Perceptions Of LifeComedy, Tragedy, Irony or Romance

By Louis A. Moench

Two s;ources of inspiration have prompt-ed this essay. The first source is themasterful paper presented by CarlisleHunsaker at the Sunstone Symposiumtwo years a~go titled "Mormonism and a

Tragic Sense of Life" (SUNSTONE, VO1.8 no. 3). In ithe proposes that our viewing ourselves as tragicheroes, struggling through the uncertainties andvicissitude of this life with only limited power todetermine whether we will find its fullness. Thisview regards God as a tragic hero as well,realizing his purpose, the enhancement of thequality of our existence, may also meet withfailure, suffering, powerlessness, and loss. ThatGod is a tragic hero is a radical proposition. Myinterest is in comparing the tragic view of lifewith contrasting views Hunsaker only alluded to.

The second source of inspiration has been mykids and their friertds while I have watched themplaying. Though more than 30 years separate us,their play is just like mine was at their age. I andmy cowboy friends galloped over prairies andthrough passes recreating with appropriate vocalda-da-dat da-da-dat, da-da-dat-dah’s a symphonyorchestra of our own, playing the William TellOverture. This was the background accompanyingcowboys everywhere, we knew, because we heardit on TV. We didn’t even need to see the action. Assoon as we heard the music we knew what sort ofadventure was taking place. For my kids the set,the mode of transportation, and the symphonyhave changed. Now it is starships blasting intohyperspace toward the nether galaxies to theaccompaniment of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."The game, however, is essentially the same. So isthe functior~ of the music. The music defines for usthe kind of ’world we pretend we are in.

At a higher level of sophistication than thecowboy creations of kids, consider Prokofiev’s Peterand the Wolf. A musical theme describes eachcharacter, telling us not only of his entry into thescene but al,;o describing for us the way he sees theworld and how he will act within it. The forebodingaccompaniment to Grandfather tells us he is anentirely different sort of person from Peter, whosethematic measures are bright and adventurous.

Yet more sophisticated is the leitmotif--amusical theme developed to its fullest by RichardWagner in the Rin~qof the Nibelungs, all 16 hours of

30 SUNSTONIE

a series of four operas so grandiose and complexthat one can’t tell the players without the programmusic. A leitmotif not only describes eachcharacter according to his role in the opera andthe world, but also just what circumstance he isin at any of his world’s given moments. Siegfriedracing down the Rhine, resplendent in armorastride a gallant horse, sounds quite differentfrom Siegfried cold on the funeral pyre thoughthe theme is the same. In either case, the musictells us he is a hero.

Were we to remove a person from the prairieor the palace and put him in a totally neutralsetting, say walking down the street, we wouldknow virtually nothing of him. If his accompany-ing theme were Bach’s Toccatta and Fugue in Dminor, we would suddenly know a great deal.Either the man is sinister, or he is about toencounter something sinister. Even our SesameStreet-watching kids know when they hear thismusic that they are about to encounter a blackcaped, beady-eyed count. Were we, instead, toaccompany his walk with the bright bouncinessof a Scott Joplin rag, we would transform thesetting immediately from tragedy to comedy.Our vision of reality functions in the same wayas the background music, transforming our exist-ence in an otherwise indifferent universe into acomedy, a tragedy, an irony, or a romance,according to which vision we see or which musicaccompanies our thoughts, feelings, and acts.

Vision suggests something not completelyreal. It involves looki~tg at things from certainangles and not from ~hers, distorting reality in aparticular way. A vision of reality has its psycho-logical equivalent in a personality structure. Bypersonality we mean those fixed, predictableways in which a person thinks, feels, and behaveswhich evolve as his style of living or his way ofbeing in the world. Knowing one’s personalitystyle, we can almost predict one’s activities andexperiences, his symptoms and the backgroundagainst which he will play them out. Freud taughtus that even the strangest symptoms and the mostbizarre behavior make sense when we understandtheir background--that person’s vision of reality.

David Shapiro in his book Neurotic Styles offersthe example of an Indian, performing a strangedance with great intensity. As we watch, we maynotice that he comes from an agrarian culture,and further, that there is a drought. We surmisethat this could be a rain dance, and if we lookcarefully at the Indian’s facial contortions, anexpression of apprehension as well. If we arecorrect, we have achieved considerable under-standing. But note that nearby there is a farmerwhose crops are equally stricken by the drought,yet he is not dancing. To dance does not occur tohim. Instead, looking at his dry furrows, hefurrows his brow and goes home to worry. TheIndian dances not only because there is a droughtbut because he is an Indian. His dancing is aproduct of a frame of mind, a way of seeing

things which is likeiy to be long-standing andstable--and very unlike the farmer’s way. Hisbehavior makes perfect sense if we can see therain gods from his point of view. A personbehaves as he does not only because of certainmodes of response which he has acquired butalso because of certain modes of perceiving theimpulse or stimulus. We can compare this uniqueperception to that of a color-blind person. Hisresponse to red is different from ours not becausehe is unaware of the communist threat, callousedtoward Christmas, insensitive to the sight ofblood, or never in debt, but because he does notperceive red as something vivid or worthy ofemotionality.

