Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 28: Melville's Civil War poems (2)

Herman Melville

The more I read Melville's Civil War poems, the more intriguing I find them.

But I have to remind myself that poems like novels or short stories have a point of view, a narrator's perspective that isn't necessarily identical to the perspective of the author. And Melville does employ different perspectives in these poems. For example, one poem is called "Stonewall Jackson. Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville. (May, 1863)". It is clearly from the viewpoint of a Union sympathizer: "Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead,/Vainly he died and set his seal". This narrator takes grudging notice of Jackson's death but refuses to pretend he or his cause were noble:

Justly his fame we outlaw; so
We drop a tear on the bold Virginian's bier,
Because no wreath we owe.

The poem immediately following is called "Stonewall Jackson. (Ascribed to a Virginia.)" This one is from a Confederate viewpoint, and employs the more flowery images of which Southern fans of Sir Walter Scott's novels were so fond:

But who shall hymn the Roman heart?
A stoic he, but even more:
The iron will and lion thew
Were strong to inflict as to endure:
Who like him could stand, or pursue?
His gate the fatalist followed through;
In all his great soul found to do
Stonewall followed his star.

In the final stanza of this piece, we catch a glimpse of the emerging romance of the Lost Cause:

O, much of doubt in after days
Shall cling, as now, to the war;
Of the right and the wrong they'll still debate,
Puzzled by Stonewall's star:
"Fortune went with the North elate,"
"Ay, but the South had Stonewall's weight,
And he fell in the South's vain war."

One thing I appreciate about these poems is that while Melville - or at least the narrator's voice in many of these poems - understood the Union cause and supported it, he also kept his eyes open to the gruesome reality of war. For instance, in "The College Colonel", not specifically identified as being North or South, he pictures a colonel returning home after long service:

He brings his regiment home -
Not as they filed two years before,
But a remnant half-tattered, and battered, and worn,
Like castaway sailors, who - stunned
By the surf's loud roar,
Their mates dragged back and seen no more -
Again and again breast the surge,
And at last crawl, spent, to shore.

He invokes the plight of prisoners of war in the poem, "In the Prison Pen. (1964.)" The treatment of prisoners of war, particularly the treatment of Federal prisoners by the Rebels, and the atrocious treatment of African-American Union troops, was a source of long resentment. He pictures an ill-treated prisoner:

A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;
He totters to his lair -
A den that sick hands dug in earth
Ere famine wasted there,

Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,
Walled in by throngs that press,
Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead -
Dead in his meagreness.

In a longer selection near the end of the collection, he gives a verse account of "Lee in the Capitol", describing Robert E. Lee's postwar plea for leniency toward the white South. Lee's voice in the poem pleads:

A voice comes out from these charnel-fields,
A plaintive yet unheeded one:
'Died all in vain? both sides undone?'
Push not your triumph; do not urge
Submissiveness beyond the verge.
Intestine rancor would you bide,
Nursing eleven sliding daggers in your side?
Far from my thought to school or threat;
I speak the things which hard beset.
Where various hazards meet the eyes,
To elect in magnanimity is wise.

We can't tell from the work itself whether Melville is sympathetic toward this viewpoint, this plea for reconciliation among whites North and South at the expense of the rights of the newly freed black men and women.

The final selection in the book is called "A Meditation: Attributed to a Northerner After Attending the Last of Two Funerals From the Same Homestead - Those of a National and a Confederate Officer (Brothers), His Kinsmen, Who Had Died From the Effects of Wounds Received in the Closing Battles." That setting of the stage is a reminder that the conflict was a civil war, not the War Between the States of Lost Cause lore.

But this poem seems to catch the sense of a war-weary white Union veteran, tired of the conflict and ready to look to the business of the future and a reconciliation among the white "brothers" of America. This Northerner betrays perhaps a feeling of bitterness at the former slaves themselves:

Of North or South they recked not then,
Warm passion cursed the cause of war:
Can Africa pay back this blood
Spilt on Potomac's shore?
Yet doubts, as pangs, were vain the strife to stay,
And hands that fain had clasped again could slay.

