Myths and Legends: Jordan, Presidents and Arrested Development

by Ben Howard

All great things ultimately become legendary and mythical.

I started paying attention to the NBA right after Michael Jordan retired the first time in 1993. I would read all my brother's sports magazines and there was almost always a story about "The Next Jordan". I remember glowing pieces about Grant Hill and Harold Miner and Isaiah Rider, none of whom came close to the transcendent mega-star (though Hill carved out a nice career).

The same comparison has been made to even more players since Jordan's actual retirement in 2003. Even though players like Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant have had fantastic careers, they still can't be Michael Jordan. In fact, if Michael Jordan came back to the NBA today as a 20-year old and did the same things that he did in real life he still wouldn't match the legend. The myth of "Michael Jordan" transcended the reality of the man a long time ago.

There is a similar dynamic when it comes to ranking United States Presidents. No matter what list you see, or create yourself, the same names will be at the top of the list. Washington. Lincoln. Jefferson. It's no longer possible to be a better president than these men because they make up the definition of what it is to be a good president. You can't be more Washington than Washington actually was, or more like Lincoln than Lincoln himself.

Of course, the factual reality is that neither Washington or Jefferson had nearly the same power and clout as a modern president, and Lincoln, for all the esteem we give him in historical hindsight, was despised by more than half the country during his life. Reality doesn't matter when we're dealing in myth.

This idea has been on my mind this week with the premier of season four of Arrested Development. Though many, including myself, have enjoyed the new episodes, the season as a whole has been roundly viewed as a disappointment. To be fair to the writers and actors involved, I'm not ever sure that it was possible to be anything else. The prior incarnation of the show had become so revered and beloved that even perfection could not have surpassed it. No matter how good season four was, it was always going to be underwhelming. 

Myths and legends define us, or to be more specific, they serve as our definitions, our benchmarks for what it means to be truly good, truly valuable. They can be incredibly useful because they force us to strive past being merely good enough. They cause us to aspire.
 
At the same time, the legends which come before us, which serve as our templates, are often detached from reality. By existing for so long in a revered state, they no longer connect to our tangible existent.
 
For me, the Bible often falls into the tricky territory. It has been so exalted within the corners of the world where I've existed, that I have a difficult and often tenuous relationship with it's tangible reality. On one hand, I've seen it lifted and mythologized to a status as an inerrant, infallible document handed down personally from God that simply has no basis in fact. On the other, I've seen this mythological relationship deconstructed so completely that it robs the Bible of it's utility as a founding document and a well of truth for the Christian community.
 
I find myself frustrated and struggling with the legendary and mythical status of the Bible, Jesus, and the Church. At the same time, I am aware that complete and total deconstruction of this status strips them of both the legend and their value. So where is the reality in the tension between these two extremes and how do we get there?

Peace,
Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87. 

 

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Rick Warren Tips and the Darkest Timeline

Author. Tweeter. Meme Inspirer.

(Note: This post is an experiment. It's a normal post where I've included my self-critical internal monologue. My internal monologue is written in bold italics.)

by Ben Howard

A few weeks ago, mega-church pastor Rick Warren tweeted out the following rather cryptic message to his mass of followers:

“New churches: Buy land as soon as you can but delay building for as long as you can. Cant explain all the reasons here.”

Now that’s just a weird statement. It sounds like vague pronouncement of an apocalyptic future where property rights are still intact and you need a lot of land, or it’s some kind of financial advice that exploits a church’s status as a non-profit for financial gain (yay!).

This could actually be valid advice. Are you sure you aren’t just dismissing it because you don’t like Rick Warren? And if you don’t like Rick, why is that? Is it because he’s popular? Is it because people listen to him and they don’t listen to you? Are you mocking him because he said something dumb or are you doing it because it makes you feel better about yourself?

Since the internet is the internet, and Rick has a fairly well-established group of anti-fans (enemies is a bit strong), this tweet spread across the web pretty quickly. However, in this instance, the tweet is not the point of the story.

Anti-fans? Really? That’s the passive aggressive stuff you come up so you don’t have to say what you feel. That’s weak.

Late one night, a few people started sending messages using #RickWarrenTips. Essentially, they were absurd tweets full of vague and ridiculous advice, quotes from movies, TV shows, bizarre usage of clichés; normal twitter stuff.

And then it grew, and grew, and eventually by mid-morning the next day, most of the people I follow were tweeting out Rick Warren Tips non-stop.

There's always money in the
banana stand. Can't explain here.

I wonder if this doesn’t say more about you and who you follow than it does about the level of humor or virality of the hashtag. Maybe you’re just at the middle of a giant ball of groupthink that keeps perpetuating a mass feedback loop.

A few refrained, they mentioned that it was in some sense dehumanizing to mock a pastor just because he was famous. It was belittling and beneath them to join in on this simple, yet arguably mean-spirited joke.

Then something interesting happened. Rick Warren joined in.

Did he actually join in? You know you’ve wondered about whether or not he actually sent those tweets. Do you know why you’ve wondered that? Because you want him to be a villain, and this kind of thing humanizes him. You’re torn between wanting to hate him as a personification of an idea you don’t like and knowing you need to treat him as a human.

His tweets weren’t particularly funny (he joked about the dentist and diarrhea), but it was interesting to see someone take something potentially insulting and spin it into something else. It was interesting to watch Rick Warren steer into the skid, or lean into the pitch, or whatever metaphor best exemplifies making fun of yourself so you can be part of the joke and not just the punchline.

You even go out of your way to say his jokes weren’t funny. Even when you’re including him in the conversation and commending his action you still have to qualify it.

I’ve always been a fan of this kind of reaction when celebrities do something worth mocking. Why react with indignation? Why take it personally? If you just take the joke and join in, it shows that you’re self-aware and you don’t take yourself too seriously. It makes people like you.

What about the times when we should be offended? What about the jokes that we shouldn’t take part in? What are we supposed to do when our desire to do right is more important than our desire to be liked? What then?

Fun with anachronistic weapons!

Last week I wrote about the Djesus Uncrossed sketch on Saturday Night Live and I was making the same argument for institutions. It’s easy to be offended, but if you take a little time to dissect what’s being mocked, maybe you can join in on the joke because it just might be worthy of mockery. The Djesus skit made fun of the relationship between the peaceful Jesus of the Bible and the military ideology of the Religious Right. That is a thing worth mocking.

Was that the really the joke they made? Or is that the joke you wanted to see because it validates your worldview? Did they say something profound or did you interpret something from it that wasn’t there? And if it wasn’t there, what did you really see?

Sometimes we’re wrong. Sometimes we should just join in on the joke.

And sometimes we’re still wrong, and we just haven’t realized it yet.

Peace,

Ben 

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