Praying for the Soldier & Condemning the Commander

On 25th April every year, Australians take the day off to commemorate ANZAC day, remembering the sacrifice made by those who fell, or are in the process of falling, on the battlefields. The day is normally celebrated by dawn servicesin specially designed memorial sites across the country. In Turkey, a special service is also held in Gallipolli, where Australian and New Zealand troops, under British command, suffered massive losses in a now legendary failed amphibious attack against the Turks in the First World War.

To the Author, the commemoration of ANZAC day is important for two reasons. The first is not controversial, one commemorates this day to remember the sacrifice of soldiers who lost their lives doing what they were ordered to do. The second reason however may prove more contentious. Whilst these must be bracketed from the actions of the soldiers, it is important, in this Author's opinion, to keep in mind also those who sent those soldiers to their deaths, and remember that often, the day for the commemoration for those who lost or are losing their lives are often mobilised for the purposes of the Modern State, rather than for those that reside within them.

According to William Cavanaugh's Theopolitical Imagination, the Modern liberal State, because it is built on atomistic foundations (meaning that it is meant to allow anyone to do whatever they want), the means to maintain social cohesion can only be effective when it is backed by the threat of violence. According to Cavanaugh then, the use of violence in the name of all the atomistic agents that reside within its borders represents the best way to bring them together to form a cohesive whole. Nothing brings individuals together like a common enemy, and nothing gives individuals that originally had nothing to do with each other a common purpose more than engaging in warfare against that common enemy. If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then fighting that common enemy would make us all friends indeed.

If Cavanaugh is right, then it makes one pause as to the reasons for the resort to war, which becomes more proficient in tearing bodies apart as the centuries roll on. Can one be conclusive that it is solely for the purpose of defending the community, or for the aggrandisement of a political entity that is not necessarily connected in any substantial way to that community? It is important to note that the significance of Gallipolli lies not in the strategic realm, for it was strategically a disaster; rather the significance of the event that the Author keeps hearing lies in the giving birth to Australia as a country. Though it legally took shape in 1901, the Modern State of Australia only saw the light of day in a real way on the battlefield, amidst the bodies of thousands of human souls. Collective identity linked to the Modern State in a sense, necessitates the bloody sacrifice of those that reside within its borders.

It is significant that quasi-religious terms surround the celebration of this day. The memorial sites are often called Shrines of Remembrance, and the trip to Gallipolli is always called a "Pilgrimage" on the news. This is no accident for Cavanaugh, who argues that war is actually a deformed liturgy of the State, a sick parallel to the sacrificial liturgy of the Church.

If this account is correct, then it is important to ask oneself why one keeps "the ANZAC spirit" alive. One should keep it alive through the weeping over the loss of brothers, fathers, sons, and now, daughters, mothers and wives who vowed obedience to their commanders, and paid for it with their blood. That should be kept separate from those whose decisions sent them to their deaths, and for the idol of the State to whom their deaths pay homage. When the banner that says "defending our way of life" flies, one should ask boldly exactly whose life is being defended.

On Tofu...

The Author had to recover from a gruelling weekend of conferences and interviews in Sydney (more on that in future wonderposts). All had quietened down, and time for ones-self was finally found. The Author stumbled around Pitt Street Mall hoping to find some real alternative to the atrocities of the Golden Arches. But given the late hour in the afternoon that the author concluded his work, restaurants one by one were shutting their doors and slamming the padlocks. Before reaching the point of desparation that would leave one flailing his hands around and screaming like a banshee, the Author found a Japanese restaurant, in which the author hoped to find sustanence in some light, authentic Japanese fare. What folly...

The Author's initial craving for sushi soon disappeared at the sight of the horrors being served on the dishes being tooted around on the train-like device that has now become so frightfully commonplace in Japanese restaurants. Not a scrap of raw fish in sight. What the author beheld were jumbles of tentacle-like strips of dried seaweed, fish-sticks and some viscous liquids sitting in bundles of seaweed sheets, making the whole package look like byproducts of a bad experiement in Area 51.

