The Vicar Of Tours
by
by
Fully Absorbed Faith
The Vicar of Tours is a wonderfully farcical literary ballet in which a naively ambitious cleric, a scheming colleague, and an acutely resentful landlady play out the creation of a mutual hell. Balzac’s acute sensitivity to the psychological warfare that the three wage among each other is timeless.
Whatever one might think of Christianity, or for that matter religion more generally, it is certain that its principles, philosophies, and practices will be absorbed into the trivial pursuits of daily life. That is to say, each religious adherent will make their ‘faith’ into whatever suits best their neuroses until it is fully absorbed into those neuroses.
The façade thus created, no matter how obviously neurotic, is socially accepted because one’s own pose must be protected. This allows for civilised co-existence. Until, of course, it doesn’t. At which point the illusion of civilisation, as well as religious faith, is revealed. Or is it that civilisation is shown to be stronger than any religious belief?
As Balzac notes, “Celibates substitute habits for feelings.” Even insignificant modifications to routine are of enormous symbolic import therefore. However, when religion becomes habitual, which it almost always does, it is no match for the habits of the law, that is to say, civilisation. Civilisation may be corrupt, but at least it admits to being so.
The Vicar of Tours is a wonderfully farcical literary ballet in which a naively ambitious cleric, a scheming colleague, and an acutely resentful landlady play out the creation of a mutual hell. Balzac’s acute sensitivity to the psychological warfare that the three wage among each other is timeless.
Whatever one might think of Christianity, or for that matter religion more generally, it is certain that its principles, philosophies, and practices will be absorbed into the trivial pursuits of daily life. That is to say, each religious adherent will make their ‘faith’ into whatever suits best their neuroses until it is fully absorbed into those neuroses.
The façade thus created, no matter how obviously neurotic, is socially accepted because one’s own pose must be protected. This allows for civilised co-existence. Until, of course, it doesn’t. At which point the illusion of civilisation, as well as religious faith, is revealed. Or is it that civilisation is shown to be stronger than any religious belief?
As Balzac notes, “Celibates substitute habits for feelings.” Even insignificant modifications to routine are of enormous symbolic import therefore. However, when religion becomes habitual, which it almost always does, it is no match for the habits of the law, that is to say, civilisation. Civilisation may be corrupt, but at least it admits to being so.
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ August 28, 2019
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