Nihilism Is In The Air
By DONALD DeMARCO
During the McCarthy era everyone, seemingly, was a Communist. During the present era, everyone, seemingly, is a racist. Thinking appears to be a mass phenomenon. It is the unusual person who resists mass indoctrination and honestly tries to figure things out on a realistic and objective basis. Philosophizing, however, is not nearly as popular as conforming. And since the masses are in power, it is the thinking person who becomes the easy target of criticism.
“If you live today,” wrote Flannery O’Connor, “you breathe in nihilism.” As a gifted writer, Miss Flannery sought to expose nihilism and encourage her readers to breathe in the purer air of the Christian message, which, essentially, is love for all of God’s children. She characterized her stories as “the action of grace on a territory largely occupied by the Devil.”
They are “hard,” she wrote, “but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism….When I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror.”
Miss Flannery has been charged with racism by a group of petitioners at Loyola Maryland. As a consequence, the president has authorized the removal of her name from one of the residence halls. Given the intense scrutiny that is used to judge historic figures, it is unlikely that anyone can escape unscathed.
At some universities, Abraham Lincoln is seen as disreputable. Even Christ is dismissed in some circles as a “white supremacist.” Perhaps Flannery O’Connor’s name might be replaced by the words, “We Can Find No One Worthy of Our Honor.”
If the O’Connor controversy went to trial, I would call upon three experts to vindicate Miss Flannery. The first is none other than Alice Walker, an African/American writer of considerable distinction. She is the author of The Color Purple which earned her both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. “We must honor Flannery for growing,” she stated, “Hide nothing of what she was, and use that to teach.”
Walker was a voracious reader of O’Connor’s works while in college and found “the perfection of her writing” to be “dazzling.” She was particularly impressed by the fact that O’Connor portrayed black people realistically and not according to some stereotype. Walker testifies that the “essential O’Connor is not about race at all, which is why it is so refreshing, coming, as it does, out of such a racial culture. If it can be said to be ‘about’ anything, then it is ‘about’ prophets and prophecy, ‘about’ revelation, and ‘about’ the impact of supernatural grace on human beings who don’t have a chance of spiritual growth without it.”
My next witness is Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, a former Loyola professor. She is an expert on the life and writings of Flannery O’Connor and has recently published Racial Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor. She currently teaches a course in American Catholic Studies at Fordham University. Professor O’Donnell has come to the defense of Flannery and has requested that her name not be removed from the residence hall. O’Donnell is also the author of The Province of Joy, based on the prayer practice and theological imagination of Flannery O’Connor.
Her letter of protest was joined by 200 writers. O’Donnell asserts that “Flannery O’Connor is among the finest writers America has produced. More to the point, she was an observant Catholic whose work is deeply informed by the tenets of her faith. O’Connor believes in the Imago Dei, the fact that every human being is beloved of God and made in God’s image.”
Professor O’Donnell’s letter was addressed to the president of Loyola, Fr. Brian Linnane, SJ, on July 31, 2020, the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola. Unfortunately, it arrived too late to have any impact on the president’s decision to banish O’Connor’s name from the residence hall where it had been inscribed for the past 13 years.
Finally, I call to the witness stand my third and final advocate for Flannery O’Connor, Jessica Hooten Wilson, an associate professor of literature at John Brown University and the author of Giving the Devil His Due: Flannery O’Connor, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Walker Percy. She argues: “If we cast out all writers who ever struggled with sin, we will be left without a single one. If we start scapegoating O’Connor, we will end by rejecting many eminent writers who fought racism in their work — Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Fyodor Dostoevsky.
“It is unfair to lambaste O’Connor without recognizing how her work has helped us combat racist attitudes. As we make strides to uproot bigotry from our nation and seek justice on behalf of those who have suffered unjustly, we should see Flannery O’Connor not as a hindrance but as someone who helped us come a long way.”
We might wonder how Loyola can justify its own name given the early military career of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
My three advocates for Flannery O’Connor, all knowledgeable about her work and her character, have presented their cases to the jury that is the American people. If they have failed to preserve Flannery O’Connor’s name on the residence hall at Loyola Maryland, they remain blameless. But their message remains alive. The action taken by the president will not efface the name of Flannery O’Connor in the minds and hearts of those who have come to know her. One hopes that it will enlarge her name and inspire others to take up her cause and work for justice all the more diligently.
- + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. He is the author of 37 books. His latest five books, How to Navigate through Life, Apostles of the Culture of Life, Why I Am Pro-Life and Not Politically Correct, A Moral Compass for a World in Confusion, and Reflections on the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Search for Understanding, are all available through amazon.com.)