Remember You Are Human -- Before It's Too Late

When it comes to fiction, I have a type.

(Actually, I have two types, but the second is not relevant to the thrust of this post.)

The type in question is the striving sinner -- the character whose concupiscence leads him to make poor decisions but whose core of goodness allows him to scrounge some form of redemption out of the ashes. Give me a character like this and I connect - and connect hard - to your story. A character like this is, in my view, so painfully universal that I can't help but love him whenever he appears.

Hell, I even love him when he appears in our history. Every year around the 4th of July, I always do the same thing: I watch the director's cut of 1776 followed by HBO's seven-part John Adams. I've read enough history to know that both take Hollywood liberties with the actual life and accomplishments of their central figure, shuffling events around and adding face-to-face conversations that probably didn't take place for dramatic effect. Taken together, however, both are generally faithful in capturing John Adams' true character (at least as I understand it from the several biographies I've read). He was prickly and prone to Moods with a capital M. He was fiercely independent and stubborn. He did have a dim view of human nature born of reflection on his own flaws. And yes, his choices as a statesman were not free of error. But he also had an unquestionably brilliant mind -- and, significantly, a heart big enough to embrace people with whom he strenuously disagreed. It was Adams, please note, who initiated the long correspondence that ultimately rekindled his friendship with Thomas Jefferson after years of estrangement. (His first letter in that correspondence is dated January 1, which makes me suspect it was some sort of New Year's resolution. Heh.)

On the whole? John Adams was so wonderfully and beautifully human that I adore him with my entire soul. And through Adams, I've come to appreciate his entire generation. I haven't taken as deep a dive into the personalities of the other Founders, but I'm sure I would make similar discoveries if I were to embark on such a project -- and would feel just as emotionally invested for having done so.

Alas, there are people in our society today - a diabolical faction, I think - who argue that I should not feel such profound loyalty to these men -- that I shouldn't cry whenever I remember what they managed to accomplish despite their frailties and blind spots. To these people, John Adams and all the rest are "problematic" - God, I hate that word - because they failed to wholly rid the early American republic of history's ills. Never mind that they put forth in writing the liberal principles that would inspire their descendants to grapple seriously with those ills. Never mind that, after much wrangling, they took whatever steps they could to restrain and restrict the impact of America's original sins in their own time (as insufficient as those steps may seem to our modern sensibilities). No: to modern-day leftists, the Founders are unpersons worthy of complete erasure because they neglected to, shall we say, immanentize the eschaton.

To these people, I say: How arrogant are you? Are you really so convinced of your own righteousness - of your own infallibility - that you actually think future social justice warriors will not find you wanting in some way? Are you really so devoid of Christian charity and empathy that you can't imagine yourself making similar mistakes? Because I have news for you: you are not that special. As your bullying and street violence reveals, you are just as terrible as the rest of us -- and are, in fact, more dangerous because you can't see it. Because you refuse to examine your own consciences. Because you fail to heed Solzhenitsyn's wise observation that "the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."

Mark me, radicals: I have no illusions regarding the wrongs of our forebears. In this day and age, who does? But when you tell me I can't embrace some imperfect hero - either fictional or real - because they are "problematic" (ugh), it makes me want to double the hell down on loving them. Because I feel I must. Because I fear I will lose my own humanity if I stop. You would do well to pause and reflect on what exactly you're abandoning in pursuing your ceaseless and ever-more exacting purges instead of choosing the path of mercy and understanding.

God bless our Founders. And God bless the United States of America.