My Full Response to Mr. Joe Woodard's Piece Criticising Harry Potter
| The Following is the full text of my response to Mr. Joe Woodards Piece attacking Rowling's Harry Potter series as a materialistic, neo-pagan rally cry for the "technological imperative." Following my email to the editor/s at MercatorNet, Michale Cook emaied me notifying me that their com-box interface was now operational and inviting me to voice my comments there, thereby generously offering me a chance to voice my response in public forum. RESPONCE TO MR WOODARD: I would like to thank Michael Cook, editor (or at least one of them) for MercatorNet, for emailing me with the information that this comments interface is operational for this essay. I wrote an email to the editor upon reading this piece that was somewhat, shall we say, animated. I appreciate very much Michael providing me the opportunity to express my opinions and thoughts in this public forum and initiating the contact for me to do so. I am actually writing this later than I originally told Michael that I would, due to a busy schedule even after the regular coursework of my recently finished semester, which concludes my first year of coursework as a PhD candidate in the Biblical Studies track of a theology program. I will make my arguments against Mr. Woodard's piece under a set of numbered points below (actually, following the numerology of the Bible and the classical world used by JK Rowling in her works, there will be exactly seven such points). Here I will only further point out that the follwing text is equivalent to a 25 page essay at the standard "college rule" parameters (12 pt, Times New Roman font, double spaced, 1 inch margins). This makes the text length equal to that of most graduate level papers (although not all of the content is argued in the same fashion as such graduate papers). Thus, the reader may wish to copy and paste this essay out into a Word or other word processor program document and print it for easier reading, if they are so inclined and it makes the venture easier on the eyes. If Mr. Woodard wishes to complain about such lengthy writing, he should cease from active dialogue in this field ... this is a standard length of argumentation in the field in which he purports in this present piece of his to be an expert and reliable source of information and sound thinking. (my several "asides" in my response below are my own substitution in this format for the convention of footnotes in academic writing. I have tried to mark them clearly in the format using HTML tags for bold and Italics to help the reader easily demarcate the beginning and ending of the asides). 1. The Question of the Validity of Mr. Woodard's comments as even pertaining to Harry Potter. My first criticism of Mr. Woodard's piece is whether his piece even actually has that much to do with the Harry Potter series. He spends very little space actually talking about the Harry Potter works. The vast majority of this piece simply uses that topic, after some facile derisive comments on it, as a springboard for "show-boating" his own "erudition" and dire prognostications of the current post-modern situation. I spent a semester in my undergraduate studying Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume and Kant (although I did not touch too much of Hegel, considered to be the culmination of modernist German Idealism rationalist philosophy). I have recently, as one of my courses of my PhD coursework this past semester, studied Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan and several "transcendental Thomists" such as Marechal and Rousselot, as well as current thinkers like Jean Luc Marion, present head of philosophy at the Sorbonne. I therefore feel qualified to state that I find that Mr. Woodard's presentation of the issues reveals, at best, a sophomoric grasp of the philosophical movement from the modern era of philosophy to the "post-modern" and events such as the "linguistic turn" and subjectivist epistemology. I will discuss below some of the few statements Mr. Woodard makes actually in regards to the Harry Potter works in comparison to several of these thinkers. For here, however, I wish only to note that as one who has actually studied these movements and thinkers, I have to doubt seriously Mr. Woodard's actual grasp of what has gone on and is going on in the fields of philosophy, literature and theology, including any real grasp or understanding of the concrete ways in which these schools of thought bear on and impact the thinking of the culture at large. (ASIDE:In regards to the issue of death itself, which Mr. Woodard dwells on quite a bit in bombastic tones, I personally would be amused to hear his discussion of Heidegger’s formulation of death as, "the possibility of the impossibility of any existence at all" for the human person [Being and Time, Section 53, German Page 262, English translation by John Mecquarrie and Edward Robinson, English page 307, Oxoford, Basil Blackwell, 1978]. Actually I would be most interested to find out if Mr. Woodard even understands what Heidegger is saying well enough even to begin to mount an adequate critique of it. The first hurdle he is likely to encounter is the very large question in Heideggerian studies of what is meant by the term, existence, the German Dasein. As a Biblical scholar myself