Shapiro further gives us the example of themasochistic person. Not only is he predictablyangry and guarded, easily humiliated and victim-ized, but he is also predictably alert for opport-unities to be so. He sometimes goes far out of hisway to seize a chance to be victimized. Hisbehavior becomes understandable when we real-ize that, for him, each new injustice scores amoral point against the enemy. Most of us havesome interest in injustice and wariness of en-emies, but we are not compelled to seek themout. Why are some so compelled? Often becausethey feel embattled continuously and with asuperior foe. Against such an enemy the onlyweapon is moral protest. From a position ofweakness, they are highly aware of power andstatus, and of who treats whom with how muchrespect. Becoming militantly principled againstpersonal, injustice, the possibility of an affront,remote for most of us, stares them in the face atevery turn, and only a fool would not recognizeit. Given a frame of mind alert to the possibilitiesof humiliation and mistreatment, the search forevidence of mistreatment, recognition of it, andreacting with indignation will appear as the onlyplausible next thing to do.

Our vision of reality tells us what we canexpect in this world. With it we weigh the costsand dangers of different kinds of gratification wemay seek, the consequences of error we may risk,and of protest we may register. It is our guide toprospects for success or failure, for reward orpunishment, for pleasure or pain. Consider whatexpectations from the world result from thevision of these two people from a vignette bySamuel Taylor: Janice is a beautiful and talentedgirl who takes drama at B.Y.U. and yearns to be agreat actress. But her boyfriend, Claude, wantsher to stay home, marry him and have babies.Claude, however, runs a dairy farm and Janicewants fame and glamor, not manure on hershoes. Well, Janice is in a roadshow and by anoutstanding coincidence a great Hollywood prod-ucer is in the audience. The producer flips overJanice’s talent and beauty. He’s got to have herfor the starring role in his next $50,000,000

SUNSTONE 31

Laughter isless necessary

to the comicvision thorn

security andgratification.

movie. So Janice’s fondest dreams have cometrue. Everybody thinks it’s a wonderful thing,and she is. packing her bags when in comesClaude with hay iin his hair and manure on hisshoes (he heard the news while milking), and hesays he’s just come to say goodbye and gosh,honey, I’m going to miss you something terriblebecause gee-whiz, I love you. At this momentJanice comes to realize that she doesn’t want thetinsel and glitter of Hollywood; what she reallywants is to be with Claude and have manure onher shoes, bear his babies, and use her greattalent as ward drama director.

The world of Janice and Claude is a remarkableone--one in which the choices are clear or willsoon become so, right and wrong are readilydiscernible, doing the right thing always fulfillsand rewards, and problems are eminently sol-vable. This is the comic vision of reality. Comic,not because it is funny--humor is not an essen-tial element of the comic--but comic becausethings work out.

The Comus was an ancient Greek ritual proces-sion, a fertility ritual honoring the fertility god ofthe same name. Comus was a symbol of per-petual rebirth, of eternal life. Comedy ariseswhenever people are gathered to celebrate life,spring festivals, triumphs, birthdays, weddings,initiations, lit provides an image of human vitalityholding forth in the world, the delight man takesin his mental gifts making him the Lord ofcreation. Comedy celebrates life’s capacity torenew itselt!.

In comic drama this capacity is underscoredusually by the presence of lovers, embodying theelation of life and the ability to overcome everyobstacle--intrusive parents, mistaken identities,petty jealousies, temporary rivals, and enforcedseparations. There may be nothing but troublealong the way, but in the end the lovers arehappily united. The comic vision does not excludehardships and struggles, but they take place in aprotected realm. Life has its shortcomings, but inthe end there is always a reward. Evil exists, butthere is always the possibility of change. Nodilemma is too great to be resolved. No obstacle istoo firm to stand against effort and good inten-tions. No suffering is so great it can’t be relievedor used as a nidus for growth. No loss is so finalthat it can’t be made up for.

Protagonists in the comic realm are seen aslocked in the pursuit of their goals by elements insociety over which they can ultimately triumphand become the ,center of a new and bettersociety. In Mormondom the obstructive elementsare subsumed under the term "the world," andthe new society is the celestial kingdom. Antagon-ists are apt to be seen as ridiculous, certainly acomic element, rather than truly evil or trulydangerous. After all, in Mormonism the worst ofthem can be dispatched with a handshake toidentify, and an authoritative command to

depart. Conformity and pragmatism are guidingvalues. Pragmatism includes saving souls tempor-ally as well as spiritually, and conformity sometimesleads us to expect collective salvation as a TenthWard Relief Society or our chapter of Lambda DeltaSigma. We tend to be fiercely protective of ourimage as if we all had the same one, and the samedestiny--to be clones of God.

In the comic vision the past can be redone. Infact, pastness is cancelled out as if the world weretimeless and new beginnings could occur againand again. (Repentance is the mechanism wherebyan evil heart can become pure as the drivensnow.) In this realm life is under control. Wemake of it what we will, despite undesi.rablegenetic loading, adverse rearing, bad luck, orconniving persons. If things go well, it is becausewe recognized the requirements correctly andobeyed the right laws or pushed the rightbuttons. They brought us a job promotion,protection on our recent airplane flight, o:r justthe right spouse (chosen, of course, in thepremortal existence). Adherence to true prin-ciples promises us kids without birth defects,who say please and thank you and put their toysaway.

