Is Civilization Deteriorating?

--This is the complete text of a lecture I delivered at the King's College during Interregnum 2008. As it was spoken, the text includes only "verbal" citatations; thus, I would like straightaway to acknowledge my immense debt to David Bentley Hart, Leo Strauss, Dr. David Innes, and Dr. David Corbin--you may consider this piece a disjointed eavesdropping on their thoughts.--

We cannot doubt that Western culture is in flux. However, whether that tumult is the descent into depravity, or the birth pangs of Utopia depends on whom you ask. Progressives insist that we modern Westerners live in the summertime of history: 200 years of explosive growth in technological innovation, and material wealth have driven disease, poverty, and violence to the fringes of our civilization. We are the richest society ever, by more significant measurements than per capita income—surely even the lavish Henry VIII would have traded one of his palaces for indoor plumbing, or refrigeration, something even our “poor” almost universally enjoy. However, traditionalist conservatives present a second account, a morbid tale of rampant individualism; of the marginalizing of religion; the decay of marriage and the family; and the rise of trivial materialism, or, consumerism.

I feel certain that evaluating the true nature of our society, and its probable future will require our unifying these two narratives; we rugged individualists must learn the genealogy of our age. This epic begins in the grey half-light of the late Renaissance; its original patriarch is a sly—even sinister—Italian bureaucrat named Niccolo Machiavelli. His slim volume of political pragmatics is the corner around which Europe rushed headlong, finding on the other side the modern era. A bitter coup rages throughout The Prince, culminating in the overthrow of classical philosophy, with its “imagined republics,” its insistence on telos, or a final end, its stern commands of virtue. Machiavelli sought instead a political philosophy whose highest good is “security and well-being”, ordered by “effectual truth.” Already we can discern the features of gestating modernity: materialism, utilitarianism, and the exaltation of survival.

The Renaissance rolled northward, and Machiavelli begat Thomas Hobbes, the dour Monster of Maumsbury, who in turn begat the monstrous Leviathan. What lies half-buried in Machiavelli comes to full light in Hobbes (perhaps the reason that the mischievous Prince reads more enjoyably than the pontifical Leviathan): he spurns the classical dreams of a summum bonum, envisions humanity as a warring mob dominated first by a fear of death, and then a lust for power, and crafts a political philosophy designed to assuage the fear, and curb the lust. Hobbes fancied himself a scientist discovering the law of human nature, namely, a command to self-preservation; thus, for him liberty is essentially license, “the absence of external impediment,” the freedom to secure that life as he sees fit. Nevertheless, security compels him to seek community, and in this respect, Hobbes legitimately founds modern liberalism: his concept of the social contract spelled the end of hereditary monarchy, if not of authoritarianism. Indeed, it is precisely his ability to cast the human life in terms of crass materialism that allowed him to devise a state so brutally effective at achieving its limited ends: in Leviathan, Hobbes’ aim is low and steady; it finds its mark of self-preservation.

Machiavelli styled himself conqueror of the classics; Hobbes believed himself the founder of the true science of human nature; if it is possible, John Locke may have surpassed both in ambition: he seems to style himself a primordial demiurge, remaking the natural order, humanity, and even God in his own image. Locke ennobles Machiavelli’s pragmatism and Hobbes’ base materialism, exalting them to religion as he presents what I will tremulously name an ontology of ownership, in which being itself is a matter of property. He envisions God as a cosmic proprietor, and finds a theological grounding for Hobbes’ call to self-preservation in the fact that “we are God’s workmanship.”Locke directs the government to “the regulating and preserving of property,” by which it may protect and encourage a flourishing economy, and thus become great in the world. Locke stands firmly in the tradition of Machiavelli in encouraging a politics of realism, grounded in each man’s quest for self-aggrandizement, and in the tradition of Hobbes, in rooting his political aims in self-preservation, but he found an innovative way to unify these in an entirely economic conception of life.

The British propounded the theory, but it was the Americans—a people sprung full grown and armed, as it were, from the brains of these early moderns—who first explored the world created for them by Locke. The Federalist Papers are in some respects a primer in Lockean philosophy, particularly those texts most central to the Framing, numbers Ten and Fifty-One. Ten envisions an American political order largely rooted in an economic view of existence, in which the government circumvents the dangerous factions of religion and ideology by “regulating” the faction of economic interest. It thus derives its stability from the guarantee that its citizens will care more about stock prices and car models than about the troublesome but enduring ideas that foment revolution.
Fifty-One applies this materialist principle to the machinery of government itself, contending, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interests of the man must be connected to the constitutional rights of the place.” In its essence, the American political experience is the application of the two most crucial Enlightenment tenets: the self-interested individual seeking to enlarge an existence that has diminished to the merely material.

