“This is Jared Osborne,” B said to the others, who nodded—without any sign of enthusiasm, I thought. “I’ll let everyone introduce himself or herself later.” He turned to me and said, “We were still discussing the question that was raised at the end of tonight’s talk, about the need for a program. How would you have answered that question?”
“I’m afraid I don’t remember it.”
“In essence, the questioner asked what we should do, now that we see the people of our culture careening toward self-destruction.”
“And you’re asking me how I would answer it?”
“I should explain,” B said to his audience, “that Ja
red Osborne is a Roman Catholic priest.”
“I’m not here in that capacity,” I told him.
B shrugged. “I would assume that a point of view remains even if the capacity is left behind.”
“Yes, it does, but I came here to listen, not to talk, if that’s all right.”
“Of course … Just before you arrived, I had made some remark about saving the world, and Michael there”—he nodded at a tall man in the audience—“had objected to this language on the grounds that the world doesn’t need us to save it, it only needs us to leave it alone. I was explaining that I hadn’t been using the word world in a biological sense but rather in a traditional biblical and literary sense, which doesn’t refer to the planetary biosphere we call the world but rather to something that would be better described as ‘the sphere of human material activity.’ This is the world Wordsworth meant when he wrote, ‘The world is too much with us.’ This is the world Byron meant when he wrote, ‘I have not loved the world, nor the world me.’ This is the world John meant when he wrote, ‘Anyone who loves the world is a stranger to the Father’s love.’ Wouldn’t you agree, Fr. Osborne?”
“Yes. John certainly wasn’t referring to the biosphere.”
“What I said was this: If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by people with old minds and new programs. It will not be saved by people with the old vision but a new program.”
Everyone in the room seemed to be looking at me, awaiting my reply. I couldn’t imagine why this was so, but there was no mistaking it. I said, “I’m not sure I know the difference between a vision and a program.”
“Recycling is a program,” B said. “Supporting earth-friendly legislation is a program. You don’t need a new vision to engage in either of these programs.”
“Are you saying that such programs are a waste of time?”
“Not at all, though they do tend to give people a false sense of progress and hope. Programs are initiated in order to counter or defeat vision.”
“Give me an example of what you mean by vision.”
“Vision in our culture supports isolation, for example. It supports a separate home for every family. It supports locks on the doors. It powerfully supports staying isolated behind your locked doors and viewing the world electronically. Since this is the case, no programs are needed to encourage people to stay home and watch television. On the other hand, if you want to get people to turn off their television sets and leave their homes, that’s when you need a program.”
“I see—I think.”
“Isolation is supported by vision, so it takes care of itself, but community building isn’t, so it has to be supported by programs. Programs invariably run counter to vision, and so have to be thrust on people—have to be ‘sold’ to people. For example, if you want people to live simply, reduce consumption, reuse, and recycle, you must create programs that encourage such behaviors. But if you want them to consume a lot and waste a lot, you don’t need to create programs of encouragement, because these behaviors are supported by our cultural vision.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Vision is the flowing river. Programs are sticks set in the riverbed to impede the flow. What I’m saying is that the world will not be saved by people with programs. If the world is saved, it will be saved because the people living in it have a new vision.”
“In other words, people with a new vision will have new programs.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I repeat: Vision doesn’t need programs. Vision is the flowing river. The Industrial Revolution was a flowing river. It needed no programs to get it going or to keep it going.”
“But it wasn’t always flowing.”
“Exactly. It wasn’t a river in the second century or the eighth or the thirteenth. There was no sign of the river in those centuries. But, one after another, tiny springs bubbled up and began to flow together, decade after decade, century after century. In the fifteenth century, it was a trickle. In the sixteenth, it became a brook. In the seventeenth, it became a stream. In the eighteenth, it became a river. In the nineteenth, it became a torrent. In the twentieth, it became a world-engulfing flood. And through all this time, not a single program was needed to further its progress. It was awakened and sustained and enhanced entirely by vision.”
“I understand.”
“It’s a sign of our cultural collapse that supporting our vision has come to be seen as wicked, while undermining that vision has come to be seen as noble. For example, children in school are never encouraged to want the material rewards of success. Success is something to be sought for its own sake, certainly not for any wealth it might bring. Business leaders might be offered as role models because of their ‘creativity’ and their ‘contributions to society,’ but they would never be offered as role models because they have luxurious homes, exotic cars, and servants to attend to every need. In the world of our children’s textbooks, an admirable person would never do anything just for money.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
“The people of our culture are tremendous bullet-biters. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this idiom, ‘biting the bullet’ supposedly helps one tolerate pain. One first tries to avoid the pain, but if the pain absolutely must be borne, then one must ‘bite the bullet.’ For most who write and think about our future, it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re all going to have to bite the bullet very hard in order to survive. It doesn’t occur to these thinkers and writers that it would be far less painful to start fresh. As they view it, our task is to grit our teeth and cling faithfully to the vision that is destroying us. As they see it, our doom is to go on indefinitely hammering ourselves in the head with one hand while using the other to dispense aspirin tablets for the pain.”