This desire for reconciliation among former foes didn't have to have come at the expense of the rights of the freed slaves. In practice, it did. But it didn't have to. The final three stanzas of this concluding poem catch a moment in which the future held the danger and promise of paths to which the country had not yet irrevocably committed:

Mark the great Captains on both sides,
The soldiers with the broad renown -
They all were messmates on the Hudson's marge,
Beneath one roof they laid them down;
And, free from hate in many an after pass,
Strove as in school-boy rivalry of the class.

A darker side there is; but doubt
In Nature's charity hovers there:
If men for new agreement yearn,
Then old upbraiding best forbear:
"The South's the sinner!" Well, so let it be;
But shall the North sin worse, and stand the Pharisee?

O, now that brave men yield the sword,
Mine be the manful soldier-view;
By how much more they boldly warred,
By so much more is mercy due:
When Vicksburg fell, and the moody files marched out,
Silent the victors stood, scorning to raise a shout.

One of my favorite poems in this collection is in an account of the conflict at Vicksburg, "Running the Batteries. As observed from the Anchorage above Vicksburgh. (April, 1863)". He writes about the seductive and false appeal of war:

A baleful brand, a hurrying torch
Whereby anew the boats are seen -
A burning transport all alurch!
Breathless we gaze; yet still we glean
Glimpses of beauty as we eager lean.

The effulgence takes an amber glow
Which bathes the hill-side villas far;
Affrighted ladies mark the show
Painting the pale magnolia -
The fair, false, Circe light of cruel War.

While the poems themselves tell us of the perspective of the narrator but not necessarily of the author, Melville added a prose "Supplement" at the very end, which was clearly meant as his own statement at the time. And, sadly, it seemed that Melville's generous heart was too ready to see civility and Christian decency in his white Southern countrymen. Still, even as he urged restraint toward the white South, he validated the truth of John Brown's final declaration that he had once believed that slavery could be ended without the shedding of much blood, but now knew he was in error. Melville wrote:

Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall. But we should remember that emancipation was accomplished not by deliberate legislation; only through agonized violence could so mighty a result be effected.

He continued directly:

In our natural solicitude to confirm the benefit of liberty to the blacks, let us forbear from measures of dubious constitutional rightfulness toward our white countrymen — measures of a nature to provoke, among other of the last evils, exterminating hatred of race toward race. In imagination let us place ourselves in the unprecedented position of the Southerners — their position as regards the millions of ignorant manumitted slaves in their midst, for whom some of us now claim the suffrage. Let us be Christians toward our fellow-whites, as well as philanthropists toward the blacks, our fellow-men. In all things, and toward all, we are enjoined to do as we would be done by. Nor should we forget that benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied. Something may well be left to the graduated care of future legislation, and to heaven. In one point of view the coexistence of the two races in the South — whether the negro be bond or free - seems (even as it did to Abraham Lincoln) a grave evil. Emancipation has ridded the country of the reproach, but not wholly of the calamity. Especially in the present transition period for both races in the South, more or less of trouble may not unreasonably be anticipated; but let us not here after be too swift to charge the blame exclusively in anyone quarter. With certain evils men must be more or less patient. Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.

Despite his overly optimistic view of Southern white reaction, its clear he foresaw the assimilation of former slaves as full citizens.

And, since this series of posts is broadly in relation to Lost Cause mythology, it's worth noting that in this "Supplement", Melville had no doubt that slavery had caused the war, whatever other elements were dragged into the mix along the way:

It was in subserviency to the slave-interest that Secession was plotted; but it was under the plea, plausibly urged, that certain inestimable rights guaranteed by the Constitution were directly menaced, that the people of the South were cajoled into revolution. Through the arts of the conspirators and the perversity of fortune, the most sensitive love of liberty was entrapped into the support of a war whose implied end was the erecting in our advanced century of an Anglo-American empire based upon the systematic degradation of man.(my emphasis)

Melville may have had illusions about the amount of good will among postwar white Southerners. But he was very clear on what the Confederacy had been about.

