> Jim,
>
> What you say has occurred to me as a possibility, but to be honest,
> when
> I try to get a grip on it, confirming or denying the propriety of it
> seems to me secondary to challenging or affirming or denying the
> truth of
> it. If true, it is as proper on Percy's lips, I would think, as on
> anybody's.
Dear Ken, Nikki, Folks--
Ken, I think you are correct in what you say above. I hadn't thought of
it quite like that. I was too caught up in my own malicious self
righteousness. But what exactly is Percy saying? Is he blaming the gas
chambers on Christians? I don't think so. I think he is blaming
atheists and humanists.
> Impropriety would be to believe and not affirm it. Of
> course,
> there're no guarantees, so when one believes oneself to have been
> illuminated by insight, one naturally wants to make that light
> available
> to others, even if one is Catholic. Even were all that to be
> granted, I
> can imagine that "such talk" could still be offensive...
I agree.
>
> For my part, I'm glad WP spoke up on this issue, because
> even tho I don't lay a full claim to understanding it, it is a
> filter I
> try to use to understand "current events." (Anyone blessed with
> perfect
> understanding is welcome to demur)
Well, I agree with that too. I don't claim full understanding but I
think Percy missed an important piece of the truth regarding what led to
so many Christians (including Catholics) to tolerate and in some cases
participate in Jews being exterminated as they were in Nazi Germany. I
got the impression that Percy was saying that "well meaning" humanists
could behave like Nazis but that "true" Christians would not or did not
behave like Nazis. I've heard this sort of argument before and it
strikes me as perilously close to blaming the victims --who, after all
were themselves well meaning non Christians.
I think real, honest to God Christians do sin and that anit-semitism was
a sin committed by many true Christians during the Nazis period (just as
religious persecution of Christians or any other group of folks is a sin
committed by many non Christians). Honest to God humanist sin, too, but
I don't think we can blame the gas chambers on them. I think Percy was
mistaken about that. But maybe I've badly misunderstood Percy's point.
Maybe he wasn't trying to blame the gas chambers on phoney,
hypocritical "Christians" and non Christians. Maybe he wasn't trying to
deny or ignore any guilt for true Christians.
************
Nikki, I apologize for questioning Percy's right to raise this issue.
You are quite right --Who the hell am I to question Percy's right to
peacefully speak his mind? I was wrong. I apologize also for my
maliciousness. My own conduct in this instance (denial of my own
culpability and projecting the blame for my own malicious actions and
motives on others) is itself, I think, a good example of the sort of
behavior that led to the gas chambers during the Nazi period. But of
course my personal, petty, mundane behavior (sinful as it is) is not the
stuff of great literature nor of particular interest to folks on this
list. Ironically, one of things I like about Percy's writing is that he
is self reflexive and holds his own (and by extension my own) behavior up
for examination. This is not an excuse for my anger, but part of it
stems from wanting my hero Percy to be a saint in the foolish hope that
his doing so would make salvation easier for me or perhaps let me off the
hook altogether. In part I was blaming Percy for my unwillingness to
save my own soul --as if I could ever save my soul at the expense of
others. Sometimes it seems to me that every moment is an eternity and
every act one of faith, sin and personal striving for salvation and
redemption. Funny these words sound so Christian to me and yet they feel
so Jewish to me. Maybe we really are all God's children (I mean everyone
including folks of all religions and folks of no religion at all). Maybe
not. I'm just expressing the sorts of thoughts I have when thinking
about Percy's work and talking with my fellow discussants on the Percy
List.
I also appreciate your comments about Percy's goodwill toward Jews.
Sometimes I got the uneasy feeling that he may have viewed Jews with some
detached puzzlement as though they were exotics or perhaps merely God's
signposts or object lessons for Christians. Believe me, as even a half
assed Jew, that sort of attitude does not strike me as love. Do you
think that he specifically rejected this view of Jews? I mean, folks,
how would you like the suggestion that God created the Christians as
object lessons for his chosen people the Jews. As even a half assed
Christian I am not warmed by that idea.
Cheers,
Jim Piat
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