Desire, Prayer and Politics

Some reflections on a very stimulating lecture by Jeff Meyers on the Song of Songs at the Biblical Horizons Summer Conference.

1) Jeff pointed out that many modern commentators complain that allegorical interpretations of the Song "de-sex" it. But the intended effect is surely the opposite. Instead of purging desire from human relations, the mystics of the Song were putting eros into the divine-human relation, and in both directions. God the Divine Husband desires His bride, and we as the bride in turn long for the appearance and companionship of our husband. Allegorical interpretation does not de-eroticize the sex but eroticizes prayer. Perhaps the same can be said about the physical realities of sex: Allegory does not intend to purge the physical sexual references from the Song but to include physical-sexual aspects in the relation of God and man.

2) Luther argued that the Song was about Solomon's relation to Israel, his "bride." This is not in conflict with allegories that interpret the husband as Yahweh and the bride as Israel, but is an added dimension of meaning. And, as Jeff pointed out, it highlights the erotic dimension of political life. Leadership is not only about exercise of authority or sheer power, but about desiring and evoking desire. A great leader is one who passionately loves his people, and whose people will cling to him through all hardship.

I wonder how much this erotic dimension is evident in modern political thought - and suspect that it's pretty much absent. Postmodern critics are on to something when they argue that modernity is an attempt to confine and limit eros to a private sphere. Eros will not, however, stay confined (as Shakespeare knew), and thoroughly infuses public life.

This also suggests that there is something profoundly right about the kind of political advertizing and management that are so widely derided today. Politicians are presented to voters as objects of desire; we frequently hear complaints that politicians in the age of TV have to look good, so that a bald and overweight President is almost unthinkable. Voters should, we are told, make their political decisions based on substance rather than style or look. There is surely something distorted in the modern obsessions with image, but people have never made political decisions based solely on substance. Political advertizing that highlights the candidate's sex appeal is tapping into something deep, and deeply correct.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, July 23, 2005 at 08:28 AM

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