Nathan Bond’s TART Remarks

The reasonable man, mused George Bernard Shaw, adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

I am Drewan Baird… specific aspects of my personal life have been enthusiastically discussed since September 2007.

I did indeed plea-bargain in a fraud case that threatened to collapse; I did not solicit money in the name of some pretentious skeptic and some enervated believer; I did have an abominable relationship with an e-contact; I am indeed an outspoken, opinionated, hardnosed bellower about whom anecdotes cluster.

Read me or ignore me but do not expect me to engage cretins who conclude on insufficient, biased intelligence. It’s not that life’s too short. It’s more like I can’t be bothered.

I have been silent on the accusations since some time before September 2007.

Now, hear this…

About my personal life I was scolded by many – and especially by the well-known, influential and respected media personality and journalist of long and impeccable standing; esteemed academic, scientist and author; and man of impeccant reputation, Dr George Claassen, on his blog Prometheus Unbound.

Claassen’s attack followed on my refusal to allow his fulmination on this, my own blog – Nathan Bond’s TART Remarks, that I was to desist from criticising “the Church” for lack of moral standing.

I have been guilty of extraordinary mistakes, to be sure.

The fraud case referred to by Claassen was not abandoned because witnesses for the State did not show, as was claimed; it was struck from the role, without prejudice, because the State’s case collapsed at the time. I was, however, not prepared to live on the edge of a volcano, and less prepared even to risk further injury to third parties. Therefore I instructed counsel to bring the matter to a head, plea-bargained and accepted the consequences of some frightfully bad decisions.

I owned up. I acknowledged my mistakes and I was prepared to meet punishment. I demand nothing more from “the Church”; from religion.

I never concealed or shrouded the facts. The matter was reported in the Afrikaans daily, Die Burger, on November 23, 2002 – the very paper of which Claassen is a senior editorial staffer.

In April 2007 Claassen sent me an email expressing his shock and indignation at learning the facts of the newspaper report and informing me that he would be unable to continue his association with me, sad as it might be.

A short few months later, however, Claassen was quite prepared to speak to me again and called asking whether the accusations against me were malicious.

“No”, I replied, surprised at the resumed contact, “no, they weren’t malicious…”, again admitting the wrong.

But in retrospect I realised that I should not have been surprised at the resumed contact. There was a book to be promoted…

On August 2, 2007 – four months after his “shocking discovery” of my past – Claassen writes me a personal note in a copy of his book “Geloof, bygeloof en ander wensdenkery“: “Dankie vir die groot publisiteit wat jy vir dié boek gegee het maande voor die verskyning. En jou bydrae binne-in.“

And then, two months later, on October 3, 2007: “Stop it!” – an email accusing me of using Claassen’s name, and that of Dr Ben du Toit of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) to raise money on false precepts.

The basis of the accusation was an email I sent to a then confidant – we’ll call him Loki, for he is concerned about the effect of identification on his excellent reputation – eight months earlier on January 23, 2007. In that writ I addressed two distinct matters: a publication on the influence of religion on children and a think tank about a formal institute for the promotion of rationality.

The proposed think tank was simply that: a proposed think tank. Nothing came of it. No “extensive proposal, strategic plan, measuring tactic and budget” mentioned in the email were ever drafted or presented. The idea simply was not developed.

I have said to many clergy that if their salaries and pensions were to be guaranteed, they’d probably leave the Church; even turn against the Church. Ben du Toit was, and remains an exception. I said to him that a man of his repute would make an ideal Chair for an institute promoting rationality. Du Toit simply laughed. He is absolutely dedicated to the Church and to his calling. But if ever I could have had my way…

Claassen’s reputation is above reproach and he would be a natural choice for an institute as envisioned. He once remarked to me that people with big dreams, like me, were needed. But on October 3, 2007 there was none of that amicability.

There never was an agreement with Claassen or with Du Toit, or with anyone else about an institute for the promotion of rationality. I simply shared a private dream with Loki; with Claassen; with Du Toit – all confidants at the time. Whomever claims to the contrary is a damned liar.

The email message clearly differentiated between the publication for which I wanted to raise money, and the dream of an institute. Whomever ignores this aspect has malignant intent. Claassen and Du Toit were never associated with the publication and made no contribution to the planning or the authoring. Claassen did, however, publish it on one of his websites – Sceptic South Africa.

