Political Campaigns Are Triggering Outbreaks of Enthusiasm
Some things surfacing in the current political hustings led me to revisit Msgr. Ronald Knox's admirable 1961 study Enthusiasm. This book treated the many often strange and sometimes odd, to say the least, phenomena that, as the author himself came to believe, were not necessarily heresies but nevertheless disturbed Christianity from its very beginning. St. Paul found them important enough to warn his converts against them. And they so discredited some religious movements as to divert attention of many away from the truth and substance of Christianity itself.
Since the same can happen in other kinds of human endeavor — such as for example the governance of nations, grants of authority to leaders, choice of the agenda of states — it behooves us to know that Enthusiasm (with a capital E) for any cause or commitment, while not in itself wrong, is a very dangerous ingredient. It can be as destructive as sticks of dynamite in the hands of children.
On the very morning of this column's writing, newscasts told of a quarrel between brothers over which of two political candidates should be nominated. It ended up in a bloody knife attack, showing Enthusiasm on the part of at least one brother, if not both, regarding political choice. That subject calls for a certain amount of zeal, but when Enthusiasm in any area of life becomes the dominant mover, irrational direction takes over, and violence is often a factor it should not be, for violence then replaces what is required in choosing wisely. So Othello argued, standing over the body of his wife, that he had loved not wisely, but too well. Of course, he hadn't loved her at all — his Enthusiasm was always chiefly for himself. Enthusiasm kindles into violence when people hear what they want to believe, and become impatient to have what they believe fulfilled, usually at public expense.
This kind of Enthusiasm might be defined as the excitement that arises when commitment is made without the required amount of understanding. The origin of the word itself is most interesting and revealing — from the Greek for "the god within, en + theos"; for Romans, a temple spirit; and for Anglo-Saxons, "the god-held man — gydig," hence, our English word, "giddy."
When we hear that persons take to fainting when they listen to some certain candidate or another, we might conclude such giddiness resulted from their conviction they have become "god-held" and by the very "deity" they are hearing.
Some crooners not so long ago on stage sent young girls swooning, though similar results at more recent "concerts" are more frenzied, with giddy surrender to irrationality happening while still conscious. Excitement must be shown as proper response to the presence of an "idol," whether one chosen by popular voting or public relations contrivance.
Even fainting seems somewhat rational alongside the phenomenon of spontaneous loud applause by one crowd when their favorite candidate announced a time-out for him to blow his nose. Any act of an idol evokes acts of admiration on the part of enthusiasts.
Believers have shown similar attention to some of their "prophets" even when prophecies were totally incomprehensible.
Msgr. Knox tells of the French Huguenot exile Marion Fage in London being listened to by rapt fellow Camisards when he ended a condemnation of his enemies delivered in good French with what he called his "dernier sentence" — "Tring, trang, swing, swang, hing hang," Such words were as far from meaning anything as blowing one's nose, but when an idol even blinks, the world of enthusiastic god-held followers takes heed.
The sudden and unlikely burst of political interest of youth in the current campaigning is being credited to the attractiveness of one of the candidates; but the susceptibility of the young to movements of Enthusiasm is present in history. The tragedy of the Children's Crusade is well-known, and often cited against Catholic piety. If faith is placed in opposition to the rational, then mindless exercises credited to faith become matters for praise as "religious."
This happened in the extreme among certain offshoots of Wesleyan thought in the 18th century. Children were among those who reacted enthusiastically to preaching by Wesley himself, as he recounts. "Men, women, and children wept and groaned and trembled exceedingly. . . ." And Msgr. Knox cites from Wesley's Journal what happened at one revival:
". . . One young man seemed quite unconcerned. But suddenly the power of God fell upon him: He cried for two hours with all his might . . . Four young men . . . came out of mere curiosity. That evening six were wounded . . . One of them, hearing the cry, rushed through the crowd to see what was the matter. He was no sooner got to the place [sic] then he dropped down himself, and cried as loud any. The other three, pressing on, one after another, were struck in the same manner. And indeed all of them were in such agonies, that many feared they were struck with death."
What happened at the castle of the Moravian Church of the Brethren leader Count Zinzendorf at Marienborn was not so edifying. There was a celebration of the count's birthday, though he was absent:
". . . The young Folks began to grow wanton, laughing, sporting, jesting, leaping, throwing one another on the floor, and struggling till they were quite out of breath."