I would have to lay the following ground rule if Mr. Woodard were to attempt such a critique of Heidegger's "metaphysics" and epistemology – I put "metaphysics" in quotes because Heidegger is famous for his criticism of "traditional" Western metaphysics. The ground rule would be that argumentation from the New Testament is only acceptable if he can demonstrate enough knowledge of the original language, Koine Greek, to discuss adequately the language of "thanatos" for death, "soma" and "sarx" bodily existence, "nous" for "mind," "dianoia" for "mind" and "gnomei" for "knowledge" - and argumentation from the Old Testament is only acceptable if he can demonstrate enough facility with Biblical Hebrew to discuss adequately the concepts of "mot" as death, "nephesh" as "soul," "life" or "life force," "lev/levav" as "heart," "ruach" as "spirit/mind" and "basar" as "flesh." I would put the actual Hebrew and Greek in this text but I know that HTML and Java combox interfaces do not carry over my Hebrew and Greek fonts, the best I would be able to do is a converted PDF file.)End Aside 2. Unknown Endings: Is Mr. Woodard a clandestine sorcerer himself, or a master burglar? In my original email to the editor I made a sarcastic quip about the possibility of Mr. Woodard keeping a sheep pin himself and doing a little back yard divination, or having clandestinely undertaken feats of magical burglary that would dazzle even the goblins whose magic guards the wizard bank called Gringott’s in the Harry Potter works. I do not wish to repeat the sarcasm of that comment any further here, as I would consider it uncalled for and disrespectful of the editor's generosity in informing me of this venue in which to speak publicly in my own words. I do, however wish to explain the content of that statement and the source of the allusions. This is my "this factor should go without saying" point of material criticism of Mr. Woodard's piece. The reference to burglary is a little less obscure than the other reference: Book 7, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," has been completed with both the author and publishers by now, but nobody except those persons, and the illustrators who have done the artwork for the book, have seen the story itself. Given the popularity of the series, I imagine that those people keep their copies in vaults that make Gringotts look easy to rob, and do not go showing many people the text, if anyone at all, before its official publication. The reference to sheep is a little more obscure but points to the same problem with Mr. Woodard's piece. The reading of sheep intestines was a common form of divination in the ancient world. Obscure as it may be, the image still pops up latently even in contemporary films, such as the 2003 film The Life of David Gayle, starring Kevin Spacey. I will not go into here my position against the death penalty, which would place me materially "agreeing" with that film, nor my criticism of the fallacious argument the film employs, which would place me as disagreeing with it. I will, note however, that while I do not necessarily recommend The Life of David Gayle as a film (some sections, I feel, cross the line of gratuity in sexual content), I do recognize the presence of the image of reading sheep entrails as divination. I will also try to set at ease the minds of any wishing to check the film out, as far as the sheep entrails image goes: there are no live sheep or any intestines, either actual or rubber-model. It is a mid-sized, stuffed lamb doll in which is enclosed a piece of evidence that (supposedly) casts the whole story in a radically new light. In other words, the "entrails" of the stuffed animal contain radical revelations – as the note attached to the doll in the movie says, "Salvation lies within." Both of the above elements point to one thing: the end of the Harry Potter series, including whether or not Harry dies, is not, nor will it be, publicly held knowledge until July 21, 2007, when the book is released publicly. Therefore Mr. Woodard's piece, in its assumption from the very outset that Harry will die, is radically weak and fallacious argumentation from the first word onward. In the online circles of discussion on the Potter series there are legitimate debates that clearly acknowledge the possibility of Harry's death as one possible logical ending to the tale on the grounds of the first six books. There are also those in such debates who, while admitting a certain logic to Harry's death, argue for a greater logic and internal consistency to Harry surviving. Until book 7 is in the hands of the public the issue of whether Harry is more likely to die or to survive is only a legitimately debatable point, and not a known fact. 3. Rowling and Dumbledore on Death Mr. Woodard follows his initial comments with what I can consider to be nothing less than rashly unnecessarily hyperbole of style that borders on - nay, fully commits - rampant arrogance. Based in his unfounded assertion that Harry will die at the end, Mr. Woodard proceeds to paint a skewed picture of Rowling as enamored of technology (symbolized in her Potterverse, as it is sometimes called in online circles, by magic) but neurotically needing to deal with that one small nagging concern that technology has not yet solved the problem of death, back-peddling and needing