The Authentically Divine

Authenticity

In my previous posts on this subject, I have introduced the idea of the Divine Supplement, and touched on the question of the authentic in religious experience.  I would now like to fully explore this important question: which experience is the authentic, the Divine or the Human?  To partially answer this question, I would like to examine two aspects of Christianity, the Crucifix and the Miracle of Transubstantiation.  In the process of doing this, I will also examine whether each of these things are in themselves authentic.

The Crucifix is a very interesting and complex artifact.  It is a symbol, a metaphor, an allegory wrapped up in a concept of being a holy object, and ultimately a fetish.  As such, this object cannot be easily classified or fully understood through a single frame.

First, I will examine the symbolic nature of the object.  Each crucifix, which is made by people, typically in factories no less, is still a manifestation of the True Cross upon which Jesus was crucified.  It is a symbolic link to a physical object that (probably) was destroyed almost two thousand years ago.  (I’m not going to get into the idea of relics of the True Cross here, I am simply going to assume that it was probably destroyed once it was finished being used.)

As a symbol, it represents an actual object without actually having a physical tie to that object.  In this aspect, it is certainly not authentic, because it has no direct connection to the original.  It is not even formally connected, because the crucifix is much l smaller than the source, nor is it normally made out of wood.  It is only a representation of another object, a reminder of it.

It is also a marker, a form of positional good, marking a person’s position in society as a Christian.  In this manner, it becomes somewhat more authentic, because it signifies something specific about a person.  (A Star of David does the same thing.)  In terms of absolute authenticity, it shows that a person follows a belief system, and an honest display of fact can be considered to be authentic in at least a certain sense of the word.  This makes the Crucifix authentic in the human world.

The second role that the Crucifix fills is that of a metaphor.  It represents an entire conceptualized worldview.  It communicates a myth of a Father God who sent his only Son to Earth to die for the sins of mankind.  I am using Lakoff’s interpretation of metaphor here, where a metaphor is verbal shorthand that we use in society to communicate a much larger concept in a manner that everyone in that culture understands.  Even non-Christians know the story that the Crucifix represents.

In this sense, the cross is authentic, albeit, again in the human realm.  It is representational of a shared myth, although not necessarily a shared belief.  The authenticity of the object is absolute here, because this object is a functioning metaphor for virtually everyone on the planet.  Even if they do not believe, they do understand the metaphoric content.  (I do realize that there are some people who wouldn’t recognize it, but they are also typically removed from many of the other shared aspects of a global society, so this does not impact, in my mind, the authenticity of the object as metaphor.)

Then we move to the idea of the Crucifix as an allegory.  An allegory is similar to a metaphor, but it is a literary device that communicates a complex idea or concept.  In this case, the Crucifix becomes allegorical for the New Covenant, as laid out in the New Testament.  It becomes an allegory for Salvation.

In this aspect, we finally see the Crucifix as representing authenticity of the Divine Experience; it becomes a symbol of personal Salvation.  It connects the person who wears it to God, and I would like to note, a person wears it as an article of faith, and not purely as a positional good.  In this regard, it is Internalized Hierophany, as I outlined in the previous post. 

I would also like to note here, the wearing of the Crucifix is an outgrowth of the Reformation.  Prior to Martin Luther, a Cross was forbidden to a non-ordained person; it was viewed as an utterly sacred object.  In fact, in Scotland, in the 15^th century, the pentagram was often worn as an article of faith, because it was viewed to represent the 5 wounds of Christ.  The Divinity of the Cross was absolute up until that point.

This leads us to the idea of the Crucifix as a holy object.  Even when worn by a person outside of the church hierarchy, and in that, profane, the Cross retains its sacredity.  To destroy a cross, or any holy object for that matter, is an act of desecration.   It would be highly offensive, even to some people outside of the religion.  (We can see this when Christians and Jews become outraged at the burning of a Koran)

So in this case, the Crucifix has the authenticity of a Divine Experience.  Taken together, the idea of the Cross as metaphor and the Cross as allegory, mixed with the belief that the Crucifix is an actually holy Object, it becomes the Divine Supplement.  It represents God, both as a metaphor and as a line of connection.

So in the end, is the Crucifix actually authentic?

The answer in this case is contextual.  If the Crucifix is an object worn as a positional good, to mark someone’s standing, to show off in a certain way, it is not actually authentic.  This is because it only exists in one dimension of authenticity, that of being a symbol, and an empty one at that.  A Cross around the neck of a person who does not actually live the allegory of what that Cross substitutes for renders it inauthentic.

