“Repugnance is the Emotional Expression of Deep Wisdom, Beyond Reason’s Power Fully to Articulate It.”

I love that quote, lifted from Max Lindenman's piece where he weighs in heavy on the Miley Cyrus debacle:

As Voltaire might have said, nothing raunchy is alien to me. Unlike Will and Jada, I have no kids to fret over. Yet there I was, not merely annoyed in a detached, eye-rolling way, but horrified in an active, positive, pearl-clutching way.

That right there could be the perfect reaction. “In crucial cases,” writes Leon Kass,“repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it.” Indeed, Kass continues, in our age, where the individual, rational will commands the deference of an 800-lb gorilla, “repugnance may be the only voice left that speaks up to defend the central core of our humanity. Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.”

And how. One of life’s most frustrating — no, make that terrifying — experiences is seeing your disgust threshold ridden over roughshod. I remember an episode of The Love Boatwhere a guy takes his fiancee on a cruise to meet his widowed father. By the time the ship reaches Puerto Vallarta, the woman and the father fall in love and into bed. The betrayed lover calls his father a dirty old man and catches a slap in the face for his troubles. But by the closing sequence everything more or less sorts itself out. Preparing to descend the gangway, the woman tells Doc or Gopher that she and the old man are now engaged.

“I’m going to be a mother,” she says, and adds, with a giggle and a jerk of the thumb toward her former date, who’s still sulking somewhat, “his.”

But I’ve also seen the view from the other side. Plenty of times I’ve languished under the gentle tyranny of a fussbudget who invoked her ick factor like executive privilege. While a smoker, I bridled at the affected coughing and ostentatious waving from diners halfway across a patio and upwind. Still given to spontaneous and vivid self-expression, I seeth at the sight of a swearing jar. I can’t remember whether it was Groucho Marx who riposted “Well, I never” with “And with a face like that you never will,” but whoever did struck a blow for me.

Around the time I entered the Church, my attitude toward people with a robust pre-rational disgust reflex underwent a sea change. If in the past I found them simply to be a pain in the ass, they’ve become objects of my sneaking admiration. Catholicism just seems like such a good fit for them. Don DeLillo, himself sprinkled and oiled in childhood, explained: “For a Catholic nothing is too important to think about, because he’s raised with the idea that he will die any minute now and that if he doesn’t live his life in a certain way this death is simply an introduction to an eternity of pain.” The corollary, which I observe all the time, is that no expression of repugnance is too extravagant where sin’s concerned. If it’s worth not doing, it’s worth spazzing out over.

You should read the whole thing.  No really, you should.

Look, I'm not averse to a ribald joke and have told more than a few myself.  And though I have a strong desire to be saintly, I also know that I'm no where near matching that desire with ability or capability or action or whatever it is that gets one to sainthood, not yet.  In other words, I'm a sinner.  A grievous one. 

I saw roughly two minutes of the Miley twerking episode at lunch time today.  Two minutes was enough.  All I could think about is the transposition of Ms. Cyrus, heaven forbid, with someone I love like my daughter (assuming I had one) or niece or son's girlfriend.  I'd be horrified.  Aghast.  Sick even.

The obliteration of boundaries is a serious thing and this was a complete obliteration.  I'm not sure what Miley might've done in public for all to see that is any worse.

In the end all I could think about is how sad this really is.  Tragic even.

But as Max points out, there's lots of repugnance out there, even from those we wouldn't expect it and if it is indeed a reflection of deep wisdom being made manifest then hey... let's look at the bright side.  

There's apparently lots of latent wisdom out there.

Hope it settles in for a long stay.

The culture is in need of an extended visit.