antifrivolity

Chastity and the Climate Crisis

By John Taylor; 2009 Mar 28, Baha 07, 165 BE


I have a rebellious fourteen-year-old on my hands and I find myself constantly being challenged on the Big Two -- that is the two major respects in which the Baha'i Faith deviates from current political correctness, homosexuality and the lack of women on the UHJ. This happen at the most inopportune times, like those rare and precious opportunities when I am explaining the basics of the Faith to a non-Baha'i, or in the middle of the consultation section of the Feast. At such moments I have to drop everything and against my will defend the Faith from a direct and energetic assault. Arguments that had satisfied me are discarded out of hand, until lately I just respond with,

"I sought out the question by doing things like reading books for myself. Maybe you should do the same. Nothing can take the place of reading. Conversation and asking questions are condiments, not staples. If you want to learn you have to read books on your own."

Today I want to talk about the former of the Big Two, homosexuality, or rather the broader context of which homosexuality is a mere subset, the question of chastity. By design, and in order to hopefully dispel these doubts, we are studying the compilation called "Living a Chaste and Holy Life" in our almost-daily children's class.

First of all, I think it is important to get the context of this question right first. Chastity is not merely a personal issue. It is highly significant that this generation is suddenly faced with the simplest and most urgent challenge imaginable, stopping global warming, and yet it does little to nothing to stop it. In the U.S. both wings of the business party, market fundamentalists and their mirror twins, liberals, have stepped up to the bat and struck out. Corruption and nationalism remain sacrosanct and there is no attempt to do what must be done immediately: persuade meat eaters to become vegetarians, a total changeover to renewable energy, complete electrification of industry and transport -- even, to mention only the most recent problem pointed out by Greenpeace, just stopping the destruction virgin forests so that Americans can wipe their bums with softer toilet paper.

When it comes to making even the most basic adjustments to our lifestyle, well, arbitrary personal change or even sacrifices for the general good do not come up. Extreme capitalism is all about choices, so the only context in which you can talk about this survival issue is as one of many other choices. We love our freedom. You can be an environmentalist, or you can be this or that, you can be gay or straight, pro-choice or pro-life, or any of a thousand other lifestyle choices. You can think about life or death survival, or you can think about something else, or whatever. Do your own thing and we will be alright. Forget the logical fact that total freedom and infinite choice is the same as total slavery and no choice at all. That is mere sophistry.

How could we all be so torpid and unresponsive to dire threats to our survival as a species? Can you blame politicians for this blaze renunciation of our responsibility to do what is necessary to continue living? Is anything to blame but the whole culture, including the capitalist system?

I just viewed a Canadian documentary on suburbanism called "Radiant City," which I highly recommend. It describes all the selfish reasons why the burbs have grown to dominate our minds and the world we build around us. We think we are making things better when we move out of high density housing into low density suburbs, but we end up with much worse, and destroy the planet while we are at it.

We should be desperately seeking for alternatives. For example, in the Trustworthiness Compilation is a passage from Baha'u'llah that makes it clear why it is that business and capitalism, divorced from virtue and ethics, are such a corrosive force.

"Commerce is as a heaven, whose sun is trustworthiness and whose moon is truthfulness. The most precious of all things in the estimation of Him Who is the Sovereign Truth is trustworthiness: thus hath it been recorded in the sacred Scroll of God. Entreat ye the one true God to enable all mankind to attain to this most noble and lofty station." (quoted in, Compilation of Compilations, #2046, vol II, p. 335-336)

Extreme capitalism is so corrosive because it leads to commercialism, a perceived need to promote growth, debt, frivolity and unlimited consumption without regard to consequences, a mind set that is plunging us into global warming. Unchastity and impurity are part of this. They degrade the very spirit of justice and trustworthiness that helped free enterprise to prevail over communism in the first place. A consumer is not serious like a citizen; he or she is frivolous by nature.

There are many warnings against frivolity in compilations like that on Trustworthiness and the Chaste and Holy Life compilation. Take the following letter from the Persian writings of Shoghi Effendi. He starts by citing the Kitab-i-Ahd, which says that the,

"Fear of God is the greatest commander that can render the Cause of God victorious, and the hosts which best befit this commander have ever been and are an upright character and pure and goodly deeds."

