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| The Trade Minister meditates himself into an "alternate" reality |
The Man in the High Castle, based on a Philip K. Dick novel, is an alternate history of how things might of gone if the Axis Powers had won World War II. It is currently in its second season, streaming on Amazon Prime. The show has become a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, though it has some pretty serious flaws. While I may in the future, I really don’t want to get into a full-blown critique of the show here and now. All I’ll write is that in spite of flat writing and a plot driven narrative that moves characters along whether it makes sense or not, I keep on clicking “Next Episode” because I’m a sucker for a cliffhanger, and each episode ends on one. It also has good acting that elevates the bland material and underdeveloped characters, great production values, and the mystery of its intriguing central conceit is hidden just enough to keep me interested. The show is also mostly sympathetic toward religion. A positive, punctuated by the big negative that all the religions represented are presented as uncritically good, except for one – and I’m guessing you can figure out which one that is.
To oversimplify a very complicated scenario, High Castle takes place in an “alternate” 1962. The Nazis control the eastern two thirds of the former United States to the Rocky Mountains. The Japanese have possession of the Pacific coast, along with a few other western states like Nevada. The Rocky Mountain region is a "lawless" Neutral Zone that serves as a buffer between the two world empires. Germany, still ruled by an ailing Hitler, and Japan coexist uneasily. The Nazis have the Bomb, the Japanese do not. Hitler wants to keep the status quo, but others in the Reich want to use their nuclear advantage to eliminate the Japanese once and for all.
In the former United States there are resistance movements in both regions. At the moment the insurgents and their respective occupiers are busy trying to get their hands on a series of newsreel style films being collected by the mysterious Man in the High Castle - a key resistance figure. These films show an alternate version of their history. In some cases the films show events as they actually did happen historically (with the Allies winning), some show other alternate outcomes, including San Francisco being devastated by a nuclear weapon. What exactly the films mean, where they come from and how they are useful to either side isn't clearly known, though by the end of the second season things come into much clearer focus. The couriers who smuggle them for the resistance aren't supposed to watch, because sometimes they see themselves in the films, in either alternate pasts or possible futures, neither of which is pleasant (but of course not everyone follows orders). The only two who seem to know what the films are all about are Hitler, who is also collecting the reels, and the Man in the High Castle, and both are terrified by what they see.
In the world of The Man in the High Castle the Bible is outlawed and religion, for the most part, is also prohibited. Jews are tolerated in the Pacific States, though the Japanese Empire has, at least on paper, adopted the same race laws as the Nazis. As for religious practice, Shinto and Buddhism are permitted in the Pacific States, but Judaism and Christianity are banned. In the Reich a sort of State and Führer worship has completely replaced traditional religious practice.
One of our heroes, Frank, had a Jewish grandfather, but wasn't raised in the faith and denies his Jewish identity, so he survives in the Pacific States by going along to get along. After he gets unwittingly caught up in the intrigue, his sister and her children are used as leverage by the Japanese to try and coerce him into revealing the whereabouts of his girlfriend, who has disappeared smuggling a reel of the contraband films. Through a cruel twist of fate, the sister and her children are gassed, though Frank is set free. Because they died as "enemies of the state," in a highly selective application of the racial laws, no public mourning is permitted. At the Shinto ceremony that is allowed, Frank encounters an acquaintance of his sister's named Mark, who invites him to his home. There he reveals that he too is a Jew, and together the family recites the traditional Kaddish prayers for the dead. Frank, though he doesn't understand the Hebrew words, breaks down crying, and responds with a final Amen.
On the other side, Nobusuke Tagomi, the Japanese Trade Minister in San Francisco, seeks to maintain the balance of power between the two empires. He conspires with a Nazi contact who is equally concerned about a future conflict, as well as being guilt ridden by his participation in Nazi atrocities. Together they smuggle plans for an atomic weapon to the Japanese military. Their hope is that once both sides have The Bomb, and they see that a war would mean mutually assured destruction, the balance will be preserved. Things don't exactly work out that way, but I digress.
The Trade Minister practices Shinto, doesn't make any major decisions before consulting oracles and, engages in meditation. He also has the Nazi embassy in San Francisco change it’s furniture ahead of the Japanese crown prince’s visit because it doesn’t have chi, or spiritual balance. While well respected, he's still looked upon as being a bit strange as far as his devotion goes, even by his own countryman.
He visits libraries where he has access to forbidden books like William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. His own religious experience is astonishing. Through meditation he is able to quite literally shift from one reality to another - from the alternate 1962, to the real 1962, complete with rock and roll and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He's not sure himself how he does it, and what it all means, but he seems at once hopeful and uneasy about his own altered reality.
In both cases, Frank's nascent Judaism and the Trade Minister's refined Shinto practice, the script takes their experiences at face value. Other characters may question what's going on, but as far as Mark, who introduces Frank to his Jewish heritage, and the Trade Minister, they are true believers, and we are made to sympathize with them.
A question that popped into my head, about half way through the first ten episodes, was "Where are all the Christians at?" There is no reference to Christianity, accept in the taking of the Lord's Name in vain, anywhere in the first season.
In the second season we get a scene involving a clandestine funeral in the woods, where a man, later revealed to be an ex-preacher, speechifies while quoting the New Testament, mainly from the Letters of St. Paul. When Frank questions him afterward, he explains that the Japanese defrocked all the Christian clergy, but they're better off: Jesus didn't need a "dog collar" to spread the word. And all that talk about turning the other cheek and loving your enemies was just a bunch of bovine scatology spread by the Apostles. Jesus wasn't down for preaching about heaven when there's work to be done kicking fascist tail here on earth.
