The Lie of History

October 16 , 2005

In between fact and interpretation lies the third dimension of history which is always fiction. We construct stories of who we are and how we came to be in the situations we find ourselves. Families are famous for fables about their ancestry which, not surprisingly, focus on the good and noble characters of the past and of their benevolent influence on present generations; black sheep, by contrast, are put firmly out to pasture. As with families, so too with nations. Every nation wishes to assert its right to exist and will print its histories giving the tale of victories won to be learned and digested by the young. Some will even erect statues of great killers, expecting that no-one will question their right to be admired. Strange that, don’t you think? The idiom of the past serves the politics of the present.

In our own time, and in today’s Gospel, we meet this phenomenon of the distinction between the things of the world and the things of God. In Western Europe, our political and social culture is replete with references by politicians to God and faith, so we do well to ponder to what end these terms are being used. But the realm of religion and faith is marginalised to that of the private sphere; that it should influence public policy where it does not coincide with majority opinion is quickly dismissed and cast aside. We might wonder why…

A large part of the difficulty here is that there is no place anymore for real personal reflection; we are not encouraged to travel that road and don’t know how to do it. A culture of immediacy has arisen which requires a fast response to clichéd comments and, if you can’t keep up, too bad. The thinker and the questioner cannot live in such a place. Perhaps the real difficulty lies in the tales we construct to give us our identity. If we grow up as activist busybodies, especially via student unions and onto political parties, then we shut out other, deeper and less controllable aspects of life. Such people have no experience of anything other than moving onwards and upwards; the learned virtues of patience and wonder, the pain of illness and suffering and the profound question of faith and therefore of the nature of mankind have little or no place in their lives. How, then, can they understand the range and depth of the human condition articulated by artists, philosophers and musicians? Pope Benedict has recently said that to shut out the Christian faith from the public domain is hypocrisy and he is surely right. Can we not ask our questions and make our voices heard? If not, the world we construct will be all the poorer for our silence if not dangerous for ourselves and for our children.

Farm Street SVP