This particular strand of the Enlightenment—what Strauss called “the first wave of modernity”—created (or perhaps articulated or disseminated) the culture that launched the Industrial Revolution. This is no accident of history, but a natural consequence: given a conception of the self as an autonomous individual with the sacred duty of extending the sphere of his existence, and given a view of existence as essentially material, it is small wonder that the modern man—and particularly that super-modern, the American—would develop so homogeneously into what Walter McDougall termed “the hustler,” a creature bent on exploiting every scrap of knowledge to his practical advantage.

This wholly new conception of life—this proprietary worldview, this Market Earth—unleashed possibilities never before imagined: the ability to stamp out disease, to fly to the moon, to converse instantly across continents, even to blot a city from the map in a maelstrom of radioactive flame. In but a century, we save 100 million lives from polio, and then murder or starve 100 million more with industrial efficiency, all in the name of Progress.

However, the Enlightenment fertilized the bloom of Industry at the expense of the old growth of the West—the institutions and values inherited from Christ and Aristotle. It is absolutely telling that Locke spends an entire chapter in the Second Treatise redefining familial relations in terms of self-interest. This new political philosophy requires new men to practice it, men who see their lives in terms of self-interest (“enlightened” though it may be) rather than in terms of submission to faith, hope, and charity, or the fearful strictures of honor and shame.

Perhaps the best exposition of this problem comes from the simple dilemma posed by Jesus: “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” The modern age has been an experiment—so far wildly successful—in unlocking man’s vast potential to exploit and utilize Mammon. From the beginning, the social consequences of that partnership have revealed themselves, but many critics of modernity insist we have only begun to taste the bitter fruit that it may bear.

Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart insists, “We live in an age whose chief moral value is the absolute liberty of personal volition,” and whose “religion” is thus “one of very comfortable nihilism”—nihilism precisely because it denies “any ‘value’ higher than choice.” Thus, for all their talk of the public good, the moderns, with their will-centered philosophies, placed themselves on a slippery slope that led inevitably to Nietzsche. Hart’s observations bring to mind Israel’s social free-fall recorded in the Book of Judges, whose author belabors this criticism: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

An observer of Western culture in 2008 cannot help but feel a measure of ambivalence: this is a culture that, to some extent, has traded virtue, a quality that for Christ and Aristotle meant “man as he ought to be,” for bread. However, there is no simple stance from which to criticize our individualism and triviality: we wear Industry’s clothing, eat its food, live in its houses. We write our books of communitarian virtue on Industry’s laptops.

Without slipping into determinism—I still hope that we might find a route back to virtue that will not tear us from the providential blessings of abundance—we must face this knotty problem: if we fear social disintegration, we must treat it in relation to the TVs and suburbs that isolate us, the food that renders us obese, and the cult of the Dollar that has stolen the hearts of the church.

This prompt sought to discern whether our civilization is deteriorating: in a sense, we cannot even ask that question from within modernity, for modern man has rejected those standards and values that make such a critique meaningful. In asking the question, we pass judgment on modernity, stepping off our culture’s rigidly base foundation. From the vantage of the ancients, we have fallen far, indeed. Still, we hear the new man asking softly, in all seriousness: “Could you bear the cost of return?”

Finally, a word to Christians: it certainly may be that Western civilization will not stand under the weight of its shortcomings—only the Lord knows what is to come. Regardless, the truth remains that we are citizens not only of the Earthly City, but of the Kingdom of the Beloved Son: we hope not in whirling and rickety Progress, but in the One Who was, and is, and is to come.

The Blind Man, 2

A few months ago, I posted a fragment of a short story, and pleaded for help in finishing it. At long last, I think I have a plot for it--read along, and tell me what you think.


THE BLIND MAN

Tim wove unsteadily through the crowd that surged across 42nd and broke in clamorous waves on the steps fronting Bryant Park. He pressed the cell phone tighter to his ear, trying to decipher the thin voice on the other end over the ebb and flow of the crowd’s roar. “What? Sorry, I can’t quite hear you.”
Faintly, and for the fifth time that conversation, he heard, “Are you deaf? Honestly, Tim…”
“No, it’s not me, it’s the phone. I can’t figure out the volume control, it’s turned way down.” He briefly held the phone at an arm’s length, inspecting its sleek exterior, and flashing display for some newfound revelation, before plunging back into the conversation, mid-sentence: “—live a thousand miles apart, already never see one another, and the only time you can find to talk is walking down a crowded street?”
“Come on, Em--” he began heatedly, as the spark of irritation he felt suddenly flamed into exasperation. After a moment, he continued, “Listen, babe, we’ll find more time to talk. I’m flying down for your birthday next month, remember? Why don’t you tell me about your week?”
Tim sprang up the steps nimbly, at best catching every other word as she described her Nutrition class, a roommate-dispute, a trip to the mall, dwelling instead on the hint of resentment that coated her words and brushed an oily residue across his mind. He stopped before the ‘Wichcraft kiosk and scanned the menu, mocking his soft sounds of affirmation with some exaggerated eye-rolling.
After a moment, his gaze roved off the hanging board, and down to the service window, where it fell upon, not so much a girl, as—sleek brown hair falling in gentle curls, ripe-strawberry lips, an apron framing the soft curves of breasts and thighs.

