I'd like to thank Mel Gibson for teaching me that "Ecce homo" is Latin for "Behold the Man." This is what Pontius Pilate proclaims to the mob of querulous Jews as he plants the crown of thorns on Jesus' head.
What I beheld in man--and woman--as I stomached The Passion of the Christ was the power of loyalty. At least a hundred times in the film, someone gazed into Jesus' eyes, enraptured with hope and faith. Early on, we see Peter perch up like a gopher with nervous hands both near his chest and tilted outward as if to gesture, "Lord, I will gladly sacrifice my heart for you."
Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.Hominids must have necessitated messiahs and religions at some point in evolution. As they were arising up on two feet they must have also arisen as proto-philosophers, wondering not only where they came from, what they were made of, and where they were going, but most importantly what they were to do. Loyalty provided the cure of purpose through the vehicle of self-sacrifice.
Bible, Ruth 1:16 (Random Bible Quote)
To nail-in the concept of loyalty, I ask you to reflect: when was the last time you felt fiercely loyal?
color=crimson
aural=goldenpath
Phil's Romantic Digression to Illustrate Impact of "Loyalty"
My deepest memory of loyalty was when I came to the aid of a lover of mine over the last nine days of the school. We discovered in spring that she was the victim of identity theft and we suspected that the perpetrator was one of her close "friends." The cause of fear was that this "friend" was also a bit psychotic and in possession of weapons: she packed a gun in her car and hung a butcher knife on her wall that had the names of enemies inscribed on it.
As my friend explained the situation to me, I was immediately struck with a sense of mission. I became aggressive in gathering evidence on the identity thief and aggressive in coordinating with authorities. My friend had to move out so I helped in packing, ignoring the needs of the quarter's finals. I transformed into an obedient dog, ready to do anything she needed. Courage sprung up within me as well as a healthy irrational animus toward the evil-doer. I donned her struggle, her pain, her strife, and made it my own. And I felt great. I felt driven by internal compellation, like a magnet was yanking me forward. I felt alive.
The quarter then passed, the danger disappeared, and I de-animated, returning to my nihilistic equilibrium. I went back home and painted for the first months of summer and then did some web design in the second half. San Diego was enjoyable and relaxing, with the sun consistently lightening up each day. However, no matter how bright that summer was, those three months will never shine like the sun's reflection off the stucco by the window of her new place, as I climbed in once a day for those nine days and felt important.
Sure, it's not as dramatic a story as when Kerry ordered his gunboat back into enemy fire to save his buddy. But still, there's my strongest instance of loyalty, and that's how good it tasted. Either way, I'm sure you would agree, based on your experiences, that devotion is one of life's sweet gifts.
Back to the main idea
Christianity and other religions' main draw is a similar sentiment. Every Sunday, millions of Christians huddle together to renew their loyalty to an ancient Superman. Even if some don't believe whole-heartedly in the Bible story, just being around other devotees inculcates the same feelings in them. For a few moments, the nihilistic specter of life is vanquished, and the worshippers feel alive.
So the point of The Passion is to pound Jesus' martyrdom into the audience's collective head in case they have forgotten where their loyalties lie. It has apparently done the trick as millions are feeling more faithful, especially with their pocket book, by buying the soundtrack and books in droves.
I personally did not feel rapturous watching The Passion of the Christ. Rather I was astonished at the stares of Jesus' faithful followers, experiencing a proxy to the billions of descendents who are still loyal to the same, single hero.
The following are the necessary disclosures on the controversies of the film.
On the violencia
Roger Ebert said that The Passion is cinema's most violent, which is significant considering how many movies that critic has seen. Perhaps he is correct. The Passion is certainly the most gut-wrenching in detail: the audience is treated to the blood on Jesus's crown of thorns, dripping and glistening like Christmas lights, in addition to the shine of Our Lord's crusty, gelatinous backside on account of the whipping.