Tags: american civil war, battle pieces, confederate heritage month 2008, herman melville, us civil war

Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 27: Melville's Civil War poems (1)

Herman Melville wrote a series of poems about the Civil War, published in 1866 as Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War. Here is the account of that work given by Elizabeth Hardwick in her Penguin Lives biography, Herman Melville (2000):

Battle-Pieces, more than a hundred verses, considers all the high points of the war: Antietam, Gettysburg, Sherman in Georgia, Shiloh, the surrender at Appomattox, and the scattered elegies for the unknown dead. Bravery and tragedy, a sense of foreboding, an added prose plea for "reasonable consideration of our late enemies." The publication of the book received more disparagement from distinguished Americans than praise here and there. His moderation, sympathy for both sides of the conflict, offended, and one critic called his verse "epileptic."

Here is William Dean Howells writing that the poems lead one to doubt "there has really been a great war, with battles fought by men and bewailed by women: Or is it only that Mr. Melville's inner consciousness has been perturbed, filled with phantasms of enlistments, marches, fights in the air, parenthetic bulletin-boards, and tortured humanity shedding, not words and blood, but words alone?"

The final thought in Daniel Aaron's splendid book on American writers and the Civil War. "By portraying the War as historical tragedy, Melville defied consensus and took one further step toward popular oblivion."

Melville, of course, emerged from "popular oblivion", even if it was after his death. And his Civil War poems still have value, not least for their contemporary impressions.

One of the poems that particularly struck me is, "The Armies of the Wilderness (1863-4)". His patriotic partisanship for the Union is not in doubt. The poem opens with:

Like snows the camps on Southern hills
Lay all the winter long,
Our levies there in patience stood —
They stood in patience strong.
On fronting slopes gleamed other camps
Where faith as firmly clung:
Ah, froward kin! so brave amiss -
The zealots of the Wrong.

In this strife of brothers
(God, hear their country call),
However it be, whatever betide,
Let not the just one fall.

But Melville was very much aware of the ugly tragedy of war. He said while seeing newly-recruited soldiers march through the streets of New York, "All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys." That may partly have reflected his own age at the time. Because, in fact, many of the soldiers on both sides were considerably older than boys, in their later 20s and their 30s.

In any case, this poem reflects a sense of the human costs of war. In this segment, he looks at the sad state of our species as manifested in war:

Did the Fathers feel mistrust?
Can no final good be wrought?
Over and over, again and again
Must the fight for the Right be fought?

Here he looks at the sense of Southern honor as it drove the Confederate army:

Such brave ones, foully snared
By Belial's wily plea,
Were faithful unto the evil end -
Feudal fidelity

The poem is constructed as a kind of dialogue, with the eight-line sections in regular type, as in the first section quoted here, describing actions in a more naturalistic way with the Union cause constantly in mind, and the four-line sections in italics a more somber reflection on the tragedy of the situation. It could be the narrator stating the first eight lines of each exchange aloud, with the final four lines an internal reflection, maybe a voice of conscience more disturbed at the terrible contradictions of war. Or it could be a dialogue between two people, one recountin the battle factually but with excitement for the cause, the other, perhaps older voice, more disturbed at the wastefulness and horror of it all.

As the poem progresses, the contrast between the two perspectives seems to become more pronounced. Near the end, this 12-line dialogue occurs:

Watch and fast, march and fight - clutch your gun!
Day-fights and night-fights; sore is the stress;
Look, through the pines what line comes on?
Longstreet slants through the hauntedness!
Tis charge for charge, and shout for yell :
Such battles on battles oppress —
But Heaven lent strength, the Right strove well,
And emerged from the Wilderness.

Emerged, for the way was won;
But the Pillar of Smoke that led
Was brand-like with ghosts that went up
Ashy and red.

The first narrative voice is more in cheerleader mode, but it is also more reflective than earlier, as reflected by the concreteness of the pines becoming "the hauntedness", and the triumph of "the Right" described with a more neutral "emerged from the Wilderness". Survival rather than victory becomes the focus.

The second voice replies focusing on the terrible cost in lives, invoking the grim finality of death, even as it suggests the "ghosts" of the dead survive in spirit form. The contrast is starker than ever between the two, with the second voice focusing less on the more concrete images like "this strife of brothers", as in its first appearance, and more on the spiritual and abstract images of the Biblical Pillar of Smoke and the ghosts of the tormented dead ascending.

But in the end, the two voices suddenly converge toward each other in their perspectie:

None can narrate that strife in the pines,
A seal is on it — Sabaean lore!
Obscure as the wood, the entangled rhyme
But hints at the maze of war -
Vivid glimpses or livid through peopled gloom,
And fires which creep and char -
A riddle of death, of which the slain
Sole solvers are.

