I have another Either/Or metaphor to offer. An American Lit scholar divided literature between Redskins and Palefaces: useful so long as it’s not taken solemnly or too literally.
Shaw analyzed Ibsen as showing society to be composed of Idealists and Philistines, with here and there an occasional (rare and precious) Realist. The Philistines can wear the ready-made shoes and don’t mind. The Idealists are uncomfortable in the ready-made shoes but are also uncomfortable admitting it: and so the Idealist waxes Platonic: "The shoes are perfect; experience is faulty." The Realist says, "Dammit, the shoe doesn’t fit. Can’t we make better shoes?" (Whatever is true of Ibsen, Shaw’s analysis critiques his own work to a T.)
Lately I’ve been thinking in terms of Cannibals & Missionaries: by which I do not mean that the "cannibals" are necessarily wrong, or backwards, or primitive ... Neither do I mean that the "missionaries" are right, or advanced, or that God agrees with them. What I do mean consistently with the image is that the Cannibals are like Shaw’s Ibsenite Philistines and that the Missionaries try to colonize them, to convert them, to change them.
I believe that we all have a right to try to change each other. I believe that many of us do try to change each other regardless of what I believe. And I believe that those trying the changing are often in equal or greater need of change themselves.
How many cannibals though ask the missionary for proof that their God is god or that their Bible was actually written by this God?
(Right there: watch out for people who capitalize their hobbyhorse. Churches, businesses, governments ... Why is Coke a big deal? What’s wrong with cola?) (That’s why Kleenex wants us all to say Kleenex when all we mean is tissue. That’s why the culture says butter when all it means is grease, and why Parkay says Parkay when all it means is grease.)
When I was young I was taught that the Christians knew what they were doing. Now I believe that the Freudians don’t take it far enough: none of us can be relied on to know what we’re doing: including, perhaps especially, the Freudians! Missionaries are inevitable. Once only Jehovah’s Witnesses came knocking at my door. Now the knock may be coming from Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons. Or Democrats.
How many Christians really stand for anything Jesus taught? Do they love their enemies? Don’t they pay taxes? Don’t their taxes finance wars? Or do we love our enemies by dropping napalm on them? Would Jesus accept that as love? Would Jesus accept that as the love he meant?
Whoops, sorry. I mean to be focusing on my Cannibals & Missionaries.
I think we’re all cannibals: and this time I do mean something primitive, wrong, in need of correction, in need of learning. I also suspect that too damn many of us are missionaries: meddling in what we don’t understand, overlooking what there is to be appreciated.
Many taboos were silly, I don’t doubt. And Freud was dead right in elucidating which taboos still apply: no cannibalism, no incest, no murder. Freud was further right in saying that the first of those taboos is still largely effective, the second somewhat effective, and the third not very effective. But: between law and taboo, I’ll take taboo. Taboos don’t get "written." Taboos emerge. Taboos evolve. Taboos are far better than laws at modifying our behavior.
Well, this didn’t go the way I’d planned. That happens again and again. But for the meantime I’ll take it. As I use my terms Cannibals and Missionaries I hope I won’t be altogether misunderstood.
It’s too bad I didn’t write this a couple of decades ago. I believe Cannibals & Missionaries would have seemed more contrastive to me then: and their roles less confused. These days it’s often the cannibals who act as missionary to the missionary. The missionary says, "Turn the other cheek," and the cannibal condescends to correct him: "No, it’s an eye for an eye, you fool."
Or: the missionary tries to tell his cannibal family, "Be healthy." But they’re hypnotized by the tube which is advising them to "Ask your doctor."
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