The Corruption of the Catholic Imagination

It is a commonplace nowadays that postmodern man has lost touch with reality. Those of even a mildly conservative disposition might say the need to rediscover reality pertains especially to those who have been ensorcelled by “woke” ideology. I do not dispute this and even suggest that the problem extends to a substantial number who cannot be described as “woke.” Even so, it is worth considering how odd is the suggestion that reality requires “rediscovering”; it is, after all, a rather large object to have misplaced. Nevertheless, evidence abounds in ideas such as critical race theory, which demands that we accept that the history of the United States began in 1619, when, apparently, slavery was also invented; the right to reproductive “health care,” which consists of measures to ensure that no reproduction take place; DEI, which insists that diversity requires uniformity of opinion, that equity means every imaginable grouping of men and women must attain statistically identical outcomes in every conceivable activity, and that inclusion enforces rigorous exclusion of anyone who questions either of the preceding propositions; and transgenderism, which, which…I shan’t even attempt to explain. Reality, then, has not so much slipped through our fingers as it has deliquesced into an inscrutable puddle of imponderables.

How did things go so wrong so quickly? How did the beneficiaries of the most lavishly supported schooling the world has ever seen, conducted in institutions of dazzling reputation and venerable tradition, become more detached from reality than any generation the world has ever seen? And all this in the course of a few years?

First, the problem did not start just a few years ago, and it is not only an educational issue. The poison has been seeping through our entire culture for several generations and infecting the moral and intellectual physiology of every one of our institutions. The disease has developed, for the most part, slowly and subtly, and the most noticeable symptoms, causing the most immediate alarm, have often served as distractions from even graver corruptions. Second, although alienation from reality involves irrational notions and behavior, the role of imagination in coming to grips with reality is prior to, and more essential than, the role of reason. We shall have to restore the imagination — specifically, the Catholic imagination — in order to rediscover reality. Unfortunately, we cannot count on simply reforming education as a means of curing the imagination. We need a healthy Catholic imagination before we can meaningfully and effectively reform education. It is, I fear, a chicken-and-egg problem.

Having joked that “losing reality” seems a difficult achievement, it is incumbent upon me to qualify that observation by noting that we do not so much lose reality as get lost in it. For reality, considered comprehensively, is the totality of God’s creation: the work of the Logos. Its wondrous complexity and extent far exceed the capacity of our senses, intellect, and perception. We can only be properly oriented within reality if we are properly in tune with the divine Logos. Alas, we have forfeited that relationship. Without the grace of Christ, we are like sheep without a shepherd, lost in the endless labyrinth of an alien world, vainly trying to impose our own design, our own “logos,” upon it. It turns out to be unsurprising that reality requires recovery, and Christians certainly ought not to be surprised.