On the anti-Semitismo
If I was Christian, unintelligent, and already had a seething suspicion about Jews, this film would fan the flames. But this is the same with any movie that involves a class of people as the enemy. For example, in True Lies the glorious Arnold Schwarzenegger battles silly Iranian terrorists which probably incites anti-Iranian attitudes on some level.
The question is then reduced to whether or not Mel is trying to be anti-Semitic. The answer is not so clear as Pontius Pilate's lack of culpability was over-emphasized, but so was Jesus' "Jewish" co-bearer of the cross. I'm not a master of the topic of anti-Semitism, so I won't settle this debate. My intuition is that while Mel tried to be fair, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some Jewish hate lurking around somewhere in his head.
Random note
I guess being the son of God means you can build IKEA-style tables by hand with no problems. Go Jesus! Which reminds me of Owen Wilson in Meet the Parents, explaining to Greg Focker that he made the "khoppa" because JC was a carpenter. Good times.
Off-topic notes
Sorry for the week-long respite of posting, I was busy with finals. Oh yeah, and Noam Chomsky e-mailed me on Wednesday. I had asked him what were his thoughts on the shock election in Madrid. He told me that I should check out an editorial in the Financial Times (which I'm still looking for) and then he went off on the cowardice of Anzar's choice to engage in Iraq against the wishes of 90% of his people. He noted that this was the true shame on democracy, and not the election of the anti-war Socialist Party. I mentioned Chomsky last week here. You should note that the white-on-beige graphic in my blogfabric is in rememberance of those who died on 3/11 in Madrid (Read the Original Reference)
We are impulses, rapidly firing off, so many times per second per second, that we lose a sense of the negative space: whatever it is in between those impulses. We have discrete decisions, discrete ideas, discrete actions dotting a timeline that is our life, but in between those dots is infinitely crisp emptiness.
Just stop, hold your breath, look at the clock and realize for a second, that nothing has to move. Motion is just an illusive blur between time steps. Progress is just an emotional heart beat, an experience of relative tipping of the scales. In other words, nothing matters.
Nothing. Matters. From the nothing, comes the matter. The nothingness is the matter. We have to make everything matter otherwise we lose hope.
However, I take a twisted pleasure fantasizing on the ultimate truth, that there is no matter. That what I observe before me are just chemical reactions creating a sensation of a sense of self and a sense of impending need.
I find it amusing sometimes, though, to see everything move with so much direction and purpose. I sit in restaurants or in school in awe of how forward facing our vectors are. I'm not crying for a "live in the moment" mantra here, but rather a look at how "living" we are. Or rather, look how any "verb" we are. We are a "doing" species, always with an A and a B. A forwards and a backwards. Even if you are going to "live for the moment," let's say, by enjoying that Snickers candybar you just bought, you participate in a process of self-satisfice.
And that's what we are trapped in, this huge process layered upon process of self-something.
But what about the backdrop, what about the space between the points. There is a static noise that doesn't move, that seeks no A to B. I sometimes skip a heart beat thinking, what if I were to fall in between the cracks. What if I just got derailed from all trajectory. If every neuron in my brain said, "okay, let's stop." I wouldn't just end, the universe as I perceive it would end.
This hopefully illustrates how fascinating it is that the brain is so constant. The brain must be some continuous loop that repetitively bites the same function. We wake up everyday and don't forget to go to school or work, right? We eat on time, we in general survive. But why? In general there is a track before us, and we kind of shift left and right for the hell of it: to get a better partner, to make more money, or to be happier perhaps. But ultimately it's the same track with the same startpoint and the same destination: birth and death.
I wonder how this awareness of the abyss will be resolved in the Singularity. If we are truly to end up as enlightened as we may be in the Singularity, then people will just pop themselves off realizing there is no need to go from A to B anymore. Well, the Singularity will probably be a handicapped enlightendness, where we are still the same constant loop, constantly striving for whatever.
Or maybe I'm just sick of studying for Finals Week.
color=slateblue
aural=megaman
Nihilism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
"What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?
In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet"
-- Woody Allen