On the other hand, a Crucifix worn by a person who devoutly believes in what it stands for, and further lives that belief system daily, is an authentic object.  The Divine Connection renders it authentic.

I have looked at the authenticity of an object, now I would like to examine the authenticity of a ritual, that of Transubstantiation.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, Transubstantiation is the miracle that occurs in a Mass.  In this miracle, the wafer literally becomes the body of Christ, and the wine literally becomes his blood.  (They still taste like paper and cheap red wine, because apparently the Savior was not particularly tasty.)

In this sense, there is no symbolism here; this is literal, not symbolic, ritual cannibalism.  I realize that I may upset some people with this, but this is the actuality of Catholic Communion.  I would like to also note, the Protestant faiths, who on the whole don’t have Transubstantiation, engage in symbolic ritual cannibalism.  Because this is literal, there is also no metaphoric content, at least in terms of the religion.

This means that there is no authenticity on the overtly human level, as there is with the Crucifix.  The human authentic does however exist here in the sense of tying the community together.  It becomes a shared experience for the congregation, and through that shared experience creates an identity for the participants.   

However, despite lacking symbolic or metaphoric content, Transubstantiation is still allegorical.  It communicates a whole host (pardon the pun) of concepts.  At its core though, this is a Theophany, not a Heirophany, if the miracle is believed.  The intercession of the Priest actually causes Holy Spirit to manifest in the bread and wine.  As with the Crucifix, at the core is a Divine Experience, and in this case, a miracle.

However, as with the Crucifix, the authenticity is based in intent.  For a person who does not believe, there is no authenticity here, simply a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.  It might tie them to their community, make their parents happy or a whole range of other things, but at the core, if there is no belief in the miracle, it is simply a wafer and wine.  It is a fake.

So through this exploration of both of these, I would like to propose an answer to the question I posed earlier, which experience is authentic, the Human or the Divine?  The answer is neither, at least in isolation.

The Divine is not authentic without the Human, and the Human is not authentic without the Divine.  A Crucifix worn without living the belief system is just ornament.  However, a Crucifix in isolation is divorced from the world.  Similarly, Transubstantiation without belief in the miracle is simply a silly ritual, but without the community sharing in it, it is equally hollow.

You must have both sides for the authentic.  You must have connection to each other, and you must have connection to the Divine.  You must have the authenticity of the human experience, and the authenticity of the Divine experience.  In this we see two of the aspects of the role of myth as outlined by Joseph Campbell, Man to Man and Man to God.  However, in this we also connect Man to Self.  By understanding the former two relationships, the last relationship is better understood.

And this is the final core of authenticity in religion; it must tie all three aspects of our relationships together.  If it does, then it will resonate and be authentic, if it does not, it rings false.

The Birth of The Divine Supplement

Origins

One of the great paradigm shifts in the history of religion was the idea that deity no longer needed to be tied to a singular location.  While the shift to Monotheism is heralded as the great advancement in human theological evolution, it actually would not have been effective without this parallel, and possibly even more important shift.

Until this point, the Gods were tied to a location, in fact, most of the early temples were either symbolic or literal homes for the gods.  For example, the Gods Amun and Mut were believed to reside in their statues that were housed in Karnak Temple.  These statues were part of significant religious pageantry in the Opet Festival, which re-enacted the marriage and coupling of these deities.  In this annual celebration, the statues were bathed, anointed, paraded, and then wed at the temple of Luxor.  During the wedding, the Pharaoh and his consort would stand in for the gods, and then after a "honeymoon" in the temple, the King and the Gods would sail back to Karnak.

To our modern mind, we would view this as a symbolic act, much like the modern recreations of the Crucifixion.  However, this modern reframing of the festival does not accurately represent the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians.  To them, the statues were not substitutes for the deities, they were the actual gods, or at least vessels to contain their spirits.  This idea was also held by most of the Mediterranean cultures of antiquity; the Gods of the ancient world resided in the Fetish Objects of their Cults.  (I am using the anthropological meaning of this term, which refers to an object that contains supernatural power.  This term does not refer to anything sexual.)

This belief tied the Gods to their lands, because they were believed to dwell among their people, at least in spirit.  Because of this, the worship of a god was not transferable.  For example, when Ptolemy and his descendants became the rulers of Egypt, they ceased worshiping the Greek gods of their land, and became devoted to the Egyptian deities.  In fact, many of the great temples of Egypt, such as Dendara, were erected by the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and these rulers are depicted on the temples worshiping as Egyptian Pharaohs.