Depression can be overcome by praying andreading the scriptures, presumably selected atrandom since we are seldom told just whatchapters and verses have antidepressant effect.The process of scripture reading rather than thecontent of what is read seems for some a panacea,especially if read with a modest dose of aloe vera.One version of the comic view says that a personliving with his religion will never have to see apsychiatrist. Putting on a happy face will suffice,and there is ample reason to do so, for life is apleasure. Even drudgery is pleasure. Witness theaids for the simple drudgery of washing dishes:Fab for fabulous, Vel for marvelous, Lux, Joy andCheer.

One of the oldest versions of the comic visionis found in the frame story around the book ofJob In the last chapter, all is restored to Job as ifhis suffering were thereby nullified. Even thenumber of children he lost was matched by anequal number of new children, leaving him withno quantitative cause to mourn. The writer ofthe frame clearly could face none of the tragedyand irony in the book of Job and, therefore, madethe task unnecessary by adding the comic ending.Dr. Hunsaker draws our attention to a modernversion of: the comic, the success seminar, wl~:ereingreatness of character can be achieved by thepower of positive thinking and daring to leverageone’s income. The formula is that the willinevitably creates the deed.

We have scriptural support for the comicvision: "There is a law irrevocably decreed, inHeaven before the foundations of this wor]Ld,upon which our blessing are predicated--andwhen we obtain a blessing from God it is by

32 SUNSTONE

obedience to that law upon which it is pre-dicated" (D&C 130:20-21) and "I, the Lord, ambound when you do what I say..." (D&C82:10).

What advantages does the comic vision pro-vide?

1. One is spared the agony of choice. Rightexists and is made known through the Spirit.

2. One is assured of exaltation--"passing theangels who stand as sentinels, being able to givethem the key words, the signs and tokens . . . "(Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 416) if one iswilling to do what is required to learn them.

3. One is comforted by the assurance thatthere is a divine purpose in every event. What-ever happens will ultimately be for the good. Ourtask is to make it so. The prime example is, ofcourse, the funeral message fro someone takenby death too early. We make sense of theunexpected death of a young mother by saying,"God had greater need of her than her childrendid." And, after all, the parting is only temporary.

What are its disadvantages?1. To be spared the agony of choice is not the

divine purpose. It leaves us vulnerable to onewho has all the answers. The first one whowanted to spare us from choice was banishedfrom God’s presence and his second estate.Reliance on the Spirit to choose the right for usmay lead to rather breezy conceptions of boththe Spirit and the right. I am aware of one manwho knew by the Spirit whether on any giventrip to the grocery store, Cheerios or Corn Flakeswere right.

2. Exaltation can easily become a reward forcumulative points, placing those who seek it atKohlberg’s stage II of moral development, on parwith young children. At stage II, motivation ispleasure of reward or fear of punishment. Con-trast working to earn a great reward with C.S.Lewis’ observation that "every time you make achoice you are turning a central part of you, thepart of you that chooses, into something a littledifferent than what it was before, and takingyour life as a whole with all your innumerablechoices all your life long you are slowly turningthe central thing either into a heavenly creatureor a hellish creature; either into a creature that isin harmony with God, and with other creatures,and with itself, or else one that is in a state of warand hatred with God, and with his fellow-creatures, and with itself... Each of us at eachmoment is progressing to the one state or theother" (Mere Christianity, p.86).

3. To say that all events have a divine purpose,that things happen because it is the will of God,requires that we redefine good in order to avoidthe conclusion that our God is a monster-god. Tosay that his ways are not our ways and, there-fore, what sounds bad or evil now will ultimatelybe recognized as for the good, eliminates the

distinction between good and evil. It holds nomore persuasion than its converse, that whatappears to be good to us now will ultimately turnout to be evil. To say that what God does is, bydefinition, good, merely says that He is what Heis and that He wills what He wills. The same can besaid for any other creature in the universe.

4. To adopt the notion of a timeless world inwhich there are always second chances trivializesour behavior. It undermines the very idea thecomic vision wants to promote--that what we domakes a difference.

In summary, laughter and rnerriment are notessential to the comic vision. Security and gratification are. The comic vision seeks a happyending.

Defining the romantic vision is a more elusivetask than that of clarifying any of the othermythic views of reality. Here are some of thewords writers have used: Attractive, unselfish,exuberant, ornamental, unreal, realistic, irration-al, materialistic, feudal, heroic, mysterious, soul-ful, noteworthy, revolutionary, bombastic, pic-turesque, nordic, informal, formalistic, emotion-al, fanciful and stupid. And here are a fewdefinitions:

A desire to find the infinite within the finite, toaffect the synthesis of the real and the unreal,the expression in art of what in theology wouldbe called pantheistic enthusium (Fairchild).

An effort to escape from actuality (Water-house).

The renascence of wonder (Watts-Dunton).In general a thing is romantic when, as Aristotle

would say, it is wonderful rather than probable;in other words when it violates the normalsequence of cause and effect in favor of ad-venture. The whole movement is filled with thepraise of ignorance, and of those who still enjoyits appreciable advantages--the savage, thepeasant, and above all, the child (Babbett).

