Mythic Narratives in Public Discourse
It's a heck a lede:
Now, one of the first things to mind, of course, is something about sexism in Christianity and all that. Can we set that aside for just a moment, though? I mean, sure, it plays into the larger consideration, but there is no utility in the standard anti-Christian rant.
Our Lady of Sorrows made its way to the Arizona Charter Athletic Association state baseball championship against Mesa Prep. So far, so good. But Mesa's team had ... a girl on its team. So Our Lady of Sorrows refused to play because the second baseman was a second basegirl, and Our Lady has a rule about boys and girls.
Our Lady is a breakaway-Catholic school run by a faction that rejects Vatican II. Right there, of course, is a significant point, insofar as many who might criticize the contemporary Roman Catholic Church under Pope Benedict XVI for its ideological brutality and obsolescence would be horrified and outraged by the Church before that. The Associated Press reports that the priests running Our Lady are part of the Society of St. Pius X. a Swiss-based order founded in 1970, five years after the close of Vatican II, by a French archbishop. And, for the record, it was Cardinal Ratzinger, better known today as Pope Benedict XVI, who, in 1987 undertook at John Paul II's instruction, the enforcement canonical law against Archbishop Lefebvre, who intended to improperly consecrate four bishops, which situation ended in the excommunications of Lefebvre and the improperly consecrated bishops. So, yeah. Just knowing that ... well, the story from Arizona is actually starting to make some sense. In 2009, Benedict XVI added a new chapter when he accepted the automatic remission of the the church declaring that the SSPX has no canonical status until doctrinal arguments are resolved.
Fascinating stuff.
I mean, this is also, after a fashion, Mel Gibson we're talking about, too.
So, yeah. It seems that the baseball episode isn't so much shocking as, well, you know ... predictable.
The thing is that in a Freudian context—
—the strangeness of Our Lady's position—
—actually makes sense.
This is an ego defense called rationalization. And it's kind of like the League of Extraordinarily Pro-Woman joke. The profound respect of such outlooks is the elevation of women to a pedestal of inhumanity. The outlook so "respects" women that women cannot simply be human. Ultimately, the problem is what we uppity liberals call objectification. Females are not people, but, rather, mythical objects expected to conform to an inherently egocentric idyll.
American men and women are human first, men or women second, and American third. This is not some mass intellectual calculation tacitly and miraculously occurring under our noses. Rather, it is the natural order. All people are humans first. This is natural. Some part of their humanity is, in fact, prescribed and proscribed by their sex. A person's cultural identity is a learned behavior.
The SSPX outlook elevates the learned behavior. It is a mild form of an idolatry present in some form and to some degree within any phallocratic endeavor; it is ubiquitous in history, and evident in prehistory. It is the fundamental justification for misogyny, and it is, quite simply, an ego defense mechanism.
It is a neurotic symptom, one of tremendous and complex gravity.
Certainly, one can imagine an idyll in which legitimate respect and authority are invested in the objectified idol, but it never happens because, well, men are human, too. This is not legitimate elevation, but, rather, a neurotic symptom—a rationalization—arising from the conflict between one's cultural identity idyll, such as freedom and equality, and one's more human desire, such as the comfort of authority.
Here we find a delicate intersection of mental health and ethics. We say delicate in this occasion because it is not, regardless of how many would describe the SSPX outlook as crazy, about asserting that people of certain beliefs are inherently incompetent. Nor is it to prescribe any sort of official "thought police", although one can figure the tacit results easily enough: What weight of balance do we owe this neurotic symptom in the broader public discourse?
The SSPX outlook is a similar psychological process to what we see in the "extraordinarily pro-woman" outlook of an American presidential candidate. It is, in fact, a common aspect of conservative politics in the United States.
The similarity, the common aspect, is that they are diverse expressions of the same fundamental neurotic symptom.
At some point, the question of legitimacy in the public discourse necessarily arises; the alternative is to give neuroses precedent over reality, which, you know, in terms of mental health, is not considered a healthy condition.
But the question of legitimacy has specific boundaries, and in a certain fashion has two-way effects. Do we really owe this particular neurotic symptom credibility in the public discourse? But, at the same time, we also have to ask whether that automatically disqualifies one from the public discourse; the answer is, resoundingly, no. The elevation of learned behavior to primacy is a tendency that can creep into almost any consideration of humanity or the human condition. It can be accounted for if it is outstanding in any particular argumentative construct.
But in this case, specifically, can one argue that proscribing another's humanity according to egocentric mythopoeia is actually a form of profound, genuine respect, but without actually prescribing a priori the primacy of those elements?
In the whole of human history, it does not appear this has actually ever occurred. Naturally, there is a reason for that: It is a neurotic symptom.
Thus, it seems that giving this symptom prominent weight in the public discourse overstates its validity.
Paige Sultzbach, 15, deferred to Our Lady of Sorrows and the SSPX on prior occasions, but who would suggest she should sit out the bloody championship game because otherwise the other team would rather forfeit?
