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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
October 29, 2006
Regeneration
Of all the damnations I have heaped upon what I call “postmodernism” lately, the one that seems most to surprise my readers is “joylessness”. To be clear, let me begin by explaining what I mean by “postmodern men” (or, “posthuman moderns” as I call them, when my mood is fraying). I mean, the sort of person we see everywhere around us, raised from the 1950s forward, in environments from which all the certainties and decencies of Western civilization had been progressively vacuumed, so that even such concepts as “mom and apple pie” may now be received as alien and controversial.I mean, us. For we have souls housed in physical bodies, and nobody escapes environmental influence, including those who, by the grace of God, somehow find the best in the worst circumstances. An ebbing tide lowers all boats, and what strikes me as most grievous in the encroaching decadence of the world around me is the lowering of standards from bottom to top. It doesn’t take much to show leadership in anything today: the modestly intelligent appear towering geniuses; a bit of gratuitous kindness wins the reputation of a saint. Or to put this as coarsely as possible, “What can you say for a society in which a person like me can be presented as a champion of traditional values?” We could bore each other weekly with anecdotes from the papers to illustrate what I mean. The tabloids seemed to exist to remind us of the depravity to which humans are capable of sinking, but so now do all the papers in the broadsheet universe. Let me utter the single word, “Madonna”, to assure my reader that I am not overstating the depths we have excavated. Let him simply walk along an urban street, and observe what is for sale in the video shops and elsewhere, to be reminded of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim. Or more subtly, let him examine the wayward design, and shoddy quality, of almost every item for sale in a shopping mall. And yet, such things have become invisible to many, if not most, who are younger. They never saw anything better, they never heard of it from their parents. They have been propagandized in school, to condemn uncritically anything from “the past”, and yet taught nothing about it. “Freedom” has been defined for them, as freedom from the good, the true, and the beautiful. Their own innate desire to do good, to be honest and brave, is twisted towards the strangest postmodern ideals, so that -- let me give just one clinching example -- the postmodern adolescent thinks wearing a condom is virtuous, whereas chastity would be cheating. The question is, how do we find our way out of the wilderness that has grown in the heart of man? How does a society, a whole civilization, that is on the skids and bound for destruction, arrest its slide? I pose this today in the broadest possible way, because I think it is the one, common, practical, and even political question that should remain near the front of all minds capable of charity and goodwill. The obvious answer, to those who realize that our civilization was built not only by human hands, but under the guidance of Church and religion, is to counsel a re-centring, a return to God. But for those who have moved and been moved so far away, that the very idea of God chills them, what paths lie open? I think there are quite a few, and that all have in common this mysterious element of joy. I think art, broadly, offers many alternative means to the kind of regeneration -- moral, and ethical, as well as aesthetic -- that can help us out of our enclosed spaces. Learning to draw, from nature; to sing, in key; to dance, in pattern; to write, metrically; even to sew, or to master carpenter’s joints -- all such enterprises offer the lost soul an individual direction out of the jungle. The reason why, is that each is a discipline that restores us to harmony with the natural order of things. Each offers a way of seeing into God’s creation, and puts us in the presence of what is infinitely greater than ourselves. To be able to draw a single flower, with full attention to all its colours and parts, is to be lifted out of one’s tawdry self into a realm where good, truth, and beauty still prevail. It is to recover joy. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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