the wages of insincerity

[chiscotheque]

Problem solved.

well, yes and no. the cup on the ace may well be a monstrance, as certainly the cup on the queen of cups is one - made quite explicit on the RWS where it's of traditional design. and while some monstrances have a church or building as cap, the putative monstrance on the ace of cups is a little unusual - it is little more than a church plunked down on top of a chalice. to say it is a monstrance and therefore represents only what a monstrance represents would be simplistic and wrong, imo. be that as it may, i will note the monstrance is aptly named. usually these days they are adorned with a solar design, i suppose suggesting the marriage of water and fire. oddly, the monstrance usually contains the bread host rather than the wine, making the idea that the cup on the ace of cups is a monstrance less likely.

this is also unlikely, but the tongue image on the church reminds me of how one sticks their tongue out to the priest to receive the eucharist. it also reminds me of kali's out-stuck tongue when shiva lies down at her feet. it also reminds me of Pentecost and speaking in tongues.

i would point out that byzantine churches don't have minarets per se - unless appropriated by islam - but they have towers, sometimes circular, as most distinctly seen in the eastern tradition ie the ukraine, russia, poland.

i might also point out the most minaret-like structure known to me used by catholics is seen in the irish round towers, scattered throughout ireland, isle of man, and scotland. they were bell towers, so akin to minarets, and erected on church or monastery grounds. here's a picture i took of one when i was in ireland years ago:

[Joan Marie]

I see it's also called an ostensorium. Now I need to go and do some research on catholic rites. But chiscotheque and other people who were brought up in Catholocism will probably know lots about this.

Here's a little crash course for you.
I love this. The comedian Stephen Colbert and musician Jack White (White Stripes) did a "Catholic Throwdown" competition.

Watch the whole thing, you won't be disappointed. (Our new word comes up!)

[Diana]

Here's a little crash course for you.
I love this. The comedian Stephen Colbert and musician Jack White (White Stripes) did a "Catholic Throwdown" competition.

Watch the whole thing, you won't be disappointed. (Our new word comes up!)

Oh, thanks so much for that! Colbert's the one who can make me laugh the most about Trump. I always look out for his youtube extracts where he tackles the orange freak. I laugh so hard !!!

And yep, Our New Word appeared !!!

[dodalisque]

the cup on the ace may well be a monstrance, as certainly the cup on the queen of cups is one - made quite explicit on the RWS where it's of traditional design. and while some monstrances have a church or building as cap, the putative monstrance on the ace of cups is a little unusual - it is little more than a church plunked down on top of a chalice. to say it is a monstrance and therefore represents only what a monstrance represents would be simplistic and wrong, imo. be that as it may, i will note the monstrance is aptly named. usually these days they are adorned with a solar design, i suppose suggesting the marriage of water and fire. oddly, the monstrance usually contains the bread host rather than the wine, making the idea that the cup on the ace of cups is a monstrance less likely.

this is also unlikely, but the tongue image on the church reminds me of how one sticks their tongue out to the priest to receive the eucharist. it also reminds me of kali's out-stuck tongue when shiva lies down at her feet. it also reminds me of Pentecost and speaking in tongues.

I so wish that eucharistic tongue was what was intended. I remember now that the pointed archway resembling the tongue-shape coming down from the top of the central monolith on the Ace of Cups, which frames the entrance to the "lobby" (or narthex) of the church at the western end, is an architectural necessity. A rectangular doorway would not be able to stand the weight. This tongue shape allows the two sides of the archway to brace one another. A central wedge of stone is inserted at the top to lock them in position. This design is repeated inside the church in a larger form, connecting the pillars that hold up the roof. So the symbolic significance of this shape is potentially extremely important - a gateway that reaches to the heavens. Perhaps it mimics the shape of two hands held together in prayer. The people who knew this deck 400 years ago would pass through those arches every day. Still do.

Perhaps the citadel on top of the cup is not a monstrance - from the Latin verb meaning "to show" or "to display", since the host is often contained in the centre and elevated before the congregation - but the tabernacle, which is the small decorated box that holds the various artifacts used for a Catholic service.

