John Roach: Anthony Weiner & The Depravity of Man

O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

T.S.  Eliot

Until the news conference of Congressman Anthony Weiner on June 6, 2011, I had not followed the story concerning his twitter account closely.  As I watched Congressman Weiner explain his personal failings, I was struck by how many times he was asked by the media why he had done what he had done.   To his credit, Congressman Weiner did not blame anyone else and made clear that his conduct was a result of his own poor personal choices.  He must have been asked why he had done what he done at least five times.

The question seemed extraordinarily silly to me.  From my perspective, the answer of why Congressman Weiner did what he did is very simple –the body of sin.  There can be no “rational” reason why a person in Congressman Weiner’s position would take such reckless actions.

The same lack of “rational” reasoning applies to John Edwards’ actions.  How could have either man done something so stupid?  Quite simply, man is a depraved sinner.

The conduct of these men goes a long way in proving that their own liberal philosophy is built upon sinking sand.  A philosophy that eschews tradition and God and instead looks to the “reasoning” of men is doomed.  Man is far from perfect and we are not quite as smart as we think we are.  When a society throws tradition and God aside and takes its cue from man’s “enlightened” views, society ends up where Congressman Weiner finds himself today: lost, shattered and embarrassed.  I find it bewildering that liberals and many so-called conservatives fail to learn this obvious lesson when man’s shortcomings are on full display.  

Congressman Weiner has left the building

Recently, Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Bill Cunningham wrote a short and powerful dissent in response to an opinion that he viewed as an attack on the institution of marriage.  Justice Cunningham cited to Rudyard Kipling’s poem entitled The Gods of the Copybook Headings and stated that he and his fellow dissenter Justice Scott “refused to bow down to the ‘Gods of the Market-Place.’”

This citation interested me and I Googled the poem and learned that copybook headings referenced maxims setting forth virtuous behavior that were printed at the top of British students’ writing books.  This poem from 1919 still rings true.

 

 

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Rudyard Kipling

In the context of the world we presently live in, this poem’s ending seems overly optimistic.  However, the optimism is well founded – ultimately the virtues of the Gods of the Copybook Headings will triumph.