As If It's a Brand New Day

How Not to Understand the Times

I have never had the opportunity or inclination to spend a lot of time listening to talk radio. For most of my life, talk radio was on in the middle of my workday, and my work has generally involved quiet and sustained concentration. That being said, I remember once listening to Rush Limbaugh, who made what seemed to me a hilarious comment. He said, “Cows are so dumb, every time they blink they think it’s a brand new day.” I laughed hard at that comment.

But, as they say, “Only the truth is funny”. And the truth in this case is not so much about the intellect of cows but, rather, the way real intelligence entails being able to perceive events within the larger flow in which they are taking place.

It is a common failing of the young to refrain from seeing their own actions within the larger contextual frame in which such actions are taking place. Thus, they perceive every traffic ticket, or every late assignment, in isolation of any thematic context at all. Though they may have an entire series of tickets, they will nevertheless often need some adult to identify, for them, the pattern that is occurring. To paraphrase Rush, every time they get a ticket they think it’s a brand new day. There is a kind of emotional absolution that comes from an inability, or an unwillingness, to see the continuing pattern.

I don’t mean to pick on young people because, in one sense, it may not be their fault. They may not have lived long enough, or had time to internalize enough history, to perceive the patterns, either in themselves or the world around them. After all, the inability to discern, rooted in youthful inexperience, has generally been widely assumed by every culture throughout most of the world. Age of consent laws, minimum age requirements, as well as age-related voting limitations, are all reflections of the commonly held belief that young people operate at an inherent disadvantage where discernment and prudential judgment are concerned.

I remember the national shock and disorientation that we all felt immediately following 9/11. Right away many people, especially those on the left, began asking the question - not just about the attackers but about the Muslim world more generally: “Why do they hate us?” This question was raised, not just because of the attacks, but because the world witnessed the euphoric celebrations which immediately took place throughout many Islamic countries. The Muslim world couldn’t have been happier about the death of thousands of innocents.

Many people answered the question about the origins of Muslim hate by attributing it to American support for Israel. (e.g. Noam Chomsky) Others insisted it was motivated somehow by prior American support for the Shah of Iran. In most cases, progressive explanations for Muslim hate were rooted in recent history - the last 100 years or so - as the blame was placed on those who are hated rather than on the perpetrators themselves.

But, of course, Muslim hatred of Christians and Jews began as soon as Islam became established in the Middle East. Indeed, such hatred was written into Islam’s sacred texts. The Crusades, occurring during the middle ages, were largely a defensive response to Islamic depredations, though many people prefer to avert their eyes from this history.

The experience of Christians and Jews, at the hands of Muslim invaders, preceding the Crusades, was aptly described by Robert the Monk. He said the invaders would “defile the holy places in innumerable ways, and destroy them, they would circumcise Christian boys and youths above Christian baptismal fonts, pour the blood from the circumcision into the fonts in mockery of Christ, force them to urinate on it, and then drag them round the church and force them to blaspheme the name and faith of the Holy Trinity.” (Robert the Monk, 219)

Guibert of Nogent described how the conquering Muslims “took virgins and made them public prostitutes…Mothers were violated in the presence of their daughters, raped over and over again by different men, while their daughters were compelled, not only to watch, but to sing obscene songs and to dance. Then they changed places, and the suffering, which is painful and shameful to speak of, was inflicted upon the daughters, while the filthy activity was adorned by the obscene songs of the unfortunate mothers…” (32-33)

Most moderns are, of course, unfamiliar with such events. But for anyone who has read these accounts, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the events of October 7th, and even what is happening in Great Britain, are anything other than a continuation of longstanding Muslim behavior toward non-Muslims.

The chronological myopia, or presentism, that afflicts us is hardly confined to our interpretation of the conflict between the West and Islam. There is an entire industry of resentment built up around taking umbrage that slavery existed in the West during the 18th and 19th centuries. Such resentment studiously ignores the larger historical context, which is that the West has been almost unique among the cultures of the world to eliminate slavery, which continues to persist throughout the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia. Having been born into a society gifted by its forebears with a hard-won rejection of slavery, progressive moderns have reacted with self-righteous pique instead of with gratitude. Having won the lottery of history, their malevolent, self-righteous ignorance leads them to conceive of what is actually an inheritance of civilizational virtue as something that originates with themselves. Progressives’ insistence on tearing down statues amounts to a noxious, malevolent temper tantrum of course. But it also reveals much of what we need to know, not only concerning their ignorance of history, but of the base ingratitude which animates their lives.

Modern Christians, whose entire faith is otherwise rooted in ancient historical events, are nevertheless not immune to the kind of chronological myopia that pervades the wider culture. The conduct of numerous Christian pastors and pundits during Covid, the BLM riots, and - curiously - even in regard to Donald Trump, has been a master’s class in ignorant self-congratulation. I mean neither to endorse nor reject Donald Trump with these remarks. I only mean to comment on the extent to which so many self-proclaimed Christian leaders have demonstrated an astonishing ignorance of the flow of cultural and historical events within which these events have taken place. These leaders shut down their churches, bowed to BLM, adopted the egregious assumptions of CRT, engaged in moral manipulation regarding vaccines (e.g. “getting the vaccine is how to love your neighbor”), and guilt-tripped any Christians who voted for Trump. The justification for these actions, to the extent one is ever offered, generally reveals the tired, materialist presentism our times (“follow the science!”) instead of a broader grasp of the lessons of history. Perhaps it isn’t possible to be a media-darling Christian without adopting trendy, presentist conceits.

I find myself increasingly benefiting from reading history written by the people who were alive at the time. It can be shocking, in a refreshing sense, to discover how the people who lived through the actual events held a view that is so far afield from how we are told we should understand those events now. One need only read Robert the Monk for oneself, or the letters of some of the Crusaders, to suspect the claims that the Crusades were a defensive reaction are entirely correct. The comfortable life enjoyed by most modern Christians, it turns out, has actually been an inheritance, bequeathed to us, at least in part, by Christians like the Crusaders. And yet (and here’s the awkward part), they were motivated by an understanding of their Christian faith that has been rejected by the very moderns whose comfortable existence is an artifact of those same Crusaders’ understanding. To put it bluntly, had the Crusaders not defended against the Muslim conquest of Europe, Russell Moore would not now be the editor of Christianity Today. (Which almost makes you sort of wonder if it was even worth it. 😏)

At any rate, we should all read and contemplate more history. We don’t want to be like Rush Limbaugh’s cows.