Advice from a Hollywood Fairy Who Should Have Stuck to Getting Wooden Boys Out of Scrapes and Stayed Out of Moral Philosophy

In Disney's Pinocchio Jiminy Cricket, following the Blue Fairy, sings a song that includes, "Always let your conscience be your guide."  Even as a child I found that line disquieting, but didn't know why.  It became clearer when I learned enough Latin to know that conscience is "con-scio," which means essentially "another voice in your head." 

The problem with this voice is its ambiguity.   It is our property--like a dream, it is made from the stuff of memory--but is as susceptible to external influence and control as the transcendental Self.  To those with strong moral sensitivity (like Martin Luther, William Cowper, St. Augustine, and, I think, a number of notable saints and anti-saints), it can become a vulnerable place where a person who may have strong resistance in other areas is likely to be attacked, either by the Contrary Self, or malign external spiritual influences. 

That is why the conscience, especially in the morally sensitive, cannot simply be relied upon to be one's guide.  Rather, it is a battleground, good and reliable when occupied by the forces of Charity, but quite the opposite when under enemy control.  There is nothing, for example, evil loves to do more than to make the conscience slip from the bonds of faith and into its theatre of guilt-torture.  Once that happens the entertainment begins: either of listening to the sobs and screams of the good, or, even better, of tempting the soul to buy its way out by surrendering conscience and joining the scoffers. 

One finds many of these among illuminati who have renounced their religion and can present a large and predictable catalog of reasons it's all nonsense.  I would venture a guess that most of these are people who can no longer bear the guilt they have become convinced was given them by the moralism of a Christian upbringing, but which in fact is the product of attacks on conscience that pervert a faith which does indeed call them guilty, but then offers abundant forgiveness and exaltation of life in its place--of moral heresy in which one truth is elevated to the destruction of another.   The diseased conscience is crippled by guilt, but has renounced its ability to receive mercy.

Guilt is by nature intolerable; it is prescribed at most to be temporary.  There are, however, two ways that one may attempt to be rid of it.  One is by accepting forgiveness on the terms offered by divine authority, the other is to deny it, and with it all the teachings that undergird its reality.  For the former Christian this means rejection of the whole Christian faith, for what of it is not concerned with the removal of sin and guilt? 

The false cure, however, bears the same quality as the guilt from which it flees--it also can also be no more than temporary--a palliative.  Man is an inescapably moral creature, and with morality comes guilt.  No one can help breaking whatever rules he has set up in defiance of the ones he has fled, and at the end of what falsely promised to be a new day, the offense is found to be against a Power very much like the God that has been denied and abandoned: 

The former believer, now devoutly and cosmically Green, uses the products of the industry he rejects to live his life and advance his doctrine, daily offending against his new god.  The sexual libertine denounces the Church for theft of his freedom, but must live in fear of the many forms of bondage to which he is subjected by his new master--which cannot be overthrown because they cannot be admitted as such.  Here are religions of law in which there is no forgiveness, so guilt is only suppressed, and the world must bear the resulting anger, hypocrisy, and incessant transferals of fault to others.  (See the evening news for the litanies of guilt-transference.)   

I have read somewhere that Pope Sixtus I said "mala mens chorus daemonium"--which I take to mean, "a bad conscience is a troop of devils."  Until real forgiveness is accepted and one lives in faith of that forgiveness, that is what we must deal with both in ourselves and in our society: real guilt falsely dealt with--an incessant chorus of demons, coming at us from every side.  The original Pinocchio's Cricket lived in a world where conscience, in a wooden head, was not a very good guide at all.  That hasn't changed.

Comments

[Clifford Simon]

I rather think that Disney meant as follows. "If not for conscience, what would stand between you and Pleasure Island? Therefore, do not neglect the conscience"--- which, with a charming bit of overstatement, comes out as "Always let your conscience be your guide." J. Cricket, moreover, needs to be understood as the pretentious beginner.

[Clifford Simon]

(You can't explain in clear words, even to the simplest audience conceivable, the difference between right and wrong and the right time and the wrong time; and then, you go jolly right on styling yourself as the one to summon for any and all times of help? Pretentious! But that you possess yet an inkling of understanding that there is right and there is wrong, and that they are controlled by time--- a remarkable insight in itself, and that you are enthusiastic anyhow with the job--- well, there may be some hope in you after all.)

[Clifford Simon]

J. had to earn his badge by proof of trials. If you'll allow me, the seeding and strengthening of the conscience is a subtler theme in Pinocchio, whereas the perils of no conscience at all is its main theme. If you'll allow me again, Pinocchio takes up the weaknesses of the morally dead, not of the morally sensitive. The conscience may tell a man, sensitive so corrupted, that truth is a tyrant. A boy lies because he's got a blockheaded notion that he can get away with it---that's morally dead. None of this of course invalidates SMH's fine observations about the sensitive one.

