James Joyce and the 2004 Election Race

I decided to reward myself with an English class this semester for the first time since freshman year. It's called Portraits of the Artist, and deals with the role of art, artists, and autobiography in mostly modernist literature. Today we began Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, one of my favorite novels. At a predominantly Jewish university (40% or so), it's interesting to be studying a work that depends so much on Irish and Catholic culture. As a practicing Catholic and having my first read of this masterpiece of modern literature in a Catholic prep school, I feel as though I've got a bit of a leg up on most of the class in understanding where Joyce is going (even if he accomplishes his objectives largely through a REJECTION of these identities). I'm actually suprised at how many of my fellow students are tackling Joyce for the first time in this class. I'd have thought that Portrait or Dubliners would have come up for them at least once by now in their educations.

Anyway, reading through the first chapter, I reread the famed Christmas dinner scene. And immediately I knew I'd lived through the a very similar situation mere months before, in a marginally different role than Stephen Dedalus. Joyce was tackling the question of faith's role in politics--something of monumental importance as we face an election between a man who inextricably ties together his identities as fundamentalist conservative Christian and public servant and a man who sees his role as public servant of the people and private servant of God as independent. In Joyce, Bush has no coutnerpart, but Kerry--the practicing Catholic who has garnered the enmity of the American Catholic establishment--finds a reflection in Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891), the early Irish patriot.

I personally take the side of Stephen's father, who argues that the Church should not meddle in politics. Meanwhile, many members of my family take the side of the character Dante, who argues that it is wrong to criticize the church, etc. The question then was divorce, the question now is both divorce and abortion. Does the Church dive in and get its hands mucky with the filth of the American political scene? I contend those American bishops who have actively denounced Kerry are biased in their choice of moral issues on which to base their support, and so have an inclination first to support Bush, then to follow the morals of the Church and the Will of God. Is capital punishment any more moral than abortion, when one approaches the table with these values? Is not the existence of only one death then still a full wrong in need of correction? And does the advocation of severe torture and the treatment of humans as lower than common livestock respect the inherent sanctity of life? So how can sanctity of life issues be an issue in this election, when both candidates are in violation on differing ends of the spectrum? When the candidates both advocate "positions of sin" and share so many similarities elsewhere in the picture, how can the Church advocate one over the other. A "lesser of two evils" scenario does not mean that the Church has a mandate to effectively pledge it's full support to one candidate by disenfranchising the other.

Back to Parnell, briefly. Parnell was the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party during the late nineteenth century, as Ireland struggled for independence from the British crown. The IPPs chief issues were the abolition of landlordism and the protection of tenants. Parnell managed to unite revolutionary, constitutional, and agrarian elements in Ireland with the help of Michael Davitt in their campaign for Home Rule. Parnell found himself in an scandalous affair with the wife of a parliamentary colleague and was cited in the divorce case. This, at a surface level, lost him the support of the English PM (leader of the Liberal Party), the Irish Catholic Church, and, as a result of these, the IPP itself. The Irish did eventually achieve independence, but it likely would have occured far more quickly under Parnell's stewardship. Instead, the Irish seemed to face a Clintonesque debate on whether personal misbehavior trickles into one's political actions. However, the reality of the situation is that Britian did not want to lose Ireland, and so this flimsy excuse was enough to prompt the metaphorical severing of the head of the independence movement. History accuses the Church of regular, strategically enthusiastic support the British rule of Ireland. The majority of these details are exerpted from the footnotes in Penguin's edition of Joyce's novel. No expert in Irish history, I shall refrain from further judgement, but the current election seems to bear some eery similarities, most especially in the division of Catholic voters, many of whom are siding quite strongly for Bush (which would coorespond with the British). Meanwhile, those of us who focus more on the social justice aspects of the Church see more hope in Kerry.

I might build this out more later, but for now, I simply wanted to recognize the eery similarities existant in one of my favorite novels to modern life a century later. I recognize the issues of divorce and appointment of supreme court judges have not been touched. Thirteen days till the day of reckoning.