Long they withhold the roll
Of the shroudless dead. It is right;
Not yet can we bear the flare
Of the funeral light.

In the end, the first voice speaks of the mystery of death, and it is the second that concerns itself with the material images of "the shroudless dead".

It is worth remembering in that connection that many civilians saw with their own eyes the battlefields littered with the dead and the dying, and heard the sounds and smelled the smells that came with the sight. These wars were fought close to populated areas, not in some far-off country. So for many, the "the shroudless dead" on the battlefield were vivid personal memories in 1866, and not just for veterans of the fighting.

Tags: battle pieces, confederate heritage month 2008, herman melville

Baker "bipartisanship"

"You are an abolitionist, ain't you?" [the rough Missourian asked the herb-doctor]

"As to that, I cannot so readily answer. If by abolitionist you mean a zealot, I am none; but if you mean a man, who, being a man, feels for all men, slaves included, and by any lawful act, opposed to nobody's interest, and therefore, rousing nobody's enmity, would willingly abolish suffering (supposing it, in its degree, to exist) from among mankind, irrespective of color, then am I what you say."

"Picked and prudent sentiments. You are the moderate man, the invaluable understrapper of the wicked man. You, the moderate man, may be used for wrong, but are useless for right." - Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man

The Republicans, with the eager cooperation of the punditocracy, are frantically insisting that the Democrats practice "bipartisanship", i.e., go along with Bush's plans to continue the Iraq War indefinitely.

The theme of bipartisanship appeared in the Baker-Hamilton report in the letter that served as a preface, but almost nowhere else. Yet that is getting major play, and seems to have been a central theme for Baker in the cause of saving the Republican Party from the Iraq War disaster. Let's look at a bit of that appeal for the Democrats to pre-emptively surrender and let the Republicans roll over them like they did with the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002:

What we recommend in this report demands a tremendous amount of political will and cooperation by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. It demands skillful implementation. It demands unity of effort by government agencies. And its success depends on the unity of the American people in a time of political polarization. Americans can and must enjoy the right of robust debate within a democracy. Yet U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure — as is any course of action in Iraq — if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus. The aim of our report is to move our country toward such a consensus. (my emphasis)

Anytime you see someone like Baker who's a more-than-loyal member of the authoritarian Republican Party, and in this case a prime mover for the Bush dynasty, saying something like this, "Americans can and must enjoy the right of robust debate within a democracy," immediately following by a "but", or in this case "yet", that should trigger the "Constitution in danger" alarm bells for any sentient Democrat.

I was frankly stunned at how easily the Senate Democrats let the Robert Gates nomination sail through. I'd have to say my reaction was very similar to that of Ray McGovern (Constitution Takes a New Hit From Senators at Gates Hearing Truthout.org 12/07/06):

At Tuesday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the nomination of Robert Gates to be secretary of defense, I felt as though I were paying last respects to the Constitution of the United States. But there was none of the praise customarily given to the deceased. Rather, the bouquets were fulsomely shared round about among the nominee and the senators - all of the "distinguished," but none more distinguished than the Very Reverend John Warner, the gentleman from Virginia, chairman of the committee and presider at the wake. ...

It was a sorry spectacle Tuesday, as pretentious, patrician manners trumped courage and vitiated the advise-and-consent prerogative carefully honed by the framers of our Constitution for the Senate.

In other news, "A series of particularly brutal attacks across Baghdad Tuesday resulted in at least 54 Iraqis killed and scores wounded," according to the New York Times. The US military announced that three more American soldiers were killed Monday, adding to the 13 killed over the weekend. Ten more US soldiers were killed on Wednesday. And five Marines are expected to be charged today with the killing of 24 Iraqis, many of them women and children, in the village of Haditha in November 2005.

No such bothersome details about this misbegotten war were allowed into evidence yesterday by the stuffed shirts sitting in stuffed seats in a hearing room stuffed with 80 stenographers from our domesticated press. Rather, the hearing room seemed to serve as a kind of funeral parlor for the Constitution.

The Senate Democrats will have plenty of other opportunities to fight for the Constitution over the next two years, whether they like it or not. But I'm afraid the Constitution lost this round.

