Is DVC anti-Christian?
The question is put: "Is 'The Da Vinci Code' anti-Christian?"
Well, I haven't read the book, but I guess I gotta, because it's all we're going to be talking about for the next few weeks. Why haven't I read the book? Because I can't stay on top of all the good stuff I want and need to read for my job. Why should I waste time reading a trashy novel? The answer, of course, is that millions of people are doing so, and taking it quite seriously. If you're going to comment knowledgeably on pop culture, you need to read it. OK, fine, I accept that. I'll read the thing.
Still, I can say without fear that my future DVC-reading experience will confirm my sense that yes, DVC is anti-Christian. From what I'm given to understand from reading all the media and blog coverage of the book, it's not anti-Christian in the way that "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" is anti-Jewish. Nobody's likely to go out and play whack-a-mole with Catholics over this book. Nevertheless, it counts in my mind as anti-Christian because it presents as fact, or possible fact, the idea that Jesus was not divine, and that he impregnated Mary Magdalene, who ran off to France and spawned a "royal" bloodline from Jesus. The Bible, indeed Christianity itself, is a sham religion run by powerful men who constructed it and lie about it to keep women suppressed and themselves in power. If what Dan Brown has written is taken as true, or possibly true, then Christianity is a lie, and Christians would do well to go out, get rich, get drunk and get laid, for tomorrow we shall die. If Dan Brown were open about the fact that he's written an exciting yarn, Christians could moan about the book, but it wouldn't be quite so damaging. But Brown pretends that there is truth here, and there are many, many people who believe him.
Bottom line: DVC is anti-Christian because it is based on lies that, if taken to be true (as the author apparently desires), would result in people holding the Christian religion in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular in contempt. It denies the entire basis of the Christian religion.
There is something deep within the human psyche that makes us susceptible to conspiracy theory. We have a deep need to believe this kind of rubbish. I think it has to do with control. If DVC is true, then it gives shmoes like me and thee a sense of power over the Catholic Church. Ah ha, you think you're so great, but we've got your number, Pope! DVC becomes a convenient theory on which to hang a lot of one's emotional complaints about Catholicism, or Christianity. More broadly, people love conspiracy theory because however outlandish, it provides them with a sense of order amid terrifying chaos. It is terrifying to think that monarchies could fall, or a president could be assassinated by a lone gunman, or that a bunch of nimrods armed with nothing but boxcutters and conviction could take down the Twin Towers -- terrifying, that is, because it shows how much tectonic damage can be done to our social and psychological order by the evil of a handful of rabble. So we invent grand conspiracies to put the demon of chaos back in the box.
It seems that we are at a period in our culture in which the seeds of conspiracy theory fall in very fertile soil. Stephen Colbert's concept of "truthiness" is actually quite helpful here. It refers to the phenomenon in which people choose to believe a claim because it sounds truthful to them; i.e., it confirms what they feel is the truth. Believe me, here on the editorial page of a major metropolitan newspaper, we're dealing with truthiness all the time. You'd be amazed (or maybe not) by how people on both the left and the right are convinced that the media are a secret cabal out to protect Bush, or a secret cabal out to hide good news from Iraq, or ... well, it never ends. It's actually depressing to see how many people we deal with are unwilling to enterta in facts or ideas that counteract what they feel in their heart must be true. And of course none of us are immune to that temptation, I must confess.
It is impossible to argue with someone whose mind is in the vise grip of Truthiness. I blogged here the other day about someone in my family who called me last year to tell me I really needed to read DVC because I might learn something about the Catholic Church. I told my relative that the book is actually based on some easily disproven lies about Church history. "Well, that's your opinion," said my relative, who would not be budged. The thing that got to me most of all about this was my relative's firm conviction that one person's opinion is as good as anybody else's, and the barely disguised view that my attempt to claim to know more than her about history was in fact a rude attempt to put her in her place because hey, Rod can't handle the truth.
The democratization of expertise. The populist validation of ignorance. The triumph of emotion over reason. You know what we say here in the Republic of Truthiness: If it feels good, believe it.