Suddenly, the world shifted to stereo—in his ear, and from the window, he heard, “Excuse me?”

“Excuse me?”: Emily’s voice, clipped and irritated. “I asked you a question.”

“Excuse me?”: the clerk, a girl about his age, tossed her hair impatiently, and withered him with a disgusted stare. “Can I get you something?”

As four-letter expressions bloomed and wilted on his lips, Tim gestured for a moment’s time, fixing his eyes somewhere beyond the girl’s right shoulder. “Sorry, I just—Hey, babe, I’m at the park, so I need to go. Ordering the food and all. Call you back in an hour?”

“I don’t know how you plan to talk with a homeless man for an hour, if you can’t hold a conversation with your girlfriend for ten minutes,” she seethed. “Call me whenever.”

Tim hung up without responding, his insides writhing as a knowing look twisted the clerk’s expression into a haughty sneer. Her words dripping disdain, she repeated, “Can I get you something?”

He wanted to respond: “Yeah, some arsenic,” but instead, he ordered two sandwiches, and coffee. “Can I help that I have eyes?” he wondered bitterly, overcome by the injustice of hormones, and the general impossibility of dealing with females.

As he walked away, his change a wadded mass in his pocket, the bag of food steaming in the stiff October breeze, his nerves still raw from the exchange, Tim forced himself to stop. He shut his eyes, and said a grudging prayer: “Father, forgive me for my weakness. Help me to be generous with my money, and my time. Show me someone to show your love.”

He continued along the flagstone-path that encircled the park, still annoyed, but with a sense of injured grandeur, like a wounded and weakened soldier charging forward resolutely. As he picked his way around mothers pushing strollers, and couples huddled intimately over tables, Tim scanned the benches for a homeless man to shower with beneficence. Having nearly completed the orbit of the bare lawn, he was fighting a growing sense of desperation when he spotted a likely candidate.

The man sat alone, perched rigidly on a park bench, the contours of his body all sharp angles, back held straight and unsupported, shoulders square and level, hands clasped contentedly around the cane in his lap, his gaze fixed on the flower bed across the path. Indeed, a careless observer might easily have thought him some new addition to the Park’s statuary, or a mannequin forgotten after Fashion Week, so static was his aspect. His skin was dark, the color of wet asphalt, and took on an ironic purity against the muted stains that covered his white shirt and tan pants. His hair grew wild, curly strands jutting up haphazardly, like hands clawing from a great crowd, and all of it shot through with streaks of gray. In spite of the fall wind that gnawed the Bryant Park-passerby to the bone, he wore no coat, and seemed not to notice the chill.

Tim stopped a few feet before the yogi, a greeting dying on his lips, as he showed no sign of interest or acknowledgement, remaining engrossed in the mysteries of the swaying bulbs. After a moment’s uncertainty, Tim cleared his throat audibly. The man jerked slightly in Tim’s direction, a movement startling in its minuteness, though his eyes never left the flowers. “Can I help you?” he rumbled, his deep voice rolling like gravel in Tim’s ears. Awaiting a response, the man turned his head towards Tim, his expression tense and inquisitive, except for his eyes, which glimmered with a dark brilliance, bright and depthless and quite as useless as two gems.

Understanding crashed on Tim like a safe--“He’s blind!” As the silence stretched on, Tim snatched at random words, desperately seeking solid ground—“Sorry, I—I’m sorry, I thought you might want some lunch. I have food. And coffee. Turkey sandwiches.”

The blind man chuckled softly, “Oh, really? Well, son, that’s mighty kind of you. Now that you mention it, I am hungry as hell. Haven’t eaten for a good spell.” He paused pointedly, as Tim’s mind worked frantically for a response. Finally, the man gestured towards the bench—“Why don’t you take a seat?”

Tim sat woodenly, pressing himself into the far corner of the bench as the man swung his torso completely towards the boy, placing his left elbow on the bench’s back, his broad features splitting in a slow smile that never touched his eyes’ distant reflection. “Well, now, lunch, hmmm? Turkey sandwiches and coffee. What brings these here sandwiches to my bench, son?”
Tim clutched at the question like a life-preserver, suddenly finding himself in familiar territory. He felt some of his former confidence returning as he rattled off something about God, and how Jesus wanted him to give people sandwiches.

That smile widened, revealing shockingly white teeth, and he rumbled, without a trace of irony—“Oh, I see. A Christian. You folks are always good for a sandwich. Well, sure, son, I’ll sit with you for a spell.”
Despite the sincerity of the voice, Tim felt a tiny stab of unease, and sought to steer the conversation towards safer ground.

“I’m Tim Jones,” he said, forcing a high-pitched cheeriness into his tone as he slid the sandwich and coffee across the bench.