And in this story, we see the Senate Democratic leaders generously offering Bush a "bipartisanship" that he's never practiced as has no intention of practicing now: Dems find proposals familiar: They say they'll help implement the ideas, which echo their own by Edward Epstein San Francisco Chronicle 12/07/06.

Epstein is a good reporter, and he opens by telling us that Congressional Democrats are "openly scornful of President Bush's Iraq policies". As they should be. But the House members he quotes give me a much better feeling than this, from the incoming Senate majority leader:

"It is up to President Bush to implement this group's recommendations. We're going to be watching very closely after Jan. 1 what the Bush administration does," said incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "On behalf of the American people, I certainly hope President Bush will implement the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group."

Why in the name of Andrew Jackson is Harry Reid talking about the Baker-Hamilton continue-the-war-indefinitely report as though its the new Holy Grail of Iraq war policy? Yeah, the report has some good ideas, as other Democrats quoted in the article say with much more sensible caution.

"On behalf of the American people, I certainly hope President Bush will implement the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group"??? Harry, how about implementing the mandate the voters just gave your party to start fighting this administration's war policy and start getting American troops out of Iraq and the United States out of this disaster of a war? Nobody elected this group of rabid Republican partisans and defanged Democratic old guys that made up the Baker commission. And, sure, they had some good things to say and some good suggestions.

But their basic policy of continuing the war indefinitely is a bad idea! It's a bad idea, and the Democrats need to be fighting against it, not acting like its their job to enforce it on behalf of Bush family fixer James Baker.

What are these Senators thinking? I'm so alarmed at seeing how the Senate Democrats are acting it almost makes me wish that Lieberman would vote with the Republicans and not put the Senate Democratic leadership out there right now as a big part of the Party's public face. But, if the Senate leadership can't fight effectively, it's better for us to know it now, not find out in 2009 when we (hopefully) have a Fighting Dem taking office as President and needing a strong leadership in both Houses of Congress.

In this report, Sandra Day O'Connor, Vernon Jordan Discuss Responses to Iraq Report PBS Newshour 12/07/06, two of the commission members put on their best "bipartisan" face and mealy-mouth about the realities of the Iraq War. Vernon Jordan was an adviser to President Bill Clinton, and Sandra Day O'Conner is a retired Supreme Court Justice, a Republican who was one of the Scalia Five who installed Dick Cheney and George Bush in the Executive Branch in 2000.

Bush the Decider has sent strong signals that he's going to blow off the commission's recommendations. But here is the pleasant, moderate exchange that occurred on the Newshour about Bush's demand for "victory":

[MARGARET WARNER:] Justice O'Connor, beginning with you, today in his first public assessment of your Iraq Study Group report, the president said, right at the outset, victory is important. And another point he said, "I believe we will prevail." Does that language strike you as in step with the very sober assessment you all came to about the prospects in Iraq?

SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR, Iraq Study Group: Well, it depends, of course, on what you mean by "victory." The report that the study group put out stated as the goal, using language of the president, something about the stability of the government in Iraq and making it able to defend itself, and support itself, and not be a threat to its neighbors or itself.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Mr. Jordan, your view on that. I mean, is victory a word? You didn't use it much in your report. Is that a word that applies to the prospects here?

VERNON JORDAN, Iraq Study Group: Yes, I don't think we ought to get caught up on the president's rhetoric. I think we ought to get caught up on the actions that he's going to take in response to this study group report.

And I would not get caught up, Margaret, on whether he said "victory" or "get the job done." I think we ought to just see what his reaction is going to be.

I feel very good about his reaction as he spoke with us. And yesterday, he was open; he was receptive; he congratulated us on our work. And I think he is deserving of some time to read it carefully, to think about it, to consult with his advisers, and then speak to the nation.

How civilized. How moderate. How misleading. How ineffective.

Vernon Jordan preaches the "bipartisan" gospel to a Democratic Party that faces an authoritarian Republican Party headed by an administration that literally claims the right to disregard any law or Constitutional provision on their own authority. We mustn't be strident or shrill in that fight:

And what is important about that, Margaret, is that, when each of us, five Democrats, five Republicans, went to every one of the study group's meetings, we checked partisanship at the door, and we were not Republicans and Democrats. We were responsible American citizens dealing with a very serious problem. ...

