By DONALD DeMARCO
It often happens that the statement of a perceptive writer becomes more true many years after he originally framed it. Such is the case with George Orwell. The author of 1984, which he penned in 1948, stated: “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
The following obviosities do not seem very obvious in today’s society: Abortion kills a human being. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Tolerance has limitations. Freedom is not absolute. Man’s mind was made for truth. Contradictories cannot be reconciled. Virtue is more beneficial than vice.
The problem, however, is more dire than what Orwell’s statement implies. If the obvious was rejected when it was first heard, would its mere restatement have any better success? Does hearing something a second time provide any communicative advantage that the first hearing lacked? Mere repetition does not bring anything new to the table. If the obvious is not obvious, where, then, does education begin?
Plato shed some important light on this problem. In his famous analogy of the Cave, which he calls “a parable on education,” educators are unable to convince prisoners in the cave that they should abandon their stultifying practice of looking at shadows and advance into the sunlight. For Plato, education is the passage from darkness to light. But how can these prisoners be reached? How can one convince them that light is more liberating than darkness?
For Plato, the essence of the problem is one of trust. The prisoners have no reason to trust their prospective liberators. And the liberators do not have the means to imbue trust in them. The situation is a standoff. And, as a result, education does not begin.
The family is an educational institution par excellence because parents are able, by nature, to inspire trust in their children. It has been said that if a child will not learn at his mother’s knee, he will probably begin his education at some other joint.
The restatement of the obvious will fall on deaf ears for anyone who is suspicious of education from the outset. In an atmosphere of cynicism and skepticism, teaching the truth of things constitutes a revolutionary act. Home-schooling, therefore, offers an effective antidote for those who find the obvious obscure. Catholic education should inspire an initial trust in both teachers and students for two important reasons: 1) because of its consistent and reliable track record over more than 2,000 years; 2) because of its foundation in a God who cannot deceive.
St. Thomas Aquinas once remarked that much of his education was based on two trustworthy sources that cannot lie: nature and Scripture. In today’s world most of our information comes through an untrustworthy Media that consistently lies.
The typical ad man, to cite Orwell once more, speaks not from his heart, but directly from his larynx. Commercial advertising is in the business of directing people not to the truth of things but toward purchasing a particular product or service. Despite the fact that the Media has proven itself over and over again to be untrustworthy, the masses continue to trust it.
Christ never wrote anything down. St. Thomas Aquinas explained this by alluding to the principle that “the more excellent the teacher, the more excellent is his mode of communication.” Aquinas concluded, then, that Christ inscribed His wisdom on the hearts of His hearers. Christ did not rely on a medium that contained the possibility of distortion and misrepresentation. In addition, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were all saints.
True education cannot begin in a culture of skepticism. It can begin only in an atmosphere of trust. Loving parents and a divinely instituted Church are trustworthy places to begin.
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(Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth & Charity Forum.)
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