On Dangerous Reading

[Bonnie]

You know it says a lot about you being Catholic when one of Christ’s miracles was in fact solely for the purpose of amusement. Turning water into wine remember? The very account is not only a case of Mary being an intercessor for us. It shows that Jesus went out. Had fun. That miracle didn’t really have him ‘teaching’ anything. Kinda like fiction eh? (And if I may add, the human imagination can be a miracle in of itself. )

I never looked at it that way before! Thank you.

The OP reminds me of a young man in my college Eng. Lit. class. In a short story was the phrase “in this vale of tears.” Even tho I wasn’t Catholic then, I knew it was from a Catholic prayer and I understood what it meant. One young man complained about it. He said writers “shouldn’t put things in their stories that are hard to understand.” Which is absurd. It was only difficult for him.

I think the OP would argue in a similar way that because a few are affected the wrong way by some fiction, then all of us should refrain. I watched Kill Bill and I haven’t sliced up anyone yet.

It’s funny how we can react differently to different depictions of violence. Kill Bill didn’t bother me at all - I think because it’s so over the top. But when I watched The Dirty Dozen, I felt sick and depressed afterword. Perhaps because it was closer to reality. The Passion of the Chist gripped me - I was in another world.

 

[RPRPsych]

Glad you liked it cuz I just finished the rest. I doubt I’ll get a response, judging from the tone of the OP’s last line. It’s a shame though since I thought the guy more intelligent than this. Reading the whole thing has been one of the saddest waste of good words I have ever the misfortune to waste my time on.

Gotta hand it to 1800s pastors to say things that are fluent and foolish at the same time. If I were to translate these posts to their bluntest, it wouldn’t even reach the size of my copywriting write-ups.

Well, I hope he will at least read what you have posted, and give it some serious thoughts.

Meh, I’m more cynical. My own fallibility just had the bad luck of mixing with others which resulted in my life never ever realizing the fun-with-friends fantasy I often saw on TV. Could I have gotten out more? Could I have done better? Maybe. I gave things a shot. I still do. But as always reality likes to troll you by sticking out its foot. If I didn’t have fiction as my only means of trolling it back, God knows I’d be crazier than I already am.

Though I’m a strictly “amateur night” writer and not one called to it (as you are), I can identify completely with this, especially those last two sentences.

 

[RPRPsych]

It’s funny how we can react differently to different depictions of violence. Kill Bill didn’t bother me at all - I think because it’s so over the top. But when I watched The Dirty Dozen, I felt sick and depressed afterword. Perhaps because it was closer to reality. The Passion of the Chist gripped me - I was in another world.

Quite true. I remember having quite the visceral reaction to “Schindler’s List” myself, though in my defence, I was quite young when I saw it.

 

[agnes_therese]

I think the OP would argue in a similar way that because a few are affected the wrong way by some fiction, then all of us should refrain. I watched Kill Bill and I haven’t sliced up anyone yet.

It’s funny how we can react differently to different depictions of violence. Kill Bill didn’t bother me at all - I think because it’s so over the top. But when I watched The Dirty Dozen, I felt sick and depressed afterword. Perhaps because it was closer to reality. The Passion of the Christ gripped me - I was in another world.

I’ve read so many murder mysteries/suspense thrillers, the OP would probably call the police on me and tell them I MUST be a serial killer they haven’t caught yet!

Fortunately, I have a pretty good grip on what’s reality and what’s not. I can even read Harry Potter without trying to cast spells. God gave us common sense for a reason.

 

[Bonnie]

I’ve read so many murder mysteries/suspense thrillers, the OP would probably call the police on me and tell them I MUST be a serial killer they haven’t caught yet!

Me too! My husband doesn’t care to read them, but he’s hooked now on the BBC versions of the Inspector Alleyn & Inspector Lynley mysteries. Good thing the library has a lot of them.

Fortunately, I have a pretty good grip on what’s reality and what’s not. I can even read Harry Potter without trying to cast spells. God gave us common sense for a reason.

