The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Politically Incorrect Guides) (54 page)
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Authors: Anthony Esolen
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In 1946, Pope Pius XII called for women’s suffrage in all Catholic countries, and urged the women of Italy, to whom he directed many addresses full of praise and encouragement, to vote to protect the family against hypermasculine ideologies such as fascism.
26
By 2000, in almost every nation of the West, millions of “liberated” women will have abandoned the family as the locus of their chief concern. In America, single and divorced women will ally with homosexual men to push for the normalization of any kind of “family” arrangement imaginable, regardless of the welfare of children, so long as the adults involved consent. None of this could have happened without both the Industrial Revolution—which took from women much of the economic value of their work at home—and the Pill.
26
By 2000, in almost every nation of the West, millions of “liberated” women will have abandoned the family as the locus of their chief concern. In America, single and divorced women will ally with homosexual men to push for the normalization of any kind of “family” arrangement imaginable, regardless of the welfare of children, so long as the adults involved consent. None of this could have happened without both the Industrial Revolution—which took from women much of the economic value of their work at home—and the Pill.
If you don’t like the Pill, it must be because you want women enslaved to the messy drudgery of child-rearing, or because you are a meddling Puritan who wants to suppress the natural sexuality of our youth, or simply because you are backwards. But watch a rap video or browse a magazine rack at a convenience store, and ask how women are more respected today than before the Pill. Look at statistics about teen pregnancy or venereal disease (not to mention teenage girls’ and college girls’ depression) and ask if sexual liberation has been liberating.
It’s hard to see where the West can go from here, without repentance and return to the wellsprings of its being. As I write, not one nation in Europe is replacing its population. The birth rate in supposedly family-friendly Italy is 1.2 women per child. Among the French of Quebec it is 0.7. Such rates cannot be sustained for more than one generation without the nation lapsing into swift and irreversible decline, because not enough children will be born to produce the wealth necessary for the pensions and benefits that the aged have voted for themselves and will hardly want to defer or discontinue. Then the few that are born will have to be more heavily taxed to make up the shortfall. But that will compel all women to work for wages, which will cause the birth rate to drop further—if it is possible to drop further than Quebec’s. But why should the individual care? Says Burke, “People will not look forward to a posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors” (
Reflections on the Revolution in France
). The individualism of desire demands that people “fulfill” themselves in the only time available for them, now. Even those who are prudent plan for themselves and their careers. Some soldiers sacrifice for their country, but, comparatively speaking, they are the blessed few. So we have prudent hedonists and imprudent hedonists, but out of hedonists even Epicurus could only fashion a community by means of austere moderation and careful retreat from the world.
Reflections on the Revolution in France
). The individualism of desire demands that people “fulfill” themselves in the only time available for them, now. Even those who are prudent plan for themselves and their careers. Some soldiers sacrifice for their country, but, comparatively speaking, they are the blessed few. So we have prudent hedonists and imprudent hedonists, but out of hedonists even Epicurus could only fashion a community by means of austere moderation and careful retreat from the world.
Is there no hope? Throughout the surging and dying fads of the century, the bloodshed, the degradation, the pride and folly, there were still some who believed in the natural law, in man’s freedom to live among his fellows in accord with it, and in the capacity of reason to help us discern the good from the bad, the beautiful from the ugly, and the true from the false. They did not fear natural science, but they did not fall before its idol, either. They were not afraid to go to war, but they gave their hearts to peace. They saw through the shallowness of the false gods: the State, the Party, das Volk, sex, “freedom of choice,” science, an airplane in every garage and two wives in every bed. These were true liberals, because they believed passionately in liberty, though some of them, the more conservative, doubted the State’s capacity to secure such freedom. As the century closed, they began to seek one another out, to begin, slowly, to form communities anew, wherein words like virtue would resume their honored place.
