“Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.” Numbers 15:37-41~
At the end of the twentieth century, novelist Tom Wolfe recalled efforts to start at zero, to go back to a time before we knew what we now know and try again–and do better. The hippies of the sixties, he pointed out, decided to relearn rules about personal hygiene. What they learned was what non-experimenters already accepted. Wash your hands often, and don’t share someone else’s toothbrush.
It’s a defiance of the common definition of insanity–repeating an activity and expecting a different result. The result in the laboratory communes of San Francisco was a resurgence of long-dead diseases.
In the age of COVID, we wash our hands more often than ever. But we still lean toward this idea that we can begin anew without looking back. Perhaps history is a cycle of such experiments punctuated by remembering, a recurrent remembering that we are not yet in Eden.
Wolfe wrote:
“[T]he painful dawn began with the publication of the Gulag Archipelago in 1973. [Soviet dissident Alexander] Solzhenitsyn insisted that the villain behind the Soviet concentration camp network was not Stalin or Lenin (who invented the term concentration camp) or even Marxism. It was instead the Soviets’ peculiarly twentieth-century notion that they could sweep aside not only the old social order but also its religious ethic, which had been millennia in the making (‘common decency,’ Orwell called it) and reinvent morality . . . here . . . now .”
Modern society continues through a cycle of trying to recreate culture, to turn it into something new. The West won the Cold War in the late ’80s and early ’90s. But we didn’t turn back. Our train of civil movement continued on the same track.
The battle between decency and its opposite has been ongoing. We now tilt toward a social order that is not order but rather its opposite. From newscasts to our personal interactions we see a culture that lacks memory–and manners. History has returned to a day when everyone is doing “what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, 21:25).
In the 1950s, another novelist Walter M. Miller Jr. reminded us that it’s hard to get back what we once knew but now ignore. He wrote about civilization beginning again after apocalypse, starting from zero.
“In the beginning . . . it had been hoped–and even anticipated as probable–that the fourth or fifth generation would begin to want its heritage back. But the monks [preservers of history] of the earliest days had not counted on the human ability to generate a new cultural inheritance in a couple of generations if an old one is utterly destroyed, to generate it by virtue of lawmakers and prophets, geniuses or maniacs; through a Moses, or a Hitler, or an ignorant but tyrannical grandfather. . . . But the new ‘culture’ was an inheritance of darkness,” A Canticle for Leibowitz.
In urban or rural American communities, we see crime, drugs, and lagging education. Mark R. Schneider points out that American literacy rates are lower than those of our 1840s counterparts, “well before the imposition of compulsory public education.” (Note: the figures Schneider sites are pre-COVID.)
Literacy in the America of 1840 included classical and biblical texts that conveyed more than an ability to decode the letters into words and thereby discern meaning. Literacy, faith, and freedom are a three-fold cord, not easily broken. Contemporary culture has undermined all three.
Around 1900 we began education anew. The goals of learning were no longer those of John Adams for his son: “to make you a good Man and a useful Citizen.” Today, school is largely the means to a job, preparation for a career leading to personal fulfillment and material enrichment. It is no longer the formation of character.
I sat in a classroom for a parent-teacher conference not yet 20 years ago when a teacher told me the purpose of his course was that the students would know their rights. I asked if he might tell them their duties.
We will relearn what we have lost. We will learn it by choosing the wisdom of those who came before us or by continuing to reject it and experiencing the consequences of that rejection.
“Over a half century ago [under communism in the USSR], while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” . . . [I]f I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’”
From Miller’s Canticle:
“What did you do for them . . . ? Teach them to read and write? Help them rebuild, give them Christ, help them restore a culture? Did you remember to warn them that it could never be Eden?”
Solzhenitsyn, Wolfe, Miller, and we who remember hold a key to the future. We hold the wine of truth from the past. Chaos offers a sweet purple Kool-Aid reminiscent of another failed experiment.
Offer wine. Speak truth. Remember.
And remind.
We must learn from our mistakes of the past. We must also learn to be humble and to love one another as God loves us.
Amen, Melissa. Without humility, pride will take us the wrong way. Thanks and God bless!
Wonderful article. It needs to be read far and near. These quotes particularly stood out to me. “Literacy in the America of 1840 included classical and biblical texts that conveyed more than an ability to decode the letters into words and thereby discern meaning. Literacy, faith, and freedom are a three-fold cord, not easily broken. Contemporary culture has undermined all three.” and “. [I]f I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’”
Thank you, Deb. We need to heed the wise voice of those who’ve come before us. God bless!
Nancy, once again you have written a comprehensive and convicting post. I agree with Deb Wilson – it should be required reading!
Thank you, Ava. God bless!
Alexander Solzhenitsyn had watched it all come tumbling down. He had seen the Gulag. He had suffered the siberian cold. When he was released, the words he wrote were breathtaking, a lesson in how to avoid the horrors. Apparently, no one listened. No on thought this could happen to “them”!
The students at Harvard in 1978 refused to listen. It can happen anywhere, anytime. Thank you, Melinda. God bless!
We often think we know so much, but in truth, we have so much to learn! Excellent as always.
Pride is the root source of our belief that we know so much. Thanks, Jessica. God bless!
I believe one of our greatest weaknesses as humans is that we don’t tend to learn from our mistakes. I hope we can do better in the future. As concerns literacy in the US in the 1840s as compared to now, we have at least advanced beyond only wealthy, white young men receiving an education. Girls and boys of all ages and races now have the opportunity to attend school, although that is not a guarantee that they will become well-educated.
Co-ed education is not a guarantee that students will become well-educated. And it hasn’t been a solution to illiteracy. The solution may lie in de-emphasizing the career path mentality that encourages students to say, “I won’t need (fill in the blank) later, so I’m not going to work at it now. If we are to improve literacy rates, we need to underline the importance of hard work and character development. And, it would seem, that won’t happen unless we restore the foundations of history and biblical literacy. Thanks, Katherine. God bless!
So much truth in your post. I pray I am able to share Christ so the next generation will find Him. Thanks for this great piece
Amen for all of us. Lord, help us pass along the truth of Christ. Thank you, Yvonne. God bless!
The Judges reference, everyone “doing what was right in his own eyes”, reminds me of the words of 1 John 2:16. How all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.
May God help us shine light into the darkness as we do our own battle with lust and pride. Thanks, Karen. God bless!
This is a very well-researched and well-written article with an important message, Nancy. The arrogance of Man is stunning. But I must remember that there, but for the grace of God, go I.
My mother used to say that to me, Annie. I can still hear her in my mind. We must constantly tell ourselves we are not in Eden, not in heaven–yet. Thanks and God bless!
Wow, Nancy, this is powerful. God is the source of our beginning (personally and as a race of people). We must never forget that one day, we will meet our Maker. Praying for God to open blind eyes to the evil deception all around, that they may see Christ. Our hope now and forever.
He is, Melissa. There is only one race, the human race.
Yes indeed!