Dreher

Literature and the Problem of Evil

 I can see so clearly now, from the vantage point of someone who is nearly 47, the enormous advantage my father gave me in impressing upon me a script, and not just a script, but belief in The Script. My sister never questioned it; I did, strongly, but the life-giving qualities, and the basic goodness, of my father’s Script meant that my own adaptation was largely faithful to the original. The thing is, if the Script is going to work, you can’t accept it in instrumental terms. Sending your kids to church because the moral teaching they receive there is “good for them” is a waste of time. Even if people believe that the stories aren’t literally true, in order for the story to affect the moral judgment and behavior of a person or a community, there has to be a recognition that the moral embedded within the myth bears a real resemblance to ultimate truth. So many contemporary Americans believe in the myth of freedom (I say “myth” not as something that’s untrue, but a story, or set of stories, that embody ultimate truths). But as Franzen understands, freedom is necessary for happiness, but not sufficient. The great progressive myth is that emancipating oneself from the bonds of community, religion, history, family, and so forth, leads to greater happiness and a more just and perfect society. The problem with American conservatives is that we know at some level that this is untrue, but our own myths are so saturated with the concept of individual liberty that it becomes hard to articulate, even to ourselves, a strong counternarrative to the progressive myth. It drives me nuts the way so many parents who think of themselves as morally conservative allow their children unrestricted, or near-unrestricted, access to pop culture. Who do they think are telling their kids the stories that fill their heads? What values do those stories impart? Are the parents providing counternarratives to give the kids critical perspective on what TV tells them? For that matter, are the churches?