[Clifford Simon]

Yet I think Pinocchio's observation a necessary one too not in the least because the conscience is truly gone from the land. It's even gone from Disney. What would a movie be today that observes the Conscience? Either it'd be the sort of Conscience that's diseased with all the infection that SMH observes here. Or else, without the tenderness of even a J. Cricket in it, it'd be the proclaiming sort of Conscience that drives all but the sturdiest of folks to the former. And really, is it not obvious that too many men are without a sense of conscience?

[smh]

Perhaps I should say that this posting is derived from a letter written to a person with whom I have had a private correspondence for many years, a brilliant Christian with a conscious so sensitive that it has threatened on numerous occasions to push him into mental illness. With his kind permission, some of my writings to him have become Mere Comments postings or Touchstone pieces because I thought they might help others with similar difficulties, in this case the small number of people for whom "letting their conscience be their guide" would--and I am quite serious--destroy them. Those who find these tracings through strange ground odd or unuseful should pass them by. For most people, following their consciences is a fairly good rule of thumb--but not for the compulsively reflective.

[Julie Bayon]

Fantastic post! I am one of those people with a sensitive conscience who has found great solace in reading Luther, a saint who struggled with conscience even after coming to his revolutionary understanding of grace and forgiveness. I always enjoy and appreciate your words as strong meat in an age addicted to vegetables and milk.

[B Cody]

I do not understand why some people make such tireless defense of our depraved 'conscience'. I found the same problem with J. Crickett's admonishment to Pinnochio...and I was only a boy. Maybe that was Pinnochio's problem-he wasn't yet a boy.

[Nemo]

I don't know. In my own Evangelical circles (nondenominational) almost everyone seems to have a chronically tender conscience, and three sermons out of four (whether from the pulpit or on the radio) boil down to "stop feeling guilty and rejoice because God really did forgive your sins through Christ's sacrifice on the cross and now He loves you perfectly no matter what you have done." The unformalized doctrine seems to be that the only source of guilt, for the Christian, is Satan, the Accuser. As one song winsomely puts it: "When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of my guilt within, upward I look and see Him there, Who made an end of all my sin." Yet however often we repeat this doctrine, I see no one's sense of guilt and failure lessen. It could be, I suppose, that Satan is winning a sustained victory in the churches, but I suspect the problem lies with a faulty conception of the nature of forgiveness and salvation. It was the Publican, not the Pharisee, who found forgiveness for his sins, yet we aspire to the confidence of the Pharisee and abhor, as the product of unbelief, the shame of the Publican. It were more fruitful to treat the sense of guilt as accurate and follow the Traditions that see repentance as the work of a lifetime, striving not to make one's faith strong enough to eliminate guilt but rather to make one's apprehension of God's love and mercy toward broken-hearted sinners great enough to engender hope.

That said, surely no problem arises in seeing the conscience as an aspect of common grace, of general revelation, as that faculty given to all men by which they might perceive "natural law" (whatever meaning one's Tradition gives to that phrase). This affirms the goodness of the conscience while acknowledging its limitations and susceptibility to corruption and error. "Always let your conscience be your guide" is sub-Christian, but having one's conscience seared, as the Apostle Paul phrases it, is depravity. As you say, listening to your conscience is a good rule of thumb, but it cannot be the highest authority.

[Bill R]

"It was the Publican, not the Pharisee, who found forgiveness for his sins, yet we aspire to the confidence of the Pharisee and abhor, as the product of unbelief, the shame of the Publican"

The Pharisee's confidence was that he was sure he had no sins to be forgiven, not that he was sure his sins were forgiven. The Pharisee left, unaware that he still carried his sins as a millstone about his neck. Repentance, not confidence in one's forgiven state, is the real issue at stake in the parable.

[Judy K. Warner]

When Pinocchio was written, and when the film was made, society was suffused with a Christian sensibility. People knew at least what their consciences would tell them if they listened, so there was some sense to letting your conscience be your guide. Guilt was often denied, but there was guilt at going against the moral precepts everyone accepted.

But nowadays many people are more than one generation away from any religious practice or knowledge. Their consciences are not the same. People might feel guilty about stealing, but they will not necessarily feel guilty about committing adultery or pre-marital sex, or even homosexual acts. They will feel far more guilty about not recycling, or offending a person in a victim group, than they will about sexual transgressions. I believe the connection with natural law, let alone Christian law, is so broken that I cannot even imagine what it will take to re-establish it.

I write from some experience, being the daughter of atheists. My morality was surefooted when it came to stealing, or lying, or not being "fair," but completely confused when it came to sexual matters. I certainly did not see, feel, or understand right or wrong in that area. Once I became a Christian I experienced enormous guilt. But I didn't feel as if it had been there all along; it was rather that I learned to recognize what was objectively wrong and disordered, and saw how far I had strayed from what was right.

