Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

[all potential spoilers have been hidden behind the two cut lines.]

Or maybe I should say "Incidentally"? Never mind. This is by no means intended as a comprehensive or deeply insightful response to last night's "Angel" episode, "Soul Purpose". It's just what happened to strike a chord with me on first viewing. Since I'm not well-versed in the technical aspects of film and television, I won't even try to evaluate David Boreanaz' work as director on this episode. ( Read more... )

I mean, for all Angel's sporadic attempts to do good after being cursed with a soul, he never really managed to stick with it before he saw and began to care about Buffy. For all the generalized and specific guilt he carried for his sadistic soul-less past, Angel couldn't quite manage the generalized love required to do good for a (usually) not-too-grateful humanity (couldn't quite manage to forgive the woman in the hotel in the 1950's whom he tried to help and who had, in a moment of terror, turned on him) until he experienced a very specific love for Buffy, the champion of champions.

Experience suggests, furthermore, that an abstract "love for humanity" (philanthropy) which doesn't include or, better yet, stem from a personal love for specific individuals, can too easily become perverted or even demonic in its effects (becomes too easy to rationalize sacrificing the few for the good of the many, for example, which is never a good idea unless you yourself or your nearest and dearest are numbered among the few). I can't help remembering that, in the Gospels, the person who complained the loudest about breaking a jar of expensive ointment in order to show intense love for one individual when the money could have been used to benefit the poor generally was Judas Iscariot -- and look where HIS good intentions and desire to benefit his nation led him. I've always been struck by the moral compass which Lois McMaster Bujold gave to her heroine Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, "People, not principles" (or words to that effect) -- meaning that loyalty to abstract principles is far more likely to lead you into temptation and rationalization of evil than loyalty to specific people. Or I'm reminded of a book by J. Glenn Gray, THE WARRIORS, reflecting on his experiences serving in the armed forces during WWII, in which he comes to the conclusion that the love for one special comrade (the best friend, the guy you'd willingly die for) which some soldiers learn might be the best hope for peace in the future -- if you can value one individual's life to such an extent, then you may begin to understand that "the enemy" is also composed of individuals who are as beloved and irreplaceable as your best friend, after which remorseless killing becomes much harder to do. At the most basic level, the only way any of us will ever develop the capacity to love or care about the fate of strangers is through first knowing the love of one specific person (the "good-enough mother" or "primary caregiver" -- the person who is our whole world during infancy and early childhood). ( Read more... )