<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4173"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4174">Burkophiles,<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4175"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4173"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4176"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4177">Skipping to the end,
perhaps, of the soritical series---ellipses being a time-honored Burkean way of
going---I’ll change the query to the more generalized, “Triumph of the
Faction”? Which side, in fact, won World War II, in terms of East vs. West?
Whose forms of thought now dominate global enterprise and relationships? Ergo,
are the seemingly less polarized, more or less “comedic,” religions of the
East, like Buddhism and Daoism, in sway, or, as I see it, the redeemed
“factionally” tragic drama of historic Christianity? Factionalism remains
intact in the current creed of the Catholic Church (hell is a place of fire;
read about it in the R.C. catechism likely on the shelves in your nearby Barnes
and Noble) and Evangelical Protestantism. Liberal Mainline Protestantism
eschewed those polar dialectics long ago in favor of a broad-based ecumenism.
I’ve never heard hell, much less hell-fire, preached in a Mainline Protestant
Church. It’s not in any of the three 20<sup id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4178">th</sup> century statements of
faith in the United Presbyterian Book of Confessions. The last time I heard daughter Beth preach, at
Chanceford Presbyterian in York Country, PA, she spoke of “:mistakes” to be
corrected, not sins and evils to be punished. It seemed right out of <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4179">ATH</i>. The kids got pencils with erasers
during the children’s sermonette.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4180"></o:p></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4176"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4181"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4182">But that persistent
tragic factionalism of historic Christian faith has shaped our ideological
landscape. You’ll find it in the title of Richard Tarnas’s book, “The Passion
of the Western Mind.” You’ll find an echo of it in Burke’s assertion, “Anytime
you see someone straining to do something, look for evidence of the tragic
mechanism.” And the West has been mightily “straining” toward the global
dominance it’s manifestly achieved in the industrial age. If the demurrer is,
the East is now overtaking us, it’s because the East has been near-thoroughly
Westernized. Note the rhetoric of clothing, prominent enough in Burke’s <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4183">RM</i>: The dark Western business suit, with
tie and dress shirt, has conquered the world.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4184"></o:p></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4181"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4185"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4186">Christianity had a slim
chance of becoming universally tragic. At least one form of “Christian”
Gnosticism (Valintinian?) saw the Divine Light trapped in everybody. The
Godhead itself was “fallen” and would remain so until ALL that Divinity was
restored to heaven, beyond the archons that ruled the planetary realm.
Gnosticism died out at the end of the Patristic Age.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4187"></o:p></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4185"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4188"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4189">The upshot, as I see
it: The impetus of factionally tragic part-doom-and-gloom will be hard to
counter. Burke, the self-described “Manichee,” seemingly turned more morose in
his later stage. The “50-50” chance for humankind he vouchsafed to me in 1987
looks more like 55-45, negative, against the backdrop of “Helhaven.” Even his
poem at the conclusion of “Satire” ends up factionally tragic (<i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4190">On Human Nature</i>, pp. 91-95). Recall, too, Burke’s transition in “logology”
from the less manacing notes of the pentad/hexad to the “morbid[ities]” of the
guilt-redemption cycle (<i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4191">RR</i>, p. 181).<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4192"></o:p></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4188"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4193"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4194">But why listen to me?
I’m a self-confessed “tragic-frame” personality in a comic-frame cult (<i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4195">RR</i> 15-16). As Ann noted in her speech,
Burke credits both natural and social “recalcitrance.” Maybe we can add to
those pressures that constrain the psychological.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4196"></o:p></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4193"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4197"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4198">Miami should start
moving its buildings to higher ground.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4199"></o:p></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4197"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div style="text-indent:.5in" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4200"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4201"><o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4202"> </o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_2496">
</div><div style="text-indent:.5in" dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4203"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4204">Ed <o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1500653720882_4205"></o:p></span></div></div></body></html>