Identity
Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire, Part 4c
Comics / Film / Identity / TV

Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire, Part 4c

by Mockingbird on Feb 17, 2012 • No Comments

You guessed it, Bat-Fans: this time The Riddler is our subject. As always, to start with, er, year one of Jeremiah Lawson’s soon-to-be-definitive exploration of Batman mythology, go here. Or to simply catch up on the current arc, the villain-themed The Wounds of Discovery, go here.

PART FOUR: THE WOUNDS OF DISCOVERY

3. The Life and Death of the Mind

All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise” — but this was beyond me. Ecclesiastes 7:28

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Proverbs…

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Why Am I So Obsessed With That Person From Sixth Grade? Cyberstalking and the Permanent Reunion
Identity / Law / Social Science / Technology

Why Am I So Obsessed With That Person From Sixth Grade? Cyberstalking and the Permanent Reunion

by David Zahl on Feb 15, 2012 • 3 Comments

The rejection we feel when we find out that someone has de-friended us on Facebook or stopped following us on Twitter must be the definition of a ‘modern problem.’ We usually discover these things by accident, which probably accounts for why they sneak through our defenses so easily. Just the other day, for example, I noticed that someone had un-followed me on Twitter, and almost immediately, I found myself drawn into a web of self-recrimination. It was particularly silly since I was about to stop following them. And I knew my reasons had very little to do with my esteem…

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Hope for Perfectionist Workaholic Control Freaks: Vulnerability and the Birthplace of Love
Addiction / Identity / Law / Psychology / Social Science

Hope for Perfectionist Workaholic Control Freaks: Vulnerability and the Birthplace of Love

by David Zahl on Feb 14, 2012 • No Comments

We’ve made no secret of our love for author/researcher/social worker Brene Brown. The Washington Post published a wonderful Valentine’s Day piece of hers, “A Love Note to a Workaholic,” which represents a fresh take on her familiar theme of vulnerability and its counter-intuitive power. Although she may make a distinction between vulnerability and weakness, I’m not so sure she isn’t describing the horizontal (and universal!) meat on the vertical bones of 2 Cor 12:9 (“strength made perfect in weakness”). When she speaks of perfectionism or workaholism, for example, she is talking about two of the more insidious modern iterations of…

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Adam Phillips on Why You Are a Fundamentalist
Books / Identity / Psychology

Adam Phillips on Why You Are a Fundamentalist

by Ethan on Feb 13, 2012 • 1 Comment

From the psychoanalyst’s essay, “On What Is Fundamental” from his book On Balance:

And yet, of course–and this is the kind of move that psychoanalysis has made all too available to us–we are all fundamentalists about something. There must be, psychoanalysis might tell us, to put it in as silly a way as possible, a fundamentalist in all of us; we may think of ourselves consciously so to speak as liberals and modernists, but what these relatively new forms of self-description are up against is a more old-fashioned, even archaic inner fundamentalist.

…We are free to speak (as the democrat defends) so…

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“Weeping and Lifting Weights”: Getting Real with The Bachelor
America / Books / Celebrity / Everyday / Identity / Relationships / TV

“Weeping and Lifting Weights”: Getting Real with The Bachelor

by Ethan on Feb 10, 2012 • No Comments

Did you see this Monday’s Bachelor? When Casey S. got called to come outside and talk to Chris about something important, you knew, you knew it was something important. You just knew her bags were packed, she was leaving her chance at, her life with Ben. Casey S. had that look, like “I know I’m about to be found out, but I’m going to hold these cards up until the very last minute. I can’t give in. Well, I want to, but I don’t want to, you know?” You know? The scene was so perfect. Out the heavily windowed courtyard,…

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Walker Percy, Staying a Step Ahead, and Island News “So 42 Seconds Ago”
America / Books / Identity / Technology / TV

Walker Percy, Staying a Step Ahead, and Island News “So 42 Seconds Ago”

by Ethan on Feb 9, 2012 • 2 Comments

AT&T’s most recent ad campaign is all about getting there first, “staying a step ahead,” being the closest possible to the newest source of the newest News–and chiding the stragglers, those who got there too late, those for whom the News is Old News. Shame! They miss the “flash” mob, they miss the party, they miss the boat, they miss their future spouse, they miss the free office masseuse–because they were not a step ahead, like everyone else, they were a step back, and they miss The Next Thing. Their technology restrained them. Because they did not have the Samsung…