Who were these people? There were many; I have space to mention only a few. There were Chesterton and Belloc, capitalists in this radical sense: they wanted everyone to possess capital, not just the few, and certainly not just the State. The State would cut a girl’s red hair because it had lice; Chesterton would start a revolution to give the girl’s father a chance at a better job so that her mother could enjoy leisure—not idleness but complete responsibility for her time—and clean her daughter’s hair properly.
27
Their call against the inhumanity of socialism and the crass ugliness of the consumer state would be heard by the American agrarians, by maternalist women in Sweden
28
and America in the mid-century, and by the trend-bucking economist E. F. Schumacher.
29
Some of these people were sentimentally attached to a way of life long past: as Evelyn Waugh lamented the passing of the virtues of the English aristocracy in
Brideshead Revisited
, and the emergence of a culture of democratic banality.
27
Their call against the inhumanity of socialism and the crass ugliness of the consumer state would be heard by the American agrarians, by maternalist women in Sweden
28
and America in the mid-century, and by the trend-bucking economist E. F. Schumacher.
29
Some of these people were sentimentally attached to a way of life long past: as Evelyn Waugh lamented the passing of the virtues of the English aristocracy in
Brideshead Revisited
, and the emergence of a culture of democratic banality.
Some stood up for man in all his glory as the creature
capax Dei
, capable of conceiving of God and of becoming like God. Such was the theologian Romano Guardini, who saw with dismay the age of the “mass man,”
30
or the philosopher Joseph Pieper, who retained his belief that “wisdom” meant more than the possession of linguistic codes or scientific data, and who argued, historically and anthropologically, that a community that does not worship is no community at all.
31
Some, rejecting the animalism at the base of the individualism of desire, sang of the holiness of the human body, male and female, and the divine creativity intrinsic to the act of married love. Such was the great Pope John Paul II, almost universally misunderstood.
32
The brave priest who helped, with the simple electrician Lech Walesa and an affable actor from rural Illinois, to bring down Poland’s communist dictatorship and then the Soviet Union, stood uncompromisingly against the slaughter of infants in the womb, against the rearrangement of family relations to suit the capricious tastes of adults, and against all attacks on the dignity of woman—attacks increasingly coming from feminists, some of whom hated a feminine woman even more than they hated a masculine man.
capax Dei
, capable of conceiving of God and of becoming like God. Such was the theologian Romano Guardini, who saw with dismay the age of the “mass man,”
30
or the philosopher Joseph Pieper, who retained his belief that “wisdom” meant more than the possession of linguistic codes or scientific data, and who argued, historically and anthropologically, that a community that does not worship is no community at all.
31
Some, rejecting the animalism at the base of the individualism of desire, sang of the holiness of the human body, male and female, and the divine creativity intrinsic to the act of married love. Such was the great Pope John Paul II, almost universally misunderstood.
32
The brave priest who helped, with the simple electrician Lech Walesa and an affable actor from rural Illinois, to bring down Poland’s communist dictatorship and then the Soviet Union, stood uncompromisingly against the slaughter of infants in the womb, against the rearrangement of family relations to suit the capricious tastes of adults, and against all attacks on the dignity of woman—attacks increasingly coming from feminists, some of whom hated a feminine woman even more than they hated a masculine man.
Does Western Civilization possess the resources for renewal? It possesses a greater wealth of them than any previous falling civilization could count on. We might listen to Aeschylus again and be warned that natural law must be the foundation of a democratic state. We might turn to Virgil and recall that the role of the true father, one of self-sacrifice in leadership, is indispensable. We might turn to the Rule of Benedict and recover a healthy appreciation for the dignity of hard labor, and the richness of silence. We might turn to Dante and attempt to see all love as the expression of the Love that truly is. We might turn to Shakespeare and learn anything about man there is to learn. We might turn to the sage and serious Doctor Johnson and imitate the solid common sense of a man who could not be moved by the wispy intellectual fad, but could be moved by penetrating argument, or by a beggar on the streets of London. We might return to Dickens and remember that if we lose the child, we lose everything. We might turn to the dour Jeremiah of the twentieth century, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and learn that if the West’s victory over communism means a victory for license and banality and a real servitude for the human soul, then we are the losers, too.
