Schools’ syllabus - Admire the words, not the writer

IF WE were to turn our back on every piece of art created by an artist who led a life that did not suit mainstream mores, we would limit human imagination and dismiss very many wonderful human achievements.

We would close off many of the avenues that have brought great beauty and understanding into our lives.

If we applied the same criteria of exclusion to science, commerce, medicine, politics, or even sport, we would be in a very different and far poorer world.

We may regret that Brendan Behan was an alcoholic who drank himself to death, but we can still enjoy his work. We may abhor Wagner’s enthusiastic support of Hitler, but find his music profoundly moving. We may not think that Oscar Wilde led an exemplary life, but are still able to recognise and honour his genius.

It takes no more than the capacity to hold two ideas at once: that a person you cannot admire can create works that you can admire.

That very human contradiction may even enhance the value of that person’s work as a subject for study because of the great conflicts and contradictions involved. After all, unnerving contradictions shape and articulate our humanity and our lives. Resolving or accepting those conflicts is what makes it possible for us all to live together.

This is the dilemma Cathal Ó Searcaigh finds himself in. His admitted behaviour in Nepal, no matter what the local age of consent is, will appal and anger many people. If the poet were to engage in such tawdry, exploitative and empty, promiscuous behaviour in Ireland, it is doubtful that his lifestyle would remain the subject of an academic debate for long.

However, to suggest that his poetry should not be taught in our schools because of this behaviour would be hypocrisy of the darkest, most dangerous kind.

It may, as our education minister Mary Hanafin alluded to in the Dáil, “present difficulties” but, if our educational system cannot overcome this relatively minor conflict, can we say that we are preparing our children for the real world or some wishful thinking, all-one-colour world?

Recognising the worth of his poetry is not after all an endorsement of his lifestyle. It is just a recognition that beauty has many voices and many conduits and that not all can be easily endorsed or even attractive.

If Mr Ó Searcaigh’s poetry is to be removed from our schools’ syllabus because of his sexual adventures, are we to apply the same veto to the teaching of the tenets of Catholicism because that church sheltered so many priests with similar proclivities?

The answer to that must be no, for it is the word we venerate, not the man. It is the word that moves us, not the messenger.