Elia Kazan and Forgiveness-"Passing Through Gethsemane"
B5cdd
couldn't help thinking about the B5 episode "Passing Through Gethsemane" where
Brother Theo told Sheridan that forgiveness is the hardest thing to do.
It is interesting that in the Lurkers Guide that JMS is quoted saying that he
cannot forgive which is why he finds it attractive to write about characters
who can.
Based on JMS's response about this subject apparently it is true.
Dave
Andy Ihnatko
[Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set]
[Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]
In article <19990304234221...@ng-fa1.aol.com>, b5...@aol.com
(B5cdd) wrote:
It's not the same thing at all. The topic at hand isn't whether or nor
Kazan should be forgiven, but if he should be _honored_ for what he did.
IMHO, he can receive neither praise nor forgiveness. He can't be honored
for his lifetime contributions to film, because he did an _enormous_ amount
of damage to the film community as a Friend Of The Committee. And he can't
be forgiven his sin simply because he refuses to _acknowledge_ his sin.
-- A.
WWS
Nice to have heard directly from the Mouth of God on this topic.
--
__________________________________________________WWS_____________
It takes considerable knowledge to realize the extent of your
own ignorance. - Thomas Sowell
Jms at B5
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
mal...@erols.com
Path: not-for-mail
From: "Kurtz" <mal...@erols.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Subject: Re: Elia Kazan and Forgiveness-"Passing Through Gethsemane"
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 05:57:24 -0500
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <7c2uil$pba$1...@winter.news.rcn.net>
References: <36E16739...@tyler.net> <19990308184908...@ng07.aol.com>
X-Trace: VCwX+jUjeHlNcjJVJHDNF/p7e4hqBepfhH+FGe58sSE=
X-Complaints-To: ab...@rcn.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Mar 1999 10:53:09 GMT
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.0810.800
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Priority: 3
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.0810.800
Jms at B5 <jms...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19990308184908...@ng07.aol.com...
>Usually a condition of forgiveness is apology and repentence.
>
> jms
>
Much of the time I would agree, but I've also heard that sentiment
used to support holding on to a grudge. I've heard it used even
after apology and repentance, because it wasn't 'convincing' or
'sincere'.
I don't think I understand this situation. I mean, I know the details.
People from my parents' generation - in their 60's - seem to side
with you - but they also hold grudges against a lot of other people
as well. They will probably never forgive Jane Fonda, and they are
still ambivalent about George Wallace (whom I believe DID
demonstrate repentance later in life - a complete transformation).
Those I've spoken to my age, at *worst* feel he should not be
honored, but harbor no ill will.
Can't someone be feted just for the work they have done?
To coin a phrase, does character matter? I'm one of those who
thinks Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. I'm sure you
believe the comparison is a stretch, but what I'm saying is they
should be honored for what they do. I don't any Academy award
should be based on anything other than a man's art.
Laura M. Appelbaum
>
> To: rec-arts-sf-tv-babylon5
> >Usually a condition of forgiveness is apology and repentence.
> >
> > jms
> >
> > Much of the time I would agree, but I've also heard that sentiment
> used to support holding on to a grudge. I've heard it used even
> after apology and repentance, because it wasn't 'convincing' or
> 'sincere'.
>
> I don't think I understand this situation. I mean, I know the details.
> People from my parents' generation - in their 60's - seem to side
> with you - but they also hold grudges against a lot of other people
> as well. They will probably never forgive Jane Fonda, and they are
> still ambivalent about George Wallace (whom I believe DID
> demonstrate repentance later in life - a complete transformation).
> Those I've spoken to my age, at *worst* feel he should not be
> honored, but harbor no ill will.
>
> Can't someone be feted just for the work they have done?
> To coin a phrase, does character matter?
Okay, I'll stand alone on a limb here and say:
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It matters!
Of course, in contemporary society, it DOESN'T matter, which is probably
why so few people give a damn about whether or not their actions are
moral (and since you can often get more stuff -- attention, celebrity,
money, sex, etc. by acting immorally, that's what most people will do),
but to some small few of us, yes it matters, even if only to ourselves.
It's a lonely way to live sometimes, hell, most of the time, but I for
one couldn't stand myself if I lived any other way.
I'm one of those who
> thinks Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. I'm sure you
> believe the comparison is a stretch, but what I'm saying is they
> should be honored for what they do. I don't any Academy award
> should be based on anything other than a man's art.
