Truthless Conversations
As one looks over the array of “concerns” that Christians are officially discussing, and discussing, and discussing, right now, the scene is most perplexing. For example, just how long has it been since the Episcopalians established their very first official dialogue about . . . well, you know what. Was it fifteen years ago? Who can remember? Anyway, are they, or anyone else, any closer to the truth after all this talk? And just why did the Eastern Orthodox think it important, recently, to renew their own official ecumenical dialogue with the Episcopalians? Not only did earlier decades of such discussion not produce a single discernible fruit, but the actual rift between the two groups now is conspicuously wider than ever. Talk seems to be getting us nowhere, on almost any subject, but especially on subjects that require actual decisions.
The problem is not that Christians are talking with each other but that human speech itself has fallen on hard times. The growing enfeeblement of language, the weakening of its structure and dissolution of its content and fiber, is arguably the most serious moral problem facing our culture at this time. Indeed, inasmuch as the composition and vitality of language is the foundation required for moral discourse itself, one may contend that the current and increasing impairment of our native tongue, its expanding attenuation throughout society nearly to the point of intellectual paralysis, is the root of all those other moral problems that chiefly distinguish the present age, and it is most certainly the reason we can barely speak of them with understanding. The relationship between word and truth at the present time has become so insubstantial and evanescent that one fears we are approaching the point at which moral conversation becomes impossible. Laugh as we will—and should—at him who says it, there is already considerable doubt about what the meaning of “is” is.
Diseased Speech
Our current difficulty with discourse seems not adequately explained as mere inattention to verbal content. If that were the root of the problem, we would only have to apply, even now, the Socratic method of asking the right questions in order to stir the mind to a proper level of discipline. Our task would be roughly that of Puddleglum the Marshwiggle who urged on his young companions, in The Silver Chair, the practical wisdom of thinking carefully before speaking.
Likewise, our fundamental task right now does not consist merely in getting people to examine the vacuity of their cliches and buzzwords. Were that the case, we would find a completely satisfactory model of correction in the prophet Ezekiel, who systematically made it his business to deflate the various catchy slogans of his day (cf. Ezekiel 8:12; 9:9; 11:3; 12:22,27; 18:2,25; 33:10,24).
Nor does our dilemma consist, it would seem, in the inadequacy of the people’s substandard linguistic skills to deal with the increasing complexities of modern life. It is not a question of insufficient vocabulary and underdeveloped grammar among the populace. I shall argue presently that our problem with language is not a linguistic problem, but a philosophical problem, nor does it originate with the populace.
The root of our current linguistic lassitude is a disease, not just a lack of proper exercise. The very notion of human speech is being eaten away right now by a sort of fatigue syndrome, an ideological virus that attacks the vitality of language at the level of cell and corpuscle. We are dealing with a sickness of the mind, which consists in the dissolution of what is meant by human discourse, by reducing it to the sounds of brute animals, literally.
Mere Communication
Let us cite but a single instance of this reduction, out of literally thousands of examples in the literature of Sociology, Anthropology, and other disciplines. Writing on the Philosophy of Science in a volume entitled Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism, Robert T. Pennock asserts, as though it were a brand new discovery, something that mankind has in fact always known and often commented on, namely, that animals convey messages by means of vocal sounds. Citing various published studies on the languages of chimpanzees, parrots, and other animals—fairly well known studies, of the sort that even Touchstone editors have read from time to time—Pennock boldly concludes: “Nor may we say any longer with assurance that we [human beings] are alone in our ability to communicate through language.”
Now herein is a marvel. Who in the world says such a thing, with or without assurance? I submit that no observant person will deny or has ever denied to animals their “ability to communicate through language.” The unexamined question, however, the question as obvious and overshadowing as a mountain, has to do with the content of that communication.
For Pennock it is evidently sufficient that discourse among the beasts of the forest involves “what seems to be the rich emotional lives of animals.” He goes on to remark that “we may someday have to admit that animals have feelings of happiness and anger, playfulness and sadness, loss and even grief that are comparable to emotions that we ourselves feel.” Really? We need extensive studies, do we, funded by academic grants, to inform us that animals convey a very wide range of emotions by means of sound? None of this information is revolutionary. Nor need it be tentative (“we may someday have to admit”). Pennock’s nearly breathless hesitation here, as though at the threshold of a sanctuary, borders on ludicrous. He could have learned these astounding and allegedly newfound facts from watching the squirrels in my back yard.
Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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more from the online archives
29.4—July/August 2016
on Noticing That Modern Science Has Rendered Atheism Irrational by Harry Biltz
35.6—Nov/Dec 2022
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