taught was not dogma or doctrine, but a whole religious life (122). In the early centuries of Christian history, a system of theology developed which was clarified in creeds and the official Bible canon. Maybe in the process of stating explicitly the smaller, less significant aspects of faith, the Church inadvertently distracted people from what used to be its core. The religion changed, not exactly through new interpretations of old text, but through new emphases and focuses within the same body of teachings. However, when this revival of the humanitarianism occurs, it is a reinterpretation of Biblical texts. People want to go back to the simple, bigger-picture Christianity as embodied in life and action, rejecting the view that it is merely "a set of ideas" (123-124).

I respect this interpretation, but I think it also has its downside--if Christianity is reduced to a moral commandment like "serve the poor," the unitarianism that Alex talks about in his post will arise. Everything that separates different religions from one another will be ignored and all that's left will be a set of morals. I definitely support tolerance between religions and believe that even disagreeing religions shouldn't attack each other, but I don't think that's a reason for Christians to abandon the Jesus-is-God part of their religion. Christianity (and any other religion) is much more than a set of morals: it also gives people a sense of belonging, purpose, and hope as well as fellowship with other people who share the same convictions. All this would be lost if all people cared about was morals. Plus, as Alex says himself, "If the teachings of peace, helping those in need, and turning the other cheek were followed in day-to-day living in the world, there would be less need for violence and more would be accomplished toward the greater good." There's no need to stop believing in God to follow those teachings; in fact, God makes it easier (for me, at least).

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the rise of social activism is just like the rise of any other religious tendency (or even religion): it comes out of new interpretations of old religious traditions or texts. And on a side note, the theology, or set of beliefs, of a religion is what makes it the religion it is, so taking the theology away isn't a religious change--it's a religious deletion.