to tie the question up with a neat tidy little bow just to cover her bases in advocating the wonders of technology. I quote: "last and most clearly with Harry's death, the slowly-dawning realization that human mortality still punctures all of our idiosyncratic "realities" and renders human technology (even genetic engineering and sorcery) mere distraction and vanity." I will not encumber the reader here with the numerous quotes by JK Rowling in interviews that show that death and the need for healthy personal coping with death as a part of life in the fallen world have been a consistent theme of hers from the outset, that is has not been simply some anomaly she needs to cover the bases on in what is an otherwise unbridled advocacy for technology as savior. The quotes are many. Unlike Mr. Woodard, I will, however, provide the reader with a URL of a source that catalogues the quotes by Rowling in actual interviews so that the reader can actually go and check out her comments and see what they think for themselves (the linked page has synopses with links to the actual online holdings of the interviews themselves that the reader can visit and investigate): http://www.accio-quote.org/themes/death.htm. However, the real question here is not limited to that of an "authorial intent" embodied in interview quotes outside the texts in question themselves. So, one should examine the text itself to see what is said about death. The first thing to note is that the arch bad-guys in the story are called "death eaters." In this name the bad guys are defined as bad not by "eating death" in the sense of accepting death. Rather they are "death eaters" in the sense of trying to become immortal by "swallowing death" through magic/technology. In other words, the arch bad-guys in the story do exactly what Mr. Woodard is accusing Rowling of advocating: trying to avoid death or the question of death by means of magic/technology. It is not a sideline trait of the bad-guys either. It is not something that Rowling throws in simply to "cover her bases." It is a central tenet of the bad crowd, the precise temptation Voldemort, as the arch villain, uses to lure people into his camp. It is the central defining tenet of the bad guys to such a degree that it is THE tenet from which their name as a group comes. The "good side," on the other hand, epitomized in the person of Albus Dumbledore (and NOT the political powers that be in the English wizarding world, the Ministry of Magic, with whom Dumbledore is often in tension), speak of death in terms strongly reminiscent of CS Lewis' "Further up and Further In" chapter of the final installment of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. Dumbledore tells Harry "To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." (Sorcerer's Stone, American trade paperback edition by Scholastic, page 297. For the record, for the uninformed, this title is altered from the UK Edition by Bloomsbury, which was "The Philosopher's Stone," an element in medieval Trinitarian alchemical thought). 4. Technology, Magic, Analogy, Allegory and Symbolist Literature This brings me to one of my central criticisms of Mr. Woodard's piece: does JK Rowling, in the Harry Potter series, praise technology and a "technological imperative" by embodying it in the "magic" in her fictional world? Indeed, I have heard that Rowling herself has likened the magic in her "potterverse" (as it is sometimes called in online circles) to technology. I have tried for a day or two and cannot find, in online sources, the actual quote itself. I am fairly sure I have seen her quoted as speaking of magic as like technology, but have as of yet not been able to find the quote and am a bit too pressed for time at the present to search further, due to deadlines for publishing opportunities and the need to find summer work to pay the bills. (I am assuming my bringing this quote up without a source will not ruffle Mr. Woodard's feathers, since a facile, and inaccurate, reading of my doing so would be that I am supporting the material content of his argument, but simply not doing his homework for him. If some other wished to do that homework, the above cited site, accio-quote.org, would be a good starting place with a decent search engine for quote contents.) The basic gist of such a statement, however, is that Rowling has spoken of the magic in her works as being analogous to technology. (ASIDE Note: a good exposition of the traditional history of "magic" in relation to technology that discusses both elements and their developments and divergences, as well as their real world cultural ramifications can be found written by Alan Jacobs at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2502. The article is on the Potter series and the content on real world magic and real world technology is half to three-quarters into the article). END ASIDE Analogies can be used in different ways. They can be used as strict allegories, defined by a one-to-one correlation - as in "this thing in my work/story has a one to one correspondence to X in the real world because that is one of the things my work is mainly about is making a distinct statement about this thing in the real world." As partially stated above, Mr. Woodard's reads JK Rowling as employing this mode of analogy and saying "technology is really cool and is