October 16 happens to be the anniversary of the birth of two men who were incredibly influential in the English language and literature: Noah Webster and Oscar Wilde. And both of them were very concerned about whether their societies were interested in pursuing the truth.
Webster, born in 1758, was an American lexicographer and teacher who helped standardize spelling, reformed American education, and compiled a definitive dictionary. Wilde, born in 1854, was an Irish writer and wit whose plays, poems, and one novel are classics of English language literature. Webster undoubtedly lived a much more stable personal life, as Wilde traumatized his family through years of his struggles with sexual perversion before his deathbed conversion to Catholicism. But like many a great writer, Wilde glorified virtue and condemned vice in his stories, even if he did not always live up to his own standards. And both Webster and Wilde believed in the importance of education and speaking the truth.
Teresa of Avila, the Carmelite reformer and theologian who also died in October, was fond of referring to God as the “Supreme Truth.” It is a very biblical way of addressing God, and indeed, without the Judeo-Christian God, all searches for truth must be imperfect and ultimately unavailing. For thousands of years, the pagan world asked as Pontius Pilate did, “What is truth?” The neo-pagans of today are still asking it. And only Christ can respond (John 14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Without that solid religious foundation, the definition of truth in the political or cultural spheres is always up for debate.
From The Picture of Dorian Gray to his plays, Wilde often framed his plots around the disastrous consequences of not being truthful either with one’s friends and family or with oneself. In the novel, Dorian spends his whole life getting away with the most atrocious crimes because he stays looking angelic and youthful forever, while his portrait turns more and more hideous. At the climax of the novel, Dorian kills his own close friend, who dies begging God’s forgiveness for his own sins. In the end, Dorian tries to destroy the portrait and kills himself instead. The message of the novel is that no matter how much a person thinks he can lie to the world, he cannot lie to God — nor can he change reality to suit his fancy.
The same theme is evident throughout Wilde’s famous play The Importance of Being Earnest, a much more lighthearted and satirical examination of all the frauds inherent in the society of his day. Jack Worthing, after lying to his fiancée about his name and identity, tells his friend Algy, “The truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl.” Ultimately, of course, Jack’s lies cause him a lot of trouble. Like many of the aristocrats and politicians of his day and ours, Jack thought he was too clever to have to live with the truth.
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Just as Wilde was, Webster was worried about the lies that individuals might imbibe and how that would affect society at large. Being an educator, he was particularly concerned with teaching children the truth, and also teaching it in such a way that it would inform their characters and not just their minds:
The foundation of all free government and all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth. Young persons must not only be furnished with knowledge, but they must be accustomed to subordination and subjected to the authority and influence of good principles. It will avail little that youths are made to understand truth and correct principles, unless they are accustomed to submit to be governed by them.
It’s the same problem that America has today, in fact. If Webster thought he was facing a gargantuan task in reforming the education system of his day, he should’ve seen the morass that our education system has become under the influence of Marxist teachers, low standards, government indoctrination, anti-American rhetoric, and excessive bureaucracy. But like Webster, we have to begin our task of reforming by focusing on the truth, grounded in the ultimate truth, God, and geared toward creating a new generation of patriots.
