By now you may have heard about the Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko who has been sulking because he lost the gold medal to American Evan Lysacek. Plushenko has taken a fairly audacious strategy to elevating his claim to superiority: his website apparently announced that he has won the “Platinum Medal” at the Vancouver Games.
I am not the guy to analyze the judges’ scores in the event, but when I heard about Plushenko’s self-designed award, I couldn’t help but remember something that I heard Alistair McGrath say at a lecture:
“Reality is what faces you when you are wrong.”
You may believe earnestly that the moon is made of Cheetos, but that doesn’t mean that it “really” is. You may believe that the check you have deposited in the bank was worth a million dollars, but if the check writer’s account does not hold such funds, your check is worthless, no matter how genuinely you may believe otherwise.
I don’t want to be too hard on Plushenko (particularly since I’m not sure how seriously he has proposed this medal), but the story has provided us with a really nice example of the problem with the kind of relativism and solipcism that permeates contemporary culture. As good as our Jedi mind tricks may sound in our heads (“I won the medal!”), we delude ourselves if we think that they will work in the real world. These kinds of self-serving lies are rooted in the original Jedi mind trick offered in Eden: “Did God really say . . . ?” (Gen. 3:1).
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
