Reflections on Mini-Me
In Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged Me, Dr. Evil tells his son, Scott, that he's replacing him with the rapacious clone, Mini-Me, since Scott is only "a little bit evil." For whatever reason, the last two and a half weeks of fatherhood have gotten me thinking about evil. Maybe it's the protector instinct, the one that now makes it difficult for me to see violence on TV (I had to turn off a Law & Order in which a class of schoolgirls was held hostage) or even listen to music that rocks especially loudly. More likely, it's the stress that comes from 24-7 management of a gyrating howler monkey. She's cute and I love her. But she's a little bit evil.
For years I've been teaching Augustine's Confessions in my Classical Political Theory class. I've always reveled in his account of infancy, which I tell students is the "South Park" view of childhood: angry, vengeful little creatures whose every act is driven by a sinful self-will. Not that I completely believed this account. It is, however, a wonderful antidote for the syrupy sentimentalizing of babies and youthful innocence so common in our culture, and I typically find that students are shocked and offended by it--especially when I highlight its essential relation to the Christianity they overwhelmingly embrace yet rarely comprehend. Augustine's account is not without nuance. He rejects the Bushatista view that suggests evil must simply be eradicated in those individuals or cultures to whom it is attributed. Instead, he's showing the inescapablity of evil within the human condition, even among "innocent" children who cannot possibly know that they are sinners. Will and intellect are distinct faculties, and the will's corruption precedes the understanding's development. Babies must be taught--corrected (adults who act like babies are not so tolerated, after all)--and treated with the patience and mercy necessary for those who know not what they do. That parents actually do this is a testimony to both the beneficence of creation and to the ultimate power of good over evil.
As a new father, I've gotta give Augie some serious props. Lang is nothing if not willful. God bless her, she's trying to break us. There's the ordinary stuff: the spit up, the flailing arms, the projectile poops and the mid-diaper-change pees. If you've had pets, this is a change only of degree not kind. But it is really hard to be mentally prepared for the cries, those bloodcurdling screams that erupt periodically from her infantile id. Commonly at 2 AM. Often nonstop from 2 AM to 4 AM. The same evolutionary biology that programmed babies to look like their fathers (presumably so that we'd stick around) found a foolproof way to make sure that baby's needs get noticed. Their vocal cords have all the skill of a flaying knife, peeling the skin off mom and dad's ears. It's hard to believe it's not willful, since, by day, she's ususally an angel. When the stakes are low, she lets us be. She's just waiting for her moment of maximum impact. I could be wrong, but I suspect that Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde was inspired by childbirth.
Thankfully, Lang gave us a first-time break last night--she settled down right after her 3 AM feed. Must have been the Turkey Day tryptophan seeping through the breast milk. Whatever the cause, I'm very thankful this holiday both for my daughter and for my first decent night's sleep in weeks. Together, the lack of sleep and the intensity of the cries had bludgeoned me into a shellshocked and zombie-like trance, making me wonder how so many babies actually survive infancy. The reserves of human virtue must be far greater than I had presumed. Conversely, I now know I'm not as patient and unflappable as I had once thought. Or maybe, as my sister suggested, our narcissism triumphs over our annoyance, proving Adam Smith's theory on the hidden benevolence of egoism. Thank God for that.
posted by tenaciousmcd @ 10:11 AM
8 Comments:
Looks like the doctrine of original sin has met Auld Lang Syne...
I'm not sure, as a exacting, practicing uber-Protestant, that I understand how an infant can be "evil." If evil is understood as a willed choice of the opposite of good, then surely an infant cannot be held to such standards. Infants are more like forces of nature--flash floods, lightning strikes, rampaging tigers. It may be true that "will" precedes "intellect," but that does not mean that an infant's will, which is more in the way of felt, immediate need, is the same as Lucifer's self-willed negation of God or, say, Judas's. 'm not convinced that an infant's "will" is really a will . . . in the theological sense that good Protestants believe.
Now, sure, Augustine may write these things in some old book. But he is, of course, a man of Rome. A Church Father. And the Church referenced is not my church, or TMcD's.
There's good, there's evil, and then there're the flood waters that just keep rising and engulf your house. The flood waters are not evil--they just are. The only theological problem that comes in here is why does God let bad things happen to good people? And I don't know that there's an answer to that, not one that's totally satisfying. But an infant grows, and learns. At some point, the possibility of evil arises. Right now, I'm not persuaded.
As a non-parent, of course, it's easy for me to say that infants aren't evil. Maybe they really are. Kind of a depressing thought, though.
My condolences on the trials and tribulations of new parenthood! Glad to hear you got a nice Thanksgiving break last night.
I appreciate your Augustinian antidote to sentimentalizing children. But rather than viewing infants as more evil (because more selfishly demanding) than adults, isn't it more satisfying to just view adults and children as the same kind of creature. We get older, more self-aware, more skilled -- but we're still the same fundamentally.