We might drink from all these fountains, but it will all be in vain if we do not keep our culture grounded in the one foundation without which Western civilization is inconceivable, and must fall. It may not be so in India or China, not yet, but for us, it is the Messiah—to come, or having come—or it is Nothing. Reason may tell us to refrain from harming our neighbors; it is only God who can command us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Reason may suggest that the Good is ever to be sought, regardless of the pain it might cause us, regardless even of death. But only the One who loves can give us the strength to seek it, because it is He. Reason may falter in justifying itself, but the One who made the world in measure, weight, and number, guarantees also that reason is good and worthy of honor. And He promises more.
For Western civilization cannot be closed upon itself without dying. It longs for the “day of the Lord,” and the New Jerusalem descending from heaven like a bride. If the people of the West begin to believe that matter is all there is, they shall cease to be people of the West; they shall part company with their heritage. If Europe continues to pursue the path of secular liberalism, and America follows a few steps behind, it will find the road leads not to an unprecedented age of reason, but to one or another all-too-familiar age: another age of Lenin and Stalin, or another age of Mohammed.
But in the end I believe the West will not commit suicide in this way. For the history of man will bear no such lid to be forced upon it. Whether Western civilization will revive in Europe, or in America, or rather in Nigeria and India and Korea and the Philippines, I do not know, and, were it not for my feelings of patriotism, I would not care. But it will revive. There is hope for it, if only because it is the sole civilization founded upon hope, because it is founded, finally, upon the word of the One who keeps His promises.
Dewey Decimates TraditionEducation has accordingly not only to safeguard an individual against the besetting erroneous tendencies of his own mind—its rashness, presumption, and preference of what chimes with self-interest to objective evidence—but also to undermine and destroy the accumulated and self-perpetuating prejudices of long ages.John Dewey
,
How We ThinkThat there are such prejudices no one will deny. What conservatives deny is the wisdom of having an arm of the government wipe them out by replacing them with prejudices favored by the educational elites.
NOTES
Chapter One
Ancient Greece: Love of Wisdom and Beauty
1
Presocratic Fragments
, 80B1. The quote was widely known, for centuries; see Sextus Empiricus,
Against the Mathematicians
, 7.60.
Presocratic Fragments
, 80B1. The quote was widely known, for centuries; see Sextus Empiricus,
Against the Mathematicians
, 7.60.
2
Cf. Thucydides,
The Peloponnesian War
, 5.86–116.
Cf. Thucydides,
The Peloponnesian War
, 5.86–116.
3
See the story of Pandora in
Works and Days,
lines 24–82.
See the story of Pandora in
Works and Days,
lines 24–82.
4
Cf. Herodotus,
The Persian Wars,
1.60.
Cf. Herodotus,
The Persian Wars,
1.60.
5
Plato,
Republic,
8.555b–562a.
Plato,
Republic,
8.555b–562a.
6
See
The Sand-Reckoner,
in
The Works of Archimedes,
ed. T. L. Heath (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1897). The account of the scientist’s role in the defense of Syracuse, and his death, may be found in Plutarch’s
Lives,
in the “Life of Marcellus.”
See
The Sand-Reckoner,
in
The Works of Archimedes,
ed. T. L. Heath (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1897). The account of the scientist’s role in the defense of Syracuse, and his death, may be found in Plutarch’s
Lives,
in the “Life of Marcellus.”
7
Cf. Diogenes Laertius,
On the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers,
9.44.
Cf. Diogenes Laertius,
On the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers,
9.44.
8
See Norman O. Brown’s introduction to
Hesiod: Theogony
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953); Gilbert Murray,
Five Stages of Greek Religion
(New York: Doubleday, 1951).
See Norman O. Brown’s introduction to
Hesiod: Theogony
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953); Gilbert Murray,
Five Stages of Greek Religion
(New York: Doubleday, 1951).
