Recently, I read an essay that I’ve been ruminating on ever since. Rumination is, of course, one of the primary side effects that can occur when one chooses to read an essay, which, therefore, exposes such a choice as a rather risky one. The essay, entitled “Why You Should Read the Bible,” finds journalist and Twitter provocateur River Page proselytizing for contemporary readers to familiarize themselves with the so-called greatest story ever told. As I have established here before, I, in a disappointingly unoriginal way, have a complicated relationship with religion. Even when I was a practicing Catholic, I was never too well-versed in Bible verses. No self-respecting Catholic is! After all, it was my sophomore year Religion teacher who taught me that “Catholics don’t read the Bible!”
Despite my dormant dalliances with the divine, Page’s argument does not make a religious appeal. Page, himself, makes that much quite clear from the beginning, sharing how an older version of himself would not make this same recommendation. Elaborating on why exactly that was the case, Page writes that he was, at one time, “transfixed by the New Atheism of Dawkins, Harris, and Hirsi Ali,”1 and, being such, thought that, “religion was a scourge, making the world worse in every conceivable way.”2 However, as he grew older, he started to appreciate how acquainted he had become, through his Baptist upbringing, with scripture, remembering, “from early childhood, I was exposed to epic poetry, metaphor, frenzied apocalyptic visions, philosophical dialectics, and ancient Near East history.”3 Therefore, while the article gives readers the impression that Page no longer identifies as Christian, he still finds utility in having read the Bible, especially considering his status as someone who makes their living off of the written word. Regardless of whether one is a writer, Page also argues that, since Biblical canon is so often referenced in literature, art, and especially our politics, it behooves any individual to be conversant in the Good Book. Elaborating on this idea, Page concludes his article challenging readers to, “turn off the news, put down your book, and exit the museum. Then read the King James Version and then come back to it, squinting no more.”4
I find Page’s sentiment within this article to cooperate with something I had recently read about Robert F. Kennedy. On the night of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, RFK found himself on the campaign trail in Indianapolis. With it being 1968, news took a much longer time to travel. Therefore, in his speech, Kennedy realized he would be breaking the news of King’s death to much of the predominantly Black audience. The story goes that Kennedy threw out what was a pretty standard stump speech and, instead, wrote what would become famous remarks.5 In one of the most notable sections of the speech, Kennedy, after making a rare public reference to the prior assassination of his brother, says, “my favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ‘In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.’”6 In a moment of immeasurable national tragedy, something that Kennedy, himself, was no stranger to, he went to an Ancient Greek playwright to contextualize that pain. Legend has it that, while other cities, like my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, erupted into riots that night, Indianapolis remained quiet, calmed by Kennedy’s words.
Kennedy quoting Aeschylus off the dome is a far cry from contemporary U.S. politics. However, myself and many of my fellow US citizens remember a time in our politics, not too long ago by the way, wherein it would certainly be conceivable for presidential candidates to reference something akin to the work of Aeschylus. Nowadays, the public has been conditioned to breathe a collective sigh of relief when our president so much as makes it through a coherent sentence without stammering or stuttering. The sentiment is encapsulated quite well in this tweet I found:
Page even makes his own comment on this line of thought within his article, specifically citing James Baldwin’s reference to himself as a “kind of Jeremiah” in a 1965 debate as evidence that, “this category of person I’ve delineated, someone who has read the Bible, included virtually all highly educated people in the West–even vast swaths of the literate working class–until at least the latter half of the last century.”7 Similarly to that Twitter user, Page also laments this seemingly bygone era, remarking, “it’s a great shame, not merely for the sake of art and literature either,”8 before exploring a recent Biblical reference made by Benjamin Netanyahu as he discussed Israel’s War on Gaza.
While I do share the aforementioned point of view to some degree, I do not, by any means, rank “ability to reference the western canon” as my number one political issue (nor do I necessarily think Page or that Twitter user would, by the way). In fact, I believe over-romanticizing that kind of intellect, for instance, leads to earnestly fawning profiles claiming a certain Secretary of Transportation has a “cathedral mind” despite his overseeing one of the worst commercial airline quagmires in recent memory. Put another way, I care much more about which actions people take than the affect that they project.
However, that is not to say that I completely misunderstand people who think that leaders should have that kind of affect that Kennedy definitely had and Buttigieg does his, in my opinion, sorry best to emulate. I acknowledge that, when a politician, or a member of the clergy, or even a stranger references some part of any given canon, they are alluding to a body of culture. That allusion, in the best case scenario, gives the audience something to cling onto; it shows that they stand on some kind of common ground with the speaker. The second example that came to my mind, in fact, was Dr. King’s own “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech, which, of course, makes reference to Moses climbing Mount Nebo and being shown the Promised Land that his vengeful God will never allow him to reach.
