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Sunday, August 29, 2004
Philosophy On The Rocks
Man, what a week. After being cut off from the internet and TV news for just that period of time, I knew there was a lot of catching up to do, especially on the news, and that probably it would never get done. I had hoped to hear that the persecuted (raped, pillaged, murdered and sold into slavery) Sudanese Christians had found relief. I had hoped to come back and learn that the terrorist insurgency in Iraq had been totally crushed, Zharqawi beheaded, and some good-looking woman crowned queen of Babylonia. But first I decided to pay my respects to a few friends, so I headed over to TS O'Rama's to find this out: Under the category "too much information" falls a sad piece in NCR with revelations concerning a convert who works for Crisis magazine. I wish he'd write a book about how he overcame that problem... Who are you talking about? What problem? The problem of unchastity... Oh, that problem. But who, what, when, where? This is a delicate subject and I'm not sure I should write about it at all... Yes you should, TS, you really should. College professors surely find themselves sorely tempted... Aha! At last - a subject on which I am fully qualified to hold forth. I have experience in this area. Let me rephrase that. I have experience at not having indulged the experience. I have so much experience that someone could probably benefit from the experience of my inexperience, though it sounds a little late for the "convert" in question. But who is that convert? Alas, he doesn't say. Oh, that TS, so...discreet, so subtle, so prudent, so averse to pointing the finger. I figured going over to Crisis was pointless, since they come out only once a month and they'd probably be in, shall we say, crisis-management mode for the next two. No, if I needed names named and fingers pointed, there were several choices available, so I flipped a two-tailed coin and headed over to Amy Welborn's and started scrolling. Bingo. Deal Hudson. Yes, he works for Crisis, all right. In fact, I think he's the editor. But what had Deal gone and done that Deal shouldn't do? O'Rama aside, I knew it had something to do with sex; otherwise nobody'd be interested. But before I could find that out, I open a comment box to a post and, scrolling quickly, find one by Jeff Culbreath (sorry, can't link to individual comments), wherein he claims that Crisis and Deal Hudson have been caught on occasion in brazen embrace with "a thoroughly decadent popular culture," by way of example pointing to a favorable review of a work called Mr. Ives' Christmas, which he considers a "virtually pornographic novel." He is responded to by, of all people, Rod Dreher (scroll down a bit), who considers the work a "great Catholic novel." Jeff fires back, graciously of course, then Dreher, then Jeff once more who, I think, acquits himself well, and that's the end of it. None of it had much to do with Amy's original post, but was still a question that seemed well worth discussing: what constitutes a legitimately Catholic aesthetic? Well, in the case of Mr. Ives' Christmas I won't even attempt to resolve it. The reason is that, ahem, I've never read it. And the reason for that is that I've never heard of it. But now that I have I promise to...no I don't. I don't make promises anymore. The ones I've already made are sufficient unto a lifetime. I know that lines can be hard to draw sometimes, but how does this happen, that two politically conservative, morally upright, and religiously orthodox fellows read the same book and see two different things? Can their individual concepts of an "occasion of sin" be that far apart? Puzzling. (And it is not the case, as I have seen some try to portray him, that Mr. Culbreath would permit us an art only of the shlockiest, kitschiest and most wholesome variety, in short that he is Polyannaish prude. As one who has occasionally and enthusiastically pushed the boundaries of good taste, allowing to himself and his commenters a fair measure of licentious leeway, I can testify that Mr. Culbreath is able to laugh at a well-placed vulgarity.) But, really, I had no time for these higher pursuits. The Catholic aesthetic and the rapine in Sudan could wait. I wanted to know the deal on Deal. I wanted to gorge on gossip. So I popped out of the comments and scrolled, scrolled, scrolled and there it was, a link to a National Catholic Reporter story accusing Deal of adultery with an eighteen year old girl, a young woman, a student in his philosophy course, and with plenty of lascivious, supporting detail. One got a sense of the writer licking his lips with each keystroke. The Bible says that that which has been done in secret will be shouted from the rooftops, but I guess this divine duty has devolved upon the organs of the modern media. Heaven (or hell) can wait. Some readers expressed surprise that NCR