[Deacon Michael D. Harmon]

I live in the only state (Maine) where same-sex marriage is being voted on next Tuesday. The legislature passed, and the governor signed, a bill approving it. Opponents (Catholics and evangelicals) needed 50,000 signatures to get a repeal "people's veto" on the ballot, and got 100,000. Nevertheless, the polls, if they can be trusted, say the vote is too close to call. Pray for us, please.

In the context of this article, the state's largest newspaper (of which I am an employee) printed an advertisement two weeks ago titled "A Statement of Conscience" signed by self-identified Catholics (many of them prominent attorneys and some doctors, as well as the usual run of academics and activists) saying that they were moved by their "informed consciences" to support gay marriage and call for the defeat of the referendum to overturn the law.

It raised the question in my mind when I read it of just exactly what was informing their consciences, since the phrase in my understanding means "informed by Scripture and the historic teachings of the church." I have my own ideas of what the signatories mean by their use of the term, but perhaps others hereabouts can offer their own opinions.

[Tim]

If I remember correctly, the original cricket was not Pinocchio's conscience and did not suggest Pinocchio listen to his conscience (he didn't have one! he was a puppet!), instead he was an outside source of wisdom who was attempting to point out truth to Pinocchio. He got smushed on the wall for his trouble (see relevant chapter 4 pasted below). The original book is a good read; I read it to my seven year old (Perella translation with original Italian; best, from what I gathered).

Re guilt: it's not the guilt that is tenacious but we, when we refuse to acknowledge Christ's power to remove our sin. When we refuse forgiveness we are essentially telling Christ on the Cross, "that's not good enough for me." Old problem: pride. Took me a long time to see how attached and, shockingly, attracted I was to my own despair. Finally accepting forgiveness was the most liberating thing I've ever known and I'm still flabbergasted.

Chapter 4

The story of Pinocchio and the Talking Cricket, in which one sees that bad children do not like to be corrected by those who know more than they do

Very little time did it take to get poor old Geppetto to prison. In the meantime that rascal, Pinocchio, free now from the clutches of the Carabineer, was running wildly across fields and meadows, taking one short cut after another toward home. In his wild flight, he leaped over brambles and bushes, and across brooks and ponds, as if he were a goat or a hare chased by hounds.

On reaching home, he found the house door half open. He slipped into the room, locked the door, and threw himself on the floor, happy at his escape.

But his happiness lasted only a short time, for just then he heard someone saying:

"Cri-cri-cri!"

"Who is calling me?" asked Pinocchio, greatly frightened.

"I am!"

Pinocchio turned and saw a large cricket crawling slowly up the wall.

"Tell me, Cricket, who are you?"

"I am the Talking Cricket and I have been living in this room for more than one hundred years."

"Today, however, this room is mine," said the Marionette, "and if you wish to do me a favor, get out now, and don't turn around even once."

"I refuse to leave this spot," answered the Cricket, "until I have told you a great truth."

"Tell it, then, and hurry."

"Woe to boys who refuse to obey their parents and run away from home! They will never be happy in this world, and when they are older they will be very sorry for it."

"Sing on, Cricket mine, as you please. What I know is, that tomorrow, at dawn, I leave this place forever. If I stay here the same thing will happen to me which happens to all other boys and girls. They are sent to school, and whether they want to or not, they must study. As for me, let me tell you, I hate to study! It's much more fun, I think, to chase after butterflies, climb trees, and steal birds' nests."

"Poor little silly! Don't you know that if you go on like that, you will grow into a perfect donkey and that you'll be the laughingstock of everyone?"

"Keep still, you ugly Cricket!" cried Pinocchio.

But the Cricket, who was a wise old philosopher, instead of being offended at Pinocchio's impudence, continued in the same tone:

"If you do not like going to school, why don't you at least learn a trade, so that you can earn an honest living?"

"Shall I tell you something?" asked Pinocchio, who was beginning to lose patience. "Of all the trades in the world, there is only one that really suits me."

"And what can that be?"

"That of eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, and wandering around from morning till night."

"Let me tell you, for your own good, Pinocchio," said the Talking Cricket in his calm voice, "that those who follow that trade always end up in the hospital or in prison."

"Careful, ugly Cricket! If you make me angry, you'll be sorry!"

"Poor Pinocchio, I am sorry for you."

"Why?"

"Because you are a Marionette and, what is much worse, you have a wooden head."

At these last words, Pinocchio jumped up in a fury, took a hammer from the bench, and threw it with all his strength at the Talking Cricket.

Perhaps he did not think he would strike it. But, sad to relate, my dear children, he did hit the Cricket, straight on its head.

With a last weak "cri-cri-cri" the poor Cricket fell from the wall, dead!