Surely there must be a book that discusses the Catholic imagery of the TdM. The deck must be soaked in it. Religious images and symbols were the common language of the culture. People would expect the deck to have that structure. Any other design would either be considered trivial or sacrilegious. Where else would the cardmakers draw their imagery from to make a popular deck of playing cards? Do you know any books that fit this description, Diana? Maybe we should shoot off an email to Stephen Colbert or Jack White. Or are these ideas so obvious that they hardly need to be stated.

The four suits are surely an example. Cups = the chalice containing the blood of Christ; Coins = the circular host symbolising the body of Christ; Wands = the "chi-rho" shape, representing in Greek the first two letters of Christ's name - I am thinking of the X shape in the minors and the upright staff on the odd numbered cards; Swords = the labyrinth in the centre of a cathedral floor - if you place the Swords minors next to each other, the semi-circular swords actually connect to make complete perfect circles that become more complex as the suit progresses - they look like a circular labyrinth - the "labyrinth of thought". It confirms how Christian symbolism and the Four Elements are combined in the TdM. The "chi-rho" symbol mentioned above often appears on the outside of the tabernacle.

I seem to remember that the word for the central hub of a cartwheel, seen on the Wheel of Fortune, is the same in French as that used for the middle part of the church where the altar is, where the various arms of the building meet like spokes, but I can't find it in my notes at the moment.

[dodalisque]

I love this. The comedian Stephen Colbert and musician Jack White (White Stripes) did a "Catholic Throwdown" competition.

Great, I love it. This religion sounds a lot more fun than the Anglican Protestantism I had forced on me. I still feel a bit angry about that. After taking LSD in my 20s I realised my religious education had been pretty weak water. C S Lewis must have been a genius to make it seem worthwhile.

How about "reredos"? It's the screen behind the altar. My wife came across it recently in a crossword puzzle for the first time, and that same night we went to a choral concert where the director announced that CDs would be for sale in the intermission "in the passageway behind the reredos". Cosmic coincidence or what! Heraldry has a beautifully strange vocabulary all of its own as well.

[Diana]

Sorry to state the obvious, but all I get from how the 4 courts are holding their cups is how precarious the cups are, balanced on the palms of the Page and Knight. In youth and adolescence the heart is presumably easily upset, and we are careless about the contents. No wonder so many spiritual journeys fall flat before we get to be Queens and Kings. The mouths of those cups are wider than for the Queen and King, which suggests perhaps a kind of spiritual dryness in the latter - less "open-hearted". The lid on the Queen's cup also carries the idea of secrecy or privacy, the wordless restraint we associate with the Papesse/High Priestess. Maybe women's hearts are mysteries even to themselves. Yet the lid looks like a breast with a nipple on top.

Trying to catch up on some posts in this thread. Am not doing it in chronological order.

There was this really interesting guy on Aeclectic who went by the screenname of ihcoyc (). He made a great post about the Courts and the Cups, particularly the Page and Knight.

All of the Cups folks seem like tragic figures in some way to me. Moreover, most of them --- especially the Valet and the Cavalier --- seem much more absorbed in the suit emblems they are carrying than some of the other courts. In some versions, the Valet is using his sleeve to cover or hide the contents of his cup, although he seems to be gazing at it quite mournfully and intently. The Cavalier, on his slow horse, seems quite tragically intent on the cup he carries, and is paying attention to it rather than to where he's going. The Valet also doesn't wear a proper hat; he just has a wreath of flowers.

Both strike me as the sort of folks who post bad poetry about suicide in their LiveJournals. They're perfect examples of why I tend to believe that sorrow, fear, heartbreak, and despair are Cups business rather than Swords business.

(for the young 'uns "LiveJournal" was a sort of ancestor of Facebook.)

[chiscotheque]

Perhaps the citadel on top of the cup is not a monstrance - from the Latin verb meaning "to show" or "to display", since the host is often contained in the centre and elevated before the congregation - but the tabernacle, which is the small decorated box that holds the various artifacts used for a Catholic service.

for the record, tabernacle etymologically means "tent", the portable sanctuary the Israelites lugged around the desert. in biblical language, the tabernacle is "the body as the temporary abode of the soul". i say this in part in relation to the church with its tent-like centre above the cup on the ace - in a sense, a house is an upside-down cup. i think this relates to the papess (bet - house). just as a tent is the body which contains the soul, so too is a cup the "body" for the spirits, no?

not that the image atop the tent is a tongue, but if it were it would also suggest the Word/Logos, made flesh in Christ - "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."


