Rules for Reformers

by Douglas Wilson

They see the problems with the house, and the inequities that have developed (some people have cleaned up their own rooms quite nicely, which naturally makes them the envy of all the others), and so they want to do something about the problem of “the house” as a whole. Because they are revolutionaries, it is an article of faith with them (held with a religious fervor) that the only thing we can do is burn it down and start over. This idea is not simple arson—it is eschatological paganism. Without a Creator God, the father of any order that happens is chaos. And since the process is random, and there are times when chaos throws off some abortion of a world—which has apparently happened in our case—this means there is nothing for it but to destroy it all down to chaos again and let chaos have another throw. Two out of three? Baby needs a new pair of shoes . . . But because a lot of us are living in this dive, it is not possible for these people to simply soak all the furniture in gasoline and strike a match. There are too many people in the first group who would say, “Hey! What do you think you are doing?!” Because of this, the radicals have to be duplicitous about their aims, which is just a fifty cent way of saying they are liars. They have taken to describing the gasoline as “furniture perfume,” and when pressed about it say only that it is “for the children.”