The intelligentsia’s downright evil reaction to Harrison Butker’s commencement speech the other day, and the unthinking, crawling, ass-licking condemnation of his speech by the NFL and other organizations, exemplify the situation that decent people find themselves in, in today’s America. Truth is the bounty of God’s love, and we face a gang of people who hate truth, who regard truth as a foe to be crushed—because they are literally under a diabolical influence.
Evil cannot tolerate when truth is spoken, for it lays bare what evil actually is: lies. It explains quite well why the left demands anything they disagree with be cancelled, not debated.
I have to believe that in the long run, those of us who fight on the side of truth will win: we have to, because we’re on God’s side, and God always wins in the end. But a false narrative can—and often does—hold a temporary advantage. Sometimes it can hold that advantage indefinitely. I expect falsehood, in general, to remain ascendant for the rest of my life. All we can do is inveigh against it till it crashes of its own weight.
We might tolerate differences in lifestyle. We might think it’s fine if some women choose to prioritize a career over motherhood, for example. Not everyone hears a vocation to the family. But we cannot afford to tolerate those who condemn decent behavior or seek to punish it, as even the government of the City of Kansas City attempted to do to Harrison Butker. People and organizations that engage in that sort of warfare need to be excoriated and, where, possible, shunned. That is the most charitable way to treat them..
I saw a magnificent movie the other night: Wildcat, a biopic about the American storyteller Flannery O’Connor. It gripped me, all the way through, and Maya Hawke did a great job in the role of Flannery O’Connor. However, the movie is very niche. To appreciate it, you have to have some familiarity with O’Connor’s work already, and you have to be Catholic or at least know a lot about Catholicism. And you have to be able to understand a thick Georgia accent.
The movie mostly covers a period in the early 1950s when O’Connor was trying to sell her first novel, Wise Blood. Parts of it take place in Iowa City, but most of it is set at her home in Milledgeville, Ga., where she’s dealing with her first attack of lupus (which would eventually kill her). Interspersed throughout the movie are capsule dramatizations of several of her short stories (including “Parker’s Back,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” and “Good Country People”), in which Maya Hawke also plays the “looks like the author” character. Maya Hawke is going to be a serious star, I hope. On the whole, the movie is very tasteful and well-executed—although as I say, it might not make much sense to the uninitiated.
There’s a scene in Wildcat where a reader tells Flannery O’Connor not to use the N-word in a story. O’Connor replies something like, “That’s how people talk in that locale. It wouldn’t be believable if I changed it. Truth doesn’t change according to what you’re comfortable with.” I had almost the same conversation, several times, when my début novel Willie Wilden came out. The story included a major supporting character who thought nothing of slinging the N-word around, because he was a product of his time and place—but who is generous and helpful to everyone, regardless of race. To some readers, allowing the character to talk that way simply proved that I’m a RAYYYYYYYY-cist.
On Facebook, someone recently posted a photo of the late Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. Under his picture was his quote, “Our job is not to get to Heaven, but to bring Heaven down to Earth.” That sentiment may sum up the difference between Jewish and Christian ethical systems. Schneerson apparently believed it was a Jew’s duty to immanentize the Eschaton—while Christianity teaches that that can’t be done and shouldn’t be attempted. I posted, under the meme, “I call that a dangerous idea. My job is totally to get to Heaven. If I keep that in mind at all times, maybe I make the world a little less bad. If I try to bring Heaven down to Earth, my pride and arrogance will wreak horror.”
We see that, in the utopian approach of the American intelligentsia, which presumes to legislate thought and punish deviation from its dogma.
