We Hold These Truths … to be Offensive

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/20/21

            Seventeen centuries before Jefferson asserted in The Declaration that certain truths were self-evident, Cicero remarked, “If truth were self-evident, there would be no need for eloquence.”

            Nor for debate nor even for courts of law, one might add. But we understand what Jefferson meant. You won’t find me quibbling too much with either one of these intellectual giants, but truth often has to be searched out, hammered out, and explained. Despite my admiration for Jefferson, I’m with Cicero.

            Today in America truth is on the scaffold. It always is, but dear Lord, how many more biological and sociological truths are about to be denied by the political/cultural left? I started to use the word “discarded,” but it’s impossible to discard truth. It can be scoffed at or ignored, but not discarded, no matter how much we dislike it. Truth stands, though often alone.

            One of America’s greatest poets, James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), wrote. “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide / In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side.” But what can a dead, white poet offer us?  Although Lowell was addressing the evil of slavery when he penned those words, he is just too yesterday for today’s youth and for the publishers of their literature books. Lowell is essentially canceled.

            I rue that fact because every single day we learn that yet another truth is being canceled, replaced with such lies as: we are not just male or female; spanking injures a child’s psyche; capitalism is inherently racist; life doesn’t begin at conception; all whites are privileged.

            How intellectually vacuous and soft we have become. How tenderly we treat our children, thus retarding their movement into responsible adulthood. In high school, at age 17, I was a substitute school bus driver. Two other senior boys were full time school bus drivers. Not even in rural areas would that happen today. Why not? Because of the cultural softening of everything from parenting to schooling to policing. Because of the mystique we’ve built around teenagers.

In the words of feminist writer Christina Sommers, “Our helping culture is eroding self-confidence.” Yes, we lavish children with praise and go gentle with correction. We send grief brigades to our schools in the wake of the smallest tragedy. We’ve replaced “Know thyself” with “Esteem thyself.”   Sommers, parting company with her feminist sisters, rejects “the triumph of the therapeutic.”

            Oh, for a modern Martin Luther to nail truth to the cathedral door of our modern culture. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal is now requiring its reporters to refrain from using the words, “illegal immigrants,” words that Senator Schumer, President Obama, and Vice President Biden were using barely a decade ago.  But no more. Now eschewing truth, they have succumbed to a lie. Soon shoplifters will be called “non-buyers.” If truth offends it must be reworded.

Consider the term “white privilege” and the following name pairs, Whites on the left and Blacks on the right: Tom Brady/Lebron James; Taylor Swift/Beyonce; Peter Trottier/Ben Carson; William Faulkner/James Baldwin. We could go on and on in all fields of work, pairing successful Whites with successful Blacks. My good doctor, Peter Trottier, is not successful because he is White and Ben Carson is not successful because he is Black. Both men are successful because they dreamed, then hit the road, and achieved their dream. Neither viewed himself as a victim.

            The American dream puts the lie to white privilege. How privileged were Lincoln and Truman, or Obama and Clinton for that matter? All four of these originally non-rich Americans chased their dream and caught it. Sadly and ironically Obama and Clinton have since taken the side of those who cry white privilege, racism, and victimhood. Both of them know better.

            In the recent past “offensive” was a word employed for scatological humor, vulgarity, and profanity. Today it’s used to describe Dr. Seuss. Dear God. “Victim” in the recent past referred to the down and out. Today it’s used to describe Meghan and Harry. Some claim politics and politicians are the incubator of all such cry-babying. I say it’s parents and the university.

            C.S. Lewis wrote, “We make men without chests and expect from them virtue.” Lewis understood truth.

            And so did James Russell Lowell. He ended his beloved poem with, “Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the Truth alone is strong / Though her portion be the scaffold and upon the throne be wrong / Yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown / Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”

            For such we best pray, especially when cultural relativism is the prevailing belief.           

 

Roger Hines

March17, 2021