Funny you bring up baseball, because when you raised the "character"
question earlier, I thought of George Will's editorial in today's Post
about Joe DiMaggio's life and death. I can probably count on the fingers
of one hand the times I've agreed with ANYTHING Will has to say, but
this is one of them. "When as a player DiMaggio had nothing left to
prove, he was asked why he stil played so hard, every day. Because, he
said, every day there is apt to be some child in the stands who has
never before seen me play." THAT as far as I'm concerned is the heroic
attitude a person must approach their life with before they deserve any
kind of praise ... you may not be able to live up to that kind of
standard, but you should at least TRY. (Or as the Pirke Avot says "It is
not your place to finish the work, but neither are you free to walk away
from it.") As I acknowledged above, most people don't do either -- they
don't live that way, and they don't even try. And that's why someone
like Kazan, who took the convenient way out, doesn't deserve any kind of
honors from anyone. So maybe he made some good movies. Maybe. So what?
Plenty of people can and have done that, but they didn't all sell out
their friends and collegues in order to do it.
This, of course, is why I've always been such a fan of the Sinclair
character -- here you have a person with a lot of talent who, through no
fault of his own, collects a lot of painful baggage in his life. It
would be easy for him to have sat down at some point after the War and
given up, let himself be completely consummed by the horrors he
survived. But he didn't. He's constantly striving to do better, to be
something more than a victim, even to be something more than the average
man. And he doesn't do it because of ego, in fact, he puts himself down
all the time and downplays his triumphs. No, he does it because he
believes he HAS to do it, that settling for less would be a sin.
LMA
Andy Ihnatko
[ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
In article <36E16739...@tyler.net>, WWS <wsch...@tyler.net> wrote:
> Nice to have heard directly from the Mouth of God on this topic.
Thanks! Though frankly I'm not exactly _God_. But it was nice of you to say
so, anyway. Gimme your snail address and I'll have my secretary send you a
glossy.
-- A.
NukeMarine
>Usually a condition of forgiveness is apology and repentence.
>
> jms
>
Hmm, being sort of an atheist christian (wrong newsgroup to explain that one),
let me offer a differing opinion:
By expecting an apology, repentence, fine, fee, jail time whatever it cheapens
the need for the oppressed to forgive. Yeah its in the radical side of thought
but holds up. You feel you can forgive since the oppresor has had some sort of
comeupance (whether self inflicted with apology and repentence or not such as
jail, fines and fees.)
All made irrelevent I know because forgiveness is a personnel choice (what has
Londo personally done to deserve forgivness from G'Kar that would rate
forgivness from another?) but true forgiveness comes with no condition, it
need merely be accepted by the oppressor to have full impact.
Ok, so that would be on the level of enlightened individuals and I and most
others are far from that, but hey, how can you reach for the stars if you never
look at them.
-------------------
It doesn't matter what I believe, it only matters what I can prove- A Few Good
Men
Michael J. Hennebry
In the case at hand, whether to give Elia Kazan a lifetime achievement
award, I'm not all that sure that fogiveness is relevant. Naming names
was one of Elia Kazan's achievements regardless of whether he is
forgiven.
--
Mike henn...@plains.NoDak.edu
"Everyone is born left-handed. You turn
right-handed when you commit your first sin" -- got from s...@telerama.lm.com
Matt Maurano
5-year old. People change. We can assume that the adult has changed so
much that they would no longer steal their little brother's toys. We
have grounds to do so, namely that given 30 years a person will
probably mature beyond such an comparatively insignificant prank.
However, some people don't change. If Hitler were still alive, would
we would not assume that he had repented. He would have to prove it.
For many (me included), there is nothing imaginable that he could do
warranting forgiveness.
Those are the two boundaries: the unpardonable sin and the assumed
pardonable. Kazan seems guilty of the Unpardonable Sin. At this point
it time, he has done something very wrong, and he has also refused to
admit that it was wrong. He judged others, made a decision based on
that, and refuses to judge himself. Until he decides that he has asked
for forgiveness, there is nothing that can be done. No award. If he
does beg forgiveness, the question becomes harder. We must then judge
whether to accept him as a changed person. If we do, than we can't
forget what he did, but we can put it in the past.
On 11 Mar 1999 21:00:10 -0700, henn...@plains.NoDak.edu (Michael J.
NukeMarine
>It is not fair to hold an adult responsible for what they did as a
>5-year old.
>However, some people don't change. If Hitler were still alive, would
>we would not assume that he had repented. He would have to prove it.
So uh, how do you prove you've repented? In that you gain insight that your
previous acts were actually wrong and immoral based on your current feelings.
I think that you can't prove this to anyone else and that it's irrelevent but
that's me.
>For many (me included), there is nothing imaginable that he could do
>warranting forgiveness.
