4-2-05

Crises of Faith

There's a scene, in Irving Berlin's White Christmas, where Bob Wallace, played by Bing Crosby, and Betty Haines, played by Rosemary Clooney, are just forming their relationship.  She admits to a habit of over-romanticizing, and he responds, "Let me tell you something, it's awful dangerous putting those knights up on those white horses...[they're] liable to slip off."  It's one of my favorite scenes, for a number of reasons, but mostly for the line I just quoted.  In that line, Bob warns Betty not to have unreal expectations of him.  He's only human.
          It turns out that Crosby himself was a little more human than his character, Wallace.  Bob Wallace was a classic Comic Hero, doing only the right thing, but plagued by misunderstandings and the machinations of others.  Bing Crosby was a man, a fairly simple man by all accounts, struggling to do his best despite his own weaknesses.  He was, after all, only human.
          It's hard, when we find out that our heroes are only human.  Jefferson owned slaves; Shaw and Lindbergh were proponents of Fascism; King was probably a multiple adulterer.  We want them to be something beyond human, but they can't.  We want them to be shining example of everything a human can be, and they are.  It is our misconceptions, and our unwillingness to resolve our own unreal expectations of them that make them seem less so. 
          Jefferson owned slaves, but he didn't want to; he wanted to live in a country where he wasn't forced to imprison his fellow man in order to support and maintain his family, but he didn't, despite his honest and Herculean effort to create that country.  Shaw and Lindbergh were both very good at what they did:  Shaw wrote plays and essays, Lindbergh flew planes.  Neither was qualified to comment on the relative benefits of a social system (Shaw might have been, most of his essays address social concerns), and, even if they were, their view of the system they touted was limited;  you can be sure that Hitler and Mussolini showed their best face to their honored guests much as modern celebrities are given the "Castro Rocks" tour when they visit Cuba.  King freed a nation from ignorance and proved to the world that wholesale revolutions don't have to be bloody; to do that, he was forced away from his wife and family, and he became lonely, and he was human.
Yes, Virginia
          I remember when I realized (actually, later than usual) that there was no living man named Santa Claus.  I was lucky; my mother explained to me that while Saint Nicholas died a few centuries ago, he lives on in parents and in their children, in the way they can give at Christmas with no expectation of return.  In many ways, she paraphrased Church's famous "Yes, Virginia" editorial, but in a way that I could understand it at that age, in a way that I wanted to understand it.
          Far beyond correcting my selfish misapprehension that the annual flow of incoming gifts would stop, she blessed me with an insight into the beauty of the human soul.  She turned an event that many people view as their first great disappointment and betrayal into a vision of how lovely people really are.  My parents, who are as flawed as any other human, spent years denuding their savings so that my siblings and I could receive everything we realistically wanted on one special day, and then they gave the credit to a dead Saint.  How great is that?
Life is Change
          This brings us to Orson Scott Card.  I've read a lot lately about his fans being disappointed—crushingly disappointed, in some cases—with his essay last year regarding homosexuality and gay marriage.  I have to admit, I was never one of his hugest fans:  I read some of his short stories in Asimov's, and, as far as I remember, I liked them, but I never bought his novels.  It may be because I was an adult by the time his serious writing career got off the ground, but he was never a big influence on my life or my world-view.
          That being said, I have trouble understanding the deep sense of betrayal expressed by some of his former fans.  Aeire of Queen of Wands, said that his closed-minded essay, so starkly contrasting the open-mindedness of his novels had ruined the magic for her.  I can't help but think that's a selfish way to look at the man and his work.  For one thing, Card's most famous work, Ender's Game was written almost twenty years ago.  A man does a lot of living in twenty years.  Life beats us down, builds us up, crushes our faith and buoys us with new hopes.  It's not fair to call a man a hypocrite based on a story he wrote twenty years ago.  It's possible he believed everything he wrote at that time, but that his opinions changed.
          Even if they didn't, even if he was always of the opinion that homosexuality is an abomination, it doesn't make the stories any less magical.  In my view, it makes them more so.  We writers have opinions, and we're famous for letting everyone know what they are.  I've been writing professionally (off and on) for about twenty years now, and I know how difficult it is not to express my personal feelings and opinions in a piece.  But, if Card held those beliefs even at the beginning, then he withheld his actual opinion for an entire novel, an entire series of novels.  He held his own heartfelt beliefs in abeyance, and silenced his own voice for the sake of his readers, and his characters, for the sake of the story.
          How great is that?

EDIT (4-2-05 11:45pm):  I have since, actually read Mr. Card's essay from last year, and a previous one written in 1990, and find I must apologize.  At no point does he use the word"abomination" except to decry its use by others.

EDIT (4-3-05 9:05am):  If you're curious, links to the articles are here.  Also, responses to this column should go into that thread.  Also, Aeire, if you're reading this (which I doubt), I deeply apologize for any additional headaches I may have caused.