J.K. Rowling: my favorite anarchist
Thoughts on hypocrisy and other random things
Dear H,
In my last essay I questioned the whole point of Christian ethics. How are we supposed to live without any standards? How can we honor the ridiculous? How can we just give to idiots, and forgive somebody a million times for the same thing, and throw away our bodies to keep from sinning? How can anyone be loving when he throws his own mother under the bus?
And then I realized something. Those are the exact conditions necessary for God to love anybody like me.
This realization aside, I had others, and I compiled them below, hoping you’d enjoy them. And I want to thank you (and God) for being patient with my questions. Not that I think He minds so much anyway. After all, is faith really a lack of questions? Or is it having serious ones, and hanging on for dear life anyway?
Yours,
-J
Hypocrisy.
JK Rowling said, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk,
If you believe free speech is for you but not for your political opponents, you’re illiberal.
If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you’re a fundamentalist.
If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you’re a totalitarian.
If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you’re a terrorist.
All true, in the main, but with one small caveat. Eventually, every successful political belief becomes backed by violence. This is what’s known as the law. And every military is an attempt to punish your political opponents with death. And the only places that can be liberal — meaning, places where you can debate ideas safely — are places where some liberties are backed by a right to chase down, beat up, kidnap, jail and potentially kill anyone who steps on them. This is what’s known as the police. And it makes everyone who supports an army a terrorist, and every man who stands up for “liberalism” illiberal.
A man who wants to live in an ideal world loses all of it. The hypocrite betrays his own principles — and he gets to keep a part of it.
Empty and full.
Binge watching, face-stuffing, heavy drinking, chain-smoking, all-day sleeping, marathon gaming — you are a void. The emptiest life you can live is one where you try to fill yourself.
And there lies the irony. The more you take, the emptier you feel. The more you give, and do, and fix, and make, the more abundant you become.
Little minds and big ideas.
If there’s no room for nuance, or rebuttal, or questions, or asterisks, a man is better left to his instincts. Little minds are no place for big ideas.
What is love?
Does God love us when he drowns Pharaoh in the ocean? Or does He love us when he throws us to lions?
The truth is we are almost always blind to what we really need. What kills a man may save him. What saves a man may damn him. We have so little insight into the long chain of effects of any situation that what appears a disaster can actually be deliverance, and what appears as deliverance can actually be a disaster. David prayed for deliverance from his enemies. Solomon was born into peace, and proceeded to be ruined by himself.
Jewish faith: Lord, please save me from the world.
Christian faith: Lord, please save me from myself.
What is injustice?
A life without judgment is a life without preference, without priority, without taste — without life. As Nietzsche put it, subjectivity, bias, even injustice are the hallmarks of living. We preach the love of God, and being alive makes us incapable of giving it.
Ants and flies and molds and colds.
Man is the only animal to want everything within his house but his family and friends, his pets, and his approved plants, to die. We are the highest life on the planet — and the only one to fear and hate the lowest.
Legalese.
Nietzsche says, Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings— always darker, emptier, and simpler.
We live by intuition, not by reason. The more we try to define life, the more slippery it gets.
Narnia vs Westeros.
Why is it that almost all the best movies, almost all the best music, and almost all the best novels, are unsuitable to share with your children?
Are we deranged today? Or is life itself — and the virility which makes it — dirty? And are the people who try too hard to be clean — sterile?
The wrong questions.
Is God happy right now, or is He sad? Was He happy before He made us, or was He lonely? Does He feel everything at once — love and regret, anger and sorrow, laughter and disgust — or is His consciousness split into a few trillion shards?
Did He, in His omniscience, make one big plan for all eternity in one split second? In other words, is He done thinking? Or is He reacting to the universe now — moving, gauging, changing? And which version of us does He actually love? The “me” when I was born? Or me right now? Or the “me” I’m going to be someday? And which one does He see me as most? And why?
Many of us are smart enough to not ask these questions. Most of us are lucky enough to not think them. But the theologian feels it’s his job to answer them — and that’s why professional theologians are such blowhards.
Straitjacket.
The meaning of the Tower of Babel: that if all our dreams came true, something horrible would happen.
Man is a monster in hiding. His impotence gives him the impression of innocence.
Know thyself.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was said to have written, in a letter to a friend,
For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.
— a good dream in general, but the first part depends totally on the second. A man needs to crash himself to know himself to grow himself. If you plant yourself in the wrong soil, you either move or you dry up.
Limitations.
Every man is trapped within himself.
There is the knowledge which sees as far as it can see.
There is the mind which can only range as far as it can go.
There is the will, which can only move as far as it can stand.
There is the taste, which can only prefer what it prefers.
There is no man who can go further than any of the four. Where the mind sees far, the knowledge stops short. Where the conscience says “do,” the taste cuts off. Where the taste leads on, the will blocks off. Where the will makes demands, the mind can’t find a way.
Arrogance.
Stupidity and ignorance are only two reasons people are wrong. There are also laziness, cowardice, and self-righteousness — a trio much harder to reason with.
Rochefoucauld says,
Those who obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.
Jack Sprat.
Marketed to little girls:
“If you want my future, forget my past.”
“I don’t care who you are, or where you’re from, don’t care what you did, as long as you love me.”
The perfectly scandalous woman dreams of the perfectly desperate man.
Shot in the foot.
Diversity: celebrate people’s differences!
Equality: by treating them exactly the same!
Individuality.
Why are there four Gospels? Because whether God is whispering in our ear or right in front of you, you will probably miss something.
Esau.
Religion is the one place we’re supposed to go for equality. “For God so loved the world,” say the Christians. But the Jews already spoke for God first, and they reported He said, “Esau I have hated.”
Timing is everything.
A kid behaving like a kid: “How cute.”
A grown man behaving like a kid: "please get this guy away from me.”
The loony bin.
Should you get all the new vaccines for your kid? Are open relationships a good idea? Is it safe to bring in unlimited amounts of unvetted foreigners? Should rapists get sex-changes in prison? Does sleeping with 50 men have any negative effect on your future family? Should cops be able to fire back at criminals? Should you tell everyone you’re on stolen land and never move? Should you be able to kill a fully-developed baby? Is obesity just as good as being fit? Can the female body stand as much liquor, in the long run, as a man’s? Is it wrong to cure autism? Should women be drafted and put on the front lines? Will cutting off your kid’s dick make him happy?
Signs of stupidity, insanity, moral bankruptcy.
In our age, also signs of a B.A.
Yours,
-J
Genesis is all about inequality. That’s the point of a chosen people and a favorite son who gets the colorful coat. But that inequality eventually goes somewhere, turns inside out. Joseph endures the worst and then saves everyone. Esau is hated and feared — then becomes the face of God! (Gen 33:10)