The ends do not justify the means

English language and literature is my thing. It was my best and most enjoyed subject in all of school and then it was my major in college. Over the years since college I have tutored many students in English and I have edited many papers--and I even edited a business plan (the business failed--not my fault :D). I've also taught my own children through many years of homeschool. English is, obviously, the subject I teach best, and my love of it has influenced every one of my kids to one extent or another. We all love reading, although some of us are more into it than others are. I still read between 5 and 25 books a week (depending on the length and depth of the books) because reading is a passion with me.

With this volume of reading for so many years I have developed some strong opinions about the kind of literature I like (naturally) and also some strong opinions about what good literature is.

So that brings me to what I'm thinking about today. My daughter at college is reading Catcher in the Rye (JD Sallinger). She's at a church college and they've assigned her this book with swearing, sex, drinking, etc in it. Setting that little inconsistency aside (English departments in every college, be it ever so religious, are notoriously liberal), this book also has a rather negative message and it's not exactly uplifting. But somehow, over the years, it has become labeled a classic. A lot of people like it, a lot of people hate it (guess what category I am in?). BUT it is an example of what bothers me about this ends-justify-the-means approach to literature.

This approach says that if the book has a "valuable" message (and value is, of course, in the eye of the beholder--but we'll set that aside for now also), then it is worth reading. For this reason generations of students have read garbage like Lord of the Flies and depressing books like Tess of the Durbervilles and alcohol soaked books like The Great Gatsby and dark books like Heart of Darkness. And perhaps there are plenty of people who aren't bothered by books like this. I'm not crusading for my personal philosophies to be adopted by education in general. I'm just blogging.

But for my part, I HATE wading through the depressing or the profane or the ugly or the horrifying in the name of art or experience or education or even "edification". I am aware that art (be it written or visual) is too often all of these things (i.e. depressing, profane, horrifying, etc) and I am aware that all that nasty stuff is often called educational too. But it is NOT edifying. Or uplifting. And therefore cannot be truly educational.

And I'll tell you why. (Of course you knew I was getting to this).

All true learning comes from the source of total knowledge, right? Which is God. This doesn't mean that all learning happens from good and heavenly things. People can and do learn from awful experiences. But many people have awful experiences that they don't learn from. This is because some choose to seek peace and learning from bad experiences and some get bogged down in anger and bitterness. God makes the difference here. With a divine influence, bad experiences can be learned from. If no divine influence is sought, no learning takes place. There are plenty of examples of this.

And it is worth learning from people who have learned from their horrible experiences and seek to inspire and edify others from what they have learned. That's why we read Victor Frankl and other books of that kind (I just read one about the Rwandan holocaust called Left To Tell). These are uplifting accounts of a person's spiritual survival and growth during times of great and terrible duress. These are awful accounts shared in an uplifting way. They note the horror but concentrate on the beauty that followed. We have the priviledge of sharing the education without soaking ourselves in the horror and ugliness that these people survived.

But we don't seek awful experiences just for the sake of learning (or we shouldn't anyway). So why would we want to seek explicit, unhappy, disturbing, profane (etc) written accounts of things for the sake of education? Immersing oneself in the fictional account of a horrifying experience is FAR different from learning from the account of one who has truly experienced the horrifying and learned to rise above it. One is meant to titillate and the other is meant to inspire. BIG difference. A reader can feel the difference too, between an author who is angry and wants to spread their outrage and bitterness and an author who has found his/her peace and wants to share this.

To go further, CAN we truly learn when the spirit of God is not present? I say no. And can this spirit be present when we are reading profanity or ugliness or evil? I don't think so. Therefore I say that reading this kind of thing in the name of education is futile. You may come away having digested the author's message, but what will stay longer in your emotional memory? The message or the horror you felt on your way to getting the message?

And if, perchance, one is the kind of person who no longer feels horror or shock at the horrifying and shocking parts... that's called being desensitized. Not such a good thing for the spirit.

I know there are plenty of arguments against this opinion of mine. But my bottom line is to be found in my own feelings. I simply don't want ugly, horrifying, profane, shocking, awful things floating around in my memory. They make their marks in my emotional book of life that are difficult to erase. I don't want that. I want to fill my mind with ideas and stories that are edifying, uplifting, joyful, beautiful and full of good things. I suppose this could be called an emotional rather than a logical argument, but it is none the less valid for that. As a matter of fact, show me an argument that is all logic and no emotion and I'll be looking at something that's empty of real worth. Because the day my head rules my heart is the day I've left charity and compassion--those truly essential qualities--behind and that's something I hope never to do.

[And don't talk to me about "reality" being ugly. I have something to say about that too. Another day....]

I think that in books, the end does not justify the means. I don't want to wade through an ugly story just for an educational ending. It's like smacking your kid when he's sassy. It's got shock value and maybe he'll be quiet. But it leaves a nasty feeling and you have to ask the question: Will the child will really learn not to be sassy or will he just learn to keep his mouth shut around you, the person who smacks when displeased? One is learning to be polite and the other is learning WHEN to be polite--or else! The ends not only do not justify the means, but do the means even bring us the ends we seek? I'm thinking NOT. I'm thinking that this approach may be a total loss.

And. Finally. This is why I won't be reading The Kite Runner with my book club this month. :) It figures that I have to spend an hour or so working out my feelings about this. I can't just DO stuff, you know, I have to figure out all the reasons behind it. And it takes me a lot of words to do this. So this is why I blog. To save my loved ones from death-by-talking-it-out. I may be wordy and opinionated, but I am compassionate. Mostly.