Nine years ago today I was driving over Commonwealth Bridge in Canberra. It was a few seconds before 11 and I was listening to Triple J (Austalia's Radio One). The DJ said something almost exactly like...
It's coming up to 11 o'clock on the 11th of the 11th and traditionally people like to pause for a minute's silence to remember those who sacrificed themselves to defend life and liberty. So, if that's something you'd like to do, turn off your radio because here's the latest track from Garbage... [music starts to blare]
What just happened? The DJ was acknowledging the fact of remembrance but wasn't himself observing it. And he was acknowledging our right to remember but it wasn't going to affect him or his public broadcast. He sold it as a very inclusive stance - "You do what you want to do, I'll do what I want to do. Everyone's happy right?"
Well, no. Not everyone was happy. Now I'm not saying that every radio station must go quiet at 11am. But we should acknowledge that the "Switch off the radio if it's important to you" option is not a win-win compromise. There are significant losers in that approach.
Because there are some things that can't be privatised. There are beliefs that are good and right and proper but, by their nature, they impinge on other people. They affect other people's personal choice and, unapologetically, take up public space. Remembrance is a great example of this.
And maybe we'll come to a place where our culture is unwilling to pay the price of infringements to our liberties and Remembrance will be entirely privatised. But of course, that would be the death of Remembrance.
In which case what we're saying is that all beliefs (Remembrance included) must bow the knee to our real object of faith: "Personal Choice". But let's just be aware that that's the powerplay that has just occured. And all in the name of inclusivity and tolerance of course.
All of which shows that privatising faith is not the way to an inclusive, tolerant society. Because there are good beliefs that cannot be privatised. To insist on their privatisation proves the most exclusive and intollerant path.
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amen
I just wonder if the DJ back then wasn't actually justifying his nonconformity in the observance and practice of remembrance, and so, in an iconoclastic sense, still honoring the remembrance. If "Personal Choice" was his supreme good, why should he not just exercise it without excuse? (But of course he would thereby have unwittingly deprived you of this anecdote!)
I think that "the death of Remembrance" would be the end of our culture. Every community, to be a community, needs shared sacred remembrances, and shared expectations about the future, that together mold, inform and govern its life in the present, both corporately and as individuals.
The culture exercises its political will to establish the body of accepted sacred remembrance. It then must decide how it will treat those in its midst who worship foreign gods. Some degree of privatization is seen as a benevolent and enlightened approach, which conforms well with the prevailing evolutionary view of anthropology.
No community (or culture) can claim moral authority apart from sacred remembrance. But, in light of the philosophy of evolution, it seems like our sacred remembrance now looks back only to last year! (Well, at least only to the last century.)
I made a post which didn't appear I guess they think I am a spammer!
anyway just wanted to say thanks for the thoughts and I totally agree!
True faith in a knowable God cannot be but privatised at least according to the terms and seal of the "new covenant" (Jer. 31: 31-34; John 1: 50-51; 4: 21-26; 19: 30-37; Matt. 26: 26-29; 27: 50-56) which we have completely overlooked today. The cost of disobedience to God is immeasurable.