We here at KtB had an interesting weekend, quite by accident spending some time with a couple of unexpectedly complementary classics: After Virtue and Love and Death. The former, Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of contemporary ethical theory, we had not read before and even now would have preferred to avoid. The latter, Woody Allen’s great take-off on Dostoyevsky and other glum Russians, we had seen many times, but not in ten years or more.
Yet it turns out they make great companions. The primary concern of After Virtue is the history of Western philosophy’s attempt to justify morality in a post-theological world — i.e. how do we all agree on what is good or right when we don’t agree on the source for what is good or right? The primary concern of Love and Death is making jokes about borscht and village idiots while wearing religious obsession as lightly as Woody wears his flouncy peasant blouse.
Boris: Oh, if only God would give me some sign. If He would just speak to me once. Anything. One sentence. Two words. If He would just cough.
Sonja: Of course there’s a God! We’re made in His image!
Boris: You think I was made in God’s image? Take a look at me. You think He wears glasses?
Sonja: Not with those frames.
Woody Allen movies of course are frequently concerned with God, morality, mortality, etc., but as often as not, his nasal existentialism seems like so much shtick — much of Love and Death included. So it was a nice surprise, when searching for a clip of the film, to find this gem instead: Woody Allen interviewing Billy Graham, 28 years ago this month, September 1969:
The clip has two parts, both worth a look. What’s striking about the interview is how warm and mutually respectfully both men manage to be, even while disagreeing about matters of ultimate concern, even as each manages to get off some good lines at the other’s expense.
Woody: If you promise me some wonderful afterlife with a white robe and wings, I might go for it.
Billy: I can’t promise you a white robe and wings, but I can promise you a very interesting, thrilling life.
Woody: One wing maybe?
For Woody Allen fans, it’s fun to see this kind of exchange happen six years before Love and Death (and twenty years before his most morally concerned film, Crimes and Misdemeanors). For everyone else, it’s neat just to see two iconic figures of American culture sitting side by side, seeming as natural a pair as they are unlikely.
Sad thing is, it’s impossible to imagine this sort of conversation happening today. If it did, chances are it would be much louder and totally humorless. (There might be some humor in seeing an abrasive blowhard like Christopher Hitchens fillet an abrasive blowhard like Bill Donohue, but that would be humor of a very different sort.)
One of the themes of After Virtue is that the breakdown of shared ethical systems, for better or worse, is the primary cause of the shrill, combative nature of most public debate. So maybe the ability of Woody and Billy to sit down honestly, genuinely, yet with no shortage of wit, can be seen as instructive. Maybe a step toward more civil disagreement, in the religious and ethical realms and everywhere else, can be found in Homer Simpson’s immortal words to his television: Be more funny!
8 Comments
September 14, 2007 at 2:05 pm
This exchange puts me in mind of a private, off-the-record conversation between Nixon and Billy Graham that made the scandal sheets some years ago.
In it, Nixon begins complaining about “the Jews” and Graham replies by saying something like, “Yes. I agree. For some reason they think I like them, but really I don’t.”
I wonder if that was on Billy’s mind while he was chatting so amiably with the archetypal Jew, Woody Allen, those many years ago.
Yalhak
P.S. Sorry, don’t ask me for my source. I don’t remember. Just trust me, it’s like I said.
September 17, 2007 at 9:49 am
From an interview with Larry King on December 25, 2005:
KING: …do you regret that moment with Richard Nixon when apparently an anti-Jewish statement was made by him?
GRAHAM: Absolutely. I told the Jewish leaders in Cincinnati that I had crawled (ph) — I’d crawl to them and ask for forgiveness. And I would have. Because I just can’t imagine — I never held those views. I don’t know what got into me. I guess it was just during the conversation as a young man I just said something I shouldn’t have said, that I didn’t believe.
Who knows how sincere Graham is? On the one hand, he seems to befriend a whole lot of Jews (Woody Allen, Larry King “his favorite host” and even the Cincinati Jewish community). On the other hand, Woody Allen and Larry King are totally assimilated Jews.
Allen Stewart Königsberg, who married Mia Farrow the archetypal wasp and her daughter Soon Yi & Lawrence Harvey Zeiger ne Larry King who has been married 7 times, the last in a Jewish-Mormon interfaith marriage to Shawn Southwick) In some strange way I think that Graham’s choice to sit down with both Allen and King, respectively, to embrace the two of them with charity, may be only a pretense. It is hard to believe that the consummate bible thumper could ever truly respect the self-deprecating Allen or the Hollywood machine that is King. Even if I do.
Wouldn’t it be nice then if Nixon had never had his little off the record chit chat with “a young” Graham? Or rather, Graham never dismiss the fact that Jews are destined for hell in his exclusive Larry King Live interview. So we might then ask as a follow up: is Christian charity really worth much these days?