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[Joan Marie]

I ran across this short video about diplomacy, what it is and how to use it.

It made me think of this thread.






It's interesting how it acknowledges how insincerity can be used well and not well. And the intentions behind it all.

[Pen]

I ran across this short video about diplomacy, what it is and how to use it.

It's interesting how it acknowledges how insincerity can be used well and not well. And the intentions behind it all.

It's very interesting, helpful and well thought out, although one thing struck me as a given throughout the video - i.e. that the diplomat was always assumed to be 'in the right', and the other person a subject that needed help to be defused and brought round to the diplomat's way of thinking. A diplomat might be very annoying to someone who sees through what they're doing, although I guess that wouldn't happen with a successful diplomat.

[Joan Marie]

It's very interesting, helpful and well thought out, although one thing struck me as a given throughout the video - i.e. that the diplomat was always assumed to be 'in the right', and the other person a subject that needed help to be defused and brought round to the diplomat's way of thinking. A diplomat might be very annoying to someone who sees through what they're doing, although I guess that wouldn't happen with a successful diplomat.

That is such an excellent point.

Ideally, the diplomat would be looking for the "best" compromise respecting all parties. Who defines "best" is the question. Or if not "who" than "how". What is the critical process for deciding?

[Pen]

That is such an excellent point.

Ideally, the diplomat would be looking for the "best" compromise respecting all parties. Who defines "best" is the question. Or if not "who" than "how". What is the critical process for deciding?

That's probably the subject for a new video.

Sometimes though, compromise can be risky. Imagine a situation in which someone in a position of control, well used to being diplomatic as part of the job, is approached by an employee with safety concerns. The employee is calm and reasonable, the diplomat says he'll look into it, but he's busy and lets things ride. The employee comes back, more concerned this time, but is promised that the diplomat will make a point of looking into it very soon. Dip. looks up the firm's records and finds that there has never been an accident with that machine/process since it was installed; good safety practice is in place etc. Employee comes back but is not satisfied with this explanation and is beginning to lose patience. Dip. calms him down, says that he will take full responsibility. The following week there's an accident.

I think that in this hypothetical case the Dip. should have personally investigated the situation - watching the process etc. before deciding that nothing needed to be done. Risk Assessment is a risky business.

Apologies for the tortuous scenario, I'm not naturally argumentative, this is just how my brain works...

[chiscotheque]

It's very interesting, helpful and well thought out, although one thing struck me as a given throughout the video - i.e. that the diplomat was always assumed to be 'in the right', and the other person a subject that needed help to be defused and brought round to the diplomat's way of thinking. A diplomat might be very annoying to someone who sees through what they're doing, although I guess that wouldn't happen with a successful diplomat.

really, there's very little difference here between the idealistic diplomat proposed and Machiavellianism. the focus is entirely on said diplomat achieving his/her ends, regardless of what they are, which is essentially an argument of the end justifies the means. there is no discussion about what the diplomat is being diplomatic for, nor about how to deal with serious disagreements between parties that are not the result of human foibles but based on fundamental differences of perspective, approach, and experience.

also, everything purported in the video is presented as fact, without much exegesis on why or examples which may differ. for instance, is it really good and necessary to use a "small lie" to protect a "big truth"? what exactly constitutes "small"? might being not entirely honest actually accustom people to lies such that they depend on them to get by, perhaps to the degree that people who are habitually lied to become incapable of seeing reality with any clarity?

.

[Pen]

I'm wondering also about the subtle differences in words used in connection with this question. Insincerity: not expressing feelings or opinions honestly, hypocritial. Diplomatic: employing tact and conciliation. Courtesy: showing respect and consideration for others.
Respect: Special regard; high esteem; showing deference to someone or something. (All brief definitions from the Penguin Dictionary as I seem to have mislaid my Oxford).

I'm reading The History of England by Robert Tombs at the moment and it's pretty clear that diplomacy doesn't always work, and while I do believe in being sensitive to the feelings of others, especially regarding non life-threatening questions, tiptoeing around each other all the time would be a peculiar way to live our lives. For myself, I do try to avoid conflict as I find it damaging. I tend to escape into art if conflict is threatened. But everyone's different and I guess that empathy is a great help in knowing how to tread that fine line.