Author: Justin DaMetz

Father of Julian and Evelyn, Husband of Tabitha, Christian theologian, writer, 5th grade teacher, book addict, displaced Middle-Earth resident

Andor

I mentioned this briefly in my Status Updates newsletter that went out yesterday1, but I just wanted to expand on my thoughts here briefly. I am really enjoying the new Star Wars series on Disney+, Andor. (Some minor spoilers follow here for those who haven’t watched yet.)

Diego Luna, who plays the title character

The story follows Cassian Andor’s entry into the burgeoning Rebellion, years prior to the events of the equally good Rogue One. The series is being presented as a more “adult” take on Star Wars, with a darker story, more mature themes, and just an overall much more serious tenor. It is a classic spy thriller, and honestly one could be forgiven for not even realizing this takes place in the Star Wars universe until several episodes in. We don’t see stormtroopers, lightsabers, classic battle ships, or hear familiar strains of orchestral music until episode 4 at the earliest, and even there, its all very muted and distant. The story stands alone really well, and while I’ve seen some criticism about this from fellow Star Wars fans, I actually really like it. The galaxy is a big place. Life in places looks different than life in other places. It is completely conceivable to me that on an mid-to-outer rim world like Ferrix, life would have its own rhythms, and the absence of the Empire in favor of a corporate security presence is very plausible. Its not that I don’t want more “classic” Star Wars stuff; I love Mandalorian and Kenobi and the other Star Wars content that scratches all those itches and includes all the Easter eggs and callbacks. But its just really cool to see something very different.

We are five episodes in, and the first three episodes in particular really stood out to me. There is a coherent storyline that makes them all feel like a movie, and they climax in a showdown where the tension builds and builds at the end of episode three that is unlike anything I have ever seen in Star Wars. It was riveting, and three weeks on from first watching it, I am still thinking about it a lot. It was just fantastic film making, which for all its glories and successes, it not something that is often said about Star Wars.

I am, all in all, a big fan of what Star Wars has become under Disney. I was a Star Wars fan before, and have only seen my love for that world grow as a result of everything we have gotten over the last seven years. I see old SW heads still complaining about all the Disney stuff, and I just think to myself, aren’t we supposed to be having fun? Isn’t this imaginary world of spaceships and lightsabers and aliens and robots supposed to be something we enjoy taking in, and something we should be overjoyed to get more of? How lucky are we, after all the years where all the Star Wars we had was the original films and a handful of less than stellar novels and comic books, to now have new Star Wars material to take in month after month! We get these really well done shows, we get some stellar novels, including the fascinating new High Republic stuff, we get some really well done video games, and even the comics are really enjoyable (and I say that as someone who is not really a comic book person at all.) This should be fun. God knows there is enough dreariness out there. Let’s enjoy2.

Anyways, I’ll get off my soapbox. Andor is good, really really good, and even if you are not a Star Wars fan, it is the kind of thrilling sci-fi – spy thriller that anyone who loves a good story can get behind. I can’t wait to see more.

1 Are you subscribed to my newsletter? No? Well, you should be! There is a lot of good stuff happening over there. Its free, check it out!

2 All of this paragraph also applies to Tolkien and the new Rings of Power series, which I am loving as well. I may write about that more soon.

“We become just by the practice of just actions”

Aristotle and Aquinas rightly argued that the virtues are acquired through habituation and, in particular for Aquinas, the habituation of the passions. The habits we acquire necessary to make us not only do what justice requires but to become just in the doing are complex responses learned over time. Therefore to become just means acting as the just act; but you cannot become just by slavishly imitating what the just do. Rather, you must feel what the just feel when they act justly. The virtue, therefore, can only be acquired through our actions if what we do is not different from what we are. The virtues can be learned through doing, but the “doing” cannot be a product separate from the agent. Aristotle observes, “men become builders by building houses, and harpists by playing harp. Similarly, we become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.”

Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith, page 156.

I really like this explication of acquiring the virtues from Hauerwas, because I think it captures the a lot of the problems inherent to progressive justice-obsessed spaces online. A lot of progressive political life is lived on social media, whether that be Twitter, Facebook, or more recently, TikTok. Clearly, among these folks, there is a yearning for justice, and an ever present call for action and to “do better” at a personal level. These calls come paired with the irony-laced mockery of political foes, showcasing the contempt those foes are held in. These two things are often inseparable: a desire for a more just, loving and inclusive world, and an attitude of derision for those not as committed to such a vision.

But, as Hauerwas reminds us, Aristotle and Aquinas taught us that the doing of virtuous deeds cannot be separated from a character of virtue. And the making of such character cannot be done by oneself; it requires a community, the real presence of other people, who hold us accountable and teach us what it means to have character, who show us the virtues required for such a life, in action. In turn, those people learned from others before them, on and on down through the ages, from those who first learned them. If we want a better world for everyone, then we cannot expect it to be forged amongst a disparate collection of atomized individuals who have only a vision of the world shaped by the demands of Progress. No, it takes people trained and practiced to identify the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, not just to understand them, but to feel those things deep in their soul. As Hauerwas says above, its not about a pale imitation of a certain way of life; its a Knowing deep in the soul, a Knowing that can only be given as a sort of Grace, that will really change the world in any real way.

And if that isn’t a compelling case for the importance of the church, over and against the wasteland that is the modern technoculture, then I don’t know what else is.

do some good, white men

I like this by Freddie deBoer, and I think he is absolutely right:

I understand that a lot of white men feel a little at sea right now and are kind of trying on different personalities in an effort to be cool people. I have a modicum of sympathy! What should white men do, in 2021? Comfortably and unapologetically occupy their space as white men and make conscious decisions to increase justice and reduce suffering in whatever ways they are able. I’d like white men, in other words, to be good people, as all of us have the capacity to be, and to leave the endless impotent posturing about one’s identity to others. If you’re a young white man and you’re trying to navigate evolving social mores, I think that the path forward is blissfully simple: do everything you can to be a good person and do not waste a single moment feeling guilty about being a white man. Such guilt never helped anyone, and besides, your concern is your integrity, and integrity is about choice. You didn’t choose to be white or male, so those things are not relevant to your integrity. Be kind. Be honest. Be gentle. Protect those weaker than you. Tell the truth. And don’t spend a day of your life apologizing for who you are. I promise, you’ll do more good for others that way than you will farming likes and retweets by complaining about white men on Twitter.

We lose a lot of energy and passion by imploring people to spend a lot of time navel gazing, instead of getting out in the world and doing something good. This is especially true of the Church. Many churches, it seems, would rather do the work of meeting together and observing their own shortcomings, and this often takes away from getting out and being the hands and feet of Christ.

Now, this isn’t at all to say that introspection does not have a time or place, nor that we should be completely unaware of the social position our various identities bring to us. But those observations should fuel us to doing some good in the world, not wallowing in our own guilt. Nor should it be used as a way to exclude or marginalize anew, or to excuse oneself from doing Good for others.