The Kat Lick Church, or: God is Society Writ Large

Um, I think I might have misspelled the title of this post. At any rate, I've been trying to write/dance my dissertation, and I'm starting to see double. So suck it.

Point is, Lauren and I ended our epic 40-day trials and tribulations (I gave up beer, Lauren gave up "tasty baked goods") and headed over to St. Mary's for some good, old-fashioned worshiping. When I say old-fashioned, I mean pre-dark ages. And when I say good, I mean that they're bringing back hot young priests! Praise Jesus.

So, the priest and his "sidekick" (technical term) were both Latin American, both attractive, and both about 30 years old. I don't mean to suggest anything untoward, but I think that you'd have to be an idiot not to think they're doing each other. If the Catholic Church hasn't furthered the cause of homosexual love, then I don't know who has.

The service: LOTS of people (over 200?), ethnically diverse for Corvallis, everyone well-dressed and on their best Easter behavior. There was a wonderful organist who was even better when he played piano. You could even say he got funky now and then. The singers had their moments of reaching-too-high, but were entertaining overall and added the magical-spiritual element to the whole service.

And now, to completely change the topic. I would like to share a jumbled and not well-organized stream of thought that's bouncing in my brain right now. I just read an article about the justification of indigenous displacement in North America, beginning with the Brits and following the progress of American interpretations through legal cases. American law, re. Native Americans, has boiled down to God's command to cultivate the earth (which the Indians, in our opinion, did not do) and to Lockean interpretations of private property. That is, property becomes yours through labor. But of course, property really becomes yours through legislative/governmental authority. I have a deed, therefore this is mine. And this deed, and our peculiar preoccupation with verifying and documenting everything and rationally arguing our case, has produced unanticipated consequences.

Hegel embraced contradiction. The French Revolution brought The Terror and mass executions. The Enlightenment brought dictatorship. And so Hegel said: there is a first moment, and it is the thesis. There is a second moment, and it is the negation, the antithesis. And there is the third moment, and it is the synthesis, and it reconciles the contradictions of the first two. And so history progresses, through contradiction. And the seeds of contradiction are seen in the first moment, in the very birth of whatever present conflict we deal with. Of course, Marx was a Hegelian. He saw the death of class society in capitalism.

And so, it appears that some Native Americans will regain control over their former lands through legal mechanisms. And displaced whites are claiming that they're being treated as "Indians," and are losing access to their lands, at least in very limited cases. And perhaps they're being displaced from at least some forms of access, and treated differently, maybe even unjustly, relative to Native Americans. And Native Americans are using the club of the conquerers to do it. They're using the club of legal displacement and inevitable (but regrettable) loss for current occupants.

And what will be the next third moment? How will the contradiction of American "self-sufficiency" and pride reconcile with our consumptivist society? Who will be our masters, and how will we die?

And the ultimate contradiction, for me. That I am a product of Euro-American Enlightenment thought, all scientific rationality and self-interest, and perhaps I am in as good a position as anyone to critique, at least for my own satisfaction, changes in my society that negate (or at least contradict) Enlightenment thought.

And the Catholic Church, the ultimate contradiction. In its bid to take over the world, it has transformed itself, absorbed local gods and goddesses, and taken on the role of multiple mystical systems of thought and worship and explanation, and so it has spread itself thin and perhaps, today, it is so thin that it is permeable. But other imperial excesses and mechanisms of cultural domination are at work. They are different. I think they involve neoliberal economic policy and instead of helping the Indian because he is childlike and needs God, they help him because he doesn't know about the market, for the love of Christ! Why don't we see what a little private property will do for him ... there, that's better. Look, his GDP is growing!

At the end of the day, I like what the Catholic Church has become. It has its faults, but it is dynamic. It is a product of the people, not of the pope. Damn him. Literally. He can go to hell, the one that the Florentines painted on their church domes, all agony and flames and demons eating people. But the Church itself, it is people. It is not structures, it is not dogma, and it is not Christ. It is people. So I'm a Catholic because I say I am, and because "God is Society Writ Large"(Durkheim).