The only remotely edible choice lay in Agedashi Tofu. "Fine...even if the sushi does look like the offspring of the aliens in The Puppet Master, how bad can Agedashi Tofu be?" The Author thought. To be fair, visually the serve of tofu given was quite pleasing. Neatly cut, oblong pieces of tofu could potentially be the stuff of a good tofu dish, as opposed to the traditional method shown in the diagram. And to be fair, the faults of the tofu rest on a minor point technique.

Maybe it was the fatigue from the weekend, maybe it was the Author's low blood-sugar levels initiating a bout of Tourette's that had to be constructively redirected, but the Author felt obliged to whisper loudly the words that could make sense to no one except the truly insane: YOU DON'T USE FIRM TOFU IN AGEDASHI!

A bit of context in order. In most good japanese restaurants, like one in a small arcade in an Asian section of the Queens Street Mall in Brisbane, Agedashi Tofu is a delicate dish that uses the crispness of deep fried tempura batter to hold the shape of a piece of soft silken tofu, sitting in a small pool of broth made from soya sauce, mirin and soup stock, creating a wonderfully light savoury cushion of bliss.

Firm tofu, unlike silken tofu, has much of the water pressed out of it, creating a much stiffer tofu that can in the event of an emergency be used as a posturpedic mattress. A mattress, even one coated in tempura batter, does not a wonderfully light savoury cushion of bliss make. The dish seemed more suited for safety gear for the Grand Prix than for high-brow consumption. And one should never forget the broth, which comprised of a type of vinegar that would strip the tarnish of Tutankamen's silverware.

But ever the good slave to the liturgies of free market economics, the Author finished the dish, wolfed down the broth (and corroded half his oesophagus in the process), paid the bill and walked off feeling cheated by life once again. The burger from Hungry Jack's that the Author consumed at the airport an hour later proved to be the only consolation to this saga.

The Free Ride to Serfdom?

The Author was having a discussion with a couple following the Eucharist about the upcoming French Presidential election. Thanks to the contribution of the female half of the couple, who was French, I got some very important insights into the condition of the French political scene. The French, it would seem, are given so many choices of candidates, each of them either not being known from a bar of soap, or so fake, or so plain offensive (one does not confine the object of this label to the Right Wing of French politics here), that they do not know who to choose.

The subject of the conversation moved onto the state of Western democracies in general. It seemed interesting that, with the exception of a coup or armed revolution, many of the dictatorships that one beheld in the twentieth century first started out as democracies. Moreover, the despots were VOTED into power. Sure, there were machinations on the part of the despot to ensure he or she remains a despot, but that normally came AFTER they were voted into positions of authority. The most graphic display of this took place in Weimar Germany, which after less than twenty years of being the most democratic state in Europe, ended up voting in one of the deadliest regimes known to man.

Is this merely an anomaly? One must remember too, that Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, the man now responsible for crushing all forms of opposition in the country (and annoyances outside the country) with all the means at his disposal (who would have thought gas could be such a powerful weapon - bean eaters take note), was voted in by the Russian public, not once but twice.

And it must be remembered too that not all dictatorships that were established via the ballot box, did not become tyrannical regimes overnight, but rather through a slow process of erosion of the checks and balances in parliamentary governance, normally following some kind of catastrophic scenario (e.g. Economic breakdown in the Weimar Republic, the Chechan Wars in Russia). While these means of defending liberty are being chipped away, assurances are given that they are necessary to protect a way of life. Sound familiar...?

On a theoretical note, it is interesting to note Peter Kreeft's How to Win the Culture War. An interesting section is dedicated to the "Interior/Exterior Police" dichotomy. He notes that in the absence of an Internal police, which comes in some kind of social discipline such as culture or religion (and one does not mean this in a nebulous sense of cultural or religious "feeling"), a liberal society underpinned by a narrative of individualistic atomisation, begins to disintegrate as each individual seeks to enforce his or her entitlements against everyone else. The solution to this disintegration, Kreeft argues, is via an increasing reliance on Exterior Police, which come in the form of actual police, tougher laws, more prisons and executive decisions, to maintain cohesion.

