Is Your Innocence Lost Forever ?
Is innocence actually possible ? Once we grow up, have we outgrown innocence because we know “reality”? Is everything we do to recreate innocence false and foolish ? That is what the world will try to tell you but we are here to tell you why that is so wrong. To a lot of Western people, innocence = ignorance. We are only innocent because we do not know or have not experienced what they like to call “real life”. From this view, a lot of other things follow, so it is important for us to understand what innocence actually is. If innocence = ignorance, then once we “know”, it is gone. It cannot be recovered. Therefore : If we do “know”, then any attempt at innocence is false. Therefore, people cultivating an innocent style and enjoying innocent things are either deceiving other people and putting up a false front or deceiving themselves and imagining they can return to a more childlike state when in fact their knowledge of “reality” has trapped them forever in non-innocence (or, to use the terms of those who dislike innocence “given them a realistic view of the world”). This view of innocence as ignorance is deeply embedded in the modern Western view of the world. It accounts for a lot of the cynicism that we see ingrained in the entire current western culture. What is the answer to this ? What is this “reality” that the West is so proud of ? On the surface, it consists of two things :
1. A belief (founded on the “Freudian revolution” of the early 20th century) that “sex” is central to the human psychological condition.
2. A belief that the world is inherently hostile so we have to be constantly on our guard.
However, these two already-dubious assertions have become largely excuses for something else. That something else is what the Narnia-professor, C.S. Lewis called the “Saturnian” culture of the 20th century : an attraction to things that are dark and negative. This cynicism, this belief that anything beautiful must also be “warped”, “twisted” etc. is deeply embedded in popular culture.
But, in reality, the pure, open, innocent, happy things are what we naturally want. The yearning for darkness and twistedness is not natural to us, it is something we learn and it is wrong. Really it is as simple as that. It is true that once we learn to like nasty things, our innocence is gone and to that degree, innocence = ignorance. BUT, here is the point : innocence does not equal ignorance of truth, it equals ignorance of certain falsehoods. If the opposite of innocence were the truth, then innocence would be lost. In order to keep innocence, we would have to deny the truth so we would either be deceiving others or deceiving ourselves. But what if the “knowledge” that denies innocence is a lie? What if innocence is natural and true – the simple longing for what is good and light and pure ? What if cynicism is just the willful embrace of darkness ?
In that case, “knowledge” does not destroy innocence because we can know the lie as much as we are forced to, but we do not believe it. Only if the lie were true would knowledge destroy innocence. So are we saying that modern western popular culture is based on a lie ? To a large extent, yes, we are. The pursuit of darkness, selfishness, “sex” and coarseness are deeply ingrained in much of the culture. This is not natural, it is not right and it does not represent any kind of truth. In seeking innocence, happiness and beauty, we are seeking the things a person naturally wants, the right and true things. In doing so, we find a deeply cynical and unnatural culture opposed to us. In order to be innocent and pure, one has to have at least a little of the heroic warrior spirit.
Wherever there is light, darkness will oppose it. If we want to be good and pure, there will be cackling villains telling us that only darkness and coarseness and “twistedness” are real. We do not have to go out and defeat those villains but we do have to do something that requires courage and fortitude. We have to defeat them in our hearts. If we do that, we can regain our innocence with absolute authenticity, however much it has been assaulted and battered by the forces of darkness. We can expose the lie and return to our true, natural and pure state of innocence. One of the biggest arguments against being innocent is that it is not safe. People tend to accept the belief that innocence and naivety equate with vulnerability as true, without even questioning this.
Here is a true story : in the Caribbean, fishermen throw the crabs they catch into a large bucket. They do not seal it or put a lid on it because they know how crabs behave. Every time a crab manages to climb nearly out of the bucket, the others will pull it back. Perfect self-policing. The fisherman can come back knowing that not one crab will have escaped. This same group self-policing instinct is very evident in any attempt to return to innocence. Anyone who tries to get out of the slop-bucket of modern western culture must be rounded up and made an example of. She must be pulled back into the bucket or at least be intimidated into keeping very quiet. People are browbeaten into believing that wrong is right and right is wrong (conscience inversion) because that is what the surrounding culture believes. Or else they feel they had better wear the right mask in order to fit in or at least be left alone. But the trouble with masks is, if you wear them long enough they, become your face and very soon, you are part of the Police, helping to round up the next “offender”. If not by actively bullying her, at least by showing her that she can expect no support from your quarter, that there is nowhere to turn; nowhere that supports and nurtures true innocence, so she had better just come along quietly.
The enemy looks strong but Purity WILL win !
