By Michael Pakaluk
I wonder if we are not called to greater sobriety regarding our use of social media. And if so, who is going to tell us? Today much of what was severe and disciplining in the public acceptance of our faith has been removed. This seems strange when, apparently, such discipline has never been more desperately needed.
To understand what I mean, one need only open the pages of the spiritual classic The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. St. Thérèse of Lisieux memorized entire chapters of this book. Pope Benedict called it “that golden text of spirituality.” St. Teresa of Ávila ordered that a copy be placed in every convent she founded.
In his chapter on the love of solitude and silence, Thomas writes:
Very many great saints avoided the company of men whenever possible and chose to serve God in retirement. “As often as I have been among men,” said one writer, “I have returned less a man.” We often find this to be true when we take part in long conversations. It is easier to keep silent altogether than not to speak too much. Staying at home is easier than being sufficiently on guard while outside. Anyone, therefore, who aspires to live the interior and spiritual life must withdraw, with Jesus, from the crowd… No one comes forward with assurance before the public gaze unless he first enjoys the darkness. No one speaks with assurance unless he loves to keep silence.
Let me “operationalize” this teaching, as a modern social scientist might say. Should we say that no one should spend more minutes on social media in a day than he has already devoted to prayer? Or consider prayer as if it were financial income: you are not allowed to spend time speaking, except what you have earned by praying. “Lift up your eyes to God in heaven and pray for your sins and shortcomings,” says Thomas at the end of the chapter.
On the other hand, we seem to have forgotten the traditional warnings against idleness. Idleness is certainly not the state of having nothing to do on the Internet. St. Jerome says: “Be always doing something, so that the devil may always find you occupied.”
But are you “doing something” in his sense when you are reading posts or posting yourself? Suppose there is one single task, duty, or labor that you know you have pending. Which of these two things—doing that task or making that post—would really count as “doing something”? If reading to your child, perfecting yourself in some concrete discipline, fixing something, calling a relative or friend remains undone, then the Internet activity that produces nothing of value answers exactly to the definition of “idleness.”
St. Thomas Aquinas and other great spiritual writers teach that idleness implies not only being “unoccupied,” but also turning away from a known good.
Newman spoke severely about something he called “superficiality of opinions” (viewiness) in the preface to his Idea of a University. We perhaps too easily repeat the sense of his opening lines there, about how a university exists chiefly to form students and not to advance knowledge. But do we keep reading to see how he would be horrified if university formation led to what he despised as that constant need to have an opinion about everything?
Yet what else could it lead to if every stance is approved with the highest mark and if it is assumed that every student, in every essay he submits, would reasonably have something “original” to say?
An intellectual man, as the world now conceives him, is one who is full of “views” on all matters of philosophy and on all the affairs of the day. It is almost thought a shame not to have an opinion instantly on every question, from the Personal Advent to the Cholera or Mesmerism. This is owing in great measure to the necessities of periodical literature, now so much in demand.
Does that sound familiar? There is more:
Every quarter, every month, every day, there must be a supply, for the gratification of the public, of new and luminous theories on the subjects of religion, foreign politics, home politics, civil economy, finance, trade, agriculture, emigration, and the colonies. Slavery, the gold fields, German philosophy, the French Empire, Wellington, Peel, Ireland—all must be probed, day after day, by the so-called original thinkers. Just as the guest of a great man must contribute his good stories or songs at the evening banquet, or the platform orator exhibits his telling facts at midday, so the journalist has the stern obligation to improvise his lucid views, his guiding ideas, and his summarized truths for the breakfast table.
For us, the algorithm has replaced the newspaper at the breakfast table as that which demands a fresh and hot stance according to the agenda.
Newman’s antidote was what he called “critical study,” which he conceived as the product of a rigorous program, a sequence of demanding disciplines under the eye of a strict tutor: grammar, mathematics, chronology, geography, and “metrical composition.”
In which of these do you have practice, even at an elementary level?
And we have not even touched on the discourse that fosters envy, anger, or malice. Or the sins of injustice committed with the tongue, such as murmuring, gossip, or mockery. Or the sins against truth, such as boasting, hypocrisy, and flattery. And perhaps a serious attention to all these sins, which are usually minor, would have served as a wall of containment and safeguard for someone who today finds himself trapped in truly demonic slaveries, such as pornography.
The religion of old asked us to be strict in the pursuit of silence and prayer, in being careful with whom we associate, what good we are achieving, and what kind of person we are becoming. The Internet has made all these concerns even more urgent. Who is going to tell us?
“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every idle word they have spoken.” (Matthew 12:36)
About the author
Michael Pakaluk, a specialist in Aristotle and an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is Professor of Political Economy at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, Maryland, with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their children. His collection of essays, The Shock of Holiness (Ignatius Press), is now available. His book on Christian friendship, The Company We Keep, is available through Scepter Press. He contributed to Natural Law: Five Views, published by Zondervan last May, and his most recent book on the Gospel was published by Regnery Gateway in March, Be Good Bankers: The Economic Interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel. You can follow him on Substack at Michael Pakaluk.