This idea even held true in much of the Pentateuch, the part of the Hebrew Bible that is attributed to Moses.  Yahweh is mostly confined to the lands of the Israelites, although He does perform miracles in Egypt.  It should also be noted, that, like the Egyptian Gods, Yahweh was later confined to an object, in this case the Ark of the Covenant.  Almost all the acts He performs during the forty years in the desert occur near the Ark.  Also, even in later books of the Bible, his presence often seems to require the Ark. 

Also, in the early books, He is only the God of the Jews.  None of the other peoples, either in Canaan or in Egypt worship Him.  The other deities mentioned, such as Baal or the Gods of Egypt, are not described as false gods as much as they are forbidden deities.  The people in these stories do not convert to Judaism, the only thing they might do is recognize that Yahweh is more powerful than their Gods.

This idea of Gods being tied to geographic locations and objects permeated all of ancient societies, even the proto-monotheistic Jews, although in their case, as they wandered, God traveled with them, because they carried his home with them.  I would consider this to be a transition to the non-localized deity that would later develop.  There are other examples of Gods being carried into battles and such, but here I am going to focus on Judaism, as one of the earliest written traditions reflecting this development.

This idea of a geographically based God began to shift radically for the Jews in the sixth century B.C.E. either during or immediately after the Babylonian Exile.  This is the period when the Book of Joshua was written, and in that book, for the first time possibly in history, we see God and location begin to separate.  Specifically, this occurs in Joshua 22 verses 10 through 34.

In this story, the children of Gad and Reuben, as well as some of the children of Manasseh, build an altar to God on the east bank of the River Jordan, where they are going to make their home.  The rest of the Jewish tribes, believing this to be a false altar raised in rebellion to God, prepared to go to war with their brethren. 

Upon arriving, Phinehas discovered that these tribes had not raised an altar to rebel but to honor Yahweh.  Because they were separated from the rest of the Tribes of Israel by the River Jordan, they had erected the altar so that their children could also know God.  Phinehas blessed this endeavor, and there was no war between the tribes.  The only restriction imposed was that they could not use their surrogate altar to perform specific rites, such as the burnt offering, that were restricted to the Tabernacle.

The importance of this event is overlooked by many.  On the surface, it seems to be another lesson about not worshiping false idols, but it is actually far more significant.  It marks what may be the very first instance of what I will term the Divine Supplement; an object that is not in itself of God, but represents God.  It is the first instance of a modern view of the worship of deity.  I will more deeply explore this concept in my next blog post.   For now, I want to look at how this radical idea might have originated. 

It is not surprising that this concept would occur in the book of Joshua, which is the first book of the Hebrew Bible to be written during the Babylonian Captivity.  The Torah, although probably put in its final form during this period, likely predates it by a century or more.  During this period, the ancient Jews were dislocated from their lands, captive in a foreign nation and trying to cling to the faith and traditions of their ancestors.

This was an act that was radical at the time.  As I stated earlier, throughout the ancient period, when you moved, you took new Gods.  Even several centuries after the Book of Joshua, this was the typical action.  The expected result of the Exile should have been conversion to the worship of the Babylonian deities.  In fact, that might have been the very reason for the Babylonian Captivity; to stamp out the worship of Yahweh.  I suspect the many injunctions in the bible about foreign gods and false idols are also a reaction to this tradition and to refuse to bow to the convention of religious conversion.

So, given that Judaism was one of the most elaborate theologies of the ancient world, and one that was based on discussion and theological arguments, there became a need to justify the ability to keep faith in a foreign land.  If Yahweh was tied to the land, and even more, to the Ark, in Babylon the Jews were cut off from God.  Both the Temple and the Ark were lost to them.  By constructing a Biblical justification for a substitute altar, the Jews became free to find legitimacy for any temple they might raise in Babylon.  Their God was no longer tied to place or object.  Only certain rituals such as the burnt offering were denied them, not access to Deity.

Judges could also be a response to this exile, with its constant themes of losing and finding faith in God.  The entire Book reflects how hard it is to hold onto faith when surrounded by other religions, with the Israelites converting to the worship of other Gods, only to find their faith again through a charismatic leader who leads them back to Yahweh.

At this point in history, the Jews created something radical, through the writings in their Holy Books. 

Though the Torah, they created a series of laws and rituals that would set them apart from all other people.  No longer was religion based in location, it was based in keeping the Covenant, and living a religiously prescribed lifestyle, reinforced with injunction not to mix with other people.  This kept their purity and made Judaism a religion that could not be adopted just by relocation.  A person had to bind themselves to God in ways that no other society had done before and thus preserved their unique identity.  They found the way to truly create a Jewish Identity.

