Babel

Cryptic Clues to Secretive Solutions
PART I: The Modern Prophets
We're a culture obsessed with both constructing and deciphering glyphs—deciphering the constructed and constructing the deciphered. The X-Files, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, National Treasure, and the countless biblical documentaries titled Secrets of [Whatever: be it the Exodus/Jesus/Armageddon/the Old Testament] all embody modernity's obsession with the allure of chaotic mystery tempered by the rational, steady hand of science.

The X-Files' Fox Mulder and Dana Scully epitomize this allure. As the wild-eyed believer Mulder tempers (and is tempered by) the hardline skeptic Skully, the outlandish becomes more enticing, more real: the tempering interplay makes the alien's existence possible—a rational belief.

Similarly do The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure capture this obsession. Both lucrative franchises depict symbologists and cryptologists at work analyzing the mythical; scientifically searching for and interpreting the meaning of the 'clues' and prophetic 'signs' so 'obviously' hidden away in Da Vinci's frescos and America's monuments. Interestingly enough, the output of their 'careful' interpretations—the disenchanted products of their hyper-rational hermeneutics—ironically makes possible an even more enchanted conclusion: grand conspiracies involving free masons and other secret societies hiding treasures in hidden pyramids with hidden clues to the hidden signs of the cryptic Truth.

But perhaps most representative of this dynamic are the biblical documentaries that play seasonally on the History Channel and National Geographic. These programs 'declassify' the texts of the bible, empirically study and dissect them, drain them of all their prophetic truth as to give them contemporary enchanted significance: "What can these revelations tell us about today?! About global warming?! About Palestine?! About bird or swine flu? Global warming?! Or better yet: UFOs! We have gathered the experts to tell you!"

These programs have empirically accounted for (or at the very least scientifically possibilized) a range of mythical phenomenon: Jesus' walking on water; each of the Exodus' ten plagues; and the flood of Noah—and they do so in the most bombastic manner, with the sensational and marketable presence of a reality show.

These types of television programs are the perfect commodities. Their sensationalism grounds both the realities of the believers and the unbelievers, the theists and secularists in scientific truth. And their enchanted conclusions, furthermore, foster a certain political relevance—they construct an urgency around flu fears, inconvenient global warming truths, and Nostradamusian doomsday prophecies.

I believe this is all linked to something I discussed recently: the hyper-commodification and ensuing hyper-rationalization of spirituality. But what is interesting (and also different from what I've already discussed) is this phenomenon's bent toward interpretation rather than confession. Unlike commodified yoga therapy which is the new superimposed on the old, this is the old superimposed on the new—for the enchanted old is 'interpreted,' dissected and therein disenchanted to announce or make possible the enchanted new.

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Though in the future I intend to discuss some other manifestations of this phenomenon—namely, the media's obsession with the end times, and the public's growing interest in conspiracy theories—perhaps its necessary to close with a tripartite proposition, a generalized framework explaining (non-conclusively, of course) the processes by which this all works:

1) First; the excavation: a bit of the past is unearthed—typically a legend, myth, or prophecy from a bygone era when people, it seems, were more noble and wise; when people had an aura apparently worth interpreting and channeling.

2) Next; the interpretation: the excavation—the legend, myth or prophecy—is dissected, analyzed, then naturalized and rationalized; it is disenchanted and given scientific justification.

3) Finally; the prophetic conclusion: an enchantment—a grand prophetic conclusion—is drafted, ironically interpreted from the disenchanted miracle. A new 'miracle,' therefore, is made possible from the 'possiblized' impossible.

This tripartite proposition demonstrates, perhaps, a new type of propheteering dominating our airwaves, our world, our Weberian iron cage. This is a type of propheteering that, rather than admitting the impossibility of the miraculous event (whether positively or negatively, for or against theism), finds it more rational (and politically useful) to empirically account for the miraculous phenomenon as a means of grounding other truths. After all, if Noah's flood happened due to such and such freak weather conditions, can it not happen again? And Moses' plagues of the firstborns, too? And the end times? Chernobyl! Russia! Communists! 666!

I am certain, as I will later draft in other posts, that the current obsession with the end times (the Maya calendar, 2012, Armageddon, etc.), not to mention the similar obsession surrounding 9/11 conspiracy theories, involves these secular gods, these propheteers, that disenchant to enchant their prophetic magic.