I always got a giggle out of the moms who wouldn’t let their kids read Harry Potter because it had “real spells” in it. I don’t think those women knew the difference between reality and fiction. My kids never became fans, but they did read the books. I read one just to see what the fuss was about and wasn’t impressed - by either the book or the fuss. The movies are kind of fun, tho.

 

[edwest2]

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_23041999_artists_en.html

Peace,
Ed

 

[RPRPsych]

I always got a giggle out of the moms who wouldn’t let their kids read Harry Potter because it had “real spells” in it. I don’t think those women knew the difference between reality and fiction. My kids never became fans, but they did read the books. I read one just to see what the fuss was about and wasn’t impressed - by either the book or the fuss. The movies are kind of fun, tho.

Ooh, now you’ve done it. Harry Potter discussions here can get quite heated.

But I think a counterargument to the OP’s article is that God can reach us in various ways, and I can offer the following personal example.

Not so long ago, I was in danger of becoming a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Protestant (I believe the technical term is “non-denominational” or something like that.) What pulled me back from the brink was… wait for it… a Japanese animated series, based on a children’s novel whose author held decidedly unorthodox religious views. It certainly wasn’t either her intent or the animator’s to evangelize, but that’s how it worked on me, and that’s why I am where I am today. Someone else might have watched it and taken away an entirely different message, but I took away something that was eerily close to Matthew 5-7, and things got better from then on.

As the story I linked to earlier has it: “each in his own tongue”. Just because some fiction can be quite awful, it doesn’t mean we need to dismiss all of it.

 

[aspirant]

I read a very interesting article, written in 1849 by a Presbyterian pastor, about why we should avoid fiction.

Here’s the antidote. Drink it quick before the poison spreads. (Another version of the same here.)

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_23041999_artists_en.html

 

[edward_george]

Methinks the author of the article quoted in the original post would have a coronary upon having read nearly anything by Flannery O’Connor–brutally honest, vivid and sometimes violent, but not gratuitously so. Shot through with Catholic thought, since she believed in the Incarnation in the truest way possible–this is a world charged with God, a world that can bear God, and a world that can show forth its Creator in even the strangest ways.

-ACEGC

 

[aspirant]

Methinks the author of the article quoted in the original post would have a coronary upon having read nearly anything by Flannery O’Connor

There are no words for how much I love Flannery.

 

[RPRPsych]

Methinks the author of the article quoted in the original post would have a coronary upon having read nearly anything by Flannery O’Connor–brutally honest, vivid and sometimes violent, but not gratuitously so. Shot through with Catholic thought, since she believed in the Incarnation in the truest way possible–this is a world charged with God, a world that can bear God, and a world that can show forth its Creator in even the strangest ways.

-ACEGC

A very good example! (If you’re more the British or Commonwealth type, substitute “Graham Greene” for Flannery O’Connor.)

 

[agnes_therese]

There are no words for how much I love Flannery.

ditto.

 

[mathematoons]

I’m a little disappointed with the responses. I hoped someone would try to logically refute each point (since any one of those arguments is sufficient to condemn all fiction) instead of going into emotional arguments and snide remarks, and dismissing the author on the grounds that he was a Presbyterian.

For the former, all I can say is that I have suffered every negative effect, to some degree, of novel reading that the author talks about. Before my conversion, I would have vehemently denied that fiction was affecting me in that way, but looking back, the effects are, as the author put it, as direct and palpable as the effects of drunkenness. That’s why the article makes so much sense to me.