It is suggestive to note that Loki revealed the email message some eight months after receipt. Or, rather, he shared it with Jean Oosthuizen, a journalist of Die Kerkbode, the Afrikaans monthly mouthpiece of the DRC, and the moderator of Kletskerk, an online chat room on matters religious.

Why is it suggestive that Loki revealed the email message when he did – eight months after receipt? The answer is probably to be found in the relationship between Loki and Annette Slabbert, a friend of Karin van Greunen, a woman with whom I have had a short-lived, embarrassing and atrocious relationship – physically revolting, emotionally vacuous and mentally pinioning – subsequent to an obsessive haunting during the single most traumatic and vulnerable period of my entire life. At the end of the relationship Van Greunen trumpeted to all that she would destroy me. Of course, there were allegations, and singularly biased snippets presented, to holler pecuniary imbalance.

Van Greunen was first to comment on Claassen’s hatchet job on his blog. “Dankie, George” (Thank you, George), she wrote. “Thank you, George”? “Thank you, George”!? I am confident my readers have the ability to work out this one. (The comment was subsequently removed.)

Consider this: Loki is a respected member in good standing of the financial management fraternity. He receives a call from me asking him to suggest individuals who may have come in his purview and who may be amenable to assist financially in the authoring and distribution of a manuscript critical of religion and its influence on children. Loki immediately offers to assist himself! He then suggests that he may call on several confidants to similarly support the effort. He asks for an email outlining the strategy and receives the same later that day. Does Loki question the contents of the email? He does not. Does Loki call Claassen and Du Toit about a vision of a formal organisation? He does not. Because he knows the context intimately, having discussed it with me earlier that same day! Yet eight months later, at the exact time that Van Greunen screams rejection, the email is presented as “proof” that I solicited money under false pretences. It appalls me that intelligent people I used to respect could possibly have expect me to have commented at the time on such ludicrousness!

Loki, in asking that his name be removed from this statement for fear of damage to his reputation both personally and professionally – and even suggesting an alternative text, portions of which have now in fact been included here – informs me that he became concerned about the financial viability of the publication subsequent to van Greunen’s financial allegations, which is why he shared the email with Oosthuizen. Loki never shared such concerns with me, though. The manuscript of Suffer Little Children had been completed for some time and publication delayed because discussions with organisations which could have secured the widest distribution and the maximum impact were in progress.

Suffice it to say that the publication, subsequent to Oosthuizen’s expose, courtesy of Loki’s perfidiousness and spearheading Claassen’s vitriolic lambastment, was effectively scuppered. Except, of course, that Claassen used it on one of his blogs! As he quoted me verbatim in his book. With permission, of course. Monty Python, where art thou!

Oosthuizen, doubtlessly driven by his high journalistic calling and irreproachable reporting ethic – the man runs a church newsroom, mind – probably read the email with the growing fervour of a wowser presented with iniquitous malicious causerie. (Visions of the editors of Son and Huisgenoot being presented with video clips of the Pope masturbating to images of the Virgin Mary are suggested to my mind.) Claassen, for whatever reason, but certainly influenced by Oosthuizen’s angle of enquiry, linked the publication’s fund raising activity with the discussion of a possible institute in the same message. Loki, basking in the Kletskerk commune as the hailed whistle blower, did absolutely nothing to introduce the possiblity of misconstruction as he saw the unfolding damage.

The circumstances of my pathetic relationship with Van Greunen – the woman’s online aliases, “Mara” and “Batseba” on Kletskerk, speak to the point – will never be completely known, because I shall never speak of it beyond this statement. I am still sporadically overcome by the revulsion of the pit that engulfed me. But I clearly recall the exact moment when the hex was eventually broken. I clearly recall the clarion realisation that no consequence, however dire, could possibly trump the abominable bind that held me.

Suffice it to say that 300 pounds avoirdupois oestrus blubber somehow convinced against all reason that it is carnally cynosure acts like that analogous Brobdingnagian budgy bespeaking a bikky – it takes.

I do wish to state for the record that Van Greunen, as one “Mara” at the time, confessed to prurient and lascivious fantasies about her then dominee (pastor) – and everthing else with a membrum virile – and as “Batseba” used to engage in virtual concupiscence with some of Kletskerk’s most luminous members… of many such encounters I have transcripts.  That I succumbed to this woman is a matter of intense self-loathing to me, but I have to live with that shame. Others, who remain unidentified, have to fear the shame, I guess.

