Young Men Today

 

                                            When I was young I had never heard of Islam.  Now “Islam” seems to be everywhere you look.  That, however, is a common mistake about perception — so let me get that much on the table early.  Perhaps you learn a new word.  Formerly it might have seemed not even to exist, then suddenly the “new” word is everywhere — in every book you read.  Well, like a used car, it’s “new to you.” Islam has been around a very long time, for my entire life! — and if I hadn’t noticed it in my youth, it was still nevertheless out there.  In even the post-Cambrian age of my upbringing, we had National Geographic  — and Lawrence of Arabia aired more that once on tv.

Well, I nonetheless had an odd and novel encounter with Islam today.  I was working on this blog, actually, [previous post entitled Easy -- and yes, I still have time for painting] at a public computer in a university music library.  A young man at a computer near me was listening to something on headphones and laughing frequently outloud.  He couldn’t seem to contain his mirth and self-consciously apologized to anyone who peered in his direction for the distraction he caused.  I figured he was listening to a comedy routine. 

After my own work was complete, I happened to run into the man as he was leaving and found him politely apologetic once more.  So I asked him in a spirit of friendliness what he had been listening to, and he told me rather soberly that he was listening to a lecture by one of his favorite Muslim clerics on the topic of marriage.  Feeling most of the blood draining from my face and wondering privately to myself what could be so amusing in this context, I listened as he went on rather soberly still to explain that the cleric thought young men should marry young and thus avoid the problem of “fornication.”  He so obviously meant well as he explained the cleric’s account of how “400 years ago” women were veiled from head to toe, and young men got married.  But today women are not veiled, and “nobody” gets married.  [Revisit: the "new word" phenomenon explained above.]

I asked him if he was going to get married soon, and he looked confused and said “yes” rather vaguely.  Thus I assume that the young bride-to-be hasn’t been selected yet, though evidently she’ll need little in the manner of qualifications other than the possession of an X chromosome.  Wishing to give this young stranger some advice, which clearly he rather desperately needs, I offered this:  I said “why don’t you talk this over with your mom and dad.”  I’m taking a wild guess, but maybe his parents aren’t as Muslim as he is. Yeah, though you’re taking the humorous advice of Ahmed bin Jon Stewart, why not also consult the two human beings on the planet who know enough about “marriage” to have arranged for your existence?

What has happened in America?  Why is a young student in an American university getting his advice on life’s more compelling questions from the funny stand-up cleric whose counsels include extolling the mores of a culture 400 years old?  By the way, back in 17th century England John Milton was defending both divorce and freedom of speech, so I guess we in the West have been hip longer than we realize.

As the blood went back to my face, while I strove to address this well-meaning young man in a kind, tolerant way, I was thinking to myself: Hey, Sparky, I’m not wearing a veil because of your misguided understanding of your young hormones.  A young man who contemplates marriage to avoid “fornication” not only does not believe that he’ll ever fall in love — maybe he doesn’t even believe that love exists.  Why would anyone who believes in love abandon its possibility for the sake of a very temporary solution to physical urges?

I have hardly thought of anything else the rest of the afternoon.  What is manhood now?  What is it in the West?  If one reads, say, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, we find a world in which the ideal of manhood includes both love and dignity.  The avoidance of “fornication” exists in that fictive world though it would never be alluded to so crudely.  Indeed, the stronger idea of the heart — the sense of human intellect and of dignity are its terms of discourse.  You hope for love because you know it exists, and a person of sense watches for love because to settle for anything less is disappointing to say the least and degrading to say the worst.  Of course, Austen was the unmarried daughter of a Christian minister but the ideal she represented in her stories was hardly her property alone.