In the Histories, they created a chronicle of losing and finding faith.  They also created their concept of a God who did not act on whim, but followed a Divine Plan, even if it was utterly incomprehensible to His worshipers.  This is in direct contrast to the whimsical and capricious deities of the rest of the ancient world.  I suspect that He was depicted as cruel at certain moments because life at this time was cruel, and they molded God into that image.  Still, the main story of the Histories is that people need to remain firm in their beliefs and not be swayed to the worship of other Gods.

Finally, the Book of Joshua, while technically part of the Histories, does something radically different than either pf the other two sets of books that were codified in this period.  Joshua creates the idea of a non-localized ability to worship God and still be heard by Him.  It forms the basis of the idea of a religious substitute, the Divine Supplement.

In my next post, I will go into depth on the concept of the Divine Supplement and its relation to the Authentic.

A street in Jerusalem.  I took this picture in 2000. 

I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

Dangerous Supplement

Nostalgia is the dangerous supplement for the authentic; it substitutes discourse on the past for the actuality of the present.

First some background.  The dangerous supplement is a concept first presented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his book "Emile." 

            "How people will cry out against me!  I hear from afar the shouts of that

            false wisdom which is ever dragging us onwards, counting the present as

            nothing, and pursuing without a pause a future which files as we pursue,

            that false wisdom which removes us from our place and never brings us to

            any other."

Basically, the origin of the thought came from his ideas on masturbation, which he termed a dangerous supplement to actual intercourse.  The thought evolved into the concept that writing was the dangerous supplement to speech, which was the primary connection to the intellect of the speaker.  Writing, in Rousseau's philosophy, was removed from direct connection to thoughts, and therefore a poor substitute for the authentic.

In this manner, to reframe Rousseau, nostalgia drags us onward, discounting the potential authenticity of the present, for a false promise of recreating a past that never existed.  

To show how seductive the dangerous supplement is, I was trying to explain my take on this to my friend Patrick, and got frustrated with my own speech and told him to just read this post.  In this case at lease, writing apparently is the dangerous supplement to speech.

On a side note, Derrida would discount this, as he deconstructs the notion of the "real presences," and everything relies on a chain of relationships to create meaning.   To Derrida, there is no such thing as "authentic" or "real" and that all truth is merely interpretation.  This is a subject that I may return to in a future post, but for now I am going to leave this philosophy alone and accept Rousseau's assertion that the authentic can exist.

To return to my point, when we allow nostalgia to become the primary focus of worldview, we substitute it for the potential to create the authentic.  This is because nostalgia is the idea that the past is better than the present and definitely better than the future; our best days are behind us; and if we want to have a glorious future, we have to recreate that great past.  In the nostalgia contrivance, there is no way that the future can be bright unless it is a reboot of the "Golden Age."

Except that "Golden Age," never really existed.

Nostalgia, as I have discussed at length in previous blogs, is a rosy view of a past that never existed.  It is Disneyland's Main Street, sanitized and improved for your pleasure.  Because of this, it turns history into illusion; it makes us feel better, but we are living a lie.

From this, we discount the possibility that anything can be actually authentic.  Because we are living in an artificial construct of nostalgia, we no longer recognize authenticity, and we make ourselves feel better about this inability by saying everything is fake.  We have achieved a parallel what Ellsworth Toohey in "The Fountainhead," strives to do to art by promoting the trite, the incompetent, and the bad.  We have destroyed it by holding up the dangerous supplement of nostalgia.

A case in point is Las Vegas.

Everyone complains about the "fakeness" of Vegas, and it is a complete fake.  But it is so fake that it actually becomes a new authenticity.  It does not strive to conceal it's fakery, like Disney does, it embraces it, it even revels in it.  And because of it's wholehearted embrace of its lack of authenticity, it bends the curve back around to create a new form of reality.  It is authentic by not pretending to be anything but fake.   Disneyland tries to seduce you into suspending your disbelief; Vegas wants you to get drunk on it.  

And that is what I would consider to be the core of the authentic, not to be "real" but to not try to be something other than what it is.

Most modern cities are nothing more than masturbatory fantasies.  Dubai tries to be Hong Kong, Hong Kong tries to be Tokyo, Tokyo tries to be New York City, New York City tries to be London, London tries to be Paris, and everybody wants to be Rome, at least the way we imagine Rome - as the center of a world-spanning empire.

Towns have the same problem, they want to evoke the bucolic world of the gentleman farmer, the naturalist, the landed gentry, all of which fall back to a nostalgic view of how we imagine the pastoral life should be, without the manure and backbreaking labor that are spawned on the farm.  When we think of rural town life, the first word to come to mind is "quaint."