Yeah, helping ignite a was that led to 40 million premature deaths causes that
but you are using extreme examples. Could you ever forgive yourself for
backing out of the driveway without noticing your son was hiding under the
car with his head under the tire? Could you forgive your spouse if heshe did
it?
>Those are the two boundaries: the unpardonable sin and the assumed
>pardonable
What sin? Sin is an act against the conscience. It can only be defined by the
person commiting the act and forgiven by the same (one could say betweem himmer
and God, irrelevent as I'm an atheist). Now you may feel he acted against your
conscience but that is what society is for, legilating morallity that can be
considered common to most (shouldn't have psychopaths writing laws of what they
think should be allowed to be done without retribution.)
>We must then judge
>whether to accept him as a changed person
You do realize how silly this sounds. Not to sound religious but judge not
lest you are judged [by yourself].
As for the Gethsemane episode, never did like it that much. Felt he didn't
have a strong grasp on how forgiveness works so the monk damned himself.
Mayhaps it was the actor portraying Brother Edward. Really nausiating in Alien
4.
--------------------------------
Set Phasers to sunburn.
Gordon & Paige Besse-Rankin
NukeMarine wrote in message
<19990314002908...@ng-fy1.aol.com>...
>What sin? Sin is an act against the conscience. It can only be defined by
the
>person commiting the act and forgiven by the same (one could say betweem
himmer
>and God, irrelevent as I'm an atheist).
I have to disagree with this definition of sin. It is what often confuses
people. As I understand it, sin is not simply an act. It is a state of
being. People often define sin as a conscious decision to do something that
you know is wrong. This is a very narrow definition - and it make the
associated theological concepts of forgiveness, fall, grace, and redemption,
more difficult to comprehend. When I try to understand sin - which is kind
of hard in 20th century America - I tend to paraphrase it as "brokenness".
I see it as passing on that brokenness - whether we mean to or not, whether
through a conscious action or a sub-conscious inaction.
Perhaps an example would help. I live in a city which has been struggling
to come to terms with allegations that decisions that have been made about
housing are racist. Many people have gotten all up in arms saying that we
are not racist, but in fact good people. But to me, it is a no brainer. We
are all racist because we live in a culture that has racism embedded in it.
We have internalized attitudes that we have seen on television and read in
books and heard from our parents. We have actively or passively allowed
people to be oppressed because of the color of their skin. That is sin. I
may never make a conscious choice to do something to oppress a person whose
skin is a different color, but I have to be constantly vigilant to the ways
that my thinking is tainted by the racism. That is the power of sin in me
and my life.
I better be quiet before I try to get into redemption, fall, and grace...
Paige
Philip R. Columbus
opinion that:
# It is not fair to hold an adult responsible for what they did as a
# 5-year old. People change. We can assume that the adult has changed so
# much that they would no longer steal their little brother's toys. We
# have grounds to do so, namely that given 30 years a person will
# probably mature beyond such an comparatively insignificant prank.
#
# However, some people don't change. If Hitler were still alive, would
# we would not assume that he had repented. He would have to prove it.
# For many (me included), there is nothing imaginable that he could do
# warranting forgiveness.
#
# Those are the two boundaries: the unpardonable sin and the assumed
# pardonable. Kazan seems guilty of the Unpardonable Sin. At this point
# it time, he has done something very wrong, and he has also refused to
# admit that it was wrong. He judged others, made a decision based on
# that, and refuses to judge himself. Until he decides that he has asked
# for forgiveness, there is nothing that can be done. No award. If he
# does beg forgiveness, the question becomes harder. We must then judge
# whether to accept him as a changed person. If we do, than we can't
# forget what he did, but we can put it in the past.
#
# On 11 Mar 1999 21:00:10 -0700, henn...@plains.NoDak.edu (Michael J.
# Hennebry) wrote:
# >In the case at hand, whether to give Elia Kazan a lifetime achievement
# >award, I'm not all that sure that fogiveness is relevant. Naming names
# >was one of Elia Kazan's achievements regardless of whether he is
# >forgiven.
#
#
Are you not guity of the same? You have judged Mr. Kazan by your
standards and found him guilty, haven't you? Now, despite that, you say
he must "beg for forgiveness." By your statements, shouldn't you both be
begging for forgiveness from each other?
Makes my head hurt. Kinda like looking in parallel mirrors.
Philip R. Columbus
philipc...@home.com
http://members.home.com/philipcolumbus/
AOL IM: mr1492
ICQ# 4786099
Powered by OS/2 Warp Ver. 4
* Cum Dignitate Otium - Leisure With Dignity *