Well, I broke down and went to see the Michael Moore movie. I was expecting to be outraged, offended, maddened, etc etc. No one told me I’d be bored. The devices were so tired, the analysis worthy of something by an intern in the Nation online, the sad attempts to blame everything on Bush so strained and over-wrought even the most credulous of conspiracists would have a hard time giving them the time of day. This won the top Cannes prize? Only hatred of America can explain that. The one thing that did interest me was part of Moore’s technique. Much of the movie focused on various objects of hatred: Bush, Cheney, Bush pere, et al. The camera lingered for ever on their facial tics, it used off-camera moments where anyone looks awkward and dumb, it moved in with grainy precision in order to help the audience sustain and nurture its hatred. It was like the “1984” hate sessions. Cheap shots would be an inadequate description. This was tedious propaganda, using the most ancient of devices, and reflective of a pathology that can only be described as unhinged. (In that respect, eerily similar to Mel Gibson’s recent piece of hackneyed, manipulative pornography.) I’d address the arguments, if there were any. There weren’t. There was just a transparently failed attempt to construct conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence, and when the entire framework was teetering into absurdity, the occasional necessary lie. I left before the end. A bar in Ptown on a Sunday night was more interesting.
WHAT NATURAL LAW IS: Garry Wills had, as usual, an interesting piece in the NYT yesterday. It’s indisputable, I think, that there is no Biblical treatment of the question of when a fetus becomes a human person; and equally indisputable that, within the Church itself, there have been many different views throughout history. But Wills’ most interesting point is about “natural law.” This tradition of reasoning, essentially pioneered by Aquinas, and resting on Aristotle, posits that there are some truths that are available to anyone who looks at nature with an open mind. (And this reasoning is self-evident to non-blievers as well.) But, of course, what was available to Aquinas, let alone Aristotle, was a deeply inadequate biology. A new natural law would try to absorb all that science has since told us about fetal development, heterosexual intercourse, evolutionary biology, other species, etc. But the Church does not always spend enough time absorbing scientific developments – especially when they conflict with established dogma. Case in point: there’s an obvious distinction between personhood and life – as Wills points out. Sperm is life, but it is not a person; fertilized eggs are routinely aborted naturally (is nature murderous?); miscarriages are a sad but permanent part of our biology; intuitively the abortion of a two week old fetus does not seem to us as equivalent to the abortion of one at six months; and so on. To my mind, life and personhood are so important as values that considering conception as their mutual origin is the safest moral option. But I wouldn’t insist on baptizing or formally burying a miscarried fetus. And I can see perfectly well how others might disagree on when personhood begins; indeed, how the Church itself once disagreed. This makes the issue not one of theological certitude but of moral judgment. And that’s why I believe that in the political realm, keeping abortion legal in the first trimester differs from condoning it. It’s a balance between women’s control of their own bodies, the prudential difficulties of making abortion illegal, the allowance of a free people to make such moral judgments for themselves, and the need to retain respect for human life – even if it is not indisputable that a person is at stake. If I were a public official, that judgment alone would make me ineligible for the sacraments. And that shows how rigid the Church has now become.
The Dish 