A Minor Musing: Some Easter Cynicism

I'm sure AT&T is only trying to get subscribers and not make social commentary with this ad. The little girl, however, sums up America's basic philosophic sentiment: "We want more." Perhaps it was written by some young hipster whose has irony as his or her primary language.

If so, it's not the first time our desire for stuff has been mocked.

Americans may have laughed with Carlin, but we haven't seemed to change our views.  Last weekend, Lifehacker urged readers to embrace minimalism. The post got 96,000 hits over the course of the past week. Friday's post about the psychology of clothing already has 104,000 hits.

That's why this exchange between Cardinal Dolan and George Stephanopoulos seems to indicate an epidemic of cognitive dissonance.

CARDINAL DOLAN:Easter is always a time for renewed hope, a sense of promise and – and – confidence. But this year's special because this – of Pope Francis. As we watch him – and it's clear to me that the world is watching – you got it, he brings us back to the simplicity, the sincerity, just the raw basic goodness of the Gospel.

Look what he did on Thursday, you know. He washed the feet of – of, who, 12 inmates, 12 young juvenile delinquents, imitating Jesus at the Last Supper and washing the feet of his disciples. And he's constantly reminding us that religion is not only about faith, what we believe – you bet it is – but it's also about how we live, especially in service to the ones Jesus called –

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So this symbolism, this – not – not wearing the fur-lined cape, not wearing the gold cross, living in the – the more simple apartments, you believe that really matters.

CARDINAL DOLAN: I do. And from what I'm hearin', I – that's not part of the substance of the papacy, we know that. But it does – you know, these signs, these symbols have meaning. They wouldn't matter much to me, but from what I hear folks sayin', they matter a lot to people.

And they're sayin', "Wow, we have a pope who – who seems to d – craves simplicity and bein' with people, and the poorer the better." And as one person said to me, "He reminds us a lot of Jesus." And I said, "Well, I hope so, 'cause that's his job description." So, apparently, those things mean a lot to people.

I'm a Protestant farm boy, so I don't always understand the symbolism of the papacy. Maybe Pope Francis will succeed where humor and lifehacking have failed. Something in my cynical soul, however, tells me that raising someone from the dead was an easier task than getting Americans to follow Christ's injunction to “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt." [Luke 9:3].

Another Minor Musing About Stuff

I've previously mentioned that it frequently appears that possessions own us.  Jason Peters at The Front Porch Republic provides a reason for that phenomenon.

I am describing—or at least attempting to describe—at least two facts of human existence that I’m going to go ahead and call “mysteries.” One is that our attachment to certain objects, or objects of a certain kind or category, suggests at least this much about us: we are a species that craves presence. The other is that to us an object is never merely an object. It is always itself plus something else.

Another way to put this would be to say that, properly speaking, there is no such thing as an object. The world is not filled with objects. It is filled with images.

Peters poetically concludes,

We are creatures of flesh and blood; flesh and blood are what we crave. Not to crave them is to diminish our humanity. The boy holding out his ball cap for an autograph is behaving in accordance with his incarnate condition—that is, in accordance with his full humanity.

Somehow, this conclusion seems both correct and hopelessly optimistic.  Peters seems to gloss over the fact that attachment to physical objects seems to express fear.  The desire to possess goes deeper than angst that the object may some day be necessary.  That fear that something useful may not be available when needed prompted my parents, both children of the depression, to save nearly everything.  Taken to an extreme that fear becomes a paranoia that produces the tragic souls exhibited like zoo animals on television programs like Hoarders.

The deeper fear is the fear of human fallibility, especially the fallibility of memory. Peters alludes to that fear when he writes,

The mother mourning the death of her son will not settle for the mere mental image of him. She will have photographs—that is, images. The absent lover will not be satisfied with the memory of his beloved; he will have a token that his body can partake of, most likely a token that evokes his senses of sight and smell. And, as valuable as the email message from her may be, it isn’t the piece of paper the girl’s hand—the hand he longs to hold—moved across as she wrote.

All of these examples point to human fear that memory will fail.  Humans forget even the things we solemnly promise ourselves that we will remember.  The parent, lover, mourner, old person in a rocker can use the object to prompt memory and the solace memory provides.

The deeper fear, one that goes to the core of being human is the fear of being forgotten.  The knowledge that all memories fade and that objects prompt memory may cause humans to value possessions that others can associate with us.  After we pass, the object will survive and the object can serve as a kind of totem preserving us in memory.

My House During Costuming Season

My wife will probably be angry with me for posting this picture, so I will say two things.  First, debate season produces far more interesting pictures,  Second, if I were left to my own devices, I would probably decorate the whole house in this motif.

A Minor Musing on Value and Stuff

This article about collectors spending over $190,000 for Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's journals, typwriter, hooded sweatshirt, and manifesto along with my spending the past two days going through some of my father's tools and accouterments have had me thinking about stuff and what stuff is worth.  Apparently, People are willing to pay a lot to own the Unabomber's personal effects.

Kaczynski’s personal journals fetched $40,676; the iconic hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses depicted in police sketch artist renderings accounted for $20,025; and his handwritten “manifesto” sold for $20,053. Other popular items included $22,003 for the Smith Corona typewriter used to write manifestos sent to newspapers and later seized from the cabin and $17,780 for his autobiography.

I have nothing profound to say about the situation except that it seems ironic that people will spend thousands on something that few will probably care about in 100 years.  It's also ironic that I'm hanging on to material that I won't need in about 10 years and that no will probably want then.

Sometimes it seems that stuff owns us.