It's a neurotic symptom, presented in striking clarity, courtesy Our Lady of Sorrows Academy and the Society of St. Piux X.
____________________
Notes:
Gaynor, Tim. "Arizona school won't play ballgame against team with girl". Reuters. May 10, 2012. Sports.Yahoo.com. May 12, 2012. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/arizona-school-wont-play-ballgame-against-team-girl-033001880--mlb.html
Wikipedia. "Second Vatican Council". May 3, 2012. En.Wikipedia.org. May 12, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council
—————. "Society of St. Pius X". May 11, 2012. En.Wikipedia.org. May 12, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X
Associated Press. "Team forfeits due to female opponent". May 11, 2012. ESPN.Go.com. May 121, 2012. http://espn.go.com/high-school/base...ball-player-15-cited-opponent-forfeit-phoenix
Kissling, Frances. "Mel Gibson's family values". Salon. April 26, 2009. Salon.com. May 12, 2012. http://www.salon.com/2009/04/26/mel_gibson/
Brown, Norman O. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1959.
Heffner, Christopher L. "Ego Defense Mechanisms". Psychology 101. 2001. AllPsych.com. May 12, 2012. http://allpsych.com/psychology101/defenses.html
Fernia, Will. "Now Playing ...". The Maddow Blog. May 11, 2012. MaddowBlog.MSNBC.MSN.com. May 12, 2012. http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/11/11663558-now-playing
Reston, Maeve. "Romney says Obama campaign showed weakness with 'cartoon'". Los Angeles Times. May 8, 2012. LATimes.com. May 12, 2012. http://www.latimes.com/news/politic...eakness-with-cartoon-20120508,0,6089559.story
It's a heck a lede:
An Arizona high school forfeited a shot at a state baseball championship on Thursday rather than compete against an opponent that had a 15-year-old girl on its team, an official from the rival school said.
(Gaynor)
(Gaynor)
Now, one of the first things to mind, of course, is something about sexism in Christianity and all that. Can we set that aside for just a moment, though? I mean, sure, it plays into the larger consideration, but there is no utility in the standard anti-Christian rant.
Our Lady of Sorrows made its way to the Arizona Charter Athletic Association state baseball championship against Mesa Prep. So far, so good. But Mesa's team had ... a girl on its team. So Our Lady of Sorrows refused to play because the second baseman was a second basegirl, and Our Lady has a rule about boys and girls.
"They wouldn't play the game as long as we had a girl on the team who was on the field. It violates their policy about boys playing against girls," Wagner told Reuters.
"It's just unfortunate that our kids who are excited about playing don't have the opportunity," he added.
Reuters was unable to reach Our Lady of Sorrows for comment. But Fox News reported an official at the school as saying it had no option but to forfeit the game.
"Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty," Fox reported the official as saying in a statement.
"Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls," it added.
"It's just unfortunate that our kids who are excited about playing don't have the opportunity," he added.
Reuters was unable to reach Our Lady of Sorrows for comment. But Fox News reported an official at the school as saying it had no option but to forfeit the game.
"Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty," Fox reported the official as saying in a statement.
"Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls," it added.
Our Lady is a breakaway-Catholic school run by a faction that rejects Vatican II. Right there, of course, is a significant point, insofar as many who might criticize the contemporary Roman Catholic Church under Pope Benedict XVI for its ideological brutality and obsolescence would be horrified and outraged by the Church before that. The Associated Press reports that the priests running Our Lady are part of the Society of St. Pius X. a Swiss-based order founded in 1970, five years after the close of Vatican II, by a French archbishop. And, for the record, it was Cardinal Ratzinger, better known today as Pope Benedict XVI, who, in 1987 undertook at John Paul II's instruction, the enforcement canonical law against Archbishop Lefebvre, who intended to improperly consecrate four bishops, which situation ended in the excommunications of Lefebvre and the improperly consecrated bishops. So, yeah. Just knowing that ... well, the story from Arizona is actually starting to make some sense. In 2009, Benedict XVI added a new chapter when he accepted the automatic remission of the the church declaring that the SSPX has no canonical status until doctrinal arguments are resolved.
Fascinating stuff.
I mean, this is also, after a fashion, Mel Gibson we're talking about, too.
So, yeah. It seems that the baseball episode isn't so much shocking as, well, you know ... predictable.
The thing is that in a Freudian context—
... it is a Freudian theorem that each individual neurosis is not static but dynamic. It is a historical process with its own internal logic. Because of the basically unsatisfactory nature of the neurotic compromise, tension between the repressed and repressing factors persists and produces a constant series of new symptom-formations. And the series of symptom-formations is not a shapeless series of mere changes; it exhibits a regressive pattern, which Freud calls the slow return of the repressed, “It is a law of neurotic diseases that these obsessive acts serve the impulse more and more and come nearer and nearer the original and forbidden act.” The doctrine of the universal neurosis of mankind, if we take it seriously, therefore compels us to entertain the hypothesis that the pattern of history exhibits a dialectic not hitherto recognized by historians, the dialectic of neurosis.
