Learning in Wartime

It was my last year of undergrad school, and I was taking my last class in my Psychology major - it was on Philosophical Bases of different schools of Psychological Thought. And one of the first things they told us was... "Everything you've been learning for the last four years is WRONG. It's ALL FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED." And the class explored the fundamental philosophical breakdowns, pitfalls, and general mistakes of each and every psychological theory we had learned so far.

It was extremely depressing. I knew I should have studied computer science. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable class. (It's unfortunate that it was taught in a warm room in the afternoons, and that the professor had a soothing voice, because it also has the dubious honor of being the only class I've ever actually fallen asleep in). And on that horrible first day, they handed out a quote from C.S. Lewis. It's one of my favorites. "Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered."

I've never been able to find the entire sermon online (it's still covered under copyright), but last week, I finally found out what book it's published in - C.S. Lewis' collected sermons, "The Weight of Glory". And whaddayaknow? The college library has a copy. And I read that sermon, and wondered how applicable it was to the situation facing the United States today. Given in Oxford, in the Autumn of 1939, less than a year before the Battle of Britain, Lewis speaks matter-of-factly about the impending war, and about the students' role in it.

"Life has never been normal", he asserts. "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it." Life today is definitely not 'normal' for any of us. We're just human beings, trying to do what we think is best, but these are strange days indeed, when hate and strife and conflict seem to be defining us more and more. In Lewis' day, that conflict was directed against an "Axis of Evil". Today, jealousy, hatred, and vitriol seem more and more to be directed at the United States.

And not always by those who live outside our borders.

There are always those who hate a leader. There are always those who feel that other's "think they're better than us", so they try to tear those people down. In a morally relativistic world, that's an understandable response. In that world, no one is better than anyone else.

I've decided to move out of that world. I want to live in a morally absolute world. In that world, there is right, and wrong. I don't decide what's right and wrong. I don't make it up as I go. Neither does anyone else. But I think that we do recognize it when it's placed before us.

I believe that most people in the U.S. think that a democracy in the Middle East is a very good idea. I honestly believe that most people in the U.S. don't think that the Iraqis are incapable of governing themselves. However, I also believe that the story that we're doing good, that we're doing the right thing, that things by and large are going well in Iraq (with a couple of dramatic, loud exceptions where our soldiers and Iraqi citizens are still in danger)... that story just doesn't sell newspapers, doesn't sell advertising space, doesn't get you in good with the editors. It's unfortunate (as well as being, IMHO, wrong). There's such a cynical slant to the media today - a sense that everyone is out for number 1. There's a real distrust of government (which can be good), which becomes an overpowering paradigm that the government can't do good, or is inherently evil (which is bad). Everyone is looking for the next Watergate, a fact that is eloquently expressed in the names we give to the many scandals that have come along. Filegate. Contragate. Travelgate.

This cynicism, this absolute and utter refusal to portray government or military activities in any kind of positive light is nothing less than an attack. It's an attack on people who have no alternative source of information. It's an attack on the impressionable, on the uneducated, on the unprivileged. It's an attack on the American Dream. It's an attack on ourselves. And it needs to be recognized as such.

Quoting again from C.S. Lewis, and placing the original quote back into the context of the thoughts immediately preceding and following it, "To be ignorant and simple now - not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground - would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether."

Here's to the search for good philosophy. Heck, here's to the search for good. I hope and pray that we find it - in ourselves, in each other, and in this country. There's so much to love about America. There's so much here that's RIGHT. Let's never, ever forget that.