“I’m Jenkins. George Jenkins,” he responded brusquely as he tore the cellophane away from the sandwich and took a delicate bite. Swallowing, he continued, “I don’t put much stock in names, though. I’ll probably forget yours before we’re through talking. I’ve been blind long enough to know that names are mostly just shiny bows and wrapping paper. I worry about what’s beneath all the labels.”

Tim tried desperately to think of some intelligent reply to George’s abrupt remark, but his mind could find no traction. He began to feel some measure of panic as seconds stretched towards a full minute and his companion seemed content to munch his sandwich in peaceful silence. Finally, like a falling man catching at any branch he can reach, even the tiny and rotting, he blurted out—“How long have you been blind?”

George stopped in mid-bite, his teeth delicately pinching the sandwich like a tigress sheltering a cub. He softly set it down on the bench, and leaned back, taking a long swig of coffee and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well, son, I don’t normally tell people this, but seeing as you’re a praying man…” Tim made a vaguely affirmative sound, fighting that vague sense of apprehension as George continued. I’ll tell you about these eyes I’ve got here. Some twenty years ago, I could see everything you see, but these here eyes only wanted to see one thing: flesh. Son, these eyes was darkened lamps, and my deep-soul was filled with darkness, so Gawd struck these here eyes blind so that the darkness would stop a’tricklin’ in through ‘em.” He finished heavily, his voice slowing and fizzling into nothing, and he hunched over a little, as though physically exhausted.

The turkey and bread turned to charcoal in Tim’s mouth; after a moment, he ground out a whispered reply. “You think that God blinded you so you couldn’t lust?”

George hardly seemed to hear Tim’s response; for many seconds, his only reply was to raise his coffee to his lips and slurp loudly, spilling some of the warm liquid down his chin, where it dripped onto his collar.
Suddenly, George turned and narrowed those dark eyes at him with so piercing an expression that Tim doubted his blindness for a moment. “Ain’t God ever taken something from you, son? Ain’t no Christian out there who God ain’t taken something from, that’s damn sure. It was my eyes—could be something else for you.”

Tim sought for a reply, but the memory of those two voices, the doubly accusing, “Excuse me,” the girl’s body, Emily’s hurt tone, crowded out all thought. “I’m a goddamn bastard,” he thought to himself, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, yearning to blot out the incident.

“You alright, boy?” A note of concern entered George’s voice.

The low rumble jerked Tim back to the present. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he managed shakily. “Wow, that’s terrible,” he continued, instinctively reaching for the security of sympathy, though his voice remained strained and thin. “It must be so difficult to be blind and homeless.” He had hardly finished when George guffawed loudly, and launched into a fit of coughing. Tim jerked back in alarm, trying to remember how to do the Heimlich. “Are you ok?”

Still chuckling, George shook his head, bemused. “Yeah, just fine. Homeless? Son, I ain’t homeless. I live with my brother—he brings me here every morning, I play my horn for a few hours, and he picks me up again in the afternoon. We live up in East Harlem. I was jus’ taking a breather when you walked up.”

Tim suddenly noticed the black case sitting beside the bench; its presence shattered his last pretension. “You’re not homeless…” he said slowly, as panic rose within him.

He shook his head slowly, reliving the events of the past half-hour, watching the ignorant collisions of his life. Distantly, he heard himself mutter, “It was great meeting you, George,” as he stood up suddenly, leaving the remnants of his lunch on the bench. He walked quickly away without waiting for a response, his pace increasing with every step, a desperate urge to flee driving him forward. By the time he exited the park, he was nearly running, and he broke into a sprint as he crossed 41st, ignoring the blaring car horn of the truck he darted in front off. He tore around passerby, his vision clouded by the memory of the clerk’s sneer as he skidded around a corner, lengthening his stride—CRASH.

He saw the panhandling woman a second before he slammed into her hunched form; the hand extended to plead for change swept up before her face as a shield, but he hit her full-on, throwing her to the ground, tripping over her slumped form and falling himself, the tinkling sound of clattering quarters ringing in his ears.

Tim lay dazed on the ground for a moment, vision blurred, his limbs jumbled. When he raised his head, his eyes met the tear-swollen gaze of the fallen woman, and, in his muddled state, her hurled accusation came to him in the voice of Emily, of the clerk, of George himself: “Are you blind?!”

Palm Sunday, ca. 33 AD

I came to Jerusalem for Passover. I came wearing my threadbare robe, my feet dusty and bare and raw from the road. I walked the sixty stadia from Herodium, left my work as a stonecutter erecting further glories to the Herods and Caesars. I walked from the shadow of that monstrous hill that my grandfather and his neighbors raised with bucketfuls of dirt mortared with weeping, and as I shuffled along, the pilgrim throngs—the shouting, singing, weeping, laughing, weary masses—stirred themselves to a half-forgotten dance as the memory of freedom, of the great exodus, of the terrible spirit that passed over the crimson lintels rose hazily before them. Yes, and as the memory rose, so did the faint outlines of Jerusalem on its hill, changed through our psalms and our boasts into Zion the glorious, Zion of the glad-hearted; I stumbled mutely, half-mumbling along with the choruses, but in my heart of hearts, I felt the wondrous thrill of possibility—might we at last see the promised Root striking the earth with the rod of his mouth?