pretty much our savior ... oh yeah, I forgot, it hasn't solved our death thing yet, so I better wrap that up with a pretty bow somehow." Analogy may also, however, be used as a sort of "guide" in explaining something - as in "it's sort of like this ... sort of ... but not totally because it is also sort of like this other thing." In the case of magic in Rowling's work, I think there is a bit of both of these ways, or uses, of analogy in her statement of magic being like technology - but NONE of Mr Woodard's fallacious reading. (ASIDE Note: For more on the nature of strict allegory and distinction of it from something like properly symbolist literature, I would suggest Dr John Granger's treatment of symbolist literature in The Hidden Key to Harry Potter [Zossima Press] ... certain discussion of allegory and analogy in relation to "typology," can also be found in the work of Melito, bishop of Sardis, [d. 180 CE/AD])END ASIDE Magic functions in Rowling's fictional works somewhat like technology functions in the "real world." It does so in a very similar way to that in which many German philosophers had to come to view science in the wake of the First World War. Technology and science can produce some good effects. But Science and technology are also capable of being used for atrocities that we had scarcely imagined before that War. We had always known atrocious death tolls in wars, but never to the level of concrete grotesqueness as science now afforded us (e.g. via such chemical weapons as mustard gas and the like). These uses of technology are, in short, the "dark arts" in the potterverse. A Key instance here is Mr. Woodard's obvious un-familiarity with the concrete details of Rowling's actual works. He claims that the students at Hogwarts study, among other subjects, dark arts. This is technically a flatly false statement. I quote: "Harry's education at Hogwarts rivals modern medical schools in its philistine pragmatism. Whether studying spells and potions, dark arts or magical beasts, the sorcery students learn only how to "do" things, like flying on brooms, de-gnoming gardens or creating gluttonous feasts. Magic is just another craft." In point of fact, at Hogwarts only defense against the darks arts is taught - the dark arts themselves are not taught at all, let alone under a general group heading of magic, as just another course subject (not to mention that, as I state elsewhere, I find Mr. Woodard's heavy handed tones here and throughout the article to be self-inflated arrogance in the extreme, especially given what seems to me to be rather scant evidence offered that he has an understanding of either general realm in question or the works themselves adequate to be making such judgments, and I can construe the heavy tones as nothing other or less than pompously self-appointed pontification) Now, had one not read the texts or not read them carefully, one might think the difference between "dark arts" and "defense against the dark arts" a trifling distinction. In text, however, it is precisely mentioned as a sticking point for Dumbledore. He disagrees with the approach of the school called Durmstrang, which actually teaches on the dark arts themselves (this material can be found in the fourth Potter book, Goblet of Fire). They (Durmstrang) teach the actual methodologies of the dark arts under the thought that this is the best way to know how to defend against the dark arts. I do not say "under the pretense" of this thought because the headmaster of that school, Karkaroff, seems to have proven himself no longer a closet death eater. When Voldemort returns at the end of book 4, Karkaroff refuses to return to the dark lord's fold, from which he had reformed. The genuineness of his reform seems to be validated in text in book 6 by the fact that his refusal to return to Voldemort's camp seems to be the impetus for the fact that his body has been found in a shack. The presence of the "dark mark" above the shack indicates that the murder (the Avada Kedavra killing curse) was committed by death eaters. Karkaroff seems to have been truly reformed and genuinely a good guy now, but Dumbledore seriously takes issue with his (Karkaroff's) philosophy that the best way to teach defense against dark arts is to teach how the arts themselves work. The matter has also been noted by those on the "bad" side: Draco Malfoy relates (in book 4) that his father, Lucius, would rather have sent his son to Durmstrang than Hogwarts, and Draco specifically praises the dark arts aspects of the Durmstrang teaching method. This material indicates anything but a whole-hearted rally cry on the part of Rowling for an unequivocal "technological imperative." Even in the dimension of magic in her world where, as an image, magic connects with the issue of power and, further, specifically technological power (and there are many other dimensions to this image than simply these), the thought cannot be taken as univocal praise for the wonders of technology, with no consideration of moral character. 