Miley Cyrus and Duns Scotus

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Color me bored, not shocked.

Yesterday morning I did something I've never done before: listened to a Miley Cyrus song. It made me think of Duns Scotus and I’ll bet you don’t know too many people who can say that with a straight face.

I was previously able to escape Miley because I don’t have cable and good old WUMB doesn’t play her music. But the uproar over her VMA routine made me curious enough to seek an online video. I wasn’t shocked by Miley’s performance because that’s exactly what it was–a performance that no rational human should confuse with music. Instead of quaking with outrage or fearing the moral corruption of America’s youth I roared with laughter at the tacky banality of it all. And, like I said, it reminded me of Duns Scotus–sort of.

Duns Scotus

That name probably doesn’t many ring bells. Scotus is Latin for Scotsman and Duns the Scotsman lived a long time ago (1268-1308). Although he is considered by scholars to be one of the most important thinkers of the Middle Ages, his very name gave us the English word “dunce,” a person too dense to learn. Scotus wrestled with some of the weightiest questions imaginable, but he is often discredited as the author of the ultimate stupid question: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Leaving aside the possibility that Duns wasn’t the first to ask that kind of question and probably never posed it that way, it’s actually a very profound way of contemplating the differences between the natural and supernatural realms. If the latter exists, it would not be subject to the laws of physics. In a Duns/dunce-like way, the answer to the question is: As many angels as want to twerk and they can bring dates. No pin could contain them.

Scotus may have asked that “dumb” question because he was the victim of bad timing. Brilliant as he was, he had the misfortune to follow in the footsteps of one of the most stunning intellects in all of Western history: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Aquinas was the apex of a religious/intellectual movement known as Scholasticism. The anti-intellectualism of the modern evangelical movement would make Scholastics spew if they were around today. Scholastics didn’t battle their culture or its ideas; they engaged in intellectual query that sought to harmonize faith, reason, and science. Aristotle occupied a lower throne than Jesus, Moses, and the prophets, but only slightly lower. The problem for Scotus was that Aquinas was so good at this kind of thinking, that he answered most of the good questions! (He mused upon 631 of them in his Summa Theologica.) The Scholastic movement hung around for another century or so, but it was on the downslide by the time Duns came along. And, really, what more was there to add to what Aquinas said?

By now you must think I slipped off the stripper pole. What the hell does this have to do with a twit like Miley Cyrus? Let’s go back to timing. I’m shocked all right–shocked that anyone would be shocked by Miley’s twerking. Have such people been living in a bubble even bigger than my cableless living room? The whole point of a lot of pop culture is to shock. Or did you think The Beatles really preferred Edwardian suits, or that Mick Jagger was simply ‘more comfortable’ in purple stretch pants and a leopard-print open jacket? Pop music has been the repository of outré costuming forever: Little Richard’s pompadour, Elvis’s tight-trouser gyrations, the glitter gay of Liberace and Elton John, the androgyny of Alice Cooper and Prince, glam rock, Flower Child psychedelia, punk safety pins and Mohawks…. But let’s hand the crown to one who topped them all: Madonna. Love her or hate her, Madonna didn’t just push the envelop; she ripped it open and tore it to shreds. Expose the hypocrisy of virgin versus whore images of women? Consider it shattered. Parody religion? Check–several times and several traditions. Nudity and lesbianism? Flip the pages of Sex. Death by copulation? See Body of Evidence (1993). Foul language, bullet bras, crotch shots, bondage, celebrity marriages and breakups, cowgirl sluttery, Kabbalah mysticism, outspoken political commentary…? Done that. Hell, the woman has even gotten away with playing a wholesome mom who writes children’s books.    

Did Madonna leave anything? If she did, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry grabbed it. So what’s a half talent like Miley riding the coattails of her old man’s career to do? The VMA spectacle was an attempt to push boundaries (plush toy sex anyone?), but it’s a vacuous flop–and not just because she can’t really sing or dance very well. It failed because Miley doesn’t have a vivid enough imagination. Her act is just soft porn with a Disney twist. In other words, it failed because it is neither original nor shocking–it’s just stupid and lame. What a dunce!