By DONALD DeMARCO
George Orwell’s classic, 1984, portrays a nightmarish dystopia in which people are not allowed to think: “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: Thoughtcrime is death.” An indication that its citizens do not think is that they simultaneously accept contradictory ideas, a mental aberration called “doublethink.” This is the result of extreme indoctrination, something akin to what we now refer to as “political correctness.” Hence, “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”
At the root of the totalitarian world that Orwell paints is the absence of philosophy. A person is free when he can open his mind to a reality that is not his own. A person is not free when the party controls his mind. Although written 72 years ago, 1984 casts a powerful light on the present world in the United States in which people adopt doublethink and believe that love is hate, tradition is oppression, and right is wrong.
Today, philosophy is held in disrepute. It is either ignored, suppressed, unappreciated, or scorned. Yet, it is indispensable for the continuation of civilization. Without a unified vision of reality, no agreement is possible, and, therefore, society plunges into the darkness of chaos and violence.
Philosophy is the love of wisdom. It begins with the mind aglow with wonder. How did the extraordinary richness and diversity of reality come to be? Why is there something rather than nothing? Wisdom is putting things in the right order, a virtue that has no end of practical significance. One should put his socks on before he puts his shoes on, one should learn medicine before he practices it, and one should earn money before he spends it.
The opposite is said to be “preposterous,” a most revealing word since it means putting “before” (pre) that which should come “after” (posterius).
“The wise man sets things in order” (Sapientis est ordinare) writes St. Thomas Aquinas, citing Aristotle. This statement is fundamental to philosophy, for without order, chaos reigns. When St. Augustine states that “peace is the tranquility of order,” he is acknowledging the fundamental importance of philosophy.
Man’s life should be set in the proper order. But man is a recalcitrant subject. G.K. Chesterton provides a sober and realistic image of him in the context of a theater production. It is as if God had written a play, “but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers who had since made a great mess of it.” Man needs help in putting his life in order. And this is where the Good Book comes into play. It is an extended version of God’s love for unruly man, telling him what he must do and what he must avoid.
People, however, can be resistant to being told what they should not do, even if the command comes from God. Love is the promotion of the good in a person. That necessarily entails telling a person that certain actions are wrong. As an inappropriate reaction, a person may believe that God, or anyone acting in His stead, is being hateful.
By not approving transgressions, people think, God must be setting Himself against us. In this way, love is hate. It is not surprising, then, that more and more people are viewing the Bible as a form of hate literature and accusing God of hate crimes.
Tradition represents the abundance of good things I inherit just by being alive. I owe debts of gratitude to more people than I could ever acknowledge. Nearly everything I have, starting with my life, is something I did not create. I am essentially a pauper in comparison with the innumerable gifts that have been laid at my feet. Gratitude is my first response. My second response is dedication with the hope that I can contribute to posterity and in some sense be the recipient of its thanks. I hope that I can add to the tradition.
Unfortunately, instead of being grateful for every gift from the past, many people view the past negatively as a dubious contribution made by individuals who were seriously flawed. They feel that the vices of the past outweigh the virtues. They protest that tradition has stifled them. Therefore, they argue, tradition is oppressive.
Philosophy sheds a light on who we are as fallible human beings, how we should live, and how to give thanks for everything we have been given. It also show us how to distinguish between right and wrong. And yet, people can become riveted to their transgressions and stubbornly defend them as their right. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of abortion. Thus, pro-abortionists will insist that the truly violent people are pro-lifers who adamantly oppose a woman’s right to choose.
Solomon is considered wise because he placed living above killing. Therefore, he ruled that the child should live and not be divided up between the two competing women. This form of wisdom is disputed today, since the continued life of the child is misinterpreted as the “death” of the woman. As a consequence, “right is wrong.”
It is a most unhappy situation in America today that the children of wisdom, who see love as good, tradition as beneficial, and right as proper, are being ridiculed, and in some instances even arrested. The light of philosophy has not been extinguished; it has been neglected. In the confusion that rages about us, it remains an indispensable ally. The march back to 1984 and the adoptions of all its forms of doublethink is the march of misguided lemmings who are inching toward disaster.
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