The Order of Things

The Order of Things

At the beginning of each New Year, I reflect on the order of things — relationships, time, and professional pursuits. What is in order and what is disorderly? What does it mean to re-order and put things in the right order?

Some reject the idea of right ordering altogether, scoffing at Aristotle’s assertion that means are ordered to their end, or Augustine’s observation that persons who reject order make themselves out to the author of order. But James Schall observes that “...if order is rejected, as it can be, it is always rejected in the name of another order...”[1]

“Other orders” have been available to human persons since the beginning of time. Among our particular 21st century challenges is the array of “other orders” that present themselves via technology, affluence, and entertainment.

Charlotte Mason identifies this “other order” as self-ordering. When speaking to parents, she states, “They allow themselves to do what they choose; there may be little harm in what they do; the harm is that they feel free to allow themselves.”

This sense of license appears in the life choices of the self-ordered, and in the manner that they relate to their children — the means are not intentionally ordered to their end; they are plucked out of the air of the moment.