And then, of course, I have records of the last two telephone conversations between van Greunen and me. To think that people wonder why this pathetic matter never rose above calumny…

I owned up to my offences long before my critics even knew me;

The embarrassing personal relationship is just that – embarrassing and personal… it has tapped from me much more than I am accused of extracting;

The scandalous accusation that I solicited money in Claassen’s name is absolutely false and represents the very meaning of both obloquy and tendentiousness.

When I took up the pen against religion in 2003, I wrote as follows:

I write in order to find out what I think¹. My mind is aglow with whirling transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapour of invention². Ich bin, Ich weiss nicht wer. Ich komme, Ich weiss nicht woher. Ich gehe, Ich weiss nicht wohin. Mich wundert dass Ich so fröhlich bin³.

My aim is not to write well but to écraser l’ infame – to expose religion as a pernicious bane, an insidious hegemony, a grotesque pasquinade of insight, an egregious insult to intelligence and responsible for well-nigh all of human suffering… the single most destructive force ever to debase humanity. My quest to reverse the dumbing down dynamic of creationism, miracles, virgin births, resurrections and the extreme deus ex machina of an ultimate Second Advent has reduced me to an idiot savant manqué. I have, however, no specific reputation to protect and therefore I indefatigably explore theology, science, contemporary wisdom, street thought and even vulgar reaches for insight.

Disagree with me all you want; I am open to debate. I do not accept anything – nothing! – without evidence sufficient to decide and conclude. I expect nothing less from my adversaries. If you are convinced that I am wrong, present your evidence; you will find me a willing listener and an indefatigable arguer; an energetic disputant.

I concur with English biologist Thomas Huxley: “Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”

I am not a role model. I am an ordinary fallible man seeking…and I shall never keep quiet for fear of retributive “exposure”. Really, how gutless would that be!?

Whenever I am struck anew by the irrationality of ad hominem attack, I revel in the words of Elbert Hubbard, “If you cannot answer a man’s argument, all it not lost; you can still call him vile names.”

Argue with me. Or not.

But… if you are given to absolute conclusions based upon biased and incomplete data, I will not even defend myself against your folly. You can take leave and copulate.

Ludwig Wittgenstein once asked a friend why he thought people used to think that the Sun revolved around the Earth and not otherwise. The friend replied that it looks as if the Sun revolves around the Earth… Said Wittgenstein, “And what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the Earth was revolving around the Sun?”

Notes

1. Anonymous. The kind of thing that any writer might say. According to Cassell’s Humorous Quotations, Ed. Nigel Rees, Cassell & Co, London, 2001, p. 465, the statement has an impressive employment history: Alphonse Daudet (1881), Graham Wallas (1926), E. M. Forster (1927), Horace Walpole (1951),  Francoise Sagan (1955), Ian McEwan (1987), James Reston (attributed at his death in 1995), David Lodge (1997) and Louis Macneice (attributed).

2. From Blazing Saddles. Said by LaMarr.

3. Graffiti on the wall of a bomb shelter in Berlin, written during the insecure circumstamces of the Second World war. [I am, I do not know who (I am). I come, I do not know whence. I go, I do not know where. I am amazed that I am so happy.]

4. Alan Ryan, Bertrand Russell A Political Life, Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1988, p.131, “Russell’s aim was not to write good history but to écraser l’ infame…” From Voltaire’s letter to Jean d’ Alembert, 28 November 1762, “Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing [écrasez l' infáme].

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Nathan E Bond is not simply a nom de guerre; it’s an analogy.

The designation “Nathan E Bond” is made up in deference to three fictional characters: Nathan the Wise, Inspector Morse… and Bond, James Bond, of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Double-O status with licence to kill:

