Orson's Game

We hear much of Orson Scott Card these days.  Most likely we do because his novel Ender's Game has been made into a movie coming soon to a theatre near you, but also because he has taken it upon himself to declaim at some length verbally and in writing on topics such as gay marriage, our esteemed President and his claimed machinations, his (Card's) Mormon faith and the faiths of others, and more.  He seems rather offended that his pronouncements in these areas have earned him enemies, which I find rather odd.  But the self-righteous are, naturally enough, easily offended when their beliefs, so eagerly expressed, are questioned.

I find myself wishing he was content merely to write his books.  His books aren't bad; some indeed are good, or so I believe.  Ender's Game is a book I enjoyed reading.  I also enjoyed reading his books in the series involving the character Alvin Maker.  But I haven't enjoyed reading other books he's written.

The sequels to Ender's Game disappointed me, especially those written more recently.  Genius children can grow to be annoying, particularly genius children who talk and write incessantly and are surrounded by dull, gullible, bovine or boorish and violent adults.  Novels based on such conceits don't interest me after a chapter or two.  He's also written novels which seem to have a biblical or Book of Mormonical (?) connection, and alas that is a connection which doesn't interest me either, except with respect to the extensive and profound connection between Christianity and the beliefs which preceded it and which it assimilated, which I find fascinating.

But as is so often the case, what I wish for is not true and does not come true, either.  Mr. Card seems to rejoice in pontificating on various topics in various media.  I of course cannot object to that in itself, as I pontificate here in this blog, and on a certain forum.  But because of my relative anonymity and, I hope, because of a sensibility he seems to lack, my pronouncements are not quite as...well...loony, and not as likely to drive others to distraction (this sometimes seems to be his intent, regrettably).

Sadly, Card's opinions seem to be too much along the lines of the opinions already blared out by those who make their money doing right-wing talk radio, or are talking heads on Fox News.  I'm no fan of our President, and can even be described as conservative or perhaps libertarian in some respects.  But there is a level at which the expression of disagreement with the President and liberals generally becomes uninteresting and indeed unintelligent if not incoherent.

That level has been reached in talk radio and on Fox News, and that seems to be the level at which Mr. Card now operates.  Obama has a character which seems to evoke hysteria in some, and what might be valid criticism swiftly degenerates into lunatic exaggeration in those cases.  Card's very odd column in which he imagines the President usurping the government and revoking the Constitution strikes me as positively rabid.  It's hard to believe that he would think he was engaging in rational thought of any kind while manufacturing such nonsense.  Peppering it with facile references to Augustus, Napoleon and Hitler, which he appears to think evidences a keen grasp of history, simply makes him seem more of a crank.

He seems to believe that it is Muslim doctrine that any person who ceases to be a Muslim must be killed.  The little reading I've done indicates that whether that is the case is disputed, but clearly Card thinks there is no dispute, or perhaps rather that if there is a dispute it doesn't matter.  He maintains that unless Muslims agree to condemn this doctrine, they should be penalized by our government which should, among other things, deny Islam the exemption from taxes granted other religions.  This is punishment Card believes appropriate for Islam being uncivilized.

I don't object to the revocation of this exemption as I think there should be no exemption for any religion or Church.  The exemption is a benefit granted religions for no good reason as far as I'm concerned, but regardless they are not entitled to the exemption, they are given it.  No organization should be accorded special status under the law.  The revocation of a gratuitous benefit is not a punishment or penalty.

It seems gay rights advocates want us to boycott Ender's Game, the movie, because of Card's opposition to gay marriage.  As I've noted before, I think marriage in the law is simply a special kind of partnership, and should be just that and only that as far as the law is concerned.  Whether the partners are straight or gay makes no difference to me, and should not in the law.  But I'm not inclined to avoid the movie because Card evidently thinks that gay marriage will somehow result in some kind of vicious, mandated quashing of traditional life, culture and morals.  There have been plenty of novelists and artists throughout our history who have been idiots or bigots, but we should be free to read or view or listen to their work.

I won't go to see the movie for the same reasons I don't go to see others.  Why spend money on what will likely be a bombastic cookie-cutter production, poorly acted, as are most movies made in our Glorious Republic these days?  I'll wait until it shows up before me as I sit in my comfy chair in my living room, and then will probably end up turning it off in any case to read some non-fiction and listen to music (the History and Discovery channels having become for reasons unknown to me purveyors of strange "reality shows").  I may even think while doing that.  Thinking is not a game being played well or often by Mr. Card and too many others of our time.

The Kingdom of Fear

These words were used to describe these United States by the late and remarkable if not always great Hunter S. Thompson before his suicide, and were also used in a song he co-wrote with the late, great Warren Zevon.  I hesitate to call Thompson "great" without qualification because of the manner of his death; not necessarily because he took his own life but given the way he went about doing so.  As I recall, he shot himself while on the telephone with his wife and while his son was at home in another part of the house.  Exiting the kingdom in this fashion seems intended to cause the greatest possible harm to those who are close to you.  That may or may not have been his intent, but regardless of whether that was the case it is not an honorable departure.

But I can't help but think that the description is apt.  We are fearful of many things and that would seem to be a prerequisite of living in the Kingdom of Fear.  That is, apparently, also why we have so many guns and indeed should have them according to the gun shills; and we should also fear, of course, as others with guns may try to kill us or those we love or, worse yet, may try to take away the guns we require in order to prevent them from killing us or taking away our guns.  It is all a part of the great Circle of Strife.

There are certainly things to be feared, and perhaps more people to be feared than there were to be feared in the past.  As Thompson and Zevon put it in their song, "dangerous creeps are everywhere."  But one must wonder if this is indeed the case.  As we all know what transpires around the world with great rapidity, and as our government, ostensibly in charge of the Kingdom of Fear, knows what we know and do and say and write, it may be the case that we believe there is more danger simply because we have access to more information than we did.  Dangerous creeps may be more evident than they were not because there are more of them, proportionately, but because we can no longer be ignorant of them.  We can see them or hear of them or read of them 24/7 (a clumsy but useful little summary phrase).  Indeed, our knowledge of them is in a sense compulsory; we would have to be in a wilderness without TVs, radios, smart phones to enjoy the bliss of ignorance.

Perhaps also the dangerous creeps among us have more opportunity to display and indulge in their infinitely varied creepiness than in the past.  The Internet is a wonderful tool, but it is as well an outlet for all that is good and bad in us, and the bad, sadly, exceeds the good, or at least is more easily expressed than the good in the available format.

We've always been subject to fears and it seems are inclined to be overwhelmed by fear.  This inclines me, not entirely fearfully but perhaps warily, to wonder whether our interesting times have made us ripe for another of the periodic religious "awakenings" which occur now and then in our history.  Such things can have profound effects, not all of them good.

Religion is not really the opium of the people as Marx claimed; at least not religion as it develops in ages of anxiety like ours.  Opium may dampen fear, and religion can as well, but true comfort can only be obtained by certainty and certainty through religion is a product of righteousness.  If religion can be compared to a drug due to its use in confronting fear, it's more like cocaine.  It arouses, it is active.  It's certainty provides comfort in the form of euphoria, a kind of ecstatic absoluteness.  But certainty can degenerate into intolerance and paranoia.

Now it seems existent religions don't provide the kind of certainty required to quiet fear.  But that may change, and perhaps is changing as the religious become more emotive, simple, unquestioning in their beliefs.  The times demand action, we feel, and action is most satisfying when it is unthinking, and certainty becomes uncertain when subject to critical thought.  And so in the Kingdom of Fear we abstain from critical thought, the better to be certain.