A movement to honor whatever Classicismrejected. Classicism is the regularity of goodsense--perfection in moderation; Romanticismis disorder in the imagination--the range ofincorrectness, a blind wave of . . . egotism (Bru-netiere).

Romanticism is, at any time, the art of the day;Classicism is the art of the day before (Stendahl).

Romanticism is the art of offering people theliterary works likely to give them the greatestpossible pleasure, having due regard to the habitsand beliefs of the time. Classicism, on the otherhand, offers them the literature that gave thegreatest possible pleasure to their great-grand-parents.

|n the early Middle Ages, "romance" denotedthe new vernacular languages in distinction tothe !earned Latin. So "enromancier" meant totransplant or compose books in the vernacular.

The word"romantic"came to mean"captivating tothe imagination."

SUNSTONE 33

The romanticvision looks

toward themoral trans-formation of

humanity.

Such a book was called "romanze," "roman," or"romance." These popular stories were usuallytales of love,, adventure, and the vagaries of theimagination. Their characteristics came to beassociated with the word itself. Romance impliedchivalry, high-flown sentiment, improbability,exaggeration, unreality--elements opposed to asober, rational view of life. During the Age ofReason in the 18th century, in a world ruled byorder and absolute truth, the word "romantic"was used pejoratively to denote false, ficticious,imaginary, or absurd in a climate that prizedcorrectness above i~nagination.

It wasn’t until the end of the century, when theold romance!; were rehabilitated along with aninterest in the Middle Ages, that the word beganto recover status .and acquire new meaning.Romantic could then mean "captivating to theimagination," and an appeal to feeling. It denoteda turn of mind to look favorably on things of animaginative and emotional kind. "Romantic" andits associated words, "originality", "creativity",and "genius" represented a basic reorientation ofthe total view of man and nature. It espoused asubjective philosophy where heretofore therehad been Newtonian physics. Fichte, for example,asserted that the very existence and shape of theworld depended entirely upon the vision of theindividual irnagination. The table or the tree isbecause and as we see it. When William Blake wasasked "when the su~ rises, do you not see a rounddisk of fire somewhat like a guinea?" He replied,"Oh no, no. I see an Innumerable company of theHeavenly hosts crying ’Holy, Holy, Holy is theLord God Almighty" ". The historical center ofgravity of the romantic movement--the romanticrebellion, in fact-- was the period from 1790 to1830, a time that included the French Revolutionand, in western New York, a religious revolution.The search in both of these revolutions and theobject of the romantic vision is an ideal society. Itanticipates mankind morally transformed to astate of total political and economic equality. Itoffers hn intoxicating sense that now everythingis possible in the new society of virtue andhappiness. The wolf will dwell with the lamb andthe leopard with the kid. Isaiah’s peaceable king-dom may give way,. though, to the apocalypticviolence of the book. of Revelations.

Restoration through revelation and angelicvisitation, tl~e Messianic kingdom in Missouri,the elevation of free agency above all ideals, thedoctrine of the deific: potential in man, prayer andfaith as a moire sure way of knowing than reasonare all things that required a romantic epoch tocome about. The romantic vision is one of life as aquest or series of quests, a perilous, individual-istic, heroic journey. The goal combines qualitiessuch as mystery, grandeur, sacredness, love, andfusion with a higher power or principle such asvirtue, honor, or beauty. The quest ends, aftercrucial struggle, with individual exaltation. Thequest is like a wish-fulfilling daydream. Ideals are

represented by virtuous heroes and heroines.The threats to reachin.g these goals are embodiedin villains. The standard American cowboy movi.eis a fine example. Individuality is idealized. TheAmerican dream is available to all. Self expressionis equated with triumph. Impulsive behavior ilsconsidered natural or "with it". The motto maybe "do your own thing". (These traits may lhavehad more acceptance in the 19th Century Mor-monism than the 20th, especially 60’s and 70"sMormonism where such individuality as growinga beard made one suspect.)

What are the advantages of the romanticvision ?

1. One works out one’s salvation with fearand trembling. It is truly possible to be themaster of one’s fate; the captain of one’s soul.

2. Altruism is fostered. Truly Christian be-havior rather than perfunctory religiosity maybe the result.

3. Blew thoughts .and ideas that challengetradition are not only allowed but desired.

4. A whole realm of experience, subjective andemotional, for which objective science ha!; nouse, is. accepted as valid. The burning of thebosom rather than Central American archeologyis likely to be the. source of one’s testimony.

What are its dangers?1. Challenging the existing order to usher in a

millennial reign gives religious sanction to aplethora of crackpot ideas, especially adolescentdefiance in the guise of freedom, ranging from atax protest to the horror of the Lafferty’s.Romanticism is the view of, among others, thelunatic’ fringe.

2. Where the world is comprised of: heroes andvillain!;, too many of life’s miscues and misdeedscan be projected onto villains. Satan or hissecular equivalent, the socialist, is under everybed and behind every tree. A life free to feel infull range may feel mainly the tension ofsuspicion.

3. With emphasis on the validity of feeling, factmay be given short shrift, discounted as thearm of the flesh or the mere learning of men.Salvation through divine acceptance may beexpected, but salvation through understandingcannot be.

