Plodding Insight

My defense* of West’s alleged vulgarity

Christopher West is a Catholic speaker on human sexuality.  Specifically, he has been very successful popularizing John Paul II’s arresting writings on human sexuality, which are called the Theology of the Body.  The mainstream press has begun to take note of him:  ABC recently interviewed him, and did a typical bang-up job, erroneously claiming that he was making a hero out of pornographer Hugh Hefner.  Of course nothing could be further from the truth, and we are not surprised at journalists once again demonstrating their ability to engage in misinterpretations of conservative Christians that very nearly but not quite justify reasonable accusations of deliberate malice.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

The Catholic News Agency reported on this, printing some of West’s corrections to ABC’s foolishness, and they also printed some comments by Dr. Alice von Hildebrand.  Dr. von Hildebrand is a very old and very well-venerated figure in more traditional and intellectual circles of Catholicism, and she had her own criticisms … of Chris West.

Link to the CNA Article  The boldface in what follows is added by me.

“My feeling is that his vocabulary and his way of approaching it totally lacks reverence.”

“Reverence is the key to purity,” she told CNA.”  The intimate sphere “is not a topic of public discussion” but is “extremely serious.”

“It seems to me that his presentation, his vocabulary, the vulgarity of things that he uses are things that simply indicate that even though he might have good intentions he has derailed and is doing a lot of harm.”

…

Additionally, she charged that West does not mention the Old Testament figures who fell to sexual sin: David, King of Israel, who was blessed in “an extraordinary way” but ordered the murder of the husband of a woman with whom David committed adultery.

 “Adulteries lead to murder. It is one of the most abominable stories you can imagine,” she said, explaining the Prophet Nathan’s rebuke of David led to the composition of Psalm 50.

She said it was upsetting to her as a youth to learn that a young man who prayed for “the straight and honest heart so that I may serve my people” went on to have 750 concubines.

“How can you be so good when you’re twenty, and lead such an abominable life when you’re seventy?” she asked. “As far as I can tell, this is something that Christopher West forgets, in this sphere which is extremely dangerous.”

She reported that a priest friend of hers had told her 90 percent of the sins that men accuse themselves of involve the Sixth Commandment against adultery.

Christopher West’s approach makes him forget that sex is “an extreme danger.” Though sex can be sanctified, that sanctification implies “a humility, a spirit of reverence, and totally avoiding the vulgarity that he uses in his language.”

“I’m shocked and horrified by the words that he uses. His mere mention of Hugh Hefner is to my mind an abomination.”

One of the better Catholic blogs on the internet did a little piece on Dr. von Hildebrand’s criticisms, and I got involved in a lively debate in the comments there with one of her fans. We had some interesting exchanges about reverence, vulgarity, and language.

One of the distinctions that were made is that, at least according to von Hildebrand’s fans, she is not accusing West of obscenity.  The complaint is that he is using the ordinary, everyday words from the dictionary when he talks about sexuality.  One of the examples given is that a better way to address sexual intercourse would be to call it “the marital embrace”.  This, it is advocated, is a way of expressing the mystery and dignity of sex, something that is left out by the crassness of ordinary language.

Now to be fair, I agree that using that euphemism is a positive thing.  But the question is whether it is required.  Does failing to speak in such terms mean that you are being vulgar?  I recognize that as a possibility, but in the case of Christopher West, I argue a qualified “No.”  The rest of this post is what I wrote, addressed to a von Hildebrand supporter:

I think I know what our root disagreement is. 

You have pointed out the possibility that using the dictionary terms for human sexuality can imply the absence of any spiritual dimension — that these terms can demoralize and desacrelize the discussion.  I agree that this is a possibility.

But where I see a possibility, you believe these words are inescapably vulgarized by our culture.  For instance, when I point out that Chris West’s presentations do emphasize the reverence due to human sexuality, you respond by saying,

“[Ordinary words] can tend in that [desacrelizing] direction without completely canceling out his good efforts in the other direction.  In other words, I think that CW’s crassness tends to undermine his own work, and that if he could find a less crass way of conveying his ideas, he would strengthen it.”

You are setting up two opposing forces:  Chris West’s acknowledgement and promotion of the dignity of human sexuality on the one side, and his use of “vulgar” words on the other side.  It’s as if his ideas and enthusiasm count for +5 and his choice of words counts for -2, and he ends up with a remaining +3 for his presentation.  But this kind of understanding of words is deeply problematic, in my opinion.

Where does the negative connotation of these words come from?  From the context!  We live in a society that has lots of wrong-headed ideas and impressions about sexuality, and that context attaches those wrong-headed ideas to the ordinary words that name human sexuality, in the form of a connotation.

But if we allow that connotation to stand, and avoid using those words when we address human sexuality, what we are doing is recognizing and affirming the connotation, and since the connotation is attached to a word that is at root the simplest and basic name for what we are talking about, we are in fact affirming the connotation of a desacrelized understanding not only with the words for sex but also with sex itself!  We have surrendered the field and said, yes, these ordinary words ARE vulgar.  But what possible way can that be understood if the words are the most basic and straightforward labels for what we are talking about?  We end up implying that we are avoiding saying these words because the thing they define is itself vulgar and should not be named directly.

What Chris West is doing when he incorporates these words into his presentation is saying, “No, I do not concede that sexuality is obscene, and I will not shrink from speaking about it from a position of confidence.  I will speak these words in a context that gives them new meaning.  I will affirm the goodness of human sexuality by wrestling back the language of sexuality from those philosophies and cultural attitudes that have maligned it.”

I assert that the context that he wraps around the words is not at odds with his use of the words.  The context that he surrounds them with actually CHANGES their meaning.  And furthermore if that changed meaning is different from the meaning that we normally associate with the words, then that contrast is instructive.  In fact it is not only instructive, it is a corrective!  Because like it or not, the way we use language to understand the world has the effect that the connotations we attach to ordinary words also get attached to the things in the real world that they represent.

We can understand that a word like the “f-word” both represents sexual intercourse and at the same time tears it down by making its name an obscenity.  But we cannot understand a simple phrase like “sexual intercourse” to be obscene unless at some level with think that sexual intercourse is itself obscene.  That is the line that must be drawn in the sand.  We have a duty to fight for these words and win them back from the enemy that claims ownership of them.

*Special thanks is due to Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom, who although he probably couldn’t care less about this conversation, has done a lot to shape my understanding of the important role the philosophy of language has in any debate.

UPDATE:  Dr. Janet Smith also defends West.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Catholicism, Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.