Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2015 224 pages (hardcover), $27.95
Americans living at the beginning of the twenty-first century enjoy unprecedented human freedom, or so we are told. We have myriad sources of entertainment and information available to us at the touch of a button, along with the means to pay for and the leisure time to pursue them. Our children can be educated in state-of-the-art facilities by teachers trained in the latest knowledge and pedagogical techniques, all without families paying a dime in tuition costs (at least not directly). And increasingly, education, news media, and the entertainment industry join forces to promote various forms of social justice, environmental stewardship, or some other more or less worthy cause, leaving no soundbite wasted in admonishing their audiences to join the crusade du jour, which will be replaced with another equally vital quest in very short order. The previous cause is forgotten as quickly as it appeared, with movie stars and pundits alike speaking as if there had never been any other crisis like the one presently being discussed.
While present-day Americans are thankfully not directly under such a totalitarian thumb, Anthony Esolen contends that we are nevertheless not as free as we believe ourselves to be. Following in the same vein as his 2010 volume Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, in his new book Life under Compulsion: Ten Ways to Destroy the Humanity of Your Child, Esolen traces long-term trends in education, media, and society that have crippled our capacities for quiet reflection, critical thought, the right enjoyment of goodness, beauty, and truth, and the service of God and man that should be the delight of every thinking Christian. Having been robbed of these things, we are easily manipulated by one soundbite crusade after another, often acting upon unconscious compulsions of which we are barely aware, while believing ourselves to be thoughtful for doing so. While the title suggests an aim of protecting children from such a sad condition, Esolen at least implies a broader call for self-examination on the part of his presumably adult readers. Reminding us that “we are all infected” (19) with the disease that has us answering every buzz of the smartphone, wishing for the latest new device, and so on, the author sets out to remind us of what a thoughtful life free of modern compulsions looks like, why it is important, and how to teach both ourselves and our children to enjoy such a life.
In its early chapters, this book feels most like a continuation of the author’s earlier work, and the education system remains in his crosshairs. Esolen criticizes modern schools for prizing socialization over instruction and critical theory over honest dealing with texts. Such an impoverished education leads to an impoverished work environment for adults and the constant need for “stimulating” leisure during the off-hours for those who seem to have lost the capacity for quiet reflection.
Esolen next moves into politics, demonstrating how this lost capacity for reflection leads to trading soundbites rather than reasoned debate, and how the lost regard for truth has led to a situation where even freedom of the press does not protect the populace from false reporting intended to manipulate readers toward a particular end. Without the ability to hear, analyze, and respond to the ideas of political opponents, political candidates and officeholders and their supporters are reduced to dismissing those with other viewpoints as unintelligent, bigoted, or otherwise not worth hearing. This tendency reappears later in the book as the author discusses the strange pharisaism of modern society, ultimately summarizing it in a series of faux commandments such as, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any culture, with the following exceptions: American, British, medieval, Christian, and Catholic. Thou shalt not speak well of those” (139).
At this point, the reader might be forgiven for thinking that Esolen is long on describing problems and short on prescribing solutions. The sardonic tone of the book’s title might suggest that this is the case, though the solution is really there under the surface all along, and as the book progresses it moves closer to the top. To put it simply, Esolen invites a return to former ways of doing things, from a time when Western societies were informed by a broadly Christian worldview. He truly excels in the chapter in which he discusses sexuality, deftly contrasting chastity with abstinence, and noting that past generations’ rules regarding chastity were not only good for present and future marriage relationships, but also established parameters for all sorts of social relationships in an interconnected society. Having shrugged off these restrictions, modern people are supposedly freer sexually and otherwise, yet we have never been so alone. The freedom ”or, rather, license ”that modern humanity claims ironically leaves us isolated and subject to all manner of manipulation as we seek to relieve our loneliness. The ordered, reflective life enables us to enjoy interconnected relationships of love and service to God and others ”in other words, to fulfill the two greatest commandments. Licentiousness is not freedom; ultimately, it forges only a chain. In contrast, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Both this book and the author’s 2010 volume share similar minor faults, which should not at all discourage readers from discovering what Esolen has to say. The author is not above the use of sarcasm or irony in order to make his point (indeed, the titles of both books indicate this intention), and occasionally his frustration over an issue being addressed almost takes on the character of a rant. Some might find the comparison of the intellectual attainments of the current president of the United States with those of his predecessors to be in bad taste. A professor of English at Providence College, Esolen shares that institution’s Roman Catholicism, and readers with even a vague familiarity with Catholic thought on these issues will recognize how the author is grounded in that tradition. Esolen rarely wears his Catholicism on his sleeve, though, generally preferring to convey a more generically Christian ethos. Happily, there is much agreement between Roman Catholic and conservative Protestant thought regarding the issues discussed, so Protestant readers will find little if any material here that is objectionable on those grounds. This book is a powerful call for parents to guide their children (and themselves) into a thoughtful, reflective life that is not bound to the vicissitudes of pop culture and the twenty-four-hour news cycle, but rather to the word of God and the service of both God and humanity.
Micah Everett is assistant professor of music at the University of Mississippi. He and his family are members of Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oxford, Mississippi.