would so gleefully expose a fellow Catholic. That's a legitimate worry, I suppose, if one actually considers the Reporter a Catholic publication. Before running the story, the editors had to confront an obvious truth: this could at the least sorely embarrass Mr. Hudson and at the worst destroy him. And how do you suppose they resolved it? Good, that's what we're trying to do. It's not complicated. Mr. Hudson is not a "fellow Catholic" to a pagan mouthpiece for the sexual revolution. The problem for Mr. Hudson is that he wasn't supposed to be one either. Conveniently, I'm of two minds on the matter. At the same time that I ought to have felt dirty while perusing the squalid details, I couldn't. After reading about collared priests who diddled boys and hosted pornographic websites, I found this all too tame. It's hard to feel dirty anymore because the dirt is everywhere. At the same time that I felt I ought not to know of this transgression, I was glad I did. At the same time that I wanted to summon sympathy for both predator and prey - Deal's need for "forgiveness," the girl's for "healing" and justice - I felt paralyzed. In her case, it's the 'victim' status that begins to annoy. She had a rough upbringing, she was "vulnerable". All right. But I have students whose stories, in their horrifying specifics, equal and surpass that of Miss Poppas, yet they have never sunk so low. I was wondering how far removed from the age of reason an 18 year old really is. I was wondering if there were any possibility that she thought what she was being asked to do, and what she consented to, was not wrong. To say yes is to render her a moral imbecile. She was asked to do certain things, she consented, she promised not to tell, she told. Mr. Hudson, like Mr. Clinton, was guilty of adultery, lechery, and a violation of professional ethics, with, in the latter's case, a further misapprehension of the proper role of cigars in human affairs. So why does the article make it sound as though Hudson held all the high cards of power while she held none? Thirty grand and a newspaper hatchet job later, it's not so clear. The word "no" in a woman's mouth is the most powerful protest in the language. It's what separates the victim from the participant. I was surprised to learn that Mr. Hudson is a philosopher. I guess the calm, clear air of those Aristotelian heights doesn't stand a chance against the hot wind generated by an 18 year old belly button staring you in the face. Wish I could've been there for him. I'd have shouted, "Deal! Don't do it! That way nothing but evil lies." But, too late, it's a done deal. (Sorry, TS). I have to look at it everyday. Lots of belly, cleavage, bare backs, low-riding jeans that seem to hang by a pubic hair. When a girl takes her seat, sometimes the jeans ride lower and her thong and the upper swell of her buttocks rise to view. And nobody seems to care. A couple of days ago I saw a new one, a pretty blond girl (I'd say in her twenties) sitting on a concrete bench, leaning against the brick wall, with one arm raised to run her hand through her hair while she used the other to talk on a cellphone. Her eyes scanned passersby as she talked. And I could see her breasts. Literally. The garment was not perfectly transparent, but the shape of everything was clearly visible. Everything. And she was so pretty. Her face alone was enough to draw many a young man to her side. So why? (Maybe some of you ladies can help me out.) If there's a dress code at my school, I haven't been able to figure it out. I could ask, but already know the answer: re Potter Stewart grappling with obscenity, We'll know it when we see it. Well, Mr. Luse, you shouldn't stare. I don't, really. There's no time. No sooner has one pelvic assembly passed by than the next one's smacking you in the face. Even if you were immune to staring, you can't get away from it. What I actually feel is a mixture of pity and contempt. I'm jaded, I guess. I'm tired of seeing it because the mystery is being destroyed. Well, some would say, that's a good thing. You're innoculated against temptation. No, it isn't a good thing. When a man catches a glimpse of the more erotically inspired parts of a woman's anatomy, he should be struck dumb by at least two things - by wonder at the beauty of it, and by a rising concupiscience that pays tribute to her appeal, but which can also put his soul in danger, and which is why he should not get too many such glimpses. And there is a third thing which I will get to shortly. But it is never good that the veil be torn from this particular mystery. The honor of women, on which may depend the decency of civilization, is the thing at stake, and so we teach our women to have no honor. Too sweeping, some would say, but I believe it. Educational philosophy today is caught in a contradiction. We are to make the students more participants in their education than recipients of it. (It seems