Indeed, increasing the efficacy of the means of maintaining the liberal way of life that allows each individual to do anything that he or she wants, paradoxically DEPENDS on building an apparatus of tyranny. In a way it would not be hypocritical, but actually quite logical for the main entrace of Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, a place where people can be legitimately detained without trial for want of proper legal jurisdiction, to bear a plaque, the bottom of which reads "Defending Freedom".

Many people living in Western democracies may think democracy to be the antithesis of totalitarianism. But in reality, the slope of liberty is very slippery indeed...

What is Radical Orthodoxy? Here is the Book...

Can a Catholic reader be a convert to the writings of a Calvinist, and come out of the process more Catholic than ever? The Author's experience suggest that this is no pipe dream...

The Author last night finished reading James K A Smith's wonderful Introduction to Radical Orthodoxy, which is self-explanatory. The term Radical Orthodoxy has been bandied around to describe a lot of things, none of them accurate. Smith's book in an excellent introduction into a burgeoning "school" of theology that is attracting growing interest among discerning Christians from all denominations, including Anglicans (John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward), Catholics (William Cavanaugh and Australia's own Tracey Rowland), Calvanists (James K. A. Smith) and Evangelicals (D. Stephen Long).

What is interesting for the Author is the impact Radical Orthodoxy potentially has on political analysis. At the heart of RO's claims lies a rejection of Modernity's claims to neutrality, exposing that under what many count as "neutral" and "universal" is an unacknowledged teleological claim. As Alasdair MacIntyre once remarked in Whose Justice, Which Rationality, thinkers in the scientific world, the paragon of post-Enlightenment Modernity, are slowly acknowledging that "scientific" claims are underpinned by some form of assumption that is essentially theological in nature. And this applies not just to science, but other forms of political thought and practice that operate from the claim to see the world "as it really is", ie Liberalism, Marxism, Feminism and the like.

From this identification of the world as theologically charged, it follows then that rather than stop at the argument that something is "just the way it is", one should actually go further and own up to his or her underlying theology. This paves the way to consider Christianity for what it is, a way of seeing the world and give meaning to it. Moreover, it finally gives room for Christianity to boldly and unapolagetically proclaim its kerygma on its own terms, because it is no longer necessary to convince the skeptic that it is objectively true (Let us for now bracket the issue of objectivity for another wonderpost, for it is important to note that the Author is not claiming here that the Gospel is not true).

From there, RO is able to give its own theologically charged ontology of participation in God and in temporality (a line of thought gleaned from a re-reading of thinkers like Plato, Augustine and Aquinas). This starting point, which sits in opposition to many of the political ideologies mentioned by virtue of their being underpinned by an ontology of univocity of being which cuts divinity out of the picture altogether, then has a massive impact in providing the resources necessary for the questioning of the ideas and practices - be they economic, political or social - that pervade our world today, which in turn threaten the existence of everyone, in particular the weak and the disenfranchised. More importantly, it provides the resources for envisaging political alternatives that do not feed back into the orbit of teleologies that many are seeking to cast aside.

More importantly for the Catholic, the value of Smith's introduction into RO is that it makes you realise the inherent social and political impact of a lot of things that Catholics take for granted, things like tradition, liturgy and authority. Rather than come up with some form of half-hearted syncretism which has become so trendy in the post-Vatican II age, this book makes one realise that the way forward for the Christian is to look backward, though not in a way that romanticises the past.

If you want a way to ease yourself into the scarily complex philosophical world of RO - and there is a fair degree of Continental philosophy in it - and if you want a book that gives a sophisticated defence not just of your Catholicism, but of the renewal of the face of the earth that should flow from that, then this book comes highly recommended.