But in response to the latter, here is an excerpt from On Spiritual Reading by St. Alphonsus:

The reading of spiritual works is as profitable as the reading of bad books is noxious. As the former has led to the conversion of many sinners, so the latter is every day the ruin of many young persons. The first author of pious books is the Spirit of God; but the author of pernicious writings is the devil, who often artfully conceals from certain persons the poison that such works contain, and makes these persons believe that the reading of such books is necessary in order to speak well, and to acquire a knowledge of the world for their own direction, or at least in order to pass the time agreeably. But I say that, especially for nuns, nothing is more pernicious than the reading of bad books. And by bad books I mean not only those that are condemned by the Holy See, either because they contain heresy, or treat of subjects opposed to chastity, but also all books that treat of worldly love. What fervor can a religious have if she reads romances, comedies, or profane poetry? What recollection can she have in meditation or at Communion? Can she be called the spouse of Jesus Christ? Should she not rather be called the spouse of a sinful world? Even young women in the world that are in the habit of reading such books are generally not virtuous seculars.

But some one may say, What harm is there in reading romances and profane poetry when they contain nothing immodest? Do you ask what harm? Behold the harm: the reading of such works kindles the concupiscence of the senses, and awakens the passions; these easily gain the consent of the will, or at least render it so weak that when the occasion of any dangerous affection occurs the devil finds the soul already prepared to allow itself to be conquered. A wise author has said that by the reading of such pernicious books heresy has made, and makes every day, great progress; because such reading has given and gives increased strength to libertinism. The poison of these books enters gradually into the soul; it first makes itself master of the understanding, then infects the will, and in the end kills the soul. The devil finds no means more efficacious and secure of sending a young person to perdition than the reading of such poisoned works.

Remember also that for you certain useless books, though not bad, will be pernicious; because they will make you lose the time that you can employ in occupations profitable to the soul. In a letter to his disciple Eustochium, St. Jerome stated for her instruction that in his solitude at Bethlehem he was attached to the works of Cicero, and frequently read them, and that he felt a certain disgust for pious books because their style was not polished. He was seized with a serious malady, in which he saw himself at the tribunal of Jesus Christ. The Lord said to him: “Tell me; what are you?” “I am,” replied the saint, “a Christian.” “No,” rejoined the Judge, “you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian.” He then commanded him to be instantly scourged. The saint promised to correct his fault, and having returned from the vision he found his shoulders livid and covered with wounds in consequence of the chastisement that he had received. Thenceforward he gave up the works of Cicero, and devoted himself to the reading of books of piety. It is true that in the works like those of Cicero we sometimes find useful sentiments; but the same St. Jerome wisely said in a letter to another disciple: “What need have you of seeking for a little gold in the midst of so much mire,” when you can read pious books in which you may find all gold without any mire?

As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I’m a little disappointed with the responses. I hoped someone would try to logically refute each point (since any one of those arguments is sufficient to condemn all fiction) instead of going into emotional arguments and snide remarks, and dismissing the author on the grounds that he was a Presbyterian.

Translated: I didn’t read. I’ll just make a generalizing claim by asserting none of the responses were logical without actually explaining why then go on my merry way. Trolololololol!

Before my conversion, I would have vehemently denied that fiction was affecting me in that way, but looking back, the effects are, as the author put it, as direct and palpable as the effects of drunkenness. That’s why the article makes so much sense to me.

No, you are just repeating the same logic. You want to accept a ludicrous point of you and are now vehemently denying that people have made a logical case against your newfound faith.

Please stop twisting your conversion story as if it somehow justifies and substitutes for the articles’ lack of reasoning (and yours). You may claim to have been in denial but the likes of ‘ex-gay’ ministers, ‘ex-Catholics’, ‘ex-TV watchers’ all have said the same thing when the truth was they’re just using their status as a former something to draw attention and never really admitting that they just weren’t cut out for the label.

But in response to the latter, here is an excerpt from On Spiritual Reading by St. Alphonsus:

HAH! I’m not shy of critiquing the likes of Alphonsus. The man reads like those who burned my own national hero’s novels because they deemed them spiritually poisonous. Religion and moralist censorship. Yeah that combination really won us some historical credentials on integrity. What can you do? Saints are only human after all.