4. As one seeks enlightenment, the seekingmay displace the light. We are reminded of theAnglican bishop in C.S. Lewis’ allegory of a busride to the outskirts of Heaven. Offered theopportunity to enter the presence of God, thebishop declines for lack of time and intecest.What he must do, you see, is be home Friday tolead a discussion on what God must be like.Experiential therapy groups and Sonia Johnson’scrusade strike me as modern-day situatio~:s inwhich the quest may have become holier thanthe grail. Experience sooner or later’ becomes a

34 SUNSTONE

failed quest as we discover the goals wereambiguous, elusive, and costly. The search maygo on, but it becomes a search for meaning,understanding and insight rather than the ideal.The dragons may become recognizable as inter-nal rather than "out there" i.e. one’s memories,fears and weaknesses are the real obstables toour personal striving for Utopia.

How must reality seem to the characters ofthis brief interchange? A pedant who beheldSolon weeping for the death of a son said to him,"Why do you weep thus, if weeping availsnothing?" and the sage answered him, "Preciselyfor that reason--because it does not avail." Thisis the tragic vision of reality. Most who espousethis view more readily give lip service to it thanfeel deeply imbued with it. And tragedy is morereadily felt than defined. Horace Walpole said,"Life is a comedy for those who think and atragedy for those who feel." Those imbued witha tragic sense are imbued with wisdom ratherthan knowledge. Those who put reason abovefaith die comically, while those die tragically whoput faith above reason. Tragedy implies disasterwithout prospect for recovery. The word con-veys a nobility lacking in such similar words as"sadness," "wretchedness," or "misery." Its min-imal requirement is a persistent awareness thathuman destiny is affected by uncontrollablefactors. Awareness of a tragic fate and apathyand despair accompanying that awareness reston the violent contrast between an individual’saspirations and his possibilities of fulfilling them,the unbridgeable gap between desire and achieve-ment.

The tragic vision involves a deep responsivenessto the great dilemmas, paradoxes, ambiguities,and uncertainties pervading human existence. Itmanifests itself in alertness to the inescapeabledangers, terrors, mysteries and absurdities. Itrequires one to recognize the elements of defeatin victory and of victory in defeat; the pain inpleasure and the pleasure in pain; the guilt inapparently justified action; the loss of oppor-tunity entailed by every choice; the inevitableclashes ween passion and duty; the necessity foracting on insufficient evidence; the burden ofunanswerable questions and incomprehensiblesuffering while learning and changing.

The tragic sense of time is linear, a conceptcontributed by the ancient Hebrews in contrastto their Canaanite neighbors whose circularview of time is seen, even today, in such Easternreligious doctrines as reincarnation. Linear timeis continuous and irreversible. Choices oncemade are made forever; a second chance cannever be the same as the first; life is progressiontoward death. The protagonist finds his matchnot in the obstructing forces of society as in thecomic vision, nor in the villains and dragons of

the romantic vision, but within himself. He isdivided within himself, some of his rights,"values, duties, and opportunities inevitably clash-ing with others, his choices always entailingsacrifice, ambivalence, and remorse. Seeingoneself as a tragic hero is not to idealize oneself.We are all caught up in tragic situations simply bybeing alive, growing up in the world, and tryingto make our way in it.

Contrary to popular usage, tragic does notnecessarily imply unhappy or disastrous out-comes. Much of one’s suffering is neitherinevitable or necessary. The miseries of everydaylife do not ordinarily impinge on us simply withtheir own force. Permanent, unconscious con-flicts from our past, fixed in a linear concept oftime, render us vulnerable to the advance of age,disharmonies in marriage, the death of lovedones, and the limits of a career. Recognizing howunresolved and unconsciously stored feelingsabout our past sabotage our daily activity trans-forms us from passive victims to active contri-butors to our pain and struggle in a givensituation. However, the realization that we haveparticipated decisively in our fate should height-en our sense both of choice and of responsibility.

Considering religion from a tragic view, let usreview the tradition of the Corn King, a primativefertility rite. A king is appointed for a fixed termto oversee the growth of the crops which sustainhis community. He is given the honor of hisstanding. At the end of his term he is ceremoniallyslaughtered and his blood sprinkled on the fieldsas an offering to the mysterious forces whichcontrol new growth and quality of crops. A newking is chosen to be honored and then sacrificedin his turn. In cultures which do not live by breadalone, the king will represent the best thecommunity has to offer--physically vigorousand hence of value for labor and war, but alsopersonifying the power and aspirations of thecommunity, a hero who is an outstanding spec-imen to propitiate the gods by dying for hispeople. The more he suffers the more acceptablethe offering. A token of abasement of the highestin the community to a still higher power, he isintended to buy freedom from suffering for thewhole community through compensation.

The suffering of the community may bedeserved. The gods may be offended by trans-gression of some moral law (a new quality forgods since most gods of ancient people lack themorals of the people themselves). Humansexperience the guilt of their offense and desire tobe discharged from it. The transgressions, of thecommunity are symbolically transferred to thesacrificial king. He goes to his death with hisexcellence and their sin, the shame of thecommunity as well as with their pride, to expiateas well as propitiate. The king is hero andscapegoat, the essence of tragic ambivalence.Most tragedies culminate in the end of an order(in this case the corn king’s reign) and the birth of

People with atragic visionare imbuedwith wisdomrather thanknowledge.

