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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." *
On Spying1/27/2006 00:27:09I was glad to see that Jeff Shartlet of The Revealer recognizes the theological implications of the surveillance conversation (The Theology of Domestic Spying, 21 Dec). I liked especially the reference to Job. A few other considerations: First, the president's assurance that the spying will only be used on "the wicked," which is of course a relief to those of us who can be sure of our salvation from that, or can we be? But then we must also remember that theologically there is actually some appeal in surveillance of a certain sort. Jacques Maritain and others have described God's gaze as actually the force that personalizes us, that makes the person come into existence, at least in any important sense. Further, I remember the way a monk at a monastery I lived at always kept the door open when he wasn't there, as if to ensure that he had no privacy, at least among his things, that they were always open for inspection. It made the times when he did close the door feel more like an act of courtesy than privacy. The end of privacy, surely, is a vision of the eschaton, of the kingdom of God, when we truly have nothing to hide from one another at all. There are also good social reasons to abandon privacy, and preventing terrorism is only a superficial beginning. The possibility for communal trust is enormous, though certainly so also is that fatigue. Of course the end of privacy, which I am sure must come if there is an end of the world (!), is quite different from government surveillance, which comes without the welcome and blessing of the observed (and thrives on this). This is deeply fallen, so to speak, a macabre inversion of the possibility of humility into one party's illusory power. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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