And We're Back...

Dear Faithful Wonderblog Readers,

Apologies for the very long delay in bringing the wonderblog back to life. Life itself, as you all may know, has a very bad habit of throwing curveballs into the family jewels of one's existence, causing an almost sickening crunching sound that forces one to curl up into so tightly formed a foetal position that reaching out into other more meaningful areas of activity stand the same chances of success as an Australian lamb gaining entry into the US market.

But, a crunch and a curl later, the author has slowly crawled his way back on the keyboard and is back on the writing saddle, ready to bore his faithful public with idle chitchat about postmodern faith, the evils of the state, and myriad varieties of pasta receipes.

In fact, let us begin with a reflection about that most myterious pasta, the gnocchi. Who would have thought a combination of flour and potato, with a few carresses of the palms, could produce a pasta so versatile, so filling, and yet...so light? A TV food critic once described the perfect gnocchi as a "fart in the mouth". Must the author really engage one's imagination concerning what this critic did in order to come up with a description such as that?

The Author shall refrain from engaging your imagainations thus. Instead, I shall direct your attention on to a simple fa...that is, gnocchi dish. Stir in the boiled gnocchi with lots of chopped basil leaves (fresh), garlic, some oregano leaves and salt. For the very adventerous, add a teaspoon of wonton soup base. The thought of mixing Oriental ingredients with something so mediterranean would strike someone as culinary blasphamy. But such an indispensible and versatile ingredient is the wonton soup mix, that it adds the perfect flavour boost to any dish. Stir all that in, and it is ready.

And now, full of pasta, let us continue with this rollercoaster ride...

The Living Thing that is the Thesis

Those who have had the happy circumstance of confining their academic pursuits in coursework, the Author submits, would probably note the lack of eccentricities that are supposed to be compulsory in Academia. It is almost a prerequisite for academics to have some sort of quirk, if not the worst case scenario of having the social skills of a mousepad.

This is increasingly becoming a reality for the Author, where his circle of friends continues to shrink at an ever accelerating pace. This may have something to do with the increasing levels of obnoxity employed in discussions (could this be the Author's quirk?), but in his defence, the Author submits that the rigours of doctoral research has meant that his closest companion be his thesis.

It is interesting how something as tedious as a thesis can quickly gain a life of its own. In one's honours year, the enterprise of thesis writing is often equated with a pregnancy. For nine months, the author witnesses the growth and increasing levels of complexity, the author experiences mood swings and struggles with temptations to break what few bits of china remain in his or her household. The author experiences periodic cravings which are often as varied as they are strange. As the deadline for submission gets closer, the author is left housebound, and is only in the last week forced to spend extended periods of time in a confined room. Much yelling and screaming then follows and then...one hears the cries of the printer approaching the overheating mark as the miracle that is a stapled bundle of 100 pages is brought into the world.
You heave a sigh of relief and sit mesmerised by what you have brought forth, and swear to yourself you would never do it again.

Several years later, the infant that is your honours thesis reaches puberty and blossoms into an idea of a Doctoral thesis.

"Great", the author thinks, "just when I thought I saw the back of it, it comes back and demands attention. No! I will not give in to its pestering".

But pester it does, and before you know it, the the teenager of a thesis idea enters adolenscence in the form of a research proposal, and you then take on the role of parent once again. You then spend the next five years giving in to the whims and fancies of your ever growing child.

Sometimes, Child Services steps in in the form of your supervisor, and tells you that you are bad parent. You then make attempts to spank the adolescent (wondering why you did not spank it into oblivion years earlier) back into shape.

Unfortunately, the opportunity is lost. The thesis is now a fully grown adolescent, brimming with hormones and bursting with the spirit of rebellion. It refuses to budge in the face of your castigations and instead, like the Prodigal son, throttles you and asks you to divest your half of the estate so it can be on its way. Unlike the Prodigal Son however, there will never be the coming to the realisation of its folly. The Thesis will never say come back with its cap in hand and say "I have sinned against heaven and against you". It will say "Turn me into a journal article", and so it shall be. It will say "I like to become a conference topic", and you dutifully give in.