This from an account of Andrew Frey, admittedly hostile to the Moravian Brethren, but Msgr. Knox finds such happenings illustrative of the scandal given when there is an association of buffoonery with piety. It isn't unreasonable to think that youthful enthusiasm in politics can result in something of a scandal — that of politics becoming an indulgence of the naivete of the barely educated — or the deliberately uneducated. Just as among some believers religious thought or intellectualism is considered hostile to faith, in politics knowledge and understanding are being put second to, if not totally aside from, partisan commitment.
This allows canny political operatives to prey upon the enthusiasm natural, though often latent, in youth.
As the young can be urged on in a "crusade" by a crazy hermit, so they can be sent to the polls by a wily campaigner. American youths rushed off to Spain not so long ago to rescue the "Loyalist" (actually Communist) cause from the "Fascist" Franco. It is still the myth of the left that this was a movement of noble enthusiasm. Actually, it was a movement of Enthusiasm deliberately kept devoid of the truth about what was involved. We heard only of the atrocity of the Franco side, when those were exceeded by far by the even more ruthless depradations of the Reds.
It is a myth, also, that holds Enthusiasm virtuous in itself, without reference to what such Enthusiasm concerns. There was a great deal of thoughtless enthusiasm for Napoleon without any notice that he had imperial ambitions for France simply because he had taken power over it. He took armies to their destruction without hesitation, much the way Hitler would do for German forces roughly a century later, and Tojo would on behalf of his personal plans for Japan. Patriotism is something natural to all peoples; but it and the nations themselves are betrayed when patriotism is made the means to aggrandize some leader who summons the ordinary folk to service of his ambitions and personal ideas.
It is true that commitment needs and can be well served by zeal. But commitment should not flow from zeal, nor be its excuse for an absence of substance. When only Enthusiasm can be found to promote a cause, it then serves to justify any and all means to promote the commitment. If one becomes enthusiastic about a need to change nation or world, there can and often does arise a fanaticism that is blind to where nation and/or world is being carried by that commitment. We are seeing such fanaticism among a number committed to "animal rights"; among those who believe health and fitness an absolute; among utopians of various sorts, both young and old, who wait for leadership to show the way to whatever second Edens they may imagine.
Utopians easily conclude from hearing their own thoughts put in eloquent words, meaningful gestures, that someone has finally come prepared to take them to fulfillment of a destiny of their very own choosing. A song title could be Enthusiasm's theme: Wishing Will Make It So. Enthusiasm works most strongly in times of poorest education, and of least appreciation of intellect, and of a paucity of self-reliance.
Those young and/or lacking in experience naturally are subject to the deception of Enthusiasm. Cultures that have seen wisdom most present in the elderly have often profited intellectually. A culture that might turn to thoughtless enthusiasm is as vulnerable to deception as a country boy on his first visit to a carnival midway. Enthusiasts can convince themselves there really is a pea under one of those coconut shells. And there is always an operator anxious to convince enthusiasts they're right.
In his concluding chapter on "The Philosophy of Enthusiasm," Msgr. Knox turns to a consideration of whether religion has read the final chapter of Enthusiasm's outbursts. And he thinks the answer can only be had in considering what is the meaning of what happened in the many instances of past religious Enthusiasm. Msgr. Knox seems to find the answer in the degree religion comes to be seen as something primarily interior, achieved by a personal revelation and answered by a private worship.
Should each person come to think religion is a personally God-to-Man, Man-to-God relationship, then there can be no question of whatever response the individual soul makes, And further, if there is a lack of personal response, there must be an unawareness of revelation. Such a soul is surely lost.
Msgr. Knox cites a 1933 incident in which a family of Kentucky mountaineers committed a ritual murder of their matriarch, Mrs. Lucinda Mills, 72. Jailed were her two sons, two daughters, two sons-in-law, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson. Some of these told police they had been commanded by God to offer up Mrs. Mills as a sacrifice. One son-in-law said he wanted to stop the killing, "but he had a feeling that he must not."
Msgr. Knox asks: "How are we to argue against this 'feeling' if it is accompanied by the conviction that the inner light is something which no Bible, no Church, can legitimately gainsay?" When the "saved" are considered outside all law (antinomianism) Enthusiasm becomes very dangerous indeed.
Something similar is true regarding the civic affairs of nations, their "politics," if you will. If government exists to give each individual whatever is thought a matter of right, who can deny that the best person to elect is the one who promises most convincingly to do so?
This item 8108 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