5. Philosophy and Harry Potter Mr. Woodard lumps Spinoza and Descartes together among the early modern/Enlightenment philosophers who inform Rowling's "stunted understanding of education and human reason." Baruch (or Benedictus in Latin) Spinoza was a 17th century ethicist of Portuguese Jewish decent who was actually barred from the Synagogue because of his philosophy. His ethics were based in his hard-line materialist determinism. For Spinoza, effectively, the only real ethical action a person could make was to accept consciously the materialistly determined nature of the world and history. Whether or not one agrees with Rowling, this is not where she falls on the spectrum that has determinism as one end and existentialism as the other. She falls on the end with the French Existentialists. This is evidenced in Dumbledore's response to Harry at the end of Chamber of Secrets, that it is our actions and choices, not our pre-conceived abilities, that reveal who we really are. This position is very contra determinism. Likewise, Dumbledore responds at the end of Order of the Phoenix and in Half Blood Prince that the "central" prophecy means something only because Voldemort made it mean something in the way he chose to take it and act upon it. Secondly, Rene Descartes was likewise in the 17th century and is credited with being the father of modern philosophy and the proper beginning of the Enlightenment and the "modern" period. You will sometimes here the terms "Cartesian Dualism" and "Descartes' 'Ghost in the Machine.'" These terms both refer to a radical separation of reality into only two spheres, the spiritual/mental "res cogitens" (thinking being/thing/reality) and the material "res extensia" (extended being/thing/reality). First I would highly doubt that Mr. Woodard understands Apostolic, Patristic and Medieval Christian thought well enough to realize the sharp distinction that exists between an idea of physicality such as "res extensia" and something like St Paul's concept of the body ("soma" in Greek) as a relational concept (the mode by, or rather in, which the person relates to others and the world and one of the key ways, although not the sole way, a person relates to God). I would also suspect Mr. Woodard’s own view of "physicality as such" corresponds much more closely to Descartes "res extensia" than to the medieval and Patristic concepts from which that concept radically departed. Indeed, I suspect Mr. Woodard's own thinking in this area is much closer to Descartes' concept than are the concepts in Rowling's works. I would guess that, could the matter be investigated accurately, Mr. Woodard's view of the human person as both a spiritual and a physical being is probably very close to Descartes' "ghost in the machine" ... the spiritual "part" simply located somehow in the physical with some type of magical control over it. (ASIDE Note: I put the word "part" in quotes just now in a specific reference to the development of doctrine within the Catholic Church. The human person is key concept employed in that development for the Church as the "mystical body of Christ." Twice in the conciliar history of the Catholic Church she has rejected such materialist thinking with regards to the issue of Scripture and Tradition and their relation in the life of the mystical body. At both the Council of Trent and at the Second Vatican Council there were "traditionalist" camps pushing for a material definition of the scopes of Scripture and Tradition as "sources" [the orginal suggested title of the Dei Verbum Dogmatic Consitution of Vatican II being "De Fontibus" - "of the sources"]. The language that these camps argued for in this point, at both councils, was taken from a Latin mistranslation of chapter 27 of St Basil's "On The Holy Spirit", where St Basil addresses the matter of Scripture and Tradition. The Latin mistranslation that these camps argued for utilizing was "partem et partem" - "into part and into part" - the same "part" and materialist language of "extension" as characterized Descartes' materialistically dualistic thinking on materiality and physicality, and likewise the same concepts that I see in Mr Woodard's version of "objective reality." [This material on these matters in conciliar history in the Catholic Church can be found in the commentary on the Dei Verbum document of the Second Vatican Council, The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, written by then Joseph Cardnial Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, which can be found in: Joseph Ratzinger, "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: Origin and Background," in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II. Translated by William Glen-Doepel. General Editor: Herbert Vorgrimler, {New York: Herder and Herder, 1968} - Ratzinger emphasizes the idea that to begin with the question of "two sources" (as did schema C of the drafting of Dei Verbum) cloaks "positivistic" tendencies that restrict revelation to teaching that one acquires from "sources," and it is significant that he points to "the garment of ecclesiastical traditionalism" as the device with which these tendencies are cloaked [pages 162 and 170] ... this is the same type of "ecclesiastical traditionalism" which I see in the site listed for the comment by Athos to Woodard's piece here, which I discuss more fully in an aside under my point 7. END ASIDE). If you listen to the formulations of "Wizarding Logic" in Rowling's works drawn by somebody like Steve Vanderark (of the website known as the "Harry Potter Lexicon"), you will find that one of the precise things about magic in Rowling's potterverse is that it