This is a speech I gave for the Wasatch Homeschool Debate League. For more information on this debate league, visit their site: www.wasatchdebate.org
Imagine with me that we are in a classroom -- very similar to this very room. The students trickle in, joking and laughing together, sitting in their seats as the bell rings. The teacher comes to the front of the classroom and asks -- as many teachers do -- “Are there any questions about the homework? Remember, there are no wrong questions!”
Now, as much as I love puppies, apple pie, school teachers, and the American way, I’m afraid I am going to have to trample on the sacred cow of elementary schools everywhere. There are, in fact, wrong questions.
Let me explain through a story. As I do so, listen for the wrong questions I speak of. In Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina, we watch the decline of a morally upstanding young woman -- Anna. It started with Vronsky. Anna had traveled to the city, leaving her husband and child at home, to counsel with a relative of hers, meeting Vronsky on the way. The moment Vronsky saw Anna, a passionate fire was sparked from within. Vronsky lived a life very different from Anna. He had long ago answered the question “Are affairs with women socially acceptable?” in the affirmative, and lived his life accordingly.
And so he pursued Anna, despite her longstanding and healthy marriage, and so began Anna’s downfall. Although Anna repulsed his affections at first, she asked herself at a ball she innocently attended “Would it be offensive to refuse a dance?” And so the night was spent twirling in his arms. Husband and child were miles away, and the only thing before her eyes was Vronsky -- charming, young, attentive Vronsky.
Later that evening, Vronsky was no longer there, and Anna felt a vague discomfort with her standing in the world. However, as she thought back on the evening, she began again to question herself. She thought to herself: Was there anything I actually did that was out of place? Why should I feel guilt for being kind to a young man? However, so was her state, and so her state continued to be as she left the next morning on the train, and eventually greeted her husband at the station. Again, when she saw her husband, she began to question -- a simple question, but with a hidden, rotten, center.
Listen: "Oh, mercy!” she thought, “why do his ears look like that?"
A simple question indeed. However, his ears had never before attracted her attention to such an extent. At this moment, coming back from Vronsky’s avid attention, her husband’s unsatisfactory ears were all she could see.
Now it may not seem that there is anything wrong with these questions. However, the problem here is not so much that which is being asked as that which is not being asked.
Let me explain. One of my favorite books is titled The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. In this book, His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape, Under Secretary of the Satanic Lowerarchy, explains one of the great triumphs of temptation achieved in the modern age to a lesser devil named Wormwood. This triumph has everything to do with the questions we -- the human race -- ask. He says, quote: “[M]an ... doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false," but as "academic" or "practical," "outworn" or "contemporary," "conventional" or "ruthless." Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.” Unquote.
Truly, when we ask "is this popular", we will find our popular answer. When we ask "is this practical", we will again find the practical answer. However, the right answer will be nowhere to be found. For how can we find the right answer when we do not ask “Is this right?” This absence of asking the right question is called MORAL VERTIGO.
Let me explain through an example. When flying crazy patterns in the sky, airplane pilots must be very careful. During this time of twisting and turning, up and down change so often that they can become disoriented, and lose track of directions. They must constantly be asking “Where is up? Where is down? Where is North?” To forget to ask these questions is to fly themselves and their plane straight into ruin. This directional confusion created when the pilot forgets to ask these questions is known as vertigo, and if the pilot does not take care to reorient himself, he could very well crash into the ground, completely convinced that it is, in fact, the sky.
So it is with morality. Our moral airplanes, so to speak, have a constant need of reorientation. However, if we ask the question of... open-mindedness, rather than the question of right and wrong, we will lose track of our directions and our plane.
Now-a-days, we have plenty of planes in varying stages of moral vertigo. One example is the Boy Scouts of America. BSA receives funding from many different sources, providing many boys with the opportunity to improve themselves, and gain a good education. However, according to USA Today News, Disney has withdrawn their monetary support because of their policy to not allow gay troop leaders. In addition, Boy Scouts of America have also felt social pressures to accept gay boys into their troops, and, as of last year, gave in to the pressure and officially allowed them to be accepted. What is sad is not that they decided to support gay rights. I am not addressing that issue today. What is sad is that they asked the wrong questions. Questions of profit, peace, and progressiveness were asked, rather than questions of right and wrong. If this decision were right, it would have been right before the public began to press them to change. And if it was the wrong decision it would have been the wrong decision regardless of any amount of social pressure. The pressure of society plays no role in the position of morality, however, it definitely played a role in the decision of Boy Scouts of America.
In contrast, let me tell you of Sir Thomas More -- a man of firm morality in a time when morality was far from popular. At this time, King Henry the eighth was king, and --simply put -- he wanted to be divorced. Divorce was against the law of God, as known within the Catholic church, and by all the officers in the court, including the king. However, as it happened, More was the only one who stayed by his knowledge of that which was right. Goodness is to evil like a terrible cancer is to us. There is always the fear that the goodness will destroy them -- for -- if it holds strong, it will. So it was with More. First, it was the king who pressured him to tolerate his need -- but not much, feeling guilty, and knowing More’s character to be a good one. However, the king’s officers had no such guilt, and so pressured More even further. Desperately, they sought to find him in one illegal or evil act -- even an act of shallowness or dependence. However, More was good to his core, and they could find nothing against him. They tried conversation over dinner. They tried spies. They tried threats. They tried imprisonment. But not once did Sir Thomas More step back from what he knew was right, or even speak evil against the king. And so, desperate, they fabricated a story in which Sir Thomas More spoke out against the king. They brought him to court, called upon a false witness, and condemned him to death. Even when condemned, Sir Thomas More stood firm, and he stood at the execution block with a sure knowledge that God was pleased with him. Truly, this man had asked the question “Is this right? Or is this wrong?”
As I conclude, let us finish the story we started with. Anna Karenina soon left her husband, and became the mistress of this dashing officer. However, this life did not give her the joy she sought. The question “Why am I not happy” filled her life, until, in the end, it drove her to suicide.
Now, I have one last question for you. It is simple, but it is essential. Which questions will you ask? Thank you for your time.
