heretics

Today I talked with a writer friend of mine who'd just read a bad review of one of his books. He gets those a lot, so he's mostly immune to them by now, but this one upset him particularly because of its implication that he was prejudiced. "It's all right if they criticize the book," he complained, "but do they really have to attack my character?" He added, only half joking, "I'd rather be called a heretic than prejudiced."

I've spent the rest of the day reflecting on that statement. True, heresy doesn't mean much these days. I've been thinking a lot lately about the numerous splits in the church throughout history, and if you can learn anything from them, you can certainly learn that there are very few opinions that haven't been considered heretical at some point in history. Maybe it is, in fact, a lighter thing to call someone a heretic than to accuse them of prejudice. Maybe heresy is only directed against ideas--which can handle it--while prejudice is directed against people, who are much more fragile. Maybe heresy has no meaning in a world where everyone disagrees anyway, and prejudice is a lot more powerful.

But if that's the case, then do ideas even matter any more? Shouldn't they matter? Isn't it ideas that give people their power? As the main character remarked in V for Vendetta, "Ideas are bulletproof." People are, indeed, much more fragile.

And lately I've become impatient with the irrepressible open-mindedness of our society. I find myself hungering for orthodoxy, for right thinking. Maybe it's just a childish desire to know, once and for all, the right answer--the answer to life, the universe, and everything, as Douglas Adams humorously describes it. Maybe it's foolish to think that we can know it, and tolerance is really the wiser course.

But then again, maybe we could know more than we think we can, if only we weren't so afraid of truth. Maybe it's fear that has shaped our new orthodoxy, and the hunger for certainty has become, in this day and age, the only remaining type of heresy.