9
Aeschylus relates the myth, which he uses to celebrate the establishment of a democratic Athens, in his
Oresteia
trilogy:
Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers,
and
The Eumenides.
Aeschylus relates the myth, which he uses to celebrate the establishment of a democratic Athens, in his
Oresteia
trilogy:
Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers,
and
The Eumenides.
10
See for instance E. Norman Gardiner,
Athletics in the Ancient World
(Mineola, NY: Dover, 2002; first published by Oxford University Press, 1930), 55–58. How important this education was is made clear by Gardiner’s pithy remark: “To be ashamed to be seen naked was to the Greek a mark of a barbarian” (57). At age sixteen, a boy might be admitted to train at the men’s clubs, the
gymnasia.
A charming summary of the whole “curriculum” can be found in
The Education of the Greek People and its Influence upon Civilization,
by Thomas Davidson (New York: Appleton, 1897).
See for instance E. Norman Gardiner,
Athletics in the Ancient World
(Mineola, NY: Dover, 2002; first published by Oxford University Press, 1930), 55–58. How important this education was is made clear by Gardiner’s pithy remark: “To be ashamed to be seen naked was to the Greek a mark of a barbarian” (57). At age sixteen, a boy might be admitted to train at the men’s clubs, the
gymnasia.
A charming summary of the whole “curriculum” can be found in
The Education of the Greek People and its Influence upon Civilization,
by Thomas Davidson (New York: Appleton, 1897).
11
See Herodotus,
The Persian Wars,
7.228.
See Herodotus,
The Persian Wars,
7.228.
12
Aristotle,
Politics,
1.1253a.
Aristotle,
Politics,
1.1253a.
13
Plato,
Republic,
1.338c.
Plato,
Republic,
1.338c.
14
Cf. Diogenes Laertius, 1.27.
Cf. Diogenes Laertius, 1.27.
15
Cf. Diogenes Laertius, 2.3.
Cf. Diogenes Laertius, 2.3.
16
Anaximander’s thought survives in fragments, quoted by other authors. An excellent analysis of his contributions can be found in G. S. Kirk et al,
The Presocratic Philosophers,
2
nd
edition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 100–142.
Anaximander’s thought survives in fragments, quoted by other authors. An excellent analysis of his contributions can be found in G. S. Kirk et al,
The Presocratic Philosophers,
2
nd
edition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 100–142.
17
Cf. Aristotle,
Politics,
1.1259a.
Cf. Aristotle,
Politics,
1.1259a.
18
Cf. Diogenes Laertius, 8.1–50.
Cf. Diogenes Laertius, 8.1–50.
19
The account is first found in John Philoponus, a sixth-century commentator on Aristotle’s
De Anima
(
De Intellectu,
Book XV, 29).
The account is first found in John Philoponus, a sixth-century commentator on Aristotle’s
De Anima
(
De Intellectu,
Book XV, 29).
20
For Plato’s doctrine of the forms, and the soul’s natural longing to know universal truth, see, for example,
Phaedo,
67ff.;
Meno,
81ff.;
Phaedrus,
244–56;
Republic
6.505–7.520.
For Plato’s doctrine of the forms, and the soul’s natural longing to know universal truth, see, for example,
Phaedo,
67ff.;
Meno,
81ff.;
Phaedrus,
244–56;
Republic
6.505–7.520.
21
Republic,
4.435–48.
Republic,
4.435–48.
22
Aristotle,
Physics,
2.194b–195a; also
Metaphysics,
12.6–10. “The act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state.” (6.72b)
Aristotle,
Physics,
2.194b–195a; also
Metaphysics,
12.6–10. “The act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state.” (6.72b)
23
See Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics,
especially Book X, 1176a–1179b.
See Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics,
especially Book X, 1176a–1179b.
24
Aristotle,
Politics,
Book I, 1259b, 1260b; Book II, 1260b–1262b.
Aristotle,
Politics,
Book I, 1259b, 1260b; Book II, 1260b–1262b.
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