With the Thesis submitted and the Doctorate obtained, one heaves a sigh of relief. But then the author enters academia on a professional basis, where the terms of his contract means that the process must repeat itself again, and again, again, till the Author's retirement or mysterious death, whichever mercifully comes first.

And so here it is, if you want to know why academics bear the potential to be a little strange, it is because he or she is driven to the point of insanity by becoming a proverbial parent. So the next time you come across an academic, think of the cross he or she must bear and be gentle...

The Virtue of Gastronomics

We begin the substantive portion of our Wonderblogging journey with a reflection on food, and how seriously one should approach the subject. Surprised?

It should come as no surprise that the inhabitants of this world place a premium on speed. We, and the Author often finds himself included in this category, seem willing to pay more for faster computor processors, modems, internet services, cars, and public transport services. Much to the dismay of some, a significant proportion of this world's inhabitants even pay for services that fasttrack the introduction of potential mates. But it is on the issue of speedophilia intruding on the culinary sphere where one should rightly begin a long tract of lamentations.

The Author has for a long time been a loyal follower of the great British chef, Rick Stein. From watching an episode of his famous "Food Heroes" series, one would know that what sets this chef apart from others is his emphasis not just on top quality ingredients, but also to a large extent on his penchant for traditional European cooking.

Anyone who has tried traditional European cooking would know that it is by and large a time consuming and labour intensive process, but many who have tried the results of such cooking methods also know that the extra effort and time put in produces meals that do more than provide one's daily dietary needs.

To give one an anecdotal example, the Author was in Melbourne and the need arose to prepare a 5 course chinese/Indonesian dinner. It soon became apparent that the task required a bit more manpower than what the two scrawny tentacles of the Author could provide. The result was that the receipients of said dinner had to save the Author from making a total goose of himself (pun was indeed intentional) and helped in the washing, chopping and stirring.

The odd thing was that the collective effort in the preparation at the same time generated a great sense of camaradarie amongst all involved. Conversations on the most esoteric subjects (that is if one were to count "John Paul II's theology of the body as esoteric) were started amongst total strangers that carried onto the consumption stage of the dinner and well into dessert. It was only the clock's strike of 12am that put an end to the dialogue, by which time nearly all involved were about ready to turn in after what was an incredibly satisfying meal.

What can be gleaned from these two trains of thought is that the old fashioned home cooked meal is fast becoming an endangered species, being replaced by a variety of fast food outlets, and especially the frozen microwave dinner which can cooked and consumed in a space of 30 minutes. It is highly debatable whether such meals bring any more satisfaction than the comfort of knowing that one's stomach is not going to digest itself for the next couple of hours. On top of all this, the whole process of preparation and consumption can be undertaken, and indeed it is often undertaken, alone. No esoteric conversations, or indeed any conversation or intervention by outside parties required. Indeed fast food and microwave dinners have eliminated many inconveniences, including need to get into contact with another human being...

Good food takes time and help, but the rewards can go far beyond a superior meal. Indeed, wars are stopped and in biblical times, familial bonds are created around the communal dinner table. For the Christian, it is instructive to note that the turning point in Salvation History, Jesus Christ's Passion, death and resurrection, first became manifest in the context of a ritualised meal, the Passover.

Mother Theresa once said that if you want to change the world, one should change oneself. There is no easier way to start the whole process of conversion than changing our eating habits. Put some love into your food, get a friend or family member to help, and who know where it can lead to?

My name is...

Dale Carnegie once said that the best way to facilitate conversation is to get the person to talk about himself. The author intends to reverse that principle to kickstart the enterprise of wonderblogging.

