Older & Wiser

Nostalgia Endures While Optimism Fades

In the fall of 1998, I was traveling with my family in Italy, doing work for my translation of Torquato Tasso’s epic centered on the first crusade, Jerusalem Delivered. I found a few pirated printings that Tasso had not authorized, along with early printings that came out before he had done with his revisions. Actually, the poor fellow never did have done with those. He was prone to fits of depression and madness, and from the last manifestation of the poem, Jerusalem Conquered, he had scrubbed out almost all traces of romance and charm, as too tempting for young souls.

I recall the time, though, because perhaps some of the poet’s madness had gotten into me. It was the time of the midterm elections, in Bill Clinton’s second term, and instead of the Republican wave I had expected, the Democrats surged; and I remember calling my sister back in the United States, frantic for information, as if the future of the world hung upon the result. Back then, too, I was the head of our state homeschooling organization, and I held out what I might have called hope, though it was really part hope and part optimism, that young Christians not poisoned by the schools would begin to change the whole tenor of our politics and what remained of American culture. John Paul  II was the head of my church, Joseph Ratzinger was the most intelligent and energetic protector of its deposit of faith, my children were young, I had just become my college’s youngest full professor ever; in other words, I was prone to an odd brew of youth and illusion, which I sometimes might mistake for hope, the theological virtue.

It’s a long time since. The Republican party is a queasy and treacherous mess; the Democrats have sold their souls to sexual perversion and mutilation, and to a surveillance regime that makes Orwell’s Oceania look like a libertarian utopia; homeschooling is still on the rise, but I fear that the anti-culture round about us swallows up and absorbs many a young person once trained in the faith; the most generous thing I can say about the current head of my church is that he does not understand the times he is living in; the college I used to be so proud of, where I no longer teach, has given in to that all-devouring beast, the politics of race and sex; and I am cheerfully without the slightest trace of optimism as regards the future.

The Confidence Man

I should have known better all along. It is hard to imagine that all of America was once in a lather of dread and excitement over whether James  G. Blaine or Grover Cleveland would be elected president. Cleveland—the far better man, in my opinion—won, but I cannot tell you what the difference in our lives right now might be had he lost. The Psalmist warns us not to put our trust in men in general, or in princes in particular; and what that means, I think, is that despite our call to work in the world, and to be energetic in our attempts to promote the common good, and, more frequently, to thwart attacks upon it, we must never stake our souls upon what our fellow human beings do—especially not upon what those in positions of power do.

And in this verse I find great comfort. Optimism, I have said, is the confidence man with a gold tooth, making broad smiles at you while he stares you down with his lidless eyes, hanging a confidential arm around your shoulder, and whispering confidential things in your ear as he picks you clean and leaves your bones to whiten in the sun. If you fall to the optimist’s sweet nothings, you will find yourself worrying about many a thing that is not of eternal consequence, and perhaps not even of temporal consequence; you will not be like the lilies of the field, that neither toil nor spin. You will be always toiling, always spinning. The optimist does so with a temporary smile; the pessimist with a scowl.

Let us be clear. The America I wanted to be optimistic about in 1998 is gone. All political outcries and enthusiasms—including that portion of the political which is ecclesiological—strike me now as madness, far noisier than that which beset the scrupulous Tasso, and far more detached from reality. We ought to honor, and we may learn from, those generations before ours that were not quite mad, that built churches that were filled with worshipers and schools that did not stultify and corrupt. We ought to read what they wrote, and treasure what they wrought that was well done. If that is nostalgia, we ought to have more of it, so long as we keep in mind that our ache for returning, which is what “nostalgia” means, has as its goal a place where we have never been.

Our Only Hope

In Christ is our hope. There is no other. Only in Christ is to turn back to ascend. If that sounds like an old man speaking, let it be. For there is a frolic childlikeness in many an old man who no longer takes the political editorials quite so seriously, or sweats over the Dow, but who has taken up his walking-stick and said, “What a fool I have been! Here I am, fretting over who gets to be the preeminent pig in the pen, when the lowliest servants in my Father’s house have real bread and wine to enjoy, and they sing the old human songs and the divine hymns that are always new, and their men are boys at heart and their women are as winsome as girls.”

To the everlasting piggery with optimism, then! Let us hope in God, for still do we confess him, the savior of our countenance, and our God.


Anthony Esolen is the author of over thirty books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House). He and his wife Debra publish a web magazine, Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com), on poetry, hymnody, language, classic films, and music. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.

• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!


personal subscriptions

Purchase Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!


RENEW your print/online
subscription

Purchase
Online Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!


RENEW your online subscription

gift subscriptions

GIVE Print &
Online Subscription

Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!


RENEW your gift subscription

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

kindle subscription

OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)

Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.


more on politics from the online archives

14.2—March 2001

The God of Princes

on the Political Use of Religion by Wilfred M. McClay

33.4—July/August 2020

Dwelling in Unity

Our Views on the President Are Not Crucial by S. M. Hutchens

32.2—March/April 2019

What Gives?

on Properly Rendering Things to Caesar & to God by Peter J. Leithart


more from the online archives

19.10—December 2006

Enchanting Children

Training Up a Child Requires a Well-Formed Imagination by David Mills

31.1—January/February 2018

Vikings Under the Son

on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery

32.5—September/October 2019

Looking for Jacobs

Some Trivial Thoughts on the Study of Philosophy by Graeme Hunter

calling all readers

Please Donate

"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand

"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor

Support Touchstone

00