Nathan
“Nathan the Wise” is a didactic poem written by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (January 22, 1729 – February 15, 1781), writer, philosopher, publicist and art thinker, and arguably the most outstanding German representative of the Enlightenment era. Lessing called it not a drama, but a dramatic poem; and he might have, even more accurately, called it a didactic poem, for the only feature which it has in common with a drama is that the personages use the oratio directa. The character Nathan was in all probability based on the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729 – 1786), founder of the Haskala, the “Jewish Enlightenment.” I am indebted to John Fiske’s excellent The Unseen World and Other Essays for the following clear notes on “Nathan.” The central idea of “Nathan” was suggested to the author by Boccaccio’s story of “The Three Rings,” which is supposed to have had a Jewish origin. Saladin, pretending to be inspired by a sudden, imperious whim, such as is “not unbecoming in a Sultan,” demands that Nathan shall answer him on the spur of the moment which of the three great religions then known – Judaism, Mohammedanism, Christianity – is judged by reason to be the true one. For a moment the philosopher is in a quandary. If he does not pronounce in favour of his own religion, Judaism, he stultifies himself; but if he does not award the precedence to Mohammedanism, he will apparently insult his sovereign. With true Oriental tact he escapes from the dilemma by means of a parable. There was once a man, says Nathan, who possessed a ring of inestimable value. Not only was the stone which it contained incomparably fine, but it possessed the marvellous property of rendering its owner agreeable both to God and to men. The old man bequeathed this ring to that one of his sons whom he loved the most; and the son, in turn, made a similar disposition of it. So that, passing from hand to hand, the ring finally came into the possession of a father who loved his three sons equally well. Unto which one should he leave it? To get rid of the perplexity, he had two other rings made by a jeweller, exactly like the original, and to each of his three sons he bequeathed one. Each then thinking that he had obtained the true talisman, they began violently to quarrel, and after long contention agreed to carry their dispute before the judge. But the judge said: “Quarrelsome fellows! You are all three of you cheated cheats. Your three rings are alike counterfeit. For the genuine ring is lost, and to conceal the loss, your father had made these three substitutes.” At this unexpected denouement the Sultan breaks out in exclamations of delight; and it is interesting to learn that when the play was brought upon the stage at Constantinople a few years ago, the Turkish audience was similarly affected. There is in the story that quiet, stealthy humour which is characteristic of many mediaeval apologues, and in which Lessing himself loved to deal. It is humour of the kind which hits the mark, and reveals the truth. In a note upon this passage, Lessing himself said: “The opinion of Nathan upon all positive religions has for a long time been my own.” Let him who has the genuine ring show it by making himself loved of God and man. This is the central idea of the poem. It is wholly unlike the iconoclasm of the deists, and, coming in the eighteenth century, it was like a veritable evangel. Lessing’s theology must probably be considered imperfect, yet it is none the less admirable as far as it goes. With its peculiar doctrines of love and faith, it teaches a morality far higher than any that Puritanism ever dreamed of. And with its theory of development it cuts away every possible logical basis for intolerance. It is this theology to which Lessing has given concrete expression in this immortal poem.

E
E stands for Endeavour, the elusive name of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse. Nobody knows Morse as “Endeavour” – he is simply “Morse”… and was called “Pagan” at college! Morse arrives at the inevitable solution of complex murders by languorous means. En route he makes embarrassing mistakes; he misconceives and makes wrong assumptions. His peers, his few friends, his superiors and his staffers alike deride him, criticize him, chatter behind his back, underestimate him as he plods along to the inevitable consummate dénouement. Why Endeavour? The origin of the name is the vessel HM Bark Endeavour, as Morse’s father was a Quaker (Quakers have a tradition of “virtue names” – as is “Nathan E Bond”) and a fan of Captain James Cook.

Bond
The banal part of the analogy. Bond, because James is such a cunning linguist, according to Miss Moneypenny. And, of course, Bond is the most famous partaker of the Martini – American slang for “silver bullet”: a simple guaranteed solution for a difficult problem… Casino Royale (1953) introduced the master spy and his drinking habits: “‘A dry martini,‘ he said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet… Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel… ‘When I’m… er… concentrating,’ he explained, ‘I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made.’” His British colleagues take traditional scotch-and-sodas and brandies at their clubs; Bond’s drink, like his technological sophistication, is modern and American. In the novels, and then in the movies, Agent 007 offered the postwar Company Man both an escapist fantasy and an idealized self-image.

Nathan (what might be “true religion”?) E (philosofooter) Bond (suave saviour).

The man behind Nathan Bond is an ordinary man without endearing social, pecuniary, sartorial, or aphrodisiacal graces. I frequently renounce propriety, that quintessential keystone of civilization, for reasons mostly obscure.

“I have but these two graces: I do not involve myself in the private affairs of others and I have no proclivity for rancour. Talionic I am not.

O, and there’s even a third grace: I will never break a confidence, not even when the information can absolve me. I have the cheloids and the cicatrices to prove it.”

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nathan.e.bond@gmail.com

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