Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Of Communitarians and Christians

Patrick Deneen at Georgetown University has a piece arguing that George Bailey (of It's a Wonderful Life fame) is not so heroic after all; that he is actually the destroyer of Bedford Falls. Here's a revealing highlight:

"Attempting to comprehend what has happened, and refusing to believe Clarence’s explanations, George attempts to retrace his steps. He recalls that this awful transformation first occurred when he was at Martini’s bar, and decides to seek out Martini at home. Martini, in the first reality, is one of the beneficiaries of George’s assistance when he is able to purchase a home in Bailey Park; however, in the alternate reality without George, of course the subdivision is never built. Still refusing to believe what has transpired, George makes his way through the forest where Bailey Park would have been, but instead ends in front of the town’s old cemetery outside town. Facing the old gravestones, Clarence asks, “Are you sure Martini’s house is here?” George is dumbfounded: “Yes, it should be.” George confirms a horrific suspicion: Bailey Park has been built atop the old cemetery. Not only does George raze the trees, but he commits an act of unspeakable sacrilege. He obliterates a sacred symbol of Bedford Fall’s connection with the past, the grave markers of the town’s ancestors. George Bailey’s vision of a modern America eliminates his links with his forebears, covers up the evidence of death, supplies people instead with private retreats of secluded isolation, and all at the expense of an intimate community, in life and in death."

You can find the rest on Front Porch Republic if you like. My response to this was "Let the dead bury the dead". Do you agree? Sub-question: Is Prof. Deneen's communitarian-ism reconcilable with Christianity, which is a fundamentally cosmopolitan religion?

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