Expanding upon this, he continues,

"The people of Baha should, then, lead their lives and conduct their affairs with the highest degree of sanctity and godliness, and uncompromisingly repudiate and dissociate themselves from the disreputable practices, the deplorable modes and customs prevalent among the people of the West. Piety and devotion should be the object of all who would be accounted lovers of this Cause, and the adornment of every righteous soul; otherwise, slowly but surely, the illumination conferred on the innermost reality of men's hearts by the virtues of the human world will flicker and fade and die away, to be overwhelmed by the engulfing darkness of vice and depravity. Courtesy and dignity are what bring nobility and standing to a man; whereas frivolity and facetiousness, ribaldry and effrontery will lead to his abasement, degradation and humiliation... Any action, therefore, that is calculated to detract from the dignity of man's station must be steadfastly avoided and shunned." (Compilation of Compilations, Vol II, p. 351)

The Frivolity of the Simpsons

Our kids, having seen over and over all of the Futurama DVD's, moved on to another product of Matt Groening; they are now heavily into the Simpsons, a good twenty years of satire directed against a corrupt and frivolous television culture. Others (who have network television) get the Simpsons in small doses, but these kids get it in concentrated form in DVD's and the Web. They have been overindulging to the point where I have to limit their daily exposure. At first I was not worried. There are worse things they could be getting their laughs from and I enjoy as much as anybody this lampoon of American life.

Except that at their age, satire is not what it is for an adult.

Unconsciously and by osmosis, the foibles of Homer Simpson become the model for how it should be in a family. Thomas tends to take on the brute, unthinking rebelliousness of Bart, and Silvie the blank-faced superficiality and extreme liberalism of the female members of that cartoon family. I find myself declaiming especially against all that Homer, the father, stands for. "But he is a loyal husband and a devoted father," they say. Yes, but he is also a dumb drunk, an unrepentant glutton, an anti-intellectual nihilist devoted to a life of pleasure and self-gratification. In real life, if anybody did what he does they would be in jail within a week. He is steadfast only in standing for nothing important, and in that respect the rest of the family is little better. This is the last person to use as a role model for a father.

As I mentioned, the last thing we need in a giant climate crisis is an attitude of frivolity, which is just the attitude that the Simpsons, in spite of its attempts to poke fun at television, entertainment and even itself, unambiguously promotes and propagates. Frivolity is an outcome of the same attitude to life that makes sex into a game, an entertainment, a recreation, an expression of unreasoned personal choice, rather than a sacred part of our duty of eternal love as reflections of God.

Contrast Homer and his brood to the sort of lifestyle held up in the "Chaste and Holy Life" compilation. The booklet is named for the passage in ADJ where Shoghi Effendi says famously,

"Such a chaste and holy life, with its implications of modesty, purity, temperance, decency, and clean-mindedness, involves no less than the exercise of moderation in all that pertains to dress, language, amusements, and all artistic and literary avocations. It demands daily vigilance in the control of one's carnal desires and corrupt inclinations. It calls for the abandonment of a frivolous conduct, with its excessive attachment to trivial and often misdirected pleasures. It requires total abstinence from all alcoholic drinks, from opium, and from similar habit-forming drugs." (Shoghi Effendi, Advent of Divine Justice, 30)

We are all familiar with this but the compilation also contains an interesting commentary on it by the UHJ to an individual believer. I was especially gratified to see its mention of sports -- yet another Homer Simpson-like attribute. The obsession with sports, especially spectator sports, is not only a blight on American culture, it degrades the entire male sex. Men everywhere waste their lives watching, rather that getting up and doing something to end greenhouse gas emissions. I will close with this passage.


"... the beloved Guardian is describing the requirements not only of chastity, but of "a chaste and holy life" - both the adjectives are important. One of the signs of a decadent society, a sign which is very evident in the world today, is an almost frenetic devotion to pleasure and diversion, an insatiable thirst for amusement, a fanatical devotion to games and sport, a reluctance to treat any matter seriously, and a scornful, derisory attitude towards virtue and solid worth. Abandonment of "a frivolous conduct" does not imply that a Baha'i must be sour-faced or perpetually solemn. Humour, happiness, joy are characteristics of a true Baha'i life. Frivolity palls and eventually leads to boredom and emptiness, but true happiness and joy and humor that are parts of a balanced life that includes serious thought, compassion and humble servitude to God are characteristics that enrich life and add to its radiance.

"Shoghi Effendi's choice of words was always significant, and each one is important in understanding his guidance. In this particular passage, he does not forbid `trivial' pleasures, but he does warn against `excessive attachment' to them and indicates that they can often be "misdirected". One is reminded of 'Abdu'l-Baha's caution that we should not let a pastime become a waste of time."


--
John Taylor

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