The city roiled and churned, an overfull pot; it swelled like a lump of dough, and the leaven that coursed through it was a whisper, a drunken shout, a sullen glare cast at passing legionnaires: Might this Nazarene be Messiah? Might we see him trampling kings underfoot, and making them as dust with his sword?

The news came first in isolated trickles, then in dancing streams, but finally as a riotous torrent of disembodied shouting—“Jesus comes to Jerusalem, triumphant! The King rides upon the Mount of Olives!”

The crowd snaked through the streets, as boys perched clamorously in the city’s palms like so many starlings, tearing and slashing at fronds, and throwing them down to outstretched arms below. Straining, I caught a branch, and waved it high overhead, rejoicing before the Lord as I clutched the flag of our ambition, the sign of the promise that the Lord's wrathful anger would one day fall on the oppressor.

We flooded out the Golden Gate, lining the road that dipped out of the west. I fought through the wild, expectant crowd for a view of the road, clawing and snatching joyously, catching a stray elbow with my right temple, so that for a moment it seemed to me the heavens were shaken, and the stars danced and fell before my eyes.

When my vision cleared, I looked down the right, and saw the party creep into view over a rise. First came his disciples, a shabby honor guard—unarmed, unwashed, unsure of themselves, some cringing before the throngs, some preening nervously. They pressed close to the Master, who sat astride a scrawny donkey that tossed its head and rolled its eyes fearfully, but never faltered in its steady plod. When they drew near enough for me to study the promised King from behind my cries, I noticed first his robe, stained and mended, then his hair ragged and short, and his features, broad, flat, and framed with a scraggly beard. I considered the fierce descriptions I had heard of Theudas and Judas the Galilean, and he seemed a frail thing by comparison.

He met my gaze, and I saw that he was weeping silently. He wept, and suddenly I was naked before him in all my anger, my vain clutching, my despair. His visage was sorrow, but glimmering beneath it like jewels at the bottom of a stream was mirth, and even as he wept for me, he mocked me for my foolishness, scoffed at my grave pretensions to conquer and rule. His expression was sorrow and mirth, but I remembered it in the weeks that followed as patience, as though he bore within him a burden too heavy to express, except in a slow, silent weeping.

He met my gaze, and I felt that he knew me, but this eternal moment was quickly gone; I saw that all around the crowd cast its cloaks and branches into the road, welcoming a triumphant conqueror, shouting their Hosannas!, quoting the psalms. I saw them, and a sudden despair welled within me, so that my legs wobbled, and brought me to my knees. I too laid my frond down, but not as to a general—I laid it down as a drunkard casts away his empty glass, as a bully casts away his stones. They shouted their Hosannas, but I could only mouth, “Forgive me. Forgive me, I knew not what I did.” The weeping prophet passed, and I knew that he was no King I had watched to herald. He passed, and it seemed that his tears welled within my eyes, and I wept for Jerusalem, bloody, boisterous, blindly jubilant Jerusalem, and for that weeping and mirthful prophet, who would do nothing for us but die, and by hands such as mine.

What is civilization?

The term civilization, some will claim, is merely a bludgeon used by bigots and oppressors to demean the stranger. The word itself comes from the Latin civis, meaning “citizen”; etymologically speaking, civilization is that which binds you to a city, a political community. Of course, when a political community begins to speak of itself as a civilization, thoughts of exclusion already crouch at its door—whether in Athens, Shanghai, London, or Tenochtitlan, the home fires always burn the brightest. Can we distill some meaning from this overburdened word that is not merely arbitrary and exclusive?

In Book I of the Politics, Aristotle claims, “the city is a creation of nature, and man is by nature a political animal”; the city “originates in the bare needs of life, and continues in existence for the sake of a good life.” Citizenship is essential to a complete life; apart from a political community, man starves both physically and emotionally. Men must cooperate to survive, and converse to thrive.

In Book II of the Republic, Plato outlines the relationship between man’s soul and the development of the city, which first “comes into being because each of us isn’t self-sufficient, but in need of much.” So, farmers and herdsmen, tradesmen and merchants, artisans and laborers gather to divide their labor. However, the city is not complete at self-sufficiency for, as Plato notes, men want “their feast [with] relishes.” They want not merely to survive, but to savor rich food, to compose a psalm, to exult over the vanquished, to venerate the ancestor, to encounter the Divine. Thus, the city adds poets, actors, jewelers, cooks, servants, priests, and prophets, besides an army to protect its clamorous citizens from themselves and from outsiders, and a government to administer justice and garbage pickup.

Of course, Adam’s whispered, “Bone of my bones,” and Cain’s violence prove man had both poetry and murder in his heart long before he came to a city, but it is only in a city that his best and worst come to full light. The subsistence farmer cannot bother to compose an epic; a family can destroy itself in murder, but it cannot wage total war.