In this relatively brief, profane outburst, we have a classic deconstruction of Christianity presented to us. From the idea that institutional Christianity is unnecessary, and possibly antithetical to being a disciple of Christ, to that the New Testament doesn’t represent the authentic teachings of the “historical” Jesus, to that Jesus was a radical revolutionary concerned with the here and now over spiritual concerns, we get a synopsis of a typical religious studies course being conducted at any number of universities today, both secular and religious. It’s aggravating that Christianity wasn’t afforded the same respectful consideration as the other religions represented – that we couldn’t just get a straight ahead presentation of the faith without the postmodern makeover. And, in dismissing the importance of institutional Christianity, the creators missed a great opportunity to pump up the intrigue, as well as give a more realistic picture of what an alternate reality might look like.
Why do I say that Christianity isn’t afforded the same respect as the other faiths represented? Because the practitioners of these other religions, when questioned about what they believe, don’t try to explain it away. Mark doesn’t say, “Well, I’m just a cultural Jew, and these rituals give me emotional comfort. I really don’t believe that whole parting of the Red Sea thing and stuff like that.” No, he takes pride in his heritage, pointing out that the Jews have out lived plenty of tyrants, like Pharaoh, and the Nazis are just the latest. The Jews think in terms of millennia, he reminds Frank, and time is on their side. The Trade Minister, while acknowledging that his consulting of the omens isn’t a fool proof science, asserts that his critics are more foolish for believing that reality is only what they can see and touch. And the internal logic of the plot backs him up. He doesn’t try to rationalize his meditation by saying that its some kind of stress reliever, or that it clears his mind so he can concentrate and come up with innovative solutions to his problems. No, meditation can actually bring him to another world.
But when a Christian is asked to give “the reason for the hope” he has (1Peter 3:15) he basically says that he doesn’t have any. The Preacher believes in Jesus, I guess, but if you can’t trust the New Testament, and the Church is irrelevant in the task of handing on the faith, how do you even know that you should have faith in Jesus to begin with? The only brand of Christianity the show endorses is the do it yourself kind. It’s Christianity detached from its roots, completely earthbound, with no hope beyond this life. In other words, what’s being presented here isn’t really Christianity at all, which is beyond disrespectful - it’s fraudulent.
When the Preacher makes his “dog collar” remark, validating his being defrocked, it was meant as a short hand knock at institutional Christianity. In dismissing organized religion the writers and producers missed a great opportunity, as I wrote, to add to the intrigue. If High Castle’s creative team had actually gone back and done research concerning the Church’s efforts during both World War II and the Cold War, they would have seen that from the Vatican down to the parish level, Catholics were involved in the resistance to tyranny. This involved both the efforts of Catholics at the grass roots level, as well as the work of priests, bishops and even popes working the institution to smuggle refugees and print fake baptismal certificates for Jews trying to escape the Nazis. These are just two ways the Church worked underground and behind the scenes to save lives during times of oppression. To think that an organized network of parishes and dioceses, monasteries and convents wouldn’t be useful in the work of subverting an evil regime is short sighted, and displays an amazing ignorance of history.
Also, in showing a society completely devoid of traditional Christian practice, The Man in the High Castle grossly overestimates how easy it would be to suppress institutionalized faith among the people. The Soviet Union and Easter Block communists weren’t able to do it, even after 70 plus years of repression. Nazi Germany wasn’t able to do it, either. Efforts to destroy the Church by the Mexican government in the 1920’s and ‘30’s failed, as well. Heck, not even the Roman Empire was able to keep the Church from growing, even after 300 years of on and off persecutions. When the Church is actively persecuted it tends to grow even stronger. Thus the famous saying of Tertullian’s, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians.”
There is one glaring historical exception, and that is Japan, where the faith was suppressed and all Western missionaries expelled at the end of the sixteenth century. Yet even there, when the country opened up again two hundred and fifty years later, Westerners found small, isolated Christian communities that still held to the faith. In some cases they had in their possession the chalices and monstrances that the missionaries left behind. They didn’t always remember what these and other religious articles were used for, but they knew they were holy, and that they were links to the time of their ancestors’ evangelization.
I’m not suggesting that the show’s creators should have remade The Man in the High Castle to be some sort of Christian story. And I can understand that they wouldn’t want to highlight one particular Christian group. But they could have put certain touches in the background, like a network of nonspecific Christian communities that help to either smuggle films or people to the Neutral Zone. Since violently suppressing Christianity rarely works, they could have had the fascists set up “national” Christian churches controlled by the government that people aren’t sure they can trust as opposed to the unofficial, underground church that keeps the true faith (much like what is happening now in China). Again, these could function as elements in the background, that wouldn’t change the plot, but add to the realism and, potentially, the intrigue.
I could make more suggestions, but you get the point. The creators of The Man in the High Castle, and the mainstream entertainment industry in general, don’t usually think of these possibilities because they don’t understand real history, or religion, enough to be able to plausibly concoct an alternate one. They don’t understand that the Faith isn’t killed by force. The truth is, faith is not so much killed, as numbed. It’s numbed by materialism fueled by consumerism and the worship of convenience. It’s numbed by convincing people that religion is what you make it, and there is no truth beyond our own wants and desires. Faith is numbed by convincing people they can separate their public life from their private devotion. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, faith isn’t killed with a bang, but is numbed asleep by a whimper.
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