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From the Mockingbird Automotive Desk: Love the Beast
Bible / Celebrity / Children / Film / Forgiveness / Identity / Law / Relationships / Reviews / Social Science / Theology/Religion

From the Mockingbird Automotive Desk: Love the Beast

by R-J Heijmen on Feb 3, 2012 • No Comments

Being a car fanatic, I recently watched Eric Bana’s documentary “Love the Beast.” The movie chronicles Bana’s love affair with his 1974 Ford XB Falcon Hardtop (the same car Mad Max drove!), which he bought when he was 15 years old and restored with his four life-long “mates” (Bana is Australian).

While the title captures Bana’s devotion to his car, it begins to take on a whole new meaning when he wrecks it in the Targa Tasmania, an amateur rally race. After the crash, the beast that Bana struggles to love is not so much his Falcon…

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Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire, Pt 4b
Comics / Death / Identity / Suffering / TV

Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire, Pt 4b

by Mockingbird on Feb 3, 2012 • 1 Comment

Hey there, Bat-Fans! We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you the next installment of Jeremiah Lawson’s expert look at Batman mythology. As the last entry indicated, these next few posts will look at the (utterly fascinating) psycho-spiritual motivations of the Dark Knight’s various villains.

PART FOUR: THE WOUNDS OF DISCOVERY

2. Idols of the Heart

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

It’s not uncommon for a person to start down the path of wrong-doing through an obsession with a certain kind of relationship. We all know why restraining orders exist and we…

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All The Young Dudes Carry The News: The Confessions of Mott the Hoople
Celebrity / Death / Identity / Music / Religion

All The Young Dudes Carry The News: The Confessions of Mott the Hoople

by David Zahl on Jan 26, 2012 • 4 Comments

“All The Young Dudes” is both much more and much less than the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the beautiful rock monster known as Mott the Hoople. More than the tip because their career hinged on it. The single not only revived their sagging spirits (and commercial prospects) at a crucial juncture, but set them on a new course. Pre-Dudes Mott and post-Dudes Mott are not the same beast. And the song has stuck around. They had a number of other considerable hits, but “Dudes” is the only Mott recording that’s remained in the popular consciousness, rarely…

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Demi Moore’s Deepest Fear
Celebrity / Gender / Identity / Interviews

Demi Moore’s Deepest Fear

by Aaron M. G. Zimmerman on Jan 26, 2012 • 2 Comments

Are you insecure? Hate your body? Fear the sheer unknown-ness of your future? Lay awake wondering if you’ll end up alone?

Would it help if your father was a famous race-car driver? And if you’d been married to the bassist for one of the biggest bands of the 1980s and were now married to the guitarist for a big indie rock band? What if you turned a career as an actor into a career as a sought-after photographer? And you had three attractive kids. And you were rich and beautiful?

Not enough? Let’s try another route. What if you were not only…

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Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire, Pt 4a
Comics / Film / Identity / Psychology / TV

Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire, Pt 4a

by Mockingbird on Jan 25, 2012 • 1 Comment

We’re baaaack! The fourth installment of Jeremiah Lawson’s brilliant exploration of the philosophical and theological underpinnings of Batman mythology has finally arrived, and I think you’ll agree that it was worth the wait. This post works as a perfect jumping-on point, the beginning of a significant new “chapter.” Of course, if you’d prefer to bat-a-rang back to the beginning, go here.

PART FOUR: THE WOUNDS OF DISCOVERY

1. The Strength of Knowing Weakness

What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.
Ecclesiastes 1:15

If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can…

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Romancing Depression (Or Not)
Identity / Psychology / Science / Social Science

Romancing Depression (Or Not)

by David Zahl on Jan 24, 2012 • No Comments

The past few years have brought us a rash of popular studies in evolutionary biology and psychology that seek to assign redemptive purposes to negative emotions such as anxiety, anger and depression. An upside, if you will, such as increased problem-solving skills. Clinicians have, by and large, expressed considerable skepticism about these findings, decrying the “pastoral” naivete of such claims. Dr. Richard Friedman is one such voice, and he offered up a refreshing perspective in The NY Times last week, “Depression Defies the Rush to Find an Evolutionary Upside.”

Dr. Friedman raises a couple of objections that we might share. Above…

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