But in that room, we were preparing together ideas and recommendations, not just for the president, but also for this Congress. And it is my hope that the civility that prevailed in the Iraq Study Group will now take a front seat, both in the administration and in the Congress of the United States.

Since Jordan experienced first-hand the rabid partisanship of the Republicans during the impeachment battle of the Clinton administration, you might think he wouldn't have quite such a Pollyannish position on this. Since the Republicans are far more rabidly partisan today than they were then. But I suppose that assumption would be wrong.

Then there was this exchange with O'Conner, who showed her nonpartisan dedication to the Republic by voting with the Scalia Five to install Bush as President after he lost the 2000 election:

MARGARET WARNER: And, Justice O'Connor, do you think that's realistic when we'll be talking about people who are in office?

SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR: I absolutely do. I thought that this was a good illustration of how it is possible for people of goodwill and integrity to work together toward a consensus. And that's possible in the halls of Congress, as well as outside.

There was also this bizarre comment from Scalia Five member O'Conner, discussing diplomacy:

We might go all the way back to World War II, where the United States continued to have discussions with Stalin. He was the enemy, not our friend, but we continued to have discussions. And I think we pretty much have to do the same here.

We - presumably meaning the United States - were fighting Stalin and the Soviet Union in the Second World War? Man, the Republican Party line on that piece of history changed more drastically than I had realized! Did Osama bin Laden plot the attack on Pearl Harbor, too? Jeez, talk about alternative history. What the [Cheney] was she trying to say?

Various extreme religion items

I've been reading the news summaries from the 06/23/05 Cultic Studies Review (available online but behind subscription). Here are a few intriguing items from this one:

First, in the "traditional family" category:

The attorneys general of Utah and Arizona announced at a recent public forum that they will not prosecute people for plural marriages, but that they would press charges against people involved in underage marriages, sexual abuse, and welfare and tax fraud. (Chicago Tribune, Internet, 3/11/05)

I wonder what Rick Santorum has to say about this? No, on second thought, I don't want to know.

For those who keep up with apocalyptic groups gone bad - and what a fun hobby it is! - there's this:

As former Church Universal and Triumphant leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet continues to decline, suffering from Alzheimer's, "There are at least eight people currently claiming the mantle of Messenger," according to the CUT board of directors, which rejects the claims while urging members to continue to support Prophet. Meanwhile, CUT recently broke ground for a new office building in Corwin Springs, MT, but without the controversy and notoriety that attended the church's activities in the 1980s and 1990s.

A professor who published a book on CUT says the church, which has lost a great many members after a predicted apocalypse did not arrive, says CUT is trying to refocus and move away from origins "steeped in conspiracy and feelings of besiegement." (Scott McMillon [sic], Bozeman Chronicle, Internet, 3/13/05)

That "steeped in conspiracy and feelings of beseigement" doesn't just apply to cults. It sounds like a description of the people who make up the main market for OxyContin radio.

For the last excerpt from the CSR news summaries, there's this on the rightwing Catholic order Opus Dei, which is now the most influential organization in the Church under the current Pope Benedict XVI (aka Ratzinger I):

Former long-time member Bernard Bergonzi says that Opus Dei is an extremely controlling organization. "Why such fear of personal freedom in making ordinary, commonsense decisions," he asks? "Why treat adult members like children? Why the routinization of spiritual direction by way of uniform commands, endlessly repeated? Why maintain the Index of Forbidden Books after the Holy See itself had discarded it? Why such fear of modern critical biblical studies and new understandings of hagiography and ecclesiastical history? Why the stubborn resistance to liturgical change, from the use of the vernacular to Communion in the hand, permanent deacons, and altar girls? Why the obsession with prescribing human behavior? Saints can't be manufactured like plastic dolls." (Silvio Alfaro, Commonweal, Internet, 2/25/05)

Then there's this one, which is pretty scary: The Young and the Sexless by Jeff Sharlet Rolling Stone 06/23/05.