SUNSTONE 35

The failure ofattempts to leada Christian life

provides theopenino for

traoedy.

a new one.

The Crucifixion is the focal point of Westernreligion, the act of atonement for the sins ofhumanity. The incarnation of all of the finestqualities of: mankind, raised to divine attributes,can be found in Christ the King, the supremehappening for which the Corn King tradition canhave served as a type and symbol. Jesus, however,was not a tragic figure nor crucifixion a tragicevent, because death wasn’t the end. Resurrectionto a new order follows. Even the corn king’scommunity, was redeemed for another year.Therefore the event is not a disaster but atriumph. Every Christian martyrdom has itspromise of a happy ending. If not so, death andsuffering would be final and expiation futile.Crucifixion could be tragic only if it wereineffectual. Tragedy would exist in the commu-nity’s recognition that the act would not savethem, and now they were defenseless. Theprotagonist would say, "My God, my God, whyhas Thou forsaken me?" If Christ’s true lastwords were these--his mission would have failed,and he would be a tragic hero. It is the same withthe corn kings. If they were reluctant victims orlost their convictions their reign would betragedy. To qualify’ as tragic, the corn king had tomove against the beliefs of the community--hadto rebel or be weak or not worthy to be king, hadto be imperfect.

The imperfect Christian’s life is where tragedyenters in. He is aware of the virtues but cannotbring himself to practice them. For the traditionalChristian, Original Sin is the taint. His dilemmais the impossible choice between his sinful natureand morality. Aware of divine law but unable toobey it, he is in the position of the fox--knowingthat according to human law his activities arepernicious but unable to live any other way. Thefox’s choices are these: 1) He can continue as isand be neither moral or tragic. 2) He can continuethe way he lives but despair of his sinfulness, ahighly tragic situatfion. 3) He can try to changehis diet to vegetarian--the secular thing to dobut with the tragic potential in his high risk ofbacksliding. 4) He, can throw himself on themercy of the farmer and hope to become adoptedto his household. If his plan fails, it is tragic. If itsucceeds, there is a happy ending and no tragedy.Christianity’ wouldn’t regard the fox as incurablypernicious but rather that he couldn’t rise abovehis carnivorous habits, himself. OptimisticChristianity could say help is available even tothe foxes among us. Pessimistic Christianitywould say the farmer’s response is uncertain, basedon principles the fox doesn’t understand.Some foxes are saved without effort of theirown, it seems, and some are not. The doctrine ofgrace exists to meet these pessimistic qualifi-cations.

The tragic element of religion is based onuncertainty of human destiny and uncertainty of

div, ine response. The final disaster isn’t death butthe permanent banishment from life and happi-ness. The tragedy in this possibility must involvenot only the unpredictable but also people whocommand respect and sympathy. The hardenedsinner’s or villain’s destruction can be considereddeserved and even desirable. The tragic characteris the man who has a chance for exaltation butfails to make it good.. We have an ineradicabletaint not by virtue of foxhood or manhood butbecause that is the nature of the world and ourlives in it.

At the 1980 Sunstone Symposium, Janice Allredoutlined what taints Mormons, who see t]hem-selves as free from the taint of the original sin.First, Adam discovered for all of us that com-mandments conflict, for example, when one :inauthority requires something of us which, to us,seems wrong. Second, man is egocentric, thinkingof himself foremost. Who would injure a fellowhuman being if we inevitably felt the pain of thatinjury ourselves? Third, man’s lack of powercauses sin either in his grasping for more or inlimiting his acting on his good intentions. Fourth,lack of knowledge leads to sin as we fall short ofknowing how best to reach a goal, or of re-cognizing which form of help is best for another,or realizing which other we should help, givenour limited time and resources. Fifth, the inter-dependence of mankind is such that respon-sibility for misdeeds is impossible to apportion.How can we avoid, for example, the sin offeeding our kids milk and honey while kids half aworld away are starving? The Mormon view is atragic one without regard for original sin if itpostulates the weakness of man and difficulty inunderstanding and obeying a divine law. Yet, weshould speak not of man’s tragic destiny, but ofthe tragic potential in man’s destiny.

What advantages are there to the tragic viewof reality?

1. A higher level of moral motivation !isfostered--and required. Exaltation is not some-thing earned and given as a reward. It is some-thing learned, into which we gradually evolve.

2. Questions don’t always require answers,nor does our faith. We don’t have to rationalizefor God or for ourselves, that is, we don’t have tofind good reasons rather than real reasons forwhat was done. Everything does not have tomake sense. At the funeral of our previouslymentioned young mother we may find there :isno comfort in the explanation that God hadgreater need of her and took her home. We mayfind great comfort in the knowledge that, becauseshe died, she went home.

3. The danger of losing our faith is less becauseneither we nor God are fully responsible forwhatever takes place.

4. This second estate is as important as thethird.

38 SUNSTONE

What are its disadvantages?1. Demoralization and despair are a greater

risk. Momentous problems don’t have easy--andsometimes--any solutions. Sometimes there isnowhere to turn. Good times in the sweet by andby don’t satisfy.

2. Happiness, fulfillment, success and convict-ion are all apt to be seen as suspect. The fear ofbeing deceived may lead to the fate of beingdenied each of these.