The Author is a slight specimen bearing the haircut that either resembles a suspiciously well-orchestrated lawn mowing accident or a calcium deficient sea urchin. He resides on a little stone shack, which is situated on top of a hill, which in turn is situated in a leafy suburb of Brisbane, the capital city of a quaint little state called Queensland. The soon-to-be-Republic of Australia is the ark that houses this quaint little state, which is said to be very popular for its beaches, coral reefs, lawyers, property investment returns and a local brew bearing the label of "XXXX".

Back to the stone shack, in which you would find the Author engaging in activities which normally require the metabolism of a beetle larva. Like a beetle larva, the author is often found scurrying from room to room in the search for sustenance. Unlike most beetle larvae, however, the Author could also be found in the kitchen engaging in intricate rituals in an attempt to conjure up such sustenance from the most basic matter. The fact that 9 times out of 10, the result of this alchemy resembles some form of pasta, is another characteristic that sets the Author apart from your average invertebrate.

This almost obsessive focus on food is often believed to be the result of the Author's genetic makeup, which is said to be unique and found nowhere else on earth. That is unless you go to the tiny and remote island of Singapura, where at least 4 million individuals bear a striking resemblance to the Author, at least inasfar as his penchant for culinary delights is concerned.

But eating all day makes for a boring existence, and thus the Author every once in a while allows for a little extra burst of energy and travels Westwards, to a shining edifice whose business is to exude wisdom at all hours of the day and night (some more enlightened souls refer to the process as "publish or perish") . The average observer would describe it as a talk-shop, the Author refers to it as the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. Whether the reader would prefer to say "talk-shop" and preserve what little oxygen is left in this world is totally up to him or her.

As was mentioned in a previous wonderpost, the Author's Catholicity is often infused in his work. Given that the Author is at the beginnings of a Doctoral project on the relationship between theology and politics in 20th century Roman Catholic peacemaking, the Author finds it difficult NOT to bring his Catholicity and wear it on his sleeve.

When the sun shines and the urge to complete a Doctoral project subsides, the Author can sometimes be found interacting with normal human beings, whether in the capacity of a dispenser of perennial wisdom (the industry term is "tutor"), or in the capacity of...well... let us say that one may be hard pressed to find any other situation where normal human beings would desire to interact with the Author.

When he is not working or eating, the Author is sleeping.

When he is not doing any of the three, he is often found either in a place of worship or externalising whatever comes out of that steaming cauldron which is his imagination. The resultant topics can concern non-culinary issues, like music (in the hip-hop, opera, rock or Celtic varieties), computor games, shopping and various forms of gadgetry. Whether other people are around to be at the receiving end of the externalisation process is a highly variable element in the equation, the chances of this happening being directly proportional to the probability of the presence of food that is not pasta.

And so we have come full circle, a brief expose on the inner workings of the Author has been outlined, and the reader may be left wondering whether it is safe to continue riding the wonderblog. Believe the Author when he says it is safe, and that the pesto is ready...

In the Beginning was the Word, then it went Digital...

Very Good,

The Author would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the inauguration of the "m.j.p. tan" wonderblog. Here you would find published a wide variety of heresies, some of them true, on a wide variety of heresies, some of them worthy of publication.

The use of the word "heresies" would indicate the general flavour of things to come. Being Roman Catholic, there is a high probability thtat the author of this blog would for the wider world represent the biggest heresy of all, the infusion of unabashed Christianity into sociopolitical commentary. In the wonderblog you would often find such infusion taking place, whether in the opinions expressed on the pertinent issues of our times, or in the navel-gazing reflections on the irrelevant issues of academia.

Infused also in the wonderblog are reflections on more secular things worthy of publication. The life of the author for instance, in his humble opinion, is of a highly publishable standard, as are issues concerning the foraging for and preparation of good food and the arts in all its splendid forms.

Whether you find sympathy with any of the above, or are sitting there trying to decipher what the author is talking about, he welcomes you and promises you either way a pleasant and hopefully illuminating journey...