Seek the Truth

Two years ago today – I mean, yesterday –, Thursday, May 18, 2006, I hit alt/S on my work keyboard, then shut down and went home. And over fifty friends and family-members received an email from me that was as hot and angry as any APB I'd ever sent.

The next week, my boss at the time – a corporate director for an international, world-spanning firm – asked me about the email. He looks like a cross between Teddy Roosevelt and Julius C. Dithers, with a disposition somewhere halfway along as well. He had not been on my mailing-list.

I looked him in the eye and acknowledged I'd sent it, and from my work-computer – i.e., using a piece of corporate property for a very non-corporate purpose… potentially a career-wrecker, if he wanted to pull a technicality; fortunately that's not his style.

Rationale, detail, and unapologetic rant lie in the message-body itself, which follows. I still don't regret it… although I should at least have waited till I got home that evening, and thus have left one fewer burr under the boss's saddle.

I don't regret, or take back, a word of it.

I realized yesterday that this letter fits in very well with the theme that's engaged this blog for over a week (except Wednesdays, when I turn my keyboard over to a guest-writer), and for much the same reason: something literally stinks to high Heaven, and yours truly is pinching his nose and disposing of it himself.

From: Child, Aging
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 4:44 PM
Subject: Seeking the Truth
Importance: High
Attachments: Cracking the 'Code'.rtf

My Dear Friends and Family:

First off, please excuse my sending this from my work email address; this subject has nothing directly to do with my job, but its urgency impels me to send from my desk, now, after much time over the last several days composing at home and en route. I don't very often go online at home anymore, and I simply do not want to wait any longer before getting this out. So perhaps I'm sticking my neck out here; I accept that, yet recognize that this cannot wait any longer.

Even those of you who've been living under a rock are aware that Friday sees the much-anticipated release of the film version of the heavily ballyhooed "The da Vinci Code". I would love to ask you each not to waste your money on the movie, on the basis of the fact that it is an utter, bigoted and offensive insult to all that is held dear by me, and – far more importantly – by perhaps as much as a third of this globe.

But I will not ask this; rather I choose to appeal to your curiosity, and your sense of fair-mindedness to look at, and into, what is behind the ludicrous, slanderous calumny Dan Brown has laid before the world in his book, and film. Do not take his word for it; question what he says – so great a claim and so heinous a charge he levels, that both a direct answer and an honest investigation are called for. And this malodorous piece of third-rate pulp has been receiving just that… although the call for truth and response may be drowned a bit in the media-driven hype.

A pair of close friends I cautioned snorted and said "It's just a book." Certainly it is. But so were Mein Kampf and Das Kapital; and "Birth of a Nation" was a quaint and illuminating early film, right? Right? The written word has great power, and even the pieces we read for entertainment stick with us, as do the films and television programming we spend time with. Have thorough studies not already demonstrated for us, more than once, that the media content an individual surrounds and saturates her/himself with will affect his/her outlook, beliefs, and values? Or if, say, the Kama Sutra is also "just a book", shouldn't it be okay for elementary-grade children to read, too?

The slogan on this despicable film's posters reads "seek the truth" – and the irony of those three simple words is beyond laughable. It is easily demonstrated, even through simple online research that Brown so obviously did not himself conduct, that his claims are totally without merit, or indeed truth. So I'm charging you to do exactly as these posters urge: seek the truth.

I'm attaching at bottom a copy of a thoroughly researched article originally penned a couple years ago for an online Catholic journal. Though this article is largely Catholic in focus and scope, the vicious and groundless assertions made by Brown strike directly at the core of the entirety of Christianity itself, beyond just Catholic concerns. As the author of the article states, "It is irresponsible and offensive for Brown to impugn the faith of countless Catholics in this fashion." Indeed, of all of Christianity. The author continues, "[Dan Brown] has no solid evidence to support these contentions, and in the absence of such evidence it is unacceptable to smear the faith of millions with these charges."

I've double-checked and updated all the URLs in this article, and added several more to help you check on the evidence for yourselves. Still, I know that many of you won't take the time to read the article's handful of pages, even weighed against the book's 496-odd pages, nor on the strength of the harsh words I give "The da Vinci Code" here. Nor indeed even for the sake of our friendship, and/or blood-relationship; and instead you will still pass it over, and obliviously swallow the word of this one shallow, sensationalist author. Pardon this if it comes across as insult to you; that is not my intent – and if my words read that way to you, I do apologize.