We can have none of the naïve modernist lisping about the perfection of mankind: if “primitives” lack certain virtues—monuments and shopping malls—they just as surely lack many of our more horrific vices—consider the Australian Aborigines, who, until their collision with the West, had not a single recorded instance of suicide. Perhaps a civilization is that social structure within which man is most fully himself, with all the good and evil implied therein.

Progress

We modern Westerners seem to live in the summertime of history: 200 years of explosive growth in scientific knowledge, technological innovation, and material wealth have driven disease, poverty, and turmoil to the fringes of our civilization. We are the richest society ever, and by more significant measurements than mere per capita GDP—surely even the lavish Henry VIII would have traded one of his palaces for indoor plumbing, or refrigeration, something even our “poor” almost universally enjoy.

Of course, there are storm clouds gathering on the horizon, threatening a calamitous end to our sunny day: global warming, water shortages, depleted oil wells, food shortages from soil depletion and overpopulation, pandemics of deadly viruses, even chemical or nuclear holocausts. Facing these grim prospects, many of the most the thoughtful, earnest advocates for the West refuse to bow to bleakness, looking to a single factor—human innovation—as a kind of deus ex machina salvation. Prophets of doom have always been among us, they insist. Consider Malthus, who in the ‘20’s foretold a coming apocalypse of overpopulation—his crisis date came and passed in the ‘60’s, as the “green revolution” in agriculture caused crop yields to leap exponentially.

“American optimism” has become a cliché, but it is in fact older and deeper than our nation; as the Greeks had Prometheus, and the medievals the Holy Grail, so we have the modern myth of Progress, perhaps the single defining story for all of Western civilization since 1500. Of course, crass realists that we are, no good Western rationalist would admit to ordering his life according to certain foundational stories (the postmodernist’s metanarrative), or myths, but plot is clear enough—the light of human reason spreading forth to conquer the material realm, thus securing the inexorable improvement (and, perhaps, perfection) of the human race upon the earth. A great British sage put it thus: “You got to admit, it’s gettin’ better; it’s gettin’ better all the time.” The American Founders announced the Constitution a Novus Ordo Seclorum, a “New Order for the Ages.” In keeping with this resounding—and incredibly alluring—theme, apologists for this order clamor that—surely—we will develop alternate energy sources, cure AIDS, conserve water, and defuse the nuclear threat. Look—they cry—at what we’ve accomplished! Surely we won’t be stopped now.

Two thousand years ago, another Western superpower clung to a similar utopian dream, called the Pax Romana. The first Roman emperor, Augustus, sent couriers throughout his domain to announce that his reign would bring a thousand years of peace and prosperity. Indeed, many believed that his promises were come to life: for nearly 300 years, Rome enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity. Until: for, surely, the lesson of Rome must be that man’s every wonderful dream always approaches an “until.” Early in the fourth century, warfare and disease began to creep back towards the heart of the Empire. In the 400’s, the last Emperor fell, and the Pax Romana became a prayer men whispered during the tumult of the Middle Ages.

Not to sound like a hidebound Malthusian, but heart has quailed lately to remember the dream that was Rome. Really, I have the same criticism for Malthus as for the Utopians, as for all determinists—there is an unspeakable arrogance in claiming that the human intellect might pierce the veil that divides us from our fate, and divine what is to come. Determinism in every form is to me a simple lack of imagination, a determination to see the world as fixed, static, crystallized. “‘The grass withers, and the flowers fade,” says the Lord”: there is no mountain so great it cannot be thrown into the sea, no first so exalted he cannot be made last. We inhabit a fluid world, made unpredictable by its wonderful complexity. Malthus saw doom swallowing up hope because he believed that men had only appetites and anger, without the spark of creativity that makes us great. The Enlightenment rationalists see only bliss swallowing darkness because they believe that men have only appetites and innovation, without the passions and anger that make us unpredictable.

Still, I have a certain sympathy with Malthus that inspires that bowel-twisting fear I spoke of earlier. You see, there are infinite ways for something to go awry—broad and smooth is path that leads to destruction. The perfect concentration required of success need only slip for a moment, and the entire project falls apart. The myth of Progress exalts human creativity to a god-like status, and I fear our society is in for a rude awakening to the fact that men are no more gods than they are angels.

The West has dodged a number of fairly spectacular bullets in its sprint to splendor, but suppose that at some point it faltered, tripped, even fell? What if scientists don’t find a cure for AIDS, or cannot teach us to conserve water? What if an extremist group was able to detonate a nuclear device within a Western city? Particularly within a global economy, there is simply no way to anticipate every threat.

Perhaps there are applications of this sobering thought to public policy, but I am more convicted about an individual response. If we complacently go to sleep on a runaway train, we have no one to blame but ourselves when the crash comes. If we entrust ourselves wholeheartedly to Progress, praying that scientists, agencies, and corporations will fulfill us according to some new criteria of blessedness, we may find ourselves shivering among the ruins of cities, clinging to the dream of our once-great Pax Americana.