Well, I haven't read the book, but I guess I gotta, because it's all we're going to be talking about for the next few weeks. Why haven't I read the book? Because I can't stay on top of all the good stuff I want and need to read for my job. Why should I waste time reading a trashy novel? The answer, of course, is that millions of people are doing so, and taking it quite seriously. If you're going to comment knowledgeably on pop culture, you need to read it. OK, fine, I accept that. I'll read the thing.
Still, I can say without fear that my future DVC-reading experience will confirm my sense that yes, DVC is anti-Christian. From what I'm given to understand from reading all the media and blog coverage of the book, it's not anti-Christian in the way that "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" is anti-Jewish. Nobody's likely to go out and play whack-a-mole with Catholics over this book. Nevertheless, it counts in my mind as anti-Christian because it presents as fact, or possible fact, the idea that Jesus was not divine, and that he impregnated Mary Magdalene, who ran off to France and spawned a "royal" bloodline from Jesus. The Bible, indeed Christianity itself, is a sham religion run by powerful men who constructed it and lie about it to keep women suppressed and themselves in power. If what Dan Brown has written is taken as true, or possibly true, then Christianity is a lie, and Christians would do well to go out, get rich, get drunk and get laid, for tomorrow we shall die. If Dan Brown were open about the fact that he's written an exciting yarn, Christians could moan about the book, but it wouldn't be quite so damaging. But Brown pretends that there is truth here, and there are many, many people who believe him.
Bottom line: DVC is anti-Christian because it is based on lies that, if taken to be true (as the author apparently desires), would result in people holding the Christian religion in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular in contempt. It denies the entire basis of the Christian religion.
There is something deep within the human psyche that makes us susceptible to conspiracy theory. We have a deep need to believe this kind of rubbish. I think it has to do with control. If DVC is true, then it gives shmoes like me and thee a sense of power over the Catholic Church. Ah ha, you think you're so great, but we've got your number, Pope! DVC becomes a convenient theory on which to hang a lot of one's emotional complaints about Catholicism, or Christianity. More broadly, people love conspiracy theory because however outlandish, it provides them with a sense of order amid terrifying chaos. It is terrifying to think that monarchies could fall, or a president could be assassinated by a lone gunman, or that a bunch of nimrods armed with nothing but boxcutters and conviction could take down the Twin Towers -- terrifying, that is, because it shows how much tectonic damage can be done to our social and psychological order by the evil of a handful of rabble. So we invent grand conspiracies to put the demon of chaos back in the box.
It seems that we are at a period in our culture in which the seeds of conspiracy theory fall in very fertile soil. Stephen Colbert's concept of "truthiness" is actually quite helpful here. It refers to the phenomenon in which people choose to believe a claim because it sounds truthful to them; i.e., it confirms what they feel is the truth. Believe me, here on the editorial page of a major metropolitan newspaper, we're dealing with truthiness all the time. You'd be amazed (or maybe not) by how people on both the left and the right are convinced that the media are a secret cabal out to protect Bush, or a secret cabal out to hide good news from Iraq, or ... well, it never ends. It's actually depressing to see how many people we deal with are unwilling to enterta in facts or ideas that counteract what they feel in their heart must be true. And of course none of us are immune to that temptation, I must confess.
It is impossible to argue with someone whose mind is in the vise grip of Truthiness. I blogged here the other day about someone in my family who called me last year to tell me I really needed to read DVC because I might learn something about the Catholic Church. I told my relative that the book is actually based on some easily disproven lies about Church history. "Well, that's your opinion," said my relative, who would not be budged. The thing that got to me most of all about this was my relative's firm conviction that one person's opinion is as good as anybody else's, and the barely disguised view that my attempt to claim to know more than her about history was in fact a rude attempt to put her in her place because hey, Rod can't handle the truth.
The democratization of expertise. The populist validation of ignorance. The triumph of emotion over reason. You know what we say here in the Republic of Truthiness: If it feels good, believe it.
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