September 17, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Jason,
Yasher koach! It’s reassuring to see that the incident wasn’t just the imagining of a senile old fart, but one that actually took place.
I also like your take on it. I think Nixon and Graham are both consumate liars. Why shouldn’t they be? Their model — especially, I should think, for Graham — was St. Paul who set the tone by declaring, “To to Gentile, I am a Gentile; to the Jew, I am a Jew. I am all things to all people for the sake of the Gospels.”
So in answer to your answer about “Christian charity” — if Nixon and Graham are any examples, it’s not worth much either “these days” or those.
Yalhak
September 17, 2007 at 11:57 pm
P.S. And another model of “Christian charity” for Evangelicals like Billy Graham was, of course, Martin Luther who wrote of the Jews:
“CONCERNING THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES” (1543)
By Martin Luther
What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. In this way we cannot quench the inextinguishable fire of divine rage (as the prophets say) nor convert the Jews. We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity. Perhaps we may save a few from the fire and the flames. We must not seek vengeance. They are surely being punished a thousand times more than we might wish them. Let me give you my honest advice.
First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians.*
Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetrate the same things there that they do in their synagogues. For this reason they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies, in order that they may realize that they are not masters in our land, as they boast, but miserable captives, as they complain of us incessantly before God with bitter wailing.
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught.
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more.
Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews. For they have no business in the rural districts, since they are not nobles, nor officials, nor merchants, nor the like. Let them stay at home. I have heard that there is a rich Jew riding around the country with a team of twelve horses, he wants to be a Messiah, and he is exploiting princes, nobles, land, and people to such an extent that important people look askance at this.** If you princes and nobles do not close the road legally to such exploiters, then some troop ought to ride against them, for they will learn from this pamphlet what the Jews are and how to handle them and that they ought not to be protected. You ought not, you cannot protect them, unless in the eyes of God you want to share all their abomination.***
Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury. All their cash and valuables of silver and gold ought to be taken from them and put aside for safe keeping. For this reason, as said before, everything that they possess they stole and robbed from us through their usury, for they have no other means of support. This money should be used in the case (and in no other) where a Jew has honestly become a Christian, so that he may get for the time being one or two or three hundred florins, as the person may require. This, in order that he may start a business to support his poor wife and children and the old and feeble. Such evilly acquired money is cursed, unless, with God’s blessing, it is put to some good and necessary use….
Seventhly, let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the ax, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle, and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses as is enjoined upon Adam’s children. For it is not proper that they should want us cursed Goyyim to work in the sweat of our brow and that they, pious crew, idle away their days at the fireside in laziness, feasting, and display. And in addition to this, they boast impiously that they have become masters of the Christians at our expense. We ought to drive the rascally lazy bones out of our system.
If, however, we are afraid that they might harm us personally, or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc. when they serve us or work for us. since it is surely to be presumed that such noble lords of the world and poisonous bitter worms are not accustomed to any work and would very unwillingly humble themselves to such a degree among the cursed Goyyim, then let us apply the same cleverness as the otller nations, such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., and settle with them for that which they have extorted usuriously from us, and after having divided it up fairly let us drive them out of the country for all time. For, as has been said, God’s rage is so great against them that they only become worse and worse through mild mercy, and not much better through severe mercy.
Therefore away with them….
To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden – the Jews.
* Luther and others believed that the Jews cursed the Christians in their daily prayers.
** This was “the wealthy Michael,” court-Jew of Joachim II of Brandenburg, a famous commercial magnate of the time.
*** Luther seems to be inciting the robber barons to attack the Jews on the roads. Michael, the wealthy Jew, was actually seized in 1549 by highwaymen acting as agents for some of the most prominent citizens of Magdeburg.
From Marcus, J. (1973). The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book: 315 – 1791. Athenaeum, N.Y.
September 27, 2007 at 8:05 pm
[...] Be sure to watch the second part of the interview as well. Killing the Buddha has some good commentary on the exchange. [...]
November 20, 2007 at 4:23 am
[...] Memo to Imperial Advisers Re: Incident of The “New Clothes” Just What I Needed, from Isaiah Knows Nothing Woody Allen Interviewing Billy Graham [...]
November 30, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Why did the original poster wish s/he had avoided MacIntyre’s book?
It’s dense, for sure, but it seems the consensus is that it’s one of the most serious attempts at understanding morality.
December 26, 2007 at 12:50 am
[...] dialogue of the day Posted on September 16, 2007 by genelewis Via Killing the Buddha, a wonderful video of the Woody Allen interviewing Billy Graham: Part I and Part [...]