Historical Orthodoxy
Novak, Michael
HISTORICAL ORTHODOXY MICHAEL NOVAK Some months ago, Robert Hoyt gave me and others credit for once having been "courageous" in being "among the first openly to question the papal teaching on...
...The same faith lies behind the mythologies of industrial progress and growth...
...The characteristic personality trait of those afflicted with historical orthodoxy is a heaping up of unrealistic guilt and moral blame...
...Christianity, by contrast, offers forgiveness and Judaism the compassion of God...
...On the left, this orthodoxy leads to the cult of social revolution, social engineering, self-fulfillment, personal liberation: good words, easily corrupted...
...Perhaps, usually because of forces outside anyone's control, they may even contribute dramatically to the shape of the future...
...The world probably will end in disaster...
...It is possible to be a man or woman of the left and not be governed by historical orthodoxy...
...Isn't that the meaning of dissent...
...and that institutions serve to keep individuals in line and to bring out in them higher qualities...
...I find myself saddened by the orthodoxies of the recent period...
...What is missing from this orthodoxy is a respect for institutions, for traditions, for the tangledness of human communities, for the inertia of history...
...We are not saved by history...
...The English young people tended to believe that the individual is dishonest, unreliable, selfish, egotistical...
...In this view, the appropriate attitude is neither non-historical orthodoxy, nor historical orthodoxy...
...If humans can be humanized, and can revolutionize society, then when they do not they are morally deficient...
...History, the future, change-these provide the substance of the orthodoxy...
...and that institutions impede, distort and corrupt...
...loss and gain...
...Its trust is placed considerably lower than in God...
...These orthodoxies exhibit, on the one hand, a certain rootlessness and abstractness, and, on the other, an idealization of history and "process...
...Historical orthodoxy, holding up an unrealizable standard, unleashes vast selfhatred, and ends often in misanthropy --the accusation Camus made against Sartre...
...Very little--probably nothing at allmis pure gain...
...It would be a blind critic who would spend his life attacking the same foe, when rapid events shift alignments, battlelines, and even communications...
...There still are orthodoxies that guide the thinking of many Catholics (and others), not quite the orthodoxies of a decade ago...
...Recently, an American sociologist interviewed teenagers in England and in the United States...
...But whatever happens in history, we can endure, with some measure of (Continued on page 279) Commonweal: 259...
...The root of the new orthodoxies, in a word, is faith in the human will...
...We do work out our salvation in history...
...It is the latter view that exemplifies historical orthodoxy...
...We are led to imagine that our purpose on earth is to "raise consciousness" and then by all-mastering will to change the world...
...men conquering nature, pioneering the frontier, etc...
...In that case, one believes that history is neither stagnant nor a closed vise, but a recalcitrant, difficult, and ironic master...
...An appropriate name for this mythic outlook appears to be "historical orthodoxy...
...Integrity today demands occasional disagreements with one's friends, disagreements that disconcert and puzzle...
...He deplored what he interpreted as a turn away from this sort of questioning...
...Humans do not master history, but they may learn from it and contribute at least a little to its shape...
...now millions die by starvation...
...it puts far too much trust in the "openness" and "honesty" at the heart of individuals, left to themselves, and it has excessive faith in the malleability of social institutons and the possibilities of social reconstruction...
...What he especially liked, then, was that our questioning was "aimed at the style of thinking which produced that teaching: the same 'non-historical orthodoxy' exposed in The Open Church...
...Fraternity depends on each of us, from our own angle, calling attention to weaknesses in each other...
...Our faith is not in history, which is dark, tricky, and finally intractable...
...Historical orthodoxy has left-wing and right-wing manifestations...
...Whereas historical orthodoxy holds that human beings are responsible for'progress, a Christian and Jewish humanism keeps a sharp eye on the costs and the duplicities of "progress," recognizing the irony and tragedy of every advance and the cyclical, even sisyphean nature of "change...
...The American young people tended to think the individual is basically good, honest, generous, reliable...
...But such drama is always partly tragic: many individuals and groups suffer in every "advance," and every advance is simultaneously, at least in substantial part, a decline...
...On the right, this orthodoxy leads to the cult of growth, competition and industrial progress...
...and now it is applied to individual will and social will: the mythology of social transformation, of "liberation," of "humanization...
...Historical orthodoxy is pelagian...
...For the past fifty years medical advances have saved millions of lives...
...These orthodoxies are not much better than nonhistorical orthodoxy--indeed, they share much in common with it...
...History offers, at best, sets of trade-offs...
...HISTORICAL ORTHODOXY MICHAEL NOVAK Some months ago, Robert Hoyt gave me and others credit for once having been "courageous" in being "among the first openly to question the papal teaching on birth control...
...Hope" is its most illusory virtue, the "future" its most destructive and abstract category...
Vol. 101 • December 1974 • No. 10