facilitates getting away from the Cartesian type of "materialist" concept of physicality. VanderArk described "Wizarding Logic" as things being defined relationally rather than materially/spatially (these comments are drawn from VanderArk’s presentation at the "Lumos" symposium in Las Vegas in the summer of 2006, which I attended personally). In the wizarding world, VanderArk notes, everything is always only about forty seconds away, not matter what the physical distance is, which allows things to be defined relationally in a way that encourages thinking about those relationships as we might not have before. VanderArk used the example of getting to Hogwart's by the Hogwart's express. Our usual way of thinking about it would be that since Hogwarts is in Scotland and Seamus (I think) lives in Scotland, you would think it would make more sense for Seamus to travel directly from his home to Hogsmeade and Hogwarts at the beginning of the school year. But it takes just as long for him to "portkey" or "side-along apparition" to Kings Cross Station in London as it does to do the same to Hogsmeade, so the matter is freed up to be relationally determined and for relational elements to be emphasized. Such a student of course goes to Kings Cross Station, platform 9 and 3/4, to board the train like all other students - because that is how students get to Hogwarts. Riding the train is a part of the social situation that helps form the education at Hogwarts. This is an almost distinctly contra-"res extensia" way of looking at physicality. To be sure, these matters could bear much further scrutiny and more nuanced arguments could be developed and debated on both sides of the fence. Mr. Woodard's exposition of the matter, however, does none of this. Rather it displays, at best, a cursory-only familiarity with the details of the texts and the concepts at play in them. Furthermore, his simplistic and slipshod lumping together of such thinkers as Descartes and Spinoza indicates a grossly inadequate understanding of those philosophical matters themselves, let alone how Rowling's work does or does not compare to them. 6. The Argument "Ex Homine" I have saved this point for next to last and the following point for last because of their personal nature. In the last point I will make I will explain why I find Mr. Woodard's comments to be not only base and sophomoric argumentation at best, but, moreover highly and repugnantly offensive to human dignity and suffering. I save these two points for last in the hopes of allowing the reader to process the above considerations on the content of Mr. Woodard's piece uninhibited before reading the following more personal comments and arguments. For this present, next to last, point, I will begin by saying that I do not enjoy making this type of an argument but I believe it is pertinent here. The argument I am about to employ here is technically fallacious for arguing the specific points in such a debate. Technically it is called the logical fallacy of the "ad hominem" argument (the "argument against the person"). I use it here because the one place I find an "ad hominem" argument to be valid is when another specific "hominem" argument has already been employed by the other. The particular type of argument I accuse Mr. Woodard of is not, as far as I know, a standardly named fallacy, but rather a name I have taken the liberty of coining myself. His arguments are what I call the fallacy of the "ex homine" (the "argument from the person"). In addition to the standardly termed "ad hominem" fallacy, I see several other types of "hominem" arguments possible in fallacious argumentation. For example, there is what I call the "pro homine," or the argument "to/for the person." In more base conversation this "pro homine" argument is referred to as "brown-nosing" or "sucking up." Sometimes even an accusation of what I am calling "pro homine" is used as a fallacious argument. One version of this logically fallacious accusation is called (in logic, as an actually named logical fallacy, as a sub-type of "ad hominem" argument) the "poisoning the well argument." In effect it says that "nothing this person says should be considered at all simply because, even if just on the surface, they appear to have something to gain personally from the matter being decided in one way rather than another"(in other words it accuses a person of having fallen under the sway of a "pro homine" argument). The fallacy that Mr. Woodard is guilty of here, however, I would strongly argue, is primarily the "ex homine" argument. In this argument one says, or, in Mr. Woodard's case, allows to be implied, "you should listen to me – I am knowledgeable and these statements should be taken on my word because of my expertise and wisdom." Mr. Woodard's credentials listed at the end of this piece state that he is the former editor of the Canadian conservative magazine Western Standards and now teaches in Calgary. I can only hope that that magazine ended Mr. Woodard's tenure as editor as a means to their own pursuit of higher standards of academic and journalistic integrity. As for having held the position of editor itself, it does not sway my opinion. I have had enough personal experience with editors, in editorial assistant work that I have done, to know that holding such a position provides no intrinsic