3. The danger of losing our faith is less becauseneither we nor God are fully responsible forwhatever takes place.

4. This second estate is as important as thethird.

The ironic vision of reality has ancient Greekorigins. Eironeia is an abstraction from a char-acter in the earliest comedy. The comedy dealtwith a conflict (agon) between two characters,the Alazon and the Eiron. The Alazon is thebraggart, the pretender to be more than he is, thepompous fool; the Eiron, his antagonist, is theshy, shrewd dissimulator who poses to be lessthan he is. The conflict ends with the pricking ofAlazon’s bubble, the triumph of the Eiron. Ironybegins in conflict between pretense and reality,perceiving the distance between them. It is, ofcourse, not confined to Greek drama. CharlieChaplin is an excellent example of an Eiron, alittle, flat-footed nobody at the mercy of anypower that came along, but in the end, theunwitting victor over everyone. For a modernday Alazon, consider Donald Duck, pompous andimpressed with himself, subject to humiliatingdefeat agains and again, but always ready to puffhimself up once more.

Yet irony involved more serious stuff thansurprising changes of fortune by slipping on abanana peel. The ironic vision seeks some way tocomprehend such incomprehensibles as the OldTestament deviations from the high form ofethical monotheism we usually find therein.Yahweh punishes innocent men who touch hisark or look into it. He killed 70,000 Israelitesbecause David, who offended by numberingthem, prefers that course to three months ofexile under pursuit by his enemies. Because ofthe past sin of Saul against the Gibeonites, Hesent a severe famine of three years, and hiswrath was appeased only by hanging seveninnocent descendants of the offender (bear inmind that the Old Testament treats the family asa moral unit, all accountable for the guilt of oneand, therefore, all punishable to punish one).God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and thenpunished the Egyptians for that hardness. Hesent a lying spirit to induce King Ahab to wagewar in which thousands of Jews were destroyed.His power is presumably what allowed Elisha to

curse 42 small boys by having two she-bears tearthem up for taunting the prophet with an epithetthe equivalent of, "Hey, baldy!"

The story of David, the Warrior King, isreplete with irony. "In the spring of the year, thetime when kings go forth to war, David sent Joaband his retainers and all Israel. And they des-poiled the Ammonites and laid siege to Rabbah.But David remained in Jerusalem" (II Samuel11:1). A warrior king like David, while his army isout to war, stays home to lust after Bathsheba,whose husband is off to war to serve his king. Hethen becomes so concerned with the appearanceof right, the connecting of Bathsheba’s ensuingpregnancy to her husband, that" he does allmanner of wrong to get Uriah home to lie withhis wife. Uriah, whom we expect would muchrather be home with his wife than off to war,destroys himself with his fierce loyalty to theright and to David who has caused the ultimatein disloyalty in Bathsheba. David arranges Uriah’sdeath on the battlefield, takes the confirmingnews casually, and rationalizes his own guiltwith a statement, "Do not let this matter troubleyou, for the sword devours now this one, nowthat one" (verse 25). Now David’s respect forcustom is in marked contrast to his previousdisrespect for it. He lets Bathsheba finish hermourning before making her an honest woman.Appearances are fine and everyone is happy--except Yahweh. He denounces David throughhis oracle, Nathan, with the story of the rich manwith the whole flocks taking the poor man’ssingle ewe. The incongruity between what is andwhat ought to be is perceptible to any reader, butnot to the great king who must be told outrightand bluntly he is the rich man. His indignationagainst the rich man just prior to Nathan’s denun-ciation is an ironic contrast to his lack of indig-nation toward himself. He manages to stay onejump ahead of his conscience throughout. Thestory presents one more ironic touch. The childof this illicit union dies. David, upon hearing thenews, immediately puts off his penitence. Hisservants are amazed. He justifies himself. Hefasted, wept, and prayed while the child was aliveon the chance that Yahweh would change hismind. "But now he is dead. Why should I fast?Can I bring him back again?" (verse 23). With theillegitimate child, David did all he could to keephim alive. With the illegitimate union, he did allhe could short of using his own weapon to seeUriah dead. Instead, he used the enemy’s weaponfor his purpose, the sword of the Ammonite.With injustice, David succeeded, with mercy hefailed. And he is the leader of the people who,while the Greeks were giving the world itsscience, gave the world its conscience.

Irony, then, is the detached awareness of thechasm between what "is" and what "ought". Wefind it is the social order in this sketch by SarahCleghorn:

Herememberedturning thepages of a greatbook, with thesecret of life onthe last page.

SUNSTONE 37

it isserious

business tochallenge

comfortablebeliefs andestablished

traditions.

The go!f links lie so near the mill"[hat almost every dayThe laboring children can look outAnd see the men at play.

We find :it in the devotions of a married couplein O. Henlry’s The Gift of The Magi. A young mansells his watch to buy combs for his wife’s longhair which she has sold to buy him a watch chain.We find it in the complexities of the age of tech-nology: "When all else fails, read the directions".We find it in the ethics of our neighbors, "Kill acommie for Christ". We find it in the tragicawareness of our religious past: Frye calls thearchetype of the incongruously ironic the ex-clusion of Christ, the perfect innocent victim,from society. We find it in the comic awarenessof our religious history: Houseman opines:

Malt does more than Milton canTo iustify God’s ways to man.

