Rites and wrongs

Papal ceremonies, and liturgical rites in the classical Roman form, now have and have long had a Master of Ceremonies, a sort of on-stage director who makes sure everyone does what they are supposed to do.

Orthodox ceremonies, far more complex than the Western ones, lack this role entirely, and seem to flow along just fine.

What's that about?

I'm sure there is some cultural meta-message here, but I have to go out now so I'll think about it on the bus.
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Were ExC the Consul of the Republic

BBC News - Police 'investigating 54 child grooming gangs':

All non-citizen Mohammedans would be sent home and all Mohammedan citizens would have to register as agents of a hostile alien power, with consequent restrictions and surveillance. In short, as Muslims treat dhimmis, so we would treat Muslims.





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La Paglia

makes sense. In a scathing review of some airlessly dogmatic and dismal pomo academic studies of kinky sex, she writes:

First of all, every gender studies curriculum must build biology into its program; without knowledge of biology, gender studies slides into propaganda. Second, the study of ancient tribal and agrarian cultures is crucial to end the present narrow focus on modern capitalist society. Third, the cynical disdain for religion that permeates high-level academe must end. (I am speaking as an atheist.) It is precisely the blindness to spiritual quest patterns that has most disabled the three books under review.

Imagine. Including the male and female bodies as data in the study of gender. How essentialist.


Her summary comments about her own reading of S/M match my own experience of working in therapy with men who are drawn to it, as well as Jungian Antony Stevens' analysis (who links it, in male-male forms, to initiation rituals)

My conclusion, after wide reading in anthropology and psychology, was that sadomasochism is an archaic ritual form that descends from prehistoric nature cults and that erupts in sophisticated "late" phases of culture, when a civilization has become too large and diffuse and is starting to weaken or decline. I state in Sexual Personae that "sex is a far darker power than feminism has admitted," and that its "primitive urges" have never been fully tamed: "My theory is that whenever sexual freedom is sought or achieved, sadomasochism will not be far behind." 

Sadomasochism's punitive hierarchical structure is ultimately a religious longing for order, marked by ceremonies of penance and absolution. Its rhythmic abuse of the body, which can indeed become pathological if pushed to excess, is paradoxically a reinvigoration, a trancelike magical realignment with natural energies. Hence the symbolic use of leather—primitive animal hide—for whips and fetish clothing. By redefining the boundaries of the body, SM limits and disciplines the overexpanded consciousness of "late" phases, which are plagued by free-floating doubts and anxieties.

Her article's clever title, Scholars in Bondage, makes her eligible to join the crack team of post heading writers here at ExC.

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Barf

I have spent some very happy days in Nevada, despite this ad.

(Correction courtesy of ExC)

The Pope and the Devil and the Associated Press

Did Pope Francis Perform An Exorcism?

The AP refers to his "obsession" with the devil.

Objective and unbiased reporting, as usual.

Reminds me of a very recondite old Catholic priest joke about the Pope and exorcism. When I tell it, you'll see how very recondite and old Catholic priesty it is.

Pope Leo XIII was receiving distinguished visitors in audience for his blessing --this would be in the 1890's-- when one of his aides realized that a British noblewoman had been admitted whose divorce and remarriage had been a scandal back in England. What to do? The Pope motioned his aide to stand aside and  not worry.

When the lady appeared before him, she knelt and kissed his ring and waited for her blessing. His Holiness raised his hand and made the sign of the cross over her and said: Benedicaris ab illo in cuius honore cremaberis...the blessing used in the traditional Mass when incense is placed in the censer: May you be blessed by Him in Whose honor you shall burn.

Now that's religious. Not spiritual.

And very recondite old Catholic priesty.

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PS. Mr. Poor Church Pope Francis lashed out at the inordinate love of money that characterizes our world...As if this were some awful novelty that never happened before. Reminds me of the ravings of the apocalyptic type evangelicals who are always finding 'the signs of the last days' in the newspaper. Any day of the week, of any year, will do.

Ex Cathedra's declinism is exempt from this critique because, well, I'm right.


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Old head

Herculaneum, the smaller town near Pompei, holds an unusual number of pieces, both of wood and stone, whose painted surfaces survived the volcano. Unlike our assumption that statuary was white marble, most ancient imagery was brightly painted. This astonishing piece.

The whole program here.

Edgy

Social change

Funny line from an article about Jason Richwine and the Hispanic IQ witchery panic:

Q. Does the rank order of how groups perform on cognitive tests ever change? 

A. Sure. When I first got interested in the social sciences in 1972, the usual rank order of cognitive performance was Oriental, then Caucasian, Chicano, and black. Now, it’s Asian, then white, Latino, and African-American. So everything is different.

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Devil's Dictionary, version 3.7

The Progressive Glossary - Taki's Magazine:

The lingo of liberal virtue. Nicely done.

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Bitchin'

20 minutes of a tasteless/sentimental film about drama camp.

I know. I'm sorry.

Noticed that the two male characters who played the teachers could have been played in exactly the same way...exactly...by female actors. Burnt-out whiskey and cigarette voiced women aged 60 would have done the very same job. Exactly.

And the Latina MTF who is nothing but either a) cold, attacking bitch or b) a pouty, needy and tragic victim, is found by the one straight guy in the place to be "a wonderful person."

Do these people either a) read the scripts they write or b) watch the scenes they direct?

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