Strengths, or Weaknesses?

Not long ago, a friend told me, “Your greatest strength will also be your greatest weakness”; I dismissed him at the time, but I am coming to recognize his wisdom. From an early age, I have been both an academic, and a storyteller, and I cannot help but bring to Australia all the good and bad implied in those roles.

There is, of course, much good to be had from both. Above, I called myself an “academic”; if I were to separate the wheat in that expression from the chaff, I might rather call myself a learner, for that has always been the greatest joy of my life. I suppose there is something dangerous as well about claiming such an austere and private joy for myself—it might smack of egotism—but as I cannot strive for all virtue at once, I will hope for honesty at this juncture.

As a child, I was a voracious reader, devouring the Newberry Medal books from the first grade on (my snobbishness regarding prize-winning literature has not diminished). When my little sister went to the hospital with a respiratory virus, I spent days mixing together every viscous, pungent solution I could find in our medicine cabinet in an attempt to find a cure. I was likewise determined to discover a method by which men might travel faster than light before I was twelve. I pored over physics books and concocted wild solutions, which my dad entertained gravely, before delicately sending each scheme crashing around my ears. (Of course, when, on the eve of my twelfth birthday, I finally arrived at the correct solution, my father prudently counseled me to keep it secret, lest I become a target for international terrorism; I still carry the formula in my wallet to this day.)

I have long been a learner, but I think an even earlier passion may have been storytelling. For much of my childhood, I dwelt in dream worlds of my own invention, exploring strange worlds with alien companions, undertaking epic journeys that ranged across the whole of my family’s five-acre property. I had real friends, too, of course, two of whom have been my brothers in all but blood since I was three, but in many ways I have always felt more at home in my imagination. I think something deep within me yearned for mystery, magic, mortal danger. Everywhere I turned, men were shrinking the world: we landed on the moon, and found no Man; we stole the thunderbolts from Zeus' very hands; we traveled the world, and found no dragons (only alligators, rendered thoroughly unexciting through their ubiquity in Florida). What I yearned for was a true legend, a real quest, but it was only as I began to study as a storyteller that I found one.

I learned from my early exploits that neither chemistry nor physics were my field; my compulsion for storytelling quickly diverted my passion for knowledge into literary realms, and the two have interacted in profound ways ever since. My friends tell I write stories like a philosopher, and I think my analytical bent is what has prevented me from producing good verse. Likewise, I have learned to see the mythic overtones of history; to understand philosophy as an endless struggle carried out within, against, and on the behalf of each thinker’s culture; and, most important, to read the Bible as a one sprawling, messy, tragic, beautiful, redemptive epic. It was when I began to read the Bible as literature that I discovered my yearned-for quest: the gospel has become for me (alongside many other significant lenses) the story of a gripping rescue mission, climaxing in a furious battle, and leading out into a brilliant saga of resistance groups loyal to the Risen King pledging their allegiance to his coming reign under the shadow of the terrible Empire.

So, at my best, I, like Plato, the philosopher-dramatist, gladly occupy the role of mythic historian, philosopher-novelist, or epic bible scholar. I can even phrase my cultural commentary in the form of a haiku. (Did I mention that I’m quite modest, as well?) I am the sort who, with time, might dream dreams, and see visions from afar, and point out the next stage of our journey.

Of course, I must heed the insistent voice of the friend I quoted earlier: for all the good growth in my life, weeds nestle among the wheat, the two inseparable and inescapable. The role of academic is always on the verge of tilting away from “learner,” and into “arrogant prig,” a part I have played many times in my life. I vividly recall being six, and, leaning idly against the wall at my kindergarten, remarking in an off-hand way, “Of course I don’t know everything. I just know almost everything.” I was always the first to find the Bible verse in Sunday school; for much of middle school, I was the kid who sat by himself and read during lunch. I had a penchant for using big words that no one in the conversation (often including myself) would understand.

The only thing worse than a dusty scholar caged and peering down from his Ivory Tower is a dusty scholar observing a world of his own invention. In many children, imaginary worlds are places to learn bravery and ingenuity; very often, mine made me reticent and timid, fearful of real human engagement. As well, claiming a gift for inventive narration is really a kind way of calling yourself a talented liar, which is exactly what I have been at some of the worst moments in my life. I told stories to insulate myself from reality, and lying was that impulse taken to its furthest extent. Lying is always a means of escape, a posture of pressing your true self into the dust, of cowering beneath a façade of your own invention, and hoping the lied-to will not see through to your pitiful state.

So, at my worst (which I hope is behind me, but of course, we are never so great that we might not fall) I have been passive, fearful, and deceptive. I have used my gifts as a weapon to keep those who might wound me at an arm’s length. In short, I am a sinner, in need of grace.