The ironic vision of reality is the readiness toseek out internal contradictions, ambiguities,and paradoxes. It resembles the tragic vision inthis respect. The difference is in their aims. Thetragic vision seeks; the momentous implicationsof events and people, valuing deep involvementand great crises. The ironic vision aims atdetachment to keep things in perspective, takingnothing for granted, readily spotting the anti-thesis to ar~y thesis. It challenges the largeness,urgency artd meaningfulness the tragic visiontries to find, and challenges even more thepretension of the romantic and the paradisicalfocus of the comic. It seems to be in the service ofstanding completely apart from experience whereit can take nothing: too seriously. Yet it is seriousbusiness to challenge comfortably held beliefs,established traditions, and cherished delusions.One recalls here the fate of Socrates and ofJoseph Smith.

The ironic vision may be turned inward ononeself. It is self-d[eprecatory and self-ridiculingso as not to take any particular aspect of oneselftoo seriously for one’s own good. Irony say thatthings are neither so bad or so good as we wouldlike to have them, and questions whether weeven know what is meant by bad and good. Likethe tragic vision, the ironic one emphasizesreflective thought and identification of feeling.The comic and romantic visions, by contrast,emphasize action in the world, losing one’s self ina cause or a conquest. In the ironic view, everyadvance is only half as great as it appeared to be,but the same may be said for every defeat.Through the ironic vision, we discover ourselvesto be more moral and less moral than we everthought.

What are. its advantages?

There are none because each could be dis-advantages as well.

What are its dangers?

There are none because each is also an

advantage.

In summary, the comic vision emphasizesoptimism, progress and amelioration of diffi-culties. The romantic vision is an adventurousquest. The tragic vision stresses deep involve-ment, inescapable and costly conflict, terror,demonic forces, waste, and uncertainty. Theironic vision stresses detached alertness to theambiguities, paradoxes and the arbitrariness ofabsolutes. Christian religion tends to promotethe comic and romantic view, though what itreally seems to be is about our tragic potential,which is, in itself ironic. Perhaps we could say thespirit of comedy celebrates our capacity to endureour tragic fate, and to acknowledge our goodfortune as an active force on our lives every bit asmuch as our limitations.

Christopher Frye tells of a dream that a friendexperienced when under the influence of ether.He dreamed he was turning the pages of a greatbook,, in which he knew he would find, on the lastpage, the meaning of: life. The pages of the bookwere alternately tragic and comic, and he turnedpage after page, his, excitement growing, notonly because he was approaching the answer butbecause he couldn’t know, until he arrived, onwhich side of the book the final page would be. Atlast it came: The universe opened up to him in ahundred words; and they were uproariouslyfunny. Hie came back to consciousness cryingwith laughter, remembering everything. I-Ieopened his lips to speak. It was then that thegreat and comic answer (tragically) plungec[ backout of his reach.

I have not, at least intentionally, argued for theprimacy of any one of these four mythic visionsof reality over the others. Each are legitimateviews; around which one can construct one’s life.Each serves one of us better, the other not sowell. Consider the concluding story by SomersetMaugham, representing three of the four mythicvisions, which serves its character the best:

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his sergeant tomarket to bu}~ provisions, a:~d in a little while the servant cameback, white and trembling, and said, "Adaster, just now whe~ Iwas in the market pla,:e I was jostled by a woman in the crowd, andwhen I tamed I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at meand made a threatenitlg gesture; now, lend me your horse and I willride away from this city and avoid my fate. I wili’ go to Sammarraand there Death wil,! not fi,d m~." The merchant lent him ,hishorse, attd the servanf moun,~ed it and he dug his spurs in i~:s flankand as fast as tlre horse could gallop he went. Then the merchantwent down to the market place and he saw Death standing itt ,!hecrowd and ]~e came to her and said, "Why did you make athreatenl;ng gesture to my servant when you saw him thismornin,¢? .... That wa~ trot a ,~hreatening gesture, " Death said’, "itwas ortly a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him inBaghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Sammarra."

LOUIS MOENCH is a psychiatrist in private practice andan assistant clinical professor of psychia~!ry ,~t theUniversity Of Utah.

38 SUNSTONI--

HAS THEMORMON REVOLUTION

FIZZLED?According to the Prophet Joseph Smith,

Mormonism is a Revolutionary Religion.But unfortunately some argue

it has ground to a halt.

T his book is a heated dialogueexposing both sides of that

argument.Fictional John Johnson, an active,

but individualistic Mormonintellectual, who resides in a smallGreat Basin community, senses inhimself the mission of continuing theMormon revolution from where theProphet Joseph left off. In the doing,John finds himself at odds with hismore orthodox neighbors. In an out-spoken sacrament meeting talk, heraises the fury of his fellow wardmembers to the point that local Churchleaders summon him to appear in aChurch court on charges of heresy.

Prior to the court a family friend,who has come to "set John straight"concerning his religious views, joinsthe Johnsons in a series of theologicaldiscussions where John presents thedoctrinal basis upon which he believesMormonism’s revolutionary advanceshould be continued. In the end, thefriend helps defend John at the Churchtrial and the stake president must thenstruggle with the question of John’srevolutionary doctrines.

$9.95 in paperback

.SUNSTONE 3g ’