Religion

Savaging Dan Savage and “Sexual Libertarianism”

by Aaron on May 10, 2011

in Dating,Good Reads,Philosophy,Religion

Pastor Ben Dueholm has a fascinating, and frustrating, review/critique/homage in Washington Monthly, discussing the career and ethics of Dan Savage’s weekly sex/relationship advice column Savage Love.

Savage Love is … well, it’s a lot of things. It’s part advice, part cultural/sexual criticism, part diatribe. The questions Dan fields are often so far from “normal” that they couldn’t see it with a telescope. And yet Dan consistently reaffirms a basic humanity and decency inherent in even the most “indecent” behaviors. It’s not Ann Landers, and it’s not for everybody. It’s an enthralling window into what it means to happy, normal, and good. As Dueholm writes:

While he built his following by talking without fear or euphemism about the technical aspects of intimate life, Savage has moved inexorably over the years toward focusing on the moral ones. In so doing, he has carved a unique place for himself in the culture’s discourse about sex. For years, there have been moralizing voices on the right standing athwart the rush of sexual freedoms yelling “Stop,” and there have been others whose policy is to remain nonjudgmental toward sex as a form of expression. Savage yields to no one in his sexual libertarianism, but he has not been content to relegate the ideas of right and wrong to cultural conservatives.

Those are big, never-ending questions, and Savage has been chipping away at answers for two decades. The pastor claims that Dan has “codified a remarkably systematic—and influential—set of ethics where traditional norms have fallen away. The question is, into what kind of world do his ethics lead us?” Unfortunately, if unsurprisingly, he gets plenty of basic facts, first principles, and analysis wrong, about sex, about Dan’s writing, and about libertarianism.

As a libertarian writer who enjoys sex and philosophy (MARKET NICHE!), I feel compelled to respond to these points. At length. Be warned. Read the article, so you’re also prepared.

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J.D. Salinger Meets Comcast

by Aaron on December 28, 2010

in Mental Health,Philosophy,Religion

Most people are forced to read Catcher in the Rye during awkward adolescent periods of rebellion. People either love it or hate it. Either you think Holden, with his existential angst, is a whiny bitch, or you understand the kind of dark void that youth can see looming behind the grown-up world and responsibilities. As good as Catcher is, I think the two short novel collection Franny and Zooey is better. It’s a more adult, subtle, and obtuse look at the same dynamics of community, isolation, authenticity, conformity, and self-definition. In Franny’s words:

It’s everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so — I don’t know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.

The two novels deal with the titular Franny’s mental breakdown. In her anguish, she’s reached out for a book called The Way of a Pilgrim, a Russian religious text that explores the idea of continuous prayer and spiritual illumination. She becomes fixated on something called

Now Comcast and Verizon Fios are showing a documentary that explores the Jesus prayer:

A major motion-picture about divine wisdom, timeless insight, silence and prayer, entitled, “Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer” will premiere for three-months on Comcast and Verizon Fios Video-On-Demand, beginning on December 15, 2010.

His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew offers a foreword and introduction to this story as it travels to the far reaches of the east, discovering the Jesus Prayer firsthand with Emmy award winning theologian and author, Dr. Norris J. Chumley, and renowned historian and priest, Very Rev. Dr. John A. McGuckin. They take a modern exodus to the ancient lands where Christianity and the Church began, witnessing the Jesus Prayer directly in monasteries and chapels, many places that are off-limits to the outside world.

If you liked Franny and Zooey even a little bit, it’s probably worth a watch. I plan on checking it out at some point. There’s also a teaser trailer on youtube.

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