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Time to Read
by
Marilyn Green Faulkner
written September 12, 2001 early in the morning
Dear Fellow
Readers:
It is three
o'clock in the morning. I trust that many of you are also awake,
reliving in your minds the events of this week, images that put
our nightmares to shame. In the midst of our horror and anger we
feel a terrible curiosity about this enemy that has shattered our
peace and security. Who are these terrible people and why won't
they leave us alone? Colin Powell has described these atrocities
as "an attack on civilization." Yet our attackers, though ruthless
barbarians, are also well funded, well trained and well educated.
"We have a thinking enemy," he said today.
What is the
"civilization" that is under attack here? How can one be educated
without becoming civilized? It all depends, I contend, on what and
how you read. The science fiction thriller, Fahrenheit 451, imagines
our people overcome by despots who destroy our books. (451 degrees
Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper burns). In response,
a small band of rebels memorizes the great books and passes them
on, by rote, to their children. There is a moving scene in the movie
where an old man, dying, recites the lines of a Dickens novel to
an eager young boy, who is memorizing them as fast as he can. Literature
is represented as a force that can help save civilization.
Is this true?
Will Dickens, Austen and Thoreau somehow protect us from evil? Can
Shakespeare stand against suicide bombers? The canon of Western
literature revolves around a common theme: the worth of the individual.
From Plato to the Bible, from Goethe to the latest Grisham novel,
the underlying assumption of both great and popular literature is
that every person has a story, and every story is worth telling.
Our dreams, our ambitions, our mistakes are important.
We are more
than cogs in a great machine; each of us is a complete machine,
marvelous in construction. "What a piece of work is man," said Shakespeare.
This sentiment, this "self-evident" idea that all individuals have
the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is reaffirmed
a thousand ways every time you pick up a good book. It is possible
to study a flight manual or learn to use a gun or speak a foreign
tongue and still be a heartless barbarian. It is harder to be so
when you are allowed the free flow of ideas contained in great literature.
It is for this reason that the first act of facism is to burn the
books. If we would defend civilization, we must be civilized. We
must have at our ready command the ideas and ideals upon which our
civilization is founded. We must read.
This is not
a religious war; this is a war of ideas. Osama bin Laden is not
a religious man, though he may blasphemously claim some religious
foundation for his acts. Today an expert on the Middle East was
asked what the Koran teaches about suicide bombings, and he assured
us that all the official interpreters of the scripture agree that
such acts are forbidden as a species of self-murder. He continued,
"Osama bin Laden is not a learned man, but it is he who interprets
the word of God for his followers. They take his words as truth."
There is no such thing as a religious fanatic - it is an oxymoron
- for as soon as fanaticism takes over religion dies. (The fanatic,
I once heard, can be defined as a man who doubles his speed when
he has lost his direction.) These zealots have no foundation other
than hate. To overcome them we must think and act on a higher plane.
All over the
world today, thinking men and women stood up to support our nation
and the ideals upon which it was founded. Civilization will triumph.
We may be comforted as well to know that, though sleep has eluded
many of us, we are not alone tonight. Jane Austen is here, and Mark
Twain, and Dickens and Shakespeare and Socrates. Thomas Jefferson,
Henry James and Charlotte Bronte are stirring. The great thinkers
and writers of the last two millennia are abroad tonight, inspiring
those we depend upon to lead us in this crisis. We have the security,
not only of our faith, but also of the founding ideas that made
our civilization great. We stand on principle and also on precept.
It was never more important that we understand who we are and what
we think. Tomorrow will be a time for prayer, for mourning, for
any service we may render. Tonight is a time to read.
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