Pascal: Talkin' 'Bout My Generation
Todd Flanders
April 1, 1995
Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pens褳 Edited, Outlined & Explained, by Peter Kreeft (Ignatius Press, 1993), 341 pp., paper.
In a generally inarticulate medium, the late grunge laureate Kurt Cobain articulated a philosophy for a generation: "Here we are now. Entertain us." Cut loose from any notion of objective goods that should be pursued or evils that should be avoided, many contemporary young simply kill time. They are as though adrift at sea without compass or destination, so they might as well demand that theirs be a pleasure cruise. But the satisfactions they chase strangely fail to satisfy. Hopelessly, inevitably, a generation slips into boredom.
Boredom is new to the modern world. The ancients had no word for it, and, presumably, no concept of it. It is symptomatic of our time that a young cab driver in Kansas City could explain her planned relocation to Dallas thus: "It's so boring here." Dallas, she thought, would effect the salvation from boredom that it signified for her. Frightening it is to speculate that Kurt Cobain's tragedy lay in a superior, intolerable wisdom. The truth is that no city, no drug, no thrill, no fame, no fortune, nothing in the world can sufficiently divert us from what we know: the grave looms as our sure destination. "The last act is bloody," wrote Blaise Pascal, "however fine the rest of the play. They throw earth over your head and it is finished forever."
Pascal (1623-1662) understood the modern mentality. He understood the boredom, the need to be entertained.
"Man is so unhappy that he would be bored even if he had no cause for boredom, by the very nature of his temperament, and he is so vain that, though he has a thousand and one basic reasons for being bored, the slightest thing, ...
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