Navigating Change and Finding Joy in Our Evolving World
When CS Lewis moved from Oxford university to take up the brand new chair of Mediaeval & Renaissance Literature at Cambridge, he delivered a stirring lecture entitled De Descriptione Temporum, a description of time. If you have a spare 30 minutes it is honestly worth the read. In his lecture he considers the flaws in our tendency to slice history into neat compartments – The Dark Ages, The Middle Ages, The Renaissance and so on. He suggests at one point in his talk that there are really only three divisions in history worth noting, and bear in mind he was speaking in 1954. These three divisions, he argues, are Pre-Christian (or pagan), Christian and post-Christian. He furthermore suggests that there was far more in common between the pagan and Christian periods than exists between the Christian and post- Christian era. Pagans indeed worshipped many gods, but at least they worshipped; secularists tend not to. He was speaking at a time when modernism was reaching its peak and about to give way to what we commonly refer to as post-modernism, which in turn reached its peak in the 1980s when I began my teaching career. The drift towards relativism and subjectivism, along with its suspicion of established and absolute truths has, I believe, had a profound influence on society in general and on education in particular. It is not that long ago that Robert Browning was able to write ‘God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world’ confident that his readers would smile and agree. The rug might have been becoming a bit threadbare when it was pulled from under the established churches’ feet, but whatever one happens to believe, there can be little doubt that the gradual erosion of that gift of comfort bestowed on believers for centuries came at a cost. It left us with one less place to go in times of trial and desperation. It can be argued of course that secularism has freed us from the burden of belief, allowing us to truly become ourselves, but personally I am not sure how well that is going. The giddy cocktail of a shift towards secularism and the advent of post-modernism caused a significant shift in the way we think about the world and ourselves. Without reference to a unifying, universal, benevolent influence watching over our actions, we become elevated as individuals to a level with which I am not sure we yet quite know how to deal. My truth is now the truth. With God on sabbatical, the hierarchy by which society lived for years has been compromised. The late, great Christopher Hitchins, eloquent atheist and a force for good in the world, would, after having smashed me down in flames for my last few comments, argue what a good thing this was. Yet hierarchies are complex and delicate structures, and I can’t help feeling when I listen to the way some teenagers speak to their parents and each other today, that somehow the subversion of the previous order, as I suppose it must, has come at a cost. What we now refer to as ‘wokeism’ seems to me the inevitable outcome of the currents taking us down river. Feelings have taken precedence over just about everything else and objective truths seem to have disappeared from the landscape.
By way of balance, let me affirm at this point that there is so much that is better about the world our teenagers inhabit than in previous generations. Yet post-modernism, for all its benefits, has overseen the erosion of so many of those institutions we had taken for granted – the church, marriage and the notion of the family unit, a hierarchy of respect which valued our elders, and I am still not quite sure what we have got in return. The cynical answer is more teenagers than ever before grappling with mental health issues, particularly anxiety and depression. The World Health Organisation has predicted that the next great pandemic will be depression, particularly amongst our youth, and they are suggesting this might start sweeping across the globe as early as 2030. We have less time today, so much less time, and more pressure due to increasing competition. We have less security and more anxiety, which to some extent explains the rise in fundamentalism and the rapid shift towards nationalism and polarisation. Of course people are attracted by radical dogma, on the right and the left, which offers an illusionary sense of certainty and security. The 20th century Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai wrote a poem called The Place Where We Were Right and this translation is by Stephen Mitchell:
From the place where we were right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.
Perhaps we need to learn to live with our uncertainty without allowing it to make us anxious. Perhaps too we need to find ways to celebrate life in all its glory – like the All Saints Fair held under bright sunshine the weekend before last. SO many happy faces, so many willing volunteers, such innocence and delight on show. It was truly a magical day, and we owe such a debt of gratitude to David and Kat Pearson for everything they did to ensure the day went off without a hitch.
Another constructive response to a world that can seem unsettling at times is to take time to laugh. Our P&F Comedy Night with Dave Hughes takes place on Saturday 24 August, and we still have a few tickets left. It is always such a spirit-lifting evening – friends together laughing from the belly. Do make sure you book your tickets soon; the night always sells out and you don’t want to miss it. Sincere thanks to John and Emma Moorhead for organising the event.
Have a wonderful weekend and thank you as ever for your ongoing support.
Patrick Wallas
Headmaster
