Vicious Talk
For reasons of business, I’ve been a presence on what is called “social media,” whose name shows that though the devils know no mirth, they yet have a knack for irony. Along one particularly well-trodden road, I have found that post after post, in a dreary invariability, is devoted to interpreting someone’s words and deeds in the worst conceivable light, and that doesn’t even get to outright calumny, when words are put in someone’s mouth who never said them, or someone is blamed for doing what he never did.
It is a lot easier to tear down than to build up, and that goes for reputations also. It does not require a sharp mind to be flippant, another form of the mirthless humor of hell; and I imagine that the only reason why Uncle Screwtape might not pepper his messages to Wormwood with “LOL” is that the old sinner would have better literary taste than most of our commentators, and that though he has fooled himself to the core, he would not like to appear a fool to others.
In any case, as you make your way down the antisocial page, it is all hatred, spite, hypocrisy, one Pharisee after another saying to all the world and even to God, “I am so thankful that I am not like those others.” Often, among priests and those who consider themselves devout, the hypocrisy takes the form of a most virulent Pharisaism in reverse: “I thank you, Lord, that I am not like that Pharisee over there, who scrupulously tries to obey all of your laws, while I trust in your mercy and break them left and right.” That is what is called believing in a gospel of “love” as specifically opposed to a religion of “rules,” a gospel preached most loudly by those who neither love nor obey.
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Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 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) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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