Wreckers

In Book III of Augustine’s Confessions, the author details aspects of his life as a young student. When studying the law, Augustine associates for a time with a group that calls itself “the Wreckers.” Augustine describes how the Wreckers would “set upon some newcomer, gratuitously affronting his sense of decency for their own amusement and use it as fodder for their spiteful jests.” These ruffians were Augustine’s fellow students in the “art of eloquence,” the purpose of which was the “unhallowed and inane purpose of gratifying human vanity.” 

While Augustine is offended by the Wreckers’ coarseness, he does find pleasure in their friendship. He admits that at this stage in his life he thrilled at deriding God’s “holy servants and prophets.” One gets the feeling that if young student Augustine had been alive in the 1960s he would have been wearing long hair and beads, listening to a fair amount of Rolling Stones music, smoking some marijuana, and praising Hair as the apogee of artistic expression. And don’t let him anywhere near your daughter.

We can all recognize Wrecker like figures in our lives. Some people live to agitate, to provoke, to undermine people’s convictions. This is typically because they lack any convictions of their own. They revel in irreverence because they have reverence for nothing. They can tear down, but they struggle to build up.

Yuval Levin has argued that our time is a time to build. Instead of using our institutions as a platform for performance or as instruments of our own ambitions, we must find the central ethos of good institutions—their mission and virtues—and allow them to shape us.

We have many institutions today that are failing us. In one way or another, governments, schools, and churches have all had their share of failures and scandals. The reasons for such institutional decay are myriad, but certainly one reason is that in an age of authenticity we see our institutions not as formers of character but as platforms for self-expression. Submitting to authority becomes more difficult for a people told time and again that self-expression and self-actualization are at the heart of a healthy psyche rather than submission to legitimate authority. Indeed, part and parcel of the age of authenticity is there is not legitimate authority other than the self.

In an era of institutional decline, then, we are tempted to simply want to tear down our institutions and start anew. This is certainly a bit of a conundrum: When is it appropriate to reform an institution and rededicate it to a laudable original mission, and when it is time to declare an institution hopelessly corrupt, thus the need to start over? Surely at some point reform is impossible. It would seem that the wisdom of a Declaration of Independence should still be headed. Only after a “long train of abuses” should we resort to revolution over reform.

The temptation to be a Wrecker is strong. Why was Augustine friends with these people who he recognized as troublesome and dangerous? He tells us: they were fun. There is a perverse pleasure in breaking things. I suppose we all have to some extent a fascination with “bad boys.”

It’s also so much easier to destroy and debunk than to build. Whether it’s a complex institution or a tower of blocks, knocking things over is so much quicker than construction. To maintain and defend an institution is also often boring, thankless work. Abraham Lincoln, in his famous Lyceum Address, notes that maintaining a regime is more difficult, and thus more laudable, than founding. It’s the often the unglamourous work that is the most valuable.

Donald Trump has nominated some Wreckers for various administration positions. This isn’t all bad. Many parts of the federal government are the kinds of institutions that could use a bit of wrecking. I wonder, however, how successful these Wreckers will be. These are folks who have made a name for themselves being provocative, saying extreme things and advocating extreme actions. Some of these folks, such as the Attorney General flop Matt Gaetz, are precisely people who have used their platforms merely to advance their own brand rather than bring about any positive change. While such people can be titillating and amusing, they often fail when given a position of actual responsibility. Blathering online or on television is one thing. Reforming the Department of Defense is something else altogether.

Augustine finds his contentment and, incidentally, his mark on history when he ceases associating with Wreckers and bad boys. Instead, he submits to God and the Church. Augustine ceases to be enamored with debunking and idle cleverness. The correct metaphor is not wreckage but cultivation. Cultivating a healthy garden takes time, patience, and attention. So, too, with the cultivation of healthy people and their institutions.