Matt Dunbar is a handsome young man, though his face is still ruddy with acne. He has rounded cheeks, a soul patch beneath his lips and soft eyes that hold yours like he trusts you. He's not a prude. He will say the word "[Cheney]," but he will never, not even in the wedding bed he hopes God has prepared for his future, embody it as a verb. He will make Christian love. What most of us call sex he calls communion, and he believes it can happen only within marriage.

Chastity is a new organizing principle of the Christian right, built on the notion that virgins are among God's last loyal defenders, knights and ladies of a forgotten kingdom. Sex outside of marriage is, in the words of D. James Kennedy, pastor of the influential Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida, "an uprising against God." But if sex is the perfect enemy of the blessed lifestyle, it is also the Holy Grail for those who wait: "A symphony of the soul for married couples," according to John Hagee, author of What Every Man Wants in a Woman.

This elevation of virginity - especially for men - as a way of understanding yourself and your place in the world is new. It's also very old. ... Now, though, the Protestants of the Christian right are reclaiming that two-tiered system, only they're projecting it onto individual lives, making every young man and woman part of an elite virgin corps.

"The world hasn't yet seen what God can do with an army of young men free of sexual fevers," write the authors of Every Young Man's Battle, one volume in a hugely popular series of "purity" manuals. "You can remain pure so that you might qualify for such an army."

I don't know if it's the good news or the bad news that the Christian Right wants to organize an "army" of horny, virginal twentysomethings to do whatever. A bunch of young exceptionally sexually repressed guys running around obsessing about sex while trying to proselytize for the Christian Right don't sound like the most fun bunch to hang out with. On the other hand, they may be so distracted by kinky fantasies and terrified that they may get lust in their hearts that they wouldn't be able to do too much harm. Except maybe to themselves.

And something tells me that somewhere not far underneath ideas like "making Christian love" sex as "communion" lie some seriously lustful temptations. Sex as "communion": for me that conjures up a scene from the movie To the Devil, A Daughter (the last of the Hammer films) in which Nastassja Kinski is lying nekkid on an altar and a little... oh, never mind, we'll go into that some other time.

Gosh, what could "communion" sex be? It must have something to do with pouring wine on each other, or grape juice if you're a teetotaler, and then, who knows what? Or is it something that involves a lot of kneeling and foot-washing?

And how about the guy who calls sex before marriage an "uprising against God"? Yes, he said "uprising." And I can't wait for the movie version of Every Young Man's Battle. Oh, these people are strange.

If I ever get kidnapped by some religious cult, please please please let it be at least a pro-sex one, not a bunch of abstinence zealots!

This talk about the "uprising against God" and Every Young Man's Battle reminds me of a book that was popular in America during the first half of the 19th century. It was a handbook for young men about the evils of masturbation (it makes you go blind and stuff), and it was titled The Boy's Manual. It's a safe bet that the author didn't intend to give it a satirical title. Or maybe his publisher just had a sense of humor.

That little book and the goofy ideas that went along with it inspired Herman Melville to write a short story called, "The Lightning-Rod Man." In it, a lightning-rod salesman appears at the narrator's door during a storm and proceeds to display a sample of his rod and to rave about all the things that could bring deadly danger if you touch them and gives a lot of insane advice about what people should do. Finally, the narrator has had enough and throws him out, saying, "In thunder as in sunshine, I stand at ease in the hands of my God. False negotiator, away!"

"Impious wretch!" foamed the stranger, blackening in the face as the rainbow beamed, "I will publish your infidel notions."

"Begone! move quickly! if quickly you can, you that shine forth into sight in moist times like the worm."

The scowl grew blacker on his face; the indigo-circles enlarged round his eyes as the storm rings round the midnight moon. He sprang upon me; his tri-forked thing at my heart.

I seized it; I snapped it; I dashed it; I trod it; and dragging the dark lightning-king out of my door, flung his elbowed, copper sceptre after him.

But spite of my treatment, and spite of my dissuasive talk of him to my neighbors, the Lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still travels in storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fears of man.

Apparently his descendants are with us still.

And have you heard about "second chance" viriginity? That's when you slip up and do the Big Nasty but then you're really, really sorry about it and truly repent and pledge not to do it any more. Then you get to be a virgin again. If Herman Melville or Mark Twain had lived to hear about such an exotic concept, they would probably have had some entertaining things to say about that.

Tags: christian fundamentalism, christian right, christianism, herman melville