Babies aren't 100% good. But adults aren't really so impure and fallen, as so often portrayed today, in implicit contrast to the innocent child. We're selfish; they're selfish, too. We just get better at getting what we want as we grow up and the world becomes more tractible to our will. Babies just scream in frustration.
Frances, I largely agree. If you notice, there's a hidden premise of the above example: who exactly is "Dr. Evil"? Well, it's me, of course. The Augustinian logic doesn't demonstrate that babies are MORE evil, just that as creatures of will they participate in evil actively if unknowingly. This makes them less culpable than adults (and more deserving of mercy and compassion) but it does not change their basic humanity.
#3, I think you assume that we Presbys are closer to Free Will Baptists than we really are. As reformed Calvinists, we have a heavily Augustinian influence. Theologically at least, the reformation was more a revolt against Thomism and scholasticism than against Augie, who retains a lot of Protestant cred. (Take infant baptism, which Presbys still perform, as an example.)
Your point about natural vs. intentional evils is a serious one, however, although it is a predominantly modern issue. From a purely technical standpoint, infants exercise will even while lacking reason (indeed, many adults seem to as well, although to lesser degree; think of how Arendt associates evil with "thoughtlessness"), so they fall into the latter category. For Augustine, the difference was not especially significant, since our SUFFERING of evil, whatever the source (natural or willed) is justified by our original participation in evil through the will, which is simply a fact of our creation. The only solution to this tragic circumstance is the freely given grace of God. The natural/willed distinction becomes much more significant in the 18th century (following the Lisbon earthquake of 1755) when philosophers, particularly Rousseau and Kant, began to see "the natural" as a random and impersonal force not connected to individual guilt or divine intentionality. That's why we begin to see a split between the natural and the "historical" in accounts of evil, although, even there, I think infants count as part of the latter. The difference is that the modern "solutions" to the problem tend to focus more on education and political action than upon grace.
There remains, of course, the problem Doestoyevsky posed through Ivan Karamazov: the death of one innocent child damns the entire notion of a morally-directed universe. For FD, this was both a serious issue and also the pathway to nihilism. Like him, most modern Christians look at that abyss itself as a major reason to turn back, attributing some issues of justice and consequence to divine mystery.
Paul, nice pun. Her grandfather picked that one up too.
I'm not sure what to make of the concept of "natural evil." It seems to me that there has to be intentionality for there to be a meaningful sense of evil, other than "things that happened that I didn't like."
Infant baptism? That's some powerful magic. Next you'll have a charm against the evil eye on the outside of your house.
Augustine's weird relationship with his mother Monica always creeped me out a bit. Not to mention that a lot of later Christian (or Roman Catholic) nonsense, including the docrine of Original Sin, can be laid at his feet. But he is an interesting read.
Yeah, the mother fixation is a bit much. Paired with Augie's rather dour post-conversion attitude toward human sexuality--far more dour than mine--it looks like he's rechanneling some energy in an unhealthy way. One thing I like about Augie, coming after the Greeks, is that he often STARTS from premises about human life that are more cognizant of the material and carnal aspects of human nature than do, say Plato or the Stoics. For example, his initial account of the warmth of motherhood (and the dependency of childhood) nicely refutes Greek myths of autochthony. His account of evil emphasizes the GOODNESS of the material creation--of which evil is a privation. And his embrace of human emotion and will help correct the hyper-intellectualism of Greek philosophy. But the Augustinian "conversion" story (especially with its Platonic inspiration) unravels much of that promise.
#3, think about it this way. A tornado destroys a town orphanage, killing many of the children, rendering others homeless, and leaving their self-sacrificing caretaker a paraplegic who takes her food from a tube. That's a lot of gratuitous suffering for people who seem to have done nothing to deserve it. I'd have trouble describing such an event as "things happened that I didn't like," which minimizes the tragedy. Whether or not the tornado was "intended," it certainly represents an evil when looked at from the standpoint of human consequence.
Seen this way, human evil is a subset of the larger problem: why do we MAKE others suffer? is a piece of the puzzle about why people suffer at all. Logically, you can examine this from a purely "naturalistic" perspective, one that denies any larger moral meaning or purpose to human life, but doing so exacts a steep price, leaving morality without any justification. Although many moderns resign themselves to such groundlessness, neither the Greeks (with the exception of the Epicureans) nor the early Xians found such a position satisfactory.
I should add that I'm finding that fatherhood is often a joy. But in the first weeks, at least, the pains are more much more intense than the perqs. Rumor has it that babies become much more consistently pleasant around 2-3 months.
If you type "gyrating howler monkey" into Google, this post comes up #1. If you put it in quotes, it comes up solo.
Great post--brings back memories of my own little poop machine.
SM
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