By DONALD DeMARCO
The American humorist, Robert Benchley, once remarked: “There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not.”
In so saying, Benchley logically and amusingly placed himself in the first class. He went on to point out, however, that it would be “extremely unpleasant” for members of these two classes to meet socially. On this point, he may have been more inadvertently wise than intentionally witty.
It is a dangerous thing to divide people into two classes. Opposites oppose, whereas complementarities complete. Dividing people into two classes is a recipe for making enemies.
For Karl Marx, one is either a member of the ruling class or of the working class. This dichotomy creates a situation that is more than socially unpleasant; it ignites a revolution. The ancient Greeks saw non-Greeks as barbarians. They would meet on the battlefield. If a person believes he is a saint and not at all a sinner, he risks falling into self-righteousness; if a sinner believes that he is nothing more than a sinner, he may lose hope.
The divisions are legion: good guys vs. bad guys, winners vs. losers, natives vs. foreigners, us vs. them, normal vs. abnormal, citizens vs. aliens.
I venture to say that dividing human beings into three classes transcends the antagonism between opposites and offers the possibility of productive camaraderie. First, there are the toilers. They are the people who make the chair I sit on, provide the clothes I wear, and produce the food I eat. They are the farmers, the fishermen, the builders, the gardeners, the nurses and doctors. I cannot do without them. My debt to them is inestimable. Bless their weary hands.
We must not allow the toilers, however, to be absorbed in their work. They must be praised. They must be told that what they do transcends their craft. According to the Benedictine maxim, “to work is to pray” (Laborare est orare), a most felicitous phrase in Latin, since “to pray” (orare) is built into the word “to work” (laborare). Hence the need for the troubadour who sings praise to remind those who toil that their work is more important than they might realize.
Adam toiled in the garden. But his labor left him lonely. Something was missing. When Eve came into his life, he became a troubadour: “At last bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” His work now had a higher purpose and gave him reason to sing. The Song of Songs is a paean to love and marriage. Music is not only an art, but an attribute. The troubadour is a kind of poet who notices the bloom on the rose, the charm in the smile, the glory of a sunset.
He affirms the work of those who toil on a higher level and gives them encouragement to go on. He allies himself with the toilers and exalts what they do. So too, the sacraments allude to the dignity of the human being. The child should be baptized and confirmed because he is more than just a human being. Marriage is raised to a loftier plane by virtue of its sacramental quality. And the Last Rites prepare the dying for eternity.
The Church is a troubadour, announcing and conferring blessings on all who request them. Toilers and troubadours, then, form a happy alliance. The troubadour proclaims that all life is sacred. He saves the toilers from falling into drudgery, from failing to see that their work has transcendent value.
The third class is populated by the troublemakers. They are the ones who look around and feel dissatisfied with everything. They do not prize the incarnate world of God’s creation. They want to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. They think that there are not two complementary sexes, but as many as one wants there to be. They see marriage as an archaic institution that needs to be replaced. They do not celebrate new life, but view it as an inconvenience, a source of unending trouble. They see the past as a series of mistakes and pride themselves as having unprecedented courage and unlimited imagination.
They do not see themselves as troublemakers, but as emancipators, liberators, trendsetters. They are at war against the alliance of toilers and troubadours. But they have nothing to win and everything to lose. They are the three witches of Macbeth chanting: “Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
G.K. Chesterton once penned an article entitled, “The Three Kinds of Men.” His triumvirate consisted in people, poets, and professors. No doubt his proclivity for alliteration influenced his nomenclature. He admitted that his division was “rough” and had some “overlapping.” But he was too hard, I felt, on the professors’ category. But I do treasure his line in which he solidifies the relationship between the “people” and the “poets”: “The poets are those who rise above the people by understanding them.”
In this sense, The Church is a poet and a troubadour who, like Christ, understands and appreciates us better than we understand and appreciate ourselves. The toilers will be easy prey for the troublemakers if they are left without Mother Church and all the poetry she brings, as well as all the help that troubadours can provide. We are sacred beings, a fact that we can easily forget.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com.
(Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award for “Catholic excellence in social service.”)
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