And all of these visions, fueled by nostalgia, not only limit our ability to see the authentic, in many cases they actually cripple our ability to create it.

For example, we model many new developments on the Andres Duany's New Urbanist patterns that he first developed at Seaside in Florida.  The problem is, these patterns are driven by the nostalgic view that 1900 was the best year ever to live in a city.  People sat on their front porches, there were no cars, the grass was green, the sky was blue, and everything was perfect.  That might have been true if you were white, upper middle class and Protestant.  If you were anything else, city life pretty much sucked.  And today, unless you are rich enough to live in a New Urbanist development, life still pretty much sucks.  At least that is the message being fed to you.

To return to my point, because we have allowed a nostalgic view of how cities should look to drive the new developments we build, we do not look at how they actually should be built so that they reflect the current era.  We spend so much time telling people how they should live, that we refuse to examine how they do live.

Another case study is Pessac.  In Pessac, Le Corbusier created a modernist's dream of how medium density, low income worker's houses should look.  The problem was, the people who had to live there hated it.  They hated it so badly that they did whatever they could to personalize the houses, even to the point of basically strapping salvaged building materials to their houses to personalize them.  Le Corbusier was so set on how he wanted people to live, and what he thought they should appreciate, that he would not accept the reality of how the people themselves wanted to live, or their aesthetic concerns.

By putting preconceptions ahead of reality, anything created becomes, by definition, fake.

And this is why I feel that Nostalgia is a dangerous supplement to the authentic; it sings an irresistible siren song that keeps us from looking at the actual reality surrounding us. 

If we don't work with actual reality, we do not create authenticity.  When we don't create authenticity, we lose the ability to believe that anything can be authentic.  When we lose the ability to believe anything can be authentic, we no longer try to create anything authentic.  When we no longer try to create anything authentic, we have to create a nostalgic vision to substitute for the authenticity we lack.

We have become the Ouroboros, devouring ourselves for the want of the authentic.

A Plague of Festivals

Uniformity

New York City, the last bastion of uniqueness, is falling victim to the blandness of Generica.  Go to Times Square and try to find something not corporately branded.  If Giuliani had allowed the hookers to remain, I’m sure that nowadays they would have corporate sponsorship and credit card readers.  (I can imagine Sephoria and Chloe investing in a line of perfectly groomed, elegantly dressed escorts walking 42^nd Street.)

But that isn’t what concerns me.  Times Square sold out a decade ago, and most New Yorkers avoid the place unless they have out of town guests who insist on seeing it, and are too afraid to go unescorted. 

What concerns me is a new phenomenon that I have not noticed in my previous visits or when I lived there.  Generic street festivals have sprung up all over Manhattan.  Last weekend, Madison Avenue was shut literally from Madison Square to 83^rd St.  (It may have been closed further, but that was the distance I experienced.)  Also, Broadway was shut throughout  NoHo and Mulberry Street in Little Italy was almost impassible from the booths set up on both sides of the street.

I say the street fairs were generic because they had the same collection of funnel cake vendors, hot dog stands, bead and scarf booths, and crappy art.  There was no soul and no character to them.  All of them were virtually identical.  At the time I wondered why.

Unfortunately, now I know.

I found this information on Quora today.  This was posted by Jay Gurewitsch the owner of Arcadia (www.arcadianyc.com):

“These pestilential plagues that are visited upon our streets far too often are almost entirely run by one company; Clearview Festivals. They contract with various "non-profit groups" who officially get the permits from the city in exchange for a tiny percentage of the take from the vendors.

These vendors, by the way, are overwhelmingly based outside of NY for tax purposes - so they charge and collect no sales tax, pay no real estate tax, no NY corporate tax, no payroll tax, no commuter tax, nothing that could possibly reimburse the city for all the lost revenue the businesses on those streets suffer whenever the fairs are set up.

My tens of thousands of taxes paid as a business owner in Chelsea ($50K+ in real estate tax alone) go to subsidize a street fair and street vendors who steal thousands of dollars PER FAIR from me and all my neighbors - and there is seemingly NOTHING we can do about it.”

In our lust to corporatize everything, we erase all character and individuality.  Everything is a brand, or more frighteningly, a uniform identity.  The City is becoming a copy of a copy of a copy, blurred to indistinguishiblilty and lacking any semblance of originality.

Is there any hope for authenticity?  When will we as a nation again demand it?  When will we stop giving our souls away for profit?

  

Setting up for the "Street Festival" on Sunday Morning.