Sentimentality
Sentimentality is not a bad thing; but it is not a real good thing. It is a recreational indulgence; within limits it is harmless enough. It is in some degree an artifice, a fantasy, an unreality. If it becomes the basis for our thinking it is toxic. Our bourgeois, affluent culture is thoroughly sentimental; as a result, it is rife with superficial, fallacious, saccharine ideologies.
"Sentiment" as a cultural artifice can be contrasted with real, raw emotion as concrete, fleshly encounter with reality. Example of actual emotion: imagine your are walking down the street and out of nowhere a powerful man grabs you and throws you to the cement. You experience real feelings: shock, pain where you hit the pavement, and then as you process it some variations of fear and anger. If you then realize he did this to get you away from an oncoming truck you realize he saved your life and you feel happy to be alive, grateful, even fond of him. All this is real emotion. By contrast: you are watching a movie and Bambi's mother dies. You may be overcome with the sentiment of sadness. But it is not real emotion; it is sentiment. A recreational fantasy. You realize this even if you cry uncontrollably. When I watch my Jason Bourne movies I am happy throughout, especially at the worse moments, because I have total confidence that he will prevail. Vicariously, that is me: I am triumphing over evil. Of course, it is pure fantasy. It is innocent enough, but I wouldn't allow myself more than one spy thriller per week.
Obviously, I keep my sentimental life limited and separated from my real life, work, politics, etc. If I were to allow my (faux) pity for Bambi or my boundless confidence in myself-as-Jason-Bourne to influence my real interaction with reality I would be in trouble.
Sentimentality of Christmas
Christmas is our most sentimental celebration. We have "white Christmas," Santa Clause, "I'll Be Home for Christmas," and the image of happy, affectionate families around the fire place exchanging gifts. Within limits this is positive as it elaborates the actual event of Christ's birth and the affections and joys of wholesome family life and friendship. But a reality-based intellect will resist sentimental intoxication: the season is painful and depressing for countless people. Even the Church's liturgy moves immediately into the massacre of the Holy Innocents and the martyrdom of St. Stephen.
Cultural Sentimentality
Our culture, highly technocratic and artificial, is largely detached from nature. Reality is largely mediated to us by media of all sorts: entertainment, social media, mainstream news sources, etc. Even more intensely over the last decade and particularly for our youth, reality rarely comes fresh, innocent and direct; it is camouflaged, embedded, contorted by virtual universes of the media. Each of these create an artificial world of sentimentality. Consider examples. The recent coronation of King Charles is quite unreal: celebrity, glamour, an illusion of nobility utterly void of any political or real power. Reality TV: fabricated, false, non-reality. All of the movies and shows on Netflix and such (excepting a few quality documentaries which attempt to unveil, rather than cosmeticize reality.) Politics on both sides of the divide is hardly an honest engagement with reality and policy but entirely a histrionic performance, a circus, an absurdity. The result: our perception of reality, the true, the good and the beautiful lacks directness and innocence. Rather, it is perverse, erroneous, illusionary, sentimental.
Sentimental Thinking
Sentimental thought, unlike sentimentality, is far from harmless. It is illusionary and erroneous, even as it is comfortable and comforting. It rests on a bed of fears, resentments, rash judgements, false beliefs and assumptions...all of which are unreal, fabricated by a virtual, media universe. Such is a false consciousness, an idolatry, a self-delusion; but entirely indeliberate; and totally certain. It is not a conscious, explicit act of faith in a revelation or creed as done in our Catholic church. Nor is it the result of rigorous scientific research. It is enclosure in a closed, tribal, mythical cosmos. It is largely invulnerable to challenge. It is "false witness" (7th commandment), however unconscious.
Surge of Bourgeois, Sentimental Anti-Racism
The dual election of Barak Obama in 2008-12 was widely hailed as a highwater mark for race relations in the USA. Half a century of strenuous efforts by all our powerful centers of power had resulted in a final victory: no position was off the table for black Americans. We all breathed a sigh of relief: white-on-black racism as a defining problem was basically (if not perfectly) resolved.
Then a very strange thing happened. Over the following decade, 2013-23, we have a surge of rage against a perceived "systemic racism." Where did this come from? Why at this time, with the double victory of a black American? Did things suddenly get much worse for Afro-Americans? Did some new research unveil a reality that had been hidden to this point? Was there a widespread moral conversion of privileged whites suddenly conscious of their complicity in an ongoing system of injustice?
None of the above! What happened was a pandemic of contagious, bourgeois sentimentality. A new anti-racism!
The primary advocates of this new ideology were the leftist activists who had captured most of the academy and much of entertainment, sports, legacy churches, mainstream media, law and the Democratic Party. Systemically, they flooded major media channels with the narrative of racism. This storyline was eagerly swallowed by affluent, comfortable, liberal, blue America. In manicured suburban neighborhoods and corporate bureaucracies, these people have no direct contact with real poverty and violence. They associate, happily and self-righteously, with people of all colors who share their way of life and values: financial security and comfort, status, privilege, good education, meritocratic accomplishment, technology access, and sense of class/culture superiority.
This indulged, privileged class suffers, unconsciously, a guilt complex: in a world of widespread deprivation and suffering, they enjoy conspicuous, extravagant consumption. They have renounced the moral order and the primal virtue of chastity and quietly practice pornography, cohabitation, contraception, abortion, and technological reproductivity. Without recourse to Catholic confession or any traditions of moral renewal, they are desperate for some ritual of purification. And so, we have the bourgeois fetish of identity politics: BLM and LGTBQ. These allegedly oppressed groups are granted sacral status; they are elevated as Victims; and advocacy for them becomes an exercise in moral purification.
The myth of underlying, largely invisible racism becomes a totem system with its Sacred Victim, and its evil actors (especially those who deny the myth, like this writer) and its list of the righteous. But it is a myth; it is not real.
In the summer of 2020, in the wake of the death of George Floyd, I made a habit of asking people about experiences of racism. My nephew, who is as white as Wonder Bread, adopted two black children; he could recall no incident of white racism. A friend and coworker, 62 year old black female, spent her entire life on the tough streets of Jersey City; was addicted, imprisoned, and rehabilitated; could recall no incident of racism. She did tell me that in our neighborhood, if she sees three or more young black men on the corner, she crosses the street to avoid them. She does not do so for white men. An intelligent, 52-year-old professional black woman friend was firmly convinced (by her two woke daughters I am sure) of systemic racism, but she could recall no experience of racism. My Kenyan house manager in that same summer forcefully told me: "Please do not accept any black people into our home. They are too much trouble.!" I told her: "You can't say that. It is racist." But it really wasn't about skin color: hers is several degrees darker than that of the average descendent of Southern slaves.
My non-sentimental judgement: on the ground, in real life, America 2023. race relations are fine. There are exceptions. But the prevalent perception of rampant racism is not reality based. It does not spring from concrete experience with reality. It is a sentiment, created by a multiversity of media currents, which serves to vent rage, relieve unrecognized guilt, and feed a toxic culture of victimization and entitlement.
An Unsentimental Conclusion
In the current climate, certainly in blue NJ where I write, I would be "cancelled" as racist. I am no such thing. I am flamingly catholic-Catholic in my affection and reverence for people of all backgrounds. My primary source of "inform-ation" is the Catholic Church in her tradition/magisterium, liturgical year and the witness of her saints. No sentimentality there! I give about equal time to media from the right, Fox News, and the left, NY Times. (How many people do you know that do that?) I may err in underestimating the degree of continued racism. Call me stubborn, narrow-minded, too intense. But my experience is real. I am NOT sentimental!
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