Story Time
An Article by Andre Klavan appearing in City Journal:
I visited a fourth-grade class in a slum school recently. Since I’m a storyteller by trade, the teacher asked me if I’d tell the kids a story. Now I’m a good storyteller and an all-around charming guy, no doubt, but I wasn’t prepared for the degree of fascination I inspired. Rambunctious mischief ceased on the instant and resolved itself into riveted attention and awestruck stares. I was awfully pleased with myself by the time I was done.
“Don’t take it personally,” the teacher told me brusquely. “It’s just that they’ve never seen anyone like you before. A man—obviously tough—who’s not a gangster.”
I don’t know how tough I am—they were fourth-graders; I guess I could’ve taken most of them in a fair fight one-on-one—but that’s not what she was getting at. Her point was that you have to take just one look at me to see what, in fact, I am: an unapologetic, because-I-said-so, head-of-household male. They used to call us “husbands” and “fathers” back in the day. That’s what these kids had never seen.
The teacher told me that she once had to explain to the class why her last name was the same as her father’s. She dusted off the whole ancient ritual of legitimacy for them—marriages, maiden names, and so on. When she was done, there was a short silence. Then one child piped up softly: “Yeah . . . I’ve heard of that.”
I’ve heard of that. It would break a heart of stone.
Here is the whole article:http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_diarist.html
The idea of chivalry, that a man can be tough toward his foes (or, even show military courtesy toward his foes) but will be gentle toward the weak, poor and wretched, is a Christian concept; it is a mystical concept, a concept difficult or impossible to explain to those who analyze all history and human relations as a power struggle between collectives of victim-groups.
The idea of fatherhood is also a concept, a concept that is wild, mythical, mystical, Romantic, that cannot be explained to someone whose gray mental universe contains only victims and exploiters. Their philosophy makes them better able to understand ideas like child abuse and children’s rights.
And again, the idea that children are dependent on Fathers and Mothers, owing them honor, and deserving from them protection and upbringing and love (fatherly love from the father, motherly love from the mother–let those who say the two loves are the same be anathema!) is an idea that cannot be explained to a generation of selfish and irresponsible spoiled brats raised by the previous generation of irresponsible and selfish spoiled brats.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