Cataloguing one’s strengths and weaknesses fully would mean writing a biography, and even then, only the Lord knows all. I have left out much that would make you smile, or that would thrill your soul: stories of waves surfed, of mountain-conversation with good friends, of family drawn close by tragedy. I have left out much that might make you weep with me, or hate me, or both: stories of divorce, deception, and anxiety, of a house ravaged by hurricanes, of heartbreak and betrayal. However, I feel that the good I have written of—my inquisitive imagination—lies at the heart of most of the good in my life, and that the evil I have written of is likewise the root of all I despise in myself.

There is something very bold about writing so plainly of one’s character. Indeed, this sort of public introspection would have been impossible for me just a few years ago. I am beginning to understand what Paul meant, though, when he promised to boast of nothing except his weaknesses. I am beginning as well, to understand God’s response to Paul’s pleading: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I struggle with intimacy, but I have wonderful friendships, and a beautiful girlfriend. I dreamed of magic, but I have begun to experience miracles. This is the power of God, seen in weakness; what more could I ask?

Concerning causes

The remarkable thing about the world is not that men have told stories about unicorns, but that, before he saw it, no man would have dreamed of inventing the narwhal. This fact struck me the other day, as I contemplated one of our society’s most pervasive myths. Some have deemed it Progress: it is the notion that for most of human history, we told ourselves silly fairy tales to explain natural phenomena, but only recently we have uncovered sensible explanations for why the world is the way it is. In fact, the march of science has actually produced far stranger accounts of how natural phenomena occur than the ancients ever could have, and we, perhaps more strangely, have accepted the notion that these wild “How” accounts actually cover the far more mysterious question of “Why.”

Twenty-five hundred years ago, most men thought that the earth was the center of the universe. The universe itself had existed from all eternity (albeit in a chaotic mess), and was composed of four elements. A few esoteric thinkers speculated about atoms composing all matter, but none would have dared divide those tiny bricks. The sun was a flaming chariot, driven by a god, and on the fringes of the human orbit lived some strange creatures: trolls, unicorns, dragons. To an ancient, the cosmos had a neighborhood feel: mostly it was organized around earth, and the parts worth seeing never ventured out of eyesight for more than a few hours.

Now, consider the modern, scientific account of the history of universe, beginning with some sort of cataclysmic event billions of years ago, during which not only form and order came into being, but matter and time itself. The resulting composition of this matter was into bits too small even for scientists to see (electrons and protons, not to mention quarks, gluons, and muons), and these bits combined into, not four, but 212 different varieties of atoms, or elements. Earth only comes on the scene after billions of years, a tiny planet circling one of millions of stars just in our own galaxy, which in turn was one of millions rushing through the universe, which some scientists now speculate may be one of many. There was a peculiar anthropomorphic comfort in the thought that the sun was a god, with his man-like shape; scientists have conceived of the infinitely more frightening notion that all the stars are in fact enormous balls of flaming gases whirling through space in some kind of cosmic juggling act. The ancients thought that a few odd dragons skulked about the neighborhood; scientists counter instead that, tens of millions of years ago, thousands of varieties of those monstrous reptiles ruled the earth, and the greatest among them they call a Tyrant Lizard King (Tyrannosaurus rex). Sure, the ancients believed in trolls and unicorns, but scientists believe in such fantastic creatures as the gorilla, the narwhal, and the platypus. Finally, scientists lately have begun preaching such paradoxes to perplex even the most mystical Hebrew prophet, such as the notion that light is both a particle and a wave.

A comparison of the two accounts shows plainly that the classical account of nature is in fact the commonsensical, precisely because men made it up. If men were to invent a cosmos, four elements, a single planet, and a few variations on some basic animal shapes is probably all they could manage. The scientific account of the universe reveals a place far beyond the human imagination, a place of such wild complexity and startling intricacy that every new discovery carries with it the thrill of the unknown.

Strangely, however, as science has offered ever-wilder explanations of how the universe works, its adherents have developed a sort of determined indifference to its accounts. The ancients trembled before their simple explanations: they worshipped their chariot sun, while we hardly spare a thought for a nuclear explosion, compared to which Nagasaki was a pinprick, happening continuously in the neighborhood for eons. Perhaps the ancient, with the simplicity of his thinking on nature, was able to grasp an obvious fact that eludes many moderns. If you had asked an ancient, “Why does the sun rise?” he would have replied, “The god wills it.” Ask a modern materialist the same question, and he will prattle off something about gravity and the earth’s rotation. However, such a response is as much a non-sequitur as if, asked why Billy went to the store, the scientist replied, “He drove down Elm, turned onto Park, and turned left at the BP.” The ancient knew that understanding how something worked was not the same as understanding why, and that the appropriate emotion to fill the gap between those two explanations was wonder. Ironically, science has offered us a world of impossibilities to explain, but a purely scientific worldview deprives us of any means of explaining it.

We must regain the skill of asking, Why. When we do so, we will find that the universe is a very exciting place, that the cosmos is busier than Herald Square at rush hour, that our every cell contains coded messages, that there seems to be some kind of Mind lurking behind every wild invention creation offers up, but one far more grand and imaginative that our own.