What's Wrong with the World

Cade, my 17 year old stepson, and I met to celebrate his enlistment in the US Army. The discussion, naturally enough since Cade is a senior in high school, turned to his plans for the future. Cade wants to be an archaeologist which requires him to first study history or anthropology. His goal in studying these fields is to discover , he says, "What's wrong with the world?"

I couldn't resist answering with GK Chesterton's reply to The Times when asked to write on essay on the same subject, "I am". Cade smiled, thinking it a joke. So I repeated myself, unsmiling, "I am what's wrong with the world."


I think Alexander Solzhenitsyn summed it up nicely, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to spearate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

The Socratic notion that who knows the good, does the good fails miserably, especially when we try to live it as individuals. Time after time we deny the common good in pursuit of personal desires.

I, Cade, am what's wrong with the world.

Til next time, all the best. Joe