One has certainly a right to wonder why “fornication” (as bad as that is) is worth the loss of one’s character — or, more to the point, one can ask how precisely would he be avoiding “fornication” if the chief, perhaps the only virtue of his bride was that he could satisfy his urges on her.  It would seem to me that the fornication still exists and has added to it only the trappings of a marriage license and a bit of ceremony.  On the contrary, as Miss Austen was at pains to demonstrate, nothing makes a person more chaste than love — for what person, man or woman, looks upon their beloved as simply an object upon which to satisfy animal feelings?  It is love, in fact — mature, deep, soul-touching, self-disclosing love — that brings one into awareness of the larger compass of life. 

I concluded that the young man, who seemed to think the funny cleric had hit upon all the facts of existence, has been duped for a fare-thee-well.  Does he think that no one ever figured these things out before?  We have in our own culture a similarly funny idea:  “Nobody buys the cow, when you can get the milk for free.”  Got Milk?  Yet we have not abandoned the dignity of women for the sake of this notion.  Quite the contrary, we are only beginning to really understand fully the larger scope of women’s dignity, now in this era of women judges, doctors, lawyers, Secretaries of State, astronauts, writers, musicians, scientists – and on and on.

The Islamic world, with its many centuries old obsession with male hormones, has missed the whole point.  Their own culture acknowledges as much, too.  In their acceptance of polygamy, they show how vacuous a cure “marriage” is for male desire.  When one wife’s physicality gets a little dull, a new “wife” is required. 

So, give me the Western way, please! Particularly since I look horrible in a scarf — and moreover because I am not the kind of person who likes to be ordered around.  I find within myself a natural tendency to lead.  Others have noticed it in my nature also and have told me I am a good leader, and I believe them.  I’m teaching my leaderly skills to my daughter.  No scarf for me, and all that the scarf denotes.  I prefer to believe in True Love (which is always capitalized).  Perhaps it is rare, perhaps some never find it.  But the ideal itself lifts us all — even those who never marry.  The ideal points toward the union of man and woman as something more than a biological urging.  It gives us glimpses of a deeper spiritual communion that’s possible within landscape of the heart.

A man or woman who really loves will accept all kinds of privations for the sake of the beloved.  And, believe me, that selflessness comes in real handy in life’s twists and turns.  Real love goes far beyond the physicality of youth.  Conversation is nice too, especially in one’s “golden years,” and married men and women will find more to talk about if the desires that first brought them together go a little deeper than mere hormones. 

Young man, you were in a university library.  Why weren’t you studying?  Why not learn something to make yourself interesting.  Women today are using their minds.  If you want a wife, perhaps it’s education that you need.  Because, you know what?  In this culture the woman has a choice, and she might find chaste maiden life more to her liking when it comes with freedom and ideas than a hormonal life of servitude with you.  Something to think about in this era of East meets West.

I had qualms about whether I should write on this topic here since it has nothing to do with art.  But upon further thought, I realized it has everything to do with art.  After all, it was only because I’m an artist that my schedule lent me this freedom to be in the university library today.  Moreover, in this young man’s 17th century idea of Islam, I’d wouldn’t have a choice to be  an artist.  I’d be washing socks and milking goats, two activities for which I have no talent or interest whatsoever.

So, it does relate to art rather robustly.  In the 21st century West, a woman can be whatever she likes.  And this one likes art.  I hope you do too.

[Top of the post: Eugene Delacroix's 19th century drawing of a Young Arab Man -- more relevant than ever.]

Easy

Some complicated things are quite easy.  Interesting paradox.  In the previous post I wrote about my dream of a drawing discipline that seeks complexity.  I’m looking for a Few Good Artists!

Well, I’ve got to tell you my reader stats fell into the basement.  Readers, come back!  I’m not talking Everest here.  You already do a highly complex eye/hand/brain coordination task that has become so easy, you hardly notice that you do it.  You write!

Cursive.  Beautiful cursive.  Don’t the words alone transport you back to second grade?  Cursive involves eye/hand and small motor coordination that is far more demanding than what an artist uses in a typical drawing. 

You’re already doing really hard stuff, guys!  So, now I’m sending you on a new mission:  a Mission Possible!

Draw. Draw wonderful and challenging things.  Draw, darn it! (And that’s an order.)