Modern Thinking: No Facts, No Fiction, No Patience

As you may have heard, the recent report of a gang rape at UVA seems to rest on shaky ground, so much so that Rolling Stone published a note to its readers, warning of a possible mistake in printing the original story. We don’t know what’s true yet. What we do know, however, is that no one is winning right now. There’s no reason for anyone to be happy, no matter where they stand in the debate.

More importantly, actual cases of rape might be now dismissed as hoaxes, something that could lead to more physical and emotional pain for victims. The accuser herself will now have to live with what she has done (that is, if she truly lied). Greek culture will also suffer. Fraternities and sororities already share a bad enough image among many “independents.”

This fiasco doesn’t help.

So what can we learn from this experience? First and foremost, we must learn the virtue of moderation. In this Christian season of Advent, we are taught to wait joyfully for Christ’s birth. This approach seems quite appropriate to the current situation. Had we waited, had we held back from engaging in name-calling and protesting (on both sides), we very well may have avoided such horrific division and lasting wounds. We must learn to wait, to remain silent with our suspicions as we hope that justice is served, that the facts come out. There will, of course, be situations in which justice fails us, and it is in those times that we may need to raise our voices in protest. We cannot, however, begin screaming before any investigation has begun and expect to be anything but disappointed.

Why though are we so susceptible to quick and fierce bursts of disillusionment? In part, it is human nature. We make mistakes; we are impatient. At UVA, there is apparently a general sexual assault problem, which might explain further why so many people attached themselves to this particular case. Lastly, we’re conditioned to act in this way. To quote Jacques Ellul again:

The emotional quality of what we moderns call our thought produces an extreme violence of conviction combined with extreme incoherence in our arguments. I refer here to ordinary people and not to an intellectual elite. We do not involve ourselves in studying the meaning and consequences of a fact calmly and objectively. The fact asserts itself through its image and associates itself in unchallengeable fashion with other images which, in this mode of thinking, are its true context. Emotions justify as well as provoke or command opinions, which still seem intellectual and reasoned.

We allow our prejudices to make our judgments without any contemplation. Our emotions justify our actions, and little attention is paid to the actions themselves. This process lies at the root of the problem. There is no winner in this rape-story debacle. That is for sure. What we do have, however, is an opportunity to bring understanding out of ignorance, light out of darkness. I can’t write this article with any sense of vindication or even a modicum of happiness, but I can present it in the hope that we will come to see how we moderns “think,” how such debacles can be avoided in the future.