guarantees against myopic vision taken to a level of almost anti-sense and anti-good-judgment. Some editors do the position well, and some do it very poorly. There are no guarantees. (Michael Cook's willingness to afford me this opportunity to speak on MercatorNet's forum seems to me to be a sign of a desire for fairness that leans in the direction of high journalistic integrity). As for Mr. Woodard's teaching credentials, it would at leas help, in the afore-mentioned "ex homine" argument, to know his precise educational and teaching credentials. Does he have at least a BA in a humanities field that would make it believable that he would have actually studied these philosophical figures in any depth? Or did he simply "read up" on some of it in the simplistic beginner's synopses of the likes of the Copplestone series and then slap, pastiche-style, his own predetermined conclusions about the Harry Potter series on top of that? As for his teaching now, does he teach at an accredited academic institution capable of conferring at least a BA degree, an institution using his own teaching in the process of conferring such degrees? Or does he rather teach at a Christian highschool in a church basement? I myself received my highschool education in such church basement schools and consider that I received a good education. In the field of academic and cultural public debate, however, I list the credentials of my BA in Philosophy and English, my MA in Theology and the PhD in Biblical studies on which I am currently working. My father taught highschool math in at least one of those church highschools, and I think he did an excellent job of it. Public debate in mathematics is far less likely and common than the same in the fields of philosophy, theology, culture and literature. Were such public mathematics debate a reality and my father involved in it, however, he would not have listed as his credentials in such debate his teaching mathematics in a Christian highschool. He would have listed rather his MA in mathematics and the fact that he competently taught computer-programming languages for twenty years as part of the faculty of an accredited college capable of conferring the degrees of BA and BS. 7. My Own Argument "ex homine": How Mr. Woodard's piece offends personally (my argument "ex homine" – from my personal experience) . Finally, on a personal level I am extremely offended by Mr. Woodard's cavalier and snide comments that not so much touch on, but rather trample barbarically over, matters that resonate very deeply in the lives and recent memories of some such as myself. I quote: "Despite our electronic heart monitors and computerized intravenous drips, modern technological optimism is finally colliding with the unavoidable reality of death." I cared for my own father through a heart attack that, by all laws of probability and physics, should have claimed his life. He underwent initial heart surgery for the implanting of two stints in the two arteries, left and right, that supply the heart itself with blood, the left of which arteries had full blockage at the very top where it beaks off from the main artery supplying the whole heart. The night after that operation was complete my father went into atrial fibrillation that topped out at 220 beats/minute (the "normal" high end for a-fib is 120 to 130 registered-beats/minute). Normally medication (digitalis) works to calm a-fib but occasionally a jolt from the paddles is necessary. In such cases as paddles are necessary, if it requires more than one jolt the person is most likely dead. My father took 4 jolts from the paddles that night. I consider his survival at that point to be a genuine miracle from the Lord. It was a miracle, however, that was delivered alongside, in concert with, using the available medical technology. It was also a miracle that, as I shall relate in a moment, did not "ensure his immortality" through technology ... but did afford another few years for my father and I to work on our relationship and express our love for each other. 1.5 years after that heart attack, in December of 2005, my father was diagnosed with malignant esophageal cancer. Just under four months later, on March 27, 2006, at 5:45 pm, he died. It was a very rough ride and I spent the last two weeks of my father's life taking the "night shift" in his hospital room (for much of the stay at home before that I took the "night shift" on the couch beside his hospital bed in my parents’ family room). Those two weeks, and the whole four months, were for my father, quite frankly, from a standpoint of psychological experience, a living hell. While he was at home he was on a narcotic pain-killer that caused much disruption of normal sleep patterns, as well as disorientation and occasional mild hallucination. When my father was moved to the hospital they began administering morphine through the IV "drip" referred to so glibly by Mr. Woodard. This pain killer greatly increased disruption of sleep and turned my father's day to day existence into an endless haze of varying shades of light received only through a window, losing track of not only time of day, but what day or month it was – a common effect of extreme sleep deprivation. Without the morphine, however, his direct pain would have been infinitely greater living hell. Even when at home on only the