 

[Bonnie]

I’m a little disappointed with the responses. I hoped someone would try to logically refute each point (since any one of those arguments is sufficient to condemn all fiction) instead of going into emotional arguments and snide remarks, and dismissing the author on the grounds that he was a Presbyterian.

Your major premise seemed to be (do correct me if I’m wrong) that all fiction is bad for everyone.

Several people pointed out that, on the contrary, fiction - books, movies - can be good for people and helpful in their spiritual lives. It was even pointed out that the Bible contains fictional stories.

Those responses poked a lot of holes in your premise. There is no need to refute, point by point, everything the Protestant writer wrote many years ago.

Now, if you were to start over with a different premise, such as: Some stories, books, plays, & movies can be harmful to some people, I don’t think you’d get any argument.

 

[aspirant]

I hoped someone would try to logically refute each point

edwest2 and I provided you something much better than that. I strongly encourage you to read Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Artists (thank you, edwest2!) and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Tree and Leaf (especially “On Fairy-stories” and Mythopoeia). Dorothy Sayers’ book The Mind of the Maker and essay “Towards a Christian Aesthetic” would also be excellent reading, as would the C.S. Lewis collection On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature.

dismissing the author on the grounds that he was a Presbyterian.

Such a dismissal need not be a “cheap shot” or ad hominem. Presbyterianism is strongly rooted in the Calvinist theological tradition, a tradition rife with significant errors, notably including the heresy of iconoclasm. That the author comes from an iconoclastic tradition is extremely relevant to any discussion of Christian art, for his essay does bear traces of iconoclasm (cf. your first excerpt).

The Presbyterian’s essay also exhibits a tendency to rationalize all actions all the time: “Novel-reading is the murder of time, and on this simple ground every mind which professes to be guided by religious principles is sternly challenged by God’s authority to forego it.” As Max Weber long ago pointed out, this tendency arises from Calvinism’s double-predestinarian theology, it’s rooted in a constant effort to “prove” that one belongs to the elect rather than the reprobate. So, as a Catholic, I not only reject the Presbyterian’s unjust assertion that “All men who read novels will confess that usually they read them as an indulgence, and not as a means of improvement” (I have often read Dostoevsky and works of fiction “as a means of improvement”), I also reject the false theology of double predestination on which the constant rationalization of action is based.

The Presbyterian essayist furthermore exhibits the Calvinist tendency, rooted in its uncritical assumption of philosophical nominalism, to view the world in dichotomies.

So the essayist’s adherence to a heretical theological tradition is relevant to the conversation.

(In fairness, there are Presbyterian and Calvinist artists and theologians of aesthetics who have abandoned some of the extremity of earlier Calvinist iconoclasm.)

At any rate, if the Presbyterian author really and truly believed such claims as these:

It is dangerous to become familiar with wickedness, even by contemplating it in others… the evil company of a bad book is even more corrupting and dangerous than that of a wicked living companion. One of these is, that the heroes and heroines, who are painted as defying the rules of good morals in some vital points, are still adorned with many imaginary qualities, such as courage, magnanimity, generosity, wit, and genius, which cause the young and impulsive reader to admire them in spite of their crimes.

If he really and truly believed this, he would also have to prohibit Christians from reading the lives of the Patriarchs and other biblical saints, as well as the lives of many other saints since. For these heroes and heroines of the faith are not presented to us in the scriptures and vitae solely as examples of virtues such as courage and generosity. Their egregious sins are also depicted. We do admire the Prophet King David in spite of his crimes.

 

[Kithrus]

We should learn to discern, not retreat in panic.

I charge you sir to go forth and spread that message to all peoples!

I like you, we can keep you.

 

[Pat_Payne]

. Reading Ray Bradbury does not make me light my books on fire.

Ray Bradbury would have been extremely pleased to hear that

 

[aspirant]

Ray Bradbury would have been extremely pleased to hear that

Indeed!

 

[RPRPsych]

I charge you sir to go forth and spread that message to all peoples!

I like you, we can keep you.

Why, thank you!