for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord
to
prepare his ways;
To give knowledge of salvation unto his people *
for the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God, *
whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us;
To give light to them that sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death, *
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
The character is the primary manner of articulating our being. It is the way of being, or a being on a way, in all its complexities, conflicts, and charity. Some characters look different inside different narratives, some cannot inhabit specific stories. The suburban housewife, the professional, the hipster, and the political pundit are ways of being inside an American narrative of the 21st c. So too the flapper girl, flower child, and "Rosie the riveters" were characters only possible in certain narratives of the 20th c., though they probably didn't co-exist temporally for historical reasons.
Of course history is just a narrative itself, told by characters from another time. What is to one character from one time, one city, might be the Dark Ages. To another it was one of the greatest times for Missions, a time of the great Carolingian Renaissance. Depends on what character narrates. The 19th and 20th c. sees the fabrication of a new character under a new way of narrating reality, "the historian," creating side by side to "the scientist." Both are concerned with non-normative "facts" which dictate "objective reality." MacIntyre has put this better than myself, but such characters presume a rejection of functional concepts, thus there being no purpose/end to things. Man included. Mm, objective.
Reading a text then depends on the character. How we inhabit the world depends on our character. How we speak, who we befriend, what we worship, all depend on, but also form, our character. But what sort of characters are available to us today?
The Harlequinn is one. Out of interest I'll focus only on one dress, and how that functions toward character. There are of course many other strands.
(1) the hipster thinks dress is a conglomerate, material form of individuality, rooted in irony. Irony being a gap between expectation and actual. What is expected and what is, are both politically formed. The way we organize language, thoughts, images, and ideas all form what we expect, as well as how we act. But irony en masse is contradiction, for then it becomes cultural norm. Thus hipster is a self-refuting politic.
However, the Mass makes a qualified notion of individuality possible, for it beckons each to conform in order to be individual, recognizing the politic must maintain both the One and the many in a coherent way.
(2) the professional thinks dress is universal and a mark of authority. They can both sweat and freeze within the same hour, going from a hot summer walk to lunch, to a frigid office. No one ever thinks to cut off the air condition and simply dress in shorts. A man who claims to be practical, a realist, the American pragmatist - yet does not know how to live in the world. The marks of authority: tie, the lab coat, a vest, a badge, all function as a source of pride. Pride because the professional believes he climbs a ladder of success, finding his place as earned, his mark as something to make him exalted by all others.
However, Humility climbs the ladder of love, finding her place as contingent on others and merited by Another, her mark as something which allows her to exalt the one which is above all others.
And so many other characters, wearing Irony like a robe. But I tire.
The garb of irony functions as a separation of what we are from what we say from what we do.
The professional divides private from public life, corporate loves from familial loves.
The hipster divides actual beliefs from spoken and embodied beliefs.
They are excuses for character, detached from any belief, shrouded in the shadow of their irony.
Eventually one form collapses upon the other, the irony becomes unironic; self-deception follows suit.
The only irony that remains is their mutual laughter at one another.
The only thing left to do in such a contentious culture of irony, is to debate the meaning of irony, or resort to bombastic, elongated, literary diatribes on the proper (a priori) meanings of irony. Of course characters give concrete, collective uses of irony, thus meaning since this is how language is constituted. Thus irony cannot be understood outside the political structures we inhabit, the characters that are available, the narrative we find ourselves in.
In an ironic culture, there is no irony of yesterday. The new irony would be to conform to a character that is not hodgepodge but unified, to dress simply, to not make choices, to not have experiences, to wear a mark of authority puts us into our place thereby humbling us. I would offer the cleric as such a character. Much more can be said, but Morning Prayer approaches, and I am in need of sleep.
