My Iron Lung

You've probably already seen this, the story of the college math teacher fired for altering the sense of a loyalty oath state employees are forced to sign. I'm not looking to get the public schools I worked for into any trouble nor pat myself on the back, but I did the same thing and they couldn't care less. In fact, one human resources manager told me she just needed the paper in my file and it probably didn't even matter if I signed it.

It matters though, if the people looking over your papers are fascists. Oh c'mon, fascists? Really?

Okay, maybe the supervisor who said Kearney-Brown could not alter her loyalty oath isn't a fascist. Maybe the supervisor just wants to make sure we all believe and do the same thing out of loyalty to the state and would gladly enforce that with violence. Or maybe Perhaps it's a status confessionis mortis. In an other time, we could be more tolerant of difference, we might even accept each other's differences, but in light~ of the looming specter of death we have to circle the wagons. We can't have middle-aged remedial math teachers refusing to take up arms against all enemies real or imagined.

In a time such as this it's necessary to trust our leaders to tell us what is and isn't acceptable- mostly what isn't acceptable. These are unique days wherein everything matters- even silly gestures of uber-patriotism.

Back in the days we had no enemies, I could get away with not swearing to violently defend the Constitution- so could Marianne Kearney-Brown. But now we know better.

The silly thing is, this is so far down the scale of things that matter that it's value really isn't in the act but in what it points to. I don't mean it's not important for her, or anyone else to live with their conscience. If you can't sign something, you shouldn't. But really? A 50 year-old math teacher? Taking up arms to defend the Constitution? As David Rakoff said- it's grass soup. (Read this, your day will be better.) I think it's good for her to have done that- even if the time never comes when we ask 50 year old women to do our killing. Directly anyway.

But what it points to- Right. That's where I was headed.

I think someone could make the case that this is silly theater. This is a bit of nonsense- especially because of the performers involved, it distracts from the ways in which we already participate and maintain the structures of a subtly murderous system. I'm not making that point, but I could see why and how someone might. If this act in itself is what matters, then we're in trouble. If this is the way one confronts the world, it doesn't do all that much. Instead, it points to a way it might be done, and as such, it is a reminder that there are features as plain as the noses on our faces that we accept and go along with for the sake of going along. That is, we take these marks of culture to conduct the business of the world, and because it is the world, like the noses on our faces, it generally goes unnoticed. But here's a reminder that something is there, something that demands loyalty, something that does what the world does in the way the world does it.

I think one of the greatest temptations facing Western Christians these days is no different than those Jesus is said to have faced in the wilderness and throughout his ministry: to get worldly authority and glory in exchange for worshipping the devil. Of course as long as we identify worldliness as love of boobies, booze, and the F word we figure we're doing all right. Right? I mean, we're in the world, confronted by sex and violence on the MTV video games, the gays with their agendas, and people who smoke and swear, but because we don't do that, we're not of the world so we're safe from the devil's offers.

Hooray for us. But at whatever points we think Christianity is about being a good citizen, we're dead. Insofar as we make Christianity a propositional prospect or even one that is concerned with confronting personal sin we are, in part, taking the marks and features of the world that allow us to get along and conduct our business. In short, Christianity, in a sense, prevents one from being what might be Christian. That's probably all that needs to be said about that.

But not signing or swearing a loyalty oath is pointing to the thing we don't see. We don't see that the world, as it's put together, makes certain demands that we be a certain type of person that fits into the world. We're especially tempted because we happily think the tenets of something called Christianity are universal- and everyone would want to be what it is to be a Christian because it's the best way to be. It makes us well-adjusted, self-actualized, and happy. It is the best way to get along because it is the Truth, and because it is the Truth, it inevitably makes us most suited to going along and fitting in. What else could something called the Truth be and do, after all? If it's True, wouldn't it make us good, virtuous, amiable, and happy to swear loyalty to a universal sense of the same? Not swearing the loyalty oath reminds us that the world has its own sense of good, virtue, and amiability and it's by accepting those premises that we have its authority and glory, the authority that allows us to be masters and creators and the glory of doing well in it.

It is in this way that I think Quakers matter. I don't think there is something objective or ontologically fixed that is Quaker and that's what we ought to be. Rather, given the world, it is an appropriate and timely method of response. To be clear, the world is late English Capitalist hegemony. To be clearer, I don't think being in the Word requires or is identified with something called Quaker, and the Word is more important to me than something called Quaker. But in this particular type of world, something called Quaker has features that make for a good method of response.

More on that later...
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