that Mr. Hudson had already bought into this to some degree.) The old pedagogy is dead. We are to "cooperate" in their learning process, not force-feed it. At the same time as we are asked to elevate their status and modify our own, one wrong look can bring you up on charges. As we are asked to get closer to them, one slip of the tongue can cost you your job at worst, your reputation at least. Or maybe it's the other way around. And so, recalcitrant to the end, I remain of the old school, trying not to project the aura of one who is approachable in any kind of "chummy" fashion. Although it's not always feasible, I try not to have conferences in private. I do most of that in the classroom, with other students hanging around. I want witnesses. Still, things can happen. Behind the desk a hand brushes your thigh. While looking over your shoulder, she allows (or did she?) her breast to press against it. Does it mean anything? Probably not. Maybe. Pull away, fast. Don't ever, ever try to find out. I've never accepted a student-profferred invitation to an end-of-semester "celebration". There have been times I'd like to, but I don't. Some of them actually come to admire you. You can see them wanting to draw close with nothing sordid in mind. You have touched them in some way, and they'd like a mentor, someone of experience with whom they can discuss their enthusiasms. I do what I can, but it's never enough, not these days, and not if the student is female. None of this may seem to have much to do with Deal Hudson, who appears to have actively sought this encounter, and pursued it to its end in a calculated fashion, softening her up with alcohol, for example. But it does, and is the source of my lack of sympathy for him (a lack which does not extend to his wife and children, assuming he's still got them). And it is this: it's not that hard to say no. It's not that hard to deny the impulse either to proffer, or accept, an overture. It's simply a small matter of conscience. The reasons given above for exercising caution in my contacts with female students are real ones, but not the ultimate ones. They are purely practical and self-preserving, reasons that could be dispensed with if you thought a student could be trusted. No, the real real reasons run more like this: What would my wife think if she found out? (And she will find out, if you believe in eternity.) What kind of wound would this inflict? Would her heart ever heal? Could I live without her trust? How ashamed would my daughters be? I'll tell you: I'd be an empty shell of lies, a hypocritical husk. And (that third thing), being the father of daughters, how can I look upon any one of my students with a lust that is not at once overpowered by an even greater share of the tenderness I have for my own girls, for the sweetness of their promise, of all their hopes for the future, and by a proper deference to the prerogatives of the man (if so it be written) she will one day find, and whom God has set aside for her? She could have been your daughter, Mr. Hudson. It's not that hard. These questions seem silly, almost clichéd, because so obvious and fundamental, as are their answers, yet when one is tempted, they are the first that should come to mind. How hard can it be? Mr. Hudson is a man near in age to my own, and, rather than his cups, should have settled into a modest wisdom, which is that a lecher - even if the girl consents, and apart from the harm he inflicts on himself - takes from his conquest something he can never give back (some great part, perhaps, of her innocence). But even supposing she were well along the road to corruption, where was his solicitude for even the image of her innocence, which all youth exudes no matter how corrupt, and which he should have been anxious to salvage, not savage? If Miss Poppas ever gets her faith back, she'll feel the absence of what he took all the more keenly, although in recompense she may find redemption. All of us (okay, not all of us) are hypocrites to some degree, preaching a fine vision of integrity, even holiness, while privately entertaining a myriad wicked thoughts. Well, let it stay there, in your head, where none can see but you and God. It will protect others, and maybe even keep you safe. For awhile, anyway. I finally did get caught up on the news, as caught up as I care to be, but not before getting my gossip. I regret having been part of the problem rather than the solution, but all was not without profit. Before coming across that NCR piece I had considered offering my services to the president. Not now. With "Catholic" friends like that out there, my past begins to look like strewn wreckage, ripe for a gathering of eagles. And some of it probably is. Some of it I've even repented of, and most of it I had hoped to be forgiven. But that's not good enough, not anymore.
Posted
1:43 AM
by William Luse
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