(Brown)
(Brown)
—the strangeness of Our Lady's position—
"Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty," Fox reported the official as saying in a statement.
"Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls," it added.
(Gaynor)
"Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls," it added.
(Gaynor)
—actually makes sense.
This is an ego defense called rationalization. And it's kind of like the League of Extraordinarily Pro-Woman joke. The profound respect of such outlooks is the elevation of women to a pedestal of inhumanity. The outlook so "respects" women that women cannot simply be human. Ultimately, the problem is what we uppity liberals call objectification. Females are not people, but, rather, mythical objects expected to conform to an inherently egocentric idyll.
American men and women are human first, men or women second, and American third. This is not some mass intellectual calculation tacitly and miraculously occurring under our noses. Rather, it is the natural order. All people are humans first. This is natural. Some part of their humanity is, in fact, prescribed and proscribed by their sex. A person's cultural identity is a learned behavior.
The SSPX outlook elevates the learned behavior. It is a mild form of an idolatry present in some form and to some degree within any phallocratic endeavor; it is ubiquitous in history, and evident in prehistory. It is the fundamental justification for misogyny, and it is, quite simply, an ego defense mechanism.
It is a neurotic symptom, one of tremendous and complex gravity.
Certainly, one can imagine an idyll in which legitimate respect and authority are invested in the objectified idol, but it never happens because, well, men are human, too. This is not legitimate elevation, but, rather, a neurotic symptom—a rationalization—arising from the conflict between one's cultural identity idyll, such as freedom and equality, and one's more human desire, such as the comfort of authority.
Here we find a delicate intersection of mental health and ethics. We say delicate in this occasion because it is not, regardless of how many would describe the SSPX outlook as crazy, about asserting that people of certain beliefs are inherently incompetent. Nor is it to prescribe any sort of official "thought police", although one can figure the tacit results easily enough: What weight of balance do we owe this neurotic symptom in the broader public discourse?
The SSPX outlook is a similar psychological process to what we see in the "extraordinarily pro-woman" outlook of an American presidential candidate. It is, in fact, a common aspect of conservative politics in the United States.
The similarity, the common aspect, is that they are diverse expressions of the same fundamental neurotic symptom.
At some point, the question of legitimacy in the public discourse necessarily arises; the alternative is to give neuroses precedent over reality, which, you know, in terms of mental health, is not considered a healthy condition.
But the question of legitimacy has specific boundaries, and in a certain fashion has two-way effects. Do we really owe this particular neurotic symptom credibility in the public discourse? But, at the same time, we also have to ask whether that automatically disqualifies one from the public discourse; the answer is, resoundingly, no. The elevation of learned behavior to primacy is a tendency that can creep into almost any consideration of humanity or the human condition. It can be accounted for if it is outstanding in any particular argumentative construct.
But in this case, specifically, can one argue that proscribing another's humanity according to egocentric mythopoeia is actually a form of profound, genuine respect, but without actually prescribing a priori the primacy of those elements?
In the whole of human history, it does not appear this has actually ever occurred. Naturally, there is a reason for that: It is a neurotic symptom.
Thus, it seems that giving this symptom prominent weight in the public discourse overstates its validity.
Paige Sultzbach, 15, deferred to Our Lady of Sorrows and the SSPX on prior occasions, but who would suggest she should sit out the bloody championship game because otherwise the other team would rather forfeit?
It's a neurotic symptom, presented in striking clarity, courtesy Our Lady of Sorrows Academy and the Society of St. Piux X.
____________________
Notes:
Gaynor, Tim. "Arizona school won't play ballgame against team with girl". Reuters. May 10, 2012. Sports.Yahoo.com. May 12, 2012. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/arizona-school-wont-play-ballgame-against-team-girl-033001880--mlb.html
Wikipedia. "Second Vatican Council". May 3, 2012. En.Wikipedia.org. May 12, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council
—————. "Society of St. Pius X". May 11, 2012. En.Wikipedia.org. May 12, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X
Associated Press. "Team forfeits due to female opponent". May 11, 2012. ESPN.Go.com. May 121, 2012. http://espn.go.com/high-school/base...ball-player-15-cited-opponent-forfeit-phoenix
Kissling, Frances. "Mel Gibson's family values". Salon. April 26, 2009. Salon.com. May 12, 2012. http://www.salon.com/2009/04/26/mel_gibson/
Brown, Norman O. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1959.
Heffner, Christopher L. "Ego Defense Mechanisms". Psychology 101. 2001. AllPsych.com. May 12, 2012. http://allpsych.com/psychology101/defenses.html
Fernia, Will. "Now Playing ...". The Maddow Blog. May 11, 2012. MaddowBlog.MSNBC.MSN.com. May 12, 2012. http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/11/11663558-now-playing
Reston, Maeve. "Romney says Obama campaign showed weakness with 'cartoon'". Los Angeles Times. May 8, 2012. LATimes.com. May 12, 2012. http://www.latimes.com/news/politic...eakness-with-cartoon-20120508,0,6089559.story