In my view, the speech, which King gave only a few days before he died, reassured his audience that, even if he were to die, someone else would pick up the mantle and lead them to the Promised Land. However, unlike that crowd listening to King’s final speech in Memphis, I have the ability to find the exact reference on the Internet (but, hey, at least I remembered it was a reference to the Bible, right?).
Now, discerning readers will notice, when it comes to someone referencing a canon and establishing a common connection with their audience, that I wrote Dr. King’s speech was the second example that came to mind. The first example was Ryan O’Connell’s multiple references to The Real Housewives of New York City in his novel, Just By Looking At Him, including Ramona Singer saying, “wow, Bethenny, wow.”
A smile broke across my face every time I read one of those references because they allowed me to connect with O’Connell in a deeper way than simply reading his words. They showed that we shared a common interest, or, perhaps more fairly, a similar brain rot that makes our queer minds think in utterances of angry white women. This is, of course, not my way of putting the Real Housewives canon on par with Biblical canon, or O’Connell on par with Dr. King; rather, it is another way to demonstrate the power of appealing to a shared canon.
Therefore, beyond being a salient argument for familiarizing oneself with the Bible, I also read Page’s essay as a sort of lamentation at the loss of that shared canon. Page is correct in his assertion that there used to be more “someone[s] who ha[ve] read the Bible.” Furthermore, in having read the same text, people not only used to have a more harmonious view of literature, art, and politics; they also, and perhaps most importantly, had a more harmonious understanding of each other. However, as all forms of media became more and more democratized, people had a lot of other stuff to read, to watch, and, more broadly, to consume. As our communal and individual canons began to diverge, so too did we. Additionally, there is also the consideration that, especially in a contemporary context, a lot of that media is produced with the express purpose to divide us from one another, thus continuing to chip away at an already frayed cultural canon until we’ve all been fooled into thinking that we did not even share all that much in the first place.
Now, it is not my intention to appropriate Page’s argument and use it to suggest that we could all come together if we just read the Bible. Quite the contrary, actually. In many ways, I believe that it is okay for our cultural canon, and, thus, our individual canons, to expand. There has to be some acknowledgment, though, that these expansions have played some role in driving us all apart; in making us misunderstand each other. It would follow that we may never understand each other in the same way again. Considering this reality alongside the fact that pieces of media will only continue to multiply, it is about time to move toward a new model wherein, once again, we can try to figure each other out.
Of course, I have my own ideas as to what this new model can look like. My first idea starts with us, as individuals, sharing what we believe to be canon; those cultural touchstones that, at one time or another, we found significant in the formation of ourselves. Here are some of mine:
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
“Baby Girl” by Sugarland
Pokémon Diamond Version
Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” Music Video
The Fame Monster (2009)
Bridesmaids (2011)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
John Cameron Mitchell’s performance in the 2014 Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Melodrama (2017)
If one is familiar with any of my touchstones, then that familiarity gives them a way, small though it may be, to understand me. If they are unsure about a particular item, it gives them a place to start; whether that means consuming that touchstone or simply asking me about them. Therefore, instead of lamenting the fact that we no longer relate in a singular cultural canon, we can begin to embrace our divergences and even share in them. Put another way, while it may be useful, as Page suggests, to go back to something like the Bible to better comprehend the world around us and those who inhabit it, it may be just as beneficial to start with something more accessible, like a song or a movie, to help us put our reality in context.
So, dear reader, what makes up your canon? Is it the Bible? It’s okay if it is. As I have established, the only anti-Bible thing about me is my Catholicism. Are there albums in yours like there are in mine? Does your canon contain visual art? Mine probably does if I give it a bit more thought. It would be cool if yours had something I’d never heard of but I would never require from you something as complex as originality. Let me know in the comments if you would like! See you soon!
This week’s recommendations:
The Fran Lewbowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz
Mary & George on STARZ
This write up on RFK’s speech in Indianapolis
Challengers (2024), dir. Luca Guadagnino
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Boomhower, Ray E. “The Speech—Robert F. Kennedy, Indianapolis, and the Death of Martin Luther King Jr.” Indianapolis Historical Society, Link.
“Statement on Assassination of Martin Luther King, JR.” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, 4 April 1968, Link.
Page, River. “Why You Should…
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He wrote that speech in 5 minutes in the back of his campaign car with John Lewis - brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it, first and only time he spoke publicly about his brother’s death 🙏