narcotic medication, when a dose would wear off he was visibly and aurally, undeniably in great pain. In the end morphine was a thing that I was simultaneously both very grateful for, and hated with a passion for what it did to my father's state of mind. Here I leave in the only fully acerbic comment from my original email to the editor because I feel that Mr. Woodard's cavalier and arrogant callousness demands it and that it is something that should be heard. If Mr. Woodard wishes to prove his point concerning this type of technology he should attempt to do so not by flamboyant words securely hidden behind the screen of the Internet, but by action. He should "step up to the plate" and prove his point by dying of cancer himself without the aid of any pain medication. Perhaps "Athos" would like to continue support of Mr. Woodard’s "superb commentary" by joining him in the venture. (I highly doubt that Athos will appreciate that comment, however. I just looked at the website listed for Athos and it took me several tries do decipher even exactly what was being said in the title of the site, which made my own writing look downright Hemmingway-esque, which is a remarkable feat in itself. But such seems to me to be the standard MO of the "Rad Trads," who seem to me to have very little actual understanding of the Catholic and Orthodox Tradition itself, yet seem to pride themselves on being more "traditional" than even that Tradition itself, a position best designated as the "ism" of "traditionalism" [cf the aside above] rather than any truly relevant grasp of the actual Tradition – as well as those who self-designate using terms such as "conserberalism." This last appellation seems to me to be striving for the Greek "golden mean" between the two extremes of a radically limited and banal, to use one of Mr. Woodard's favored terms, political system, rather than progressing to the healthier realization that it is this binary dualistic language of humanly constructed false dichotomies that should be pitched out the window. They purport to be "getting beyond such" but their actual die-hard adherence to it is evidenced in their clinging to the language. GK Chesterton considered such "Greek column" golden-mean thinking to be, yes "stable," but placing the person in clear and present danger of death by radical boredom, in contrast to what he call the "romance" of true "orthodoxy." ... Cf the "The Romance of Orthodoxy" chapter in Chesterton's Orthodoxy.) Mr. Woodard, in regards to the harsh tones I have just used here and my former comments on "ad hominem" arguments ... every argument such as the ones you make in your piece are always ad hominem arguments. As far as I can see they are always aimed at tearing others down for the sole purpose of building up only yourself and your own constituency, which I would call a very dark art. I would direct you to St Paul's comments on the matter in 1 Corinthians 8:1 – "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." There are valid questions concerning the Harry Potter works in regards to Traditional Christian thought and teaching. In my own experience it seems to me, sadly, that all too often, even when the legitimate questions are being asked, the way that they are asked falls short of legitimate dialogue. In your piece, however, I do not see even the legitimate questions, let alone a legitimate manner of asking them. (I personally do not believe the truth of these matters lies in a negative answer to such questions as "is Rowling's work morally acceptable?" or positive answers to those such as "is the magic in Rowling's potterverse deviant?" - but they are legitimate questions that can be asked in legitimate ways ... but your piece really does seem to me to be, at best, only using such questions as a springboard for your own self-aggrandizement and grudges). I would have no way of knowing anything about your personal life and so I say the following solely as a hypothetical pondering. Perhaps some of the callousness of your comments comes from personal experience of the death of a loved one, and an ensuing jadedness towards what you thought, or didn’t think, technology could or could not, or did or did not, offer in the situation. If such is the case I would suggest you join the rest of us and take it to where it belongs – therapy or pastoral counseling, whichever is more comfortable and profitable for you. If that hypothetical is an actuality for you, I would encourage you to cease using the public pulpit in failed attempts to grapple with things that are best worked on elsewhere. Either way I would suggest you do your homework and research better and respect your audience at large by employing sound and valid modes or argumentation, if you intend continue writing unfounded and acerbic pieces like this one. Constituency mongering only works for so long, it seems to me. It may work for Harold Bloom, but personally I hope that when I am his age I hope my company is more pleasurable for my friends and family than Bloom's general reputation seems to suggest that his is for his friends and family, and that I’m not thought of as that much of a, at best, curmudgeon. Most Sincerely, M. Brett Kendall PhD Candidate, Theology (Biblical Studies) Fordham University |
posted by Merlin at 1:16 AM
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