I have long been personally frustrated at, and ashamed of, the deplorable state of education in the present-day United States, and in the average intelligence of the (wo)man on the street. Over time we have grown more and more superficial, and so shallow that it's easier for us to "learn" our history from a poorly written novel, and from demonstrably inaccurate films like "JFK" and "Pearl Harbor".

And don't get me started on how shallow present-day religious education (in all denominations) is. How many of you can find Habakkuk in your Bible, or Jewish scriptures? Or az-Zukhruf in your Koran?

Buying ever more deeply into the deceptive philosophy of relativism – where every voice is equal, and every idea valid (be they Albert Schweitzer's, or Jeffrey Dahmer's) – we are losing the will to doubt, to question, to wonder, to find out. We no longer "seek the truth", but instead out of intellectual laziness allow someone else to tell us what is "true", and thus count ourselves "wise" and "educated".

Dan Brown states on his "facts" page, preceding the book's prolog, to the effect that while the book is fiction, all details of art, architecture, secret societies, etc., are true. But in fact, this is the first page of fiction, and it goes on from there. Let me cite just a few examples:

·  Early on in the novel, we have a drive through the streets of Paris. Brown details various turns, intersections, names of streets, and so on. And these details were so wrong, so incorrect, that when he sought to publish the book in France, the publisher insisted Brown correct these mistakes. He refused, so the publishers had to fix the errors themselves.

·  Dan Brown insists there are twelve chalices (drinking-cups) in da Vinci's "The Last Supper Painting". There are thirteen – go Google up a picture and count them, or take a magnifying glass to your nearest library or encyclopedia.

·  He says that da Vinci hid a code in the very name of the famous "Mona Lisa" painting. Trouble is, da Vinci called it "la Gioconda"; it didn't take the name "Mona Lisa" until sometime later.

And the New York Times blurbs about the book's "impeccable research". Hogwash. Bluntly: if Dan Brown cannot get these simple facts right, how could he possibly be correct and spot-on about a two-thousand-year -old, involved and elaborate conspiracy? He has been quoted as saying something to the effect of "how historic is history, anyway?" And then he goes on and tells the reader exactly what "history" is. He is either willfully ignorant, or maliciously driven. Do not trust him. Seek. The. Truth.

I'm not going to delve into the occultist streak of this book and movie, nor its deceptive lip-service to feminism – beyond saying for the record that I am a feminist… and all feminists should be outraged that the lead female character in "The da Vinci Code" spends most of her time letting a man figure out all the "truth", and goes about looking fearful and anxious. Even the other female lead, a nun, is at best third-fiddle to the men around her.

I am personally offended and heavily insulted by the book and movie. I promised a dear loved one last year that I would read "The da Vinci Code", but I've decided without shame (but not without guilt) to break that promise, and I apologize to this person directly. I will not dirty my mind, I will not sully my eyes, with this awful work. Does that disqualify me from criticizing it? Absolutely not. I also won't read the above-mentioned "Mein Kampf", and I don't need to, either, to assure you with confidence that it is a piece of trash also.

If someone tells me that those berries on that bush over there are poison, do I taste them to make sure? I trust the sources I've dug into about this book; they stand up to the research. And I don't mind if you turn my preceding sentence of "If someone tells me that those berries…" against me – in fact, I tell you here: don't take my word for it, either, on all this. Look up the facts for yourself.

What else am I going to do, besides clamoring from my soapbox? Scrawl on a sign and start marching in protest in front of a theater? Of course not. I would advise against a media-circus response by people equally offended. I advise instead the simplest response, to go see a different movie this weekend (e.g., "Over the Hedge", or "United 93"). Bonus: it'll cut into the Brown movie's revenue.

One thing good that seems to be coming out of this dreckful book and movie, and the hyperbole on both (yes, including my own) sides, is the prospect of dialog about this topic. If you have to blow your money on this utter waste of good popcorn, at least don't swallow Dan Brown's claims along with your butter and Coke. Read the article below – print a copy, and/or send it home; share it; pass it along – and look up the facts. I'll dialog with you all you want, as will your clergy(wo)man, rabbi, priest, imam.

Seek the truth. There are good, solid books out there that address this topic levelly and with thorough research. Try "The da Vinci Hoax" (I can loan you my copy… shoot, I might even buy you one), "The da Vinci Deception", "Cracking da Vinci's Code" (and the best title to come out of this sorry tempest: "The Duh Vinci Code"), and so on.

Be smarter than Dan Brown credits you. Or than Dan Brown himself.

In love,

A. Gene Childe

Followup: a comment came in pretty quickly:

croixian1 May 19, 2008

Apparently you are a Christian who strongly believes in religious oppression by wishing the elimination of the First Amendment.