Schizophrenia and the Saint
Frank Chodorov wrote of the "conscious schizophrenic." The "C-S," according to Chodorov, is a person who intuitively latches onto values that don't fit into the existing social order, so he yearns for something better than what he can find in society. This yearning takes the form of open criticism or silent resignation: of a "mental flight to a world in which his standards prevail." He is, says Chodorov:
an Epictetus, a Thoreau or a Nock, if he had the gift of articulation, or he is my farmer friend in Vermont who shuts himself up with a well-prepared library every fall. Then, again, he might be the successful stock broker who admits he is nothing but a croupier and finds it necessary to take an intellectual bath every evening lest he lost all respect for himself.
Chodorov points out that many C-S people profit handsomely from the society that they otherwise avoid. A psychiatrist says that his female patients could be cured "with a scrubbing-board or a horse-whip," but he follows psychiatric remedial norms, collects his fee, and "repairs to a volume of Byron." A man might scorn welfare, but if the money's just sitting there, he's going to take it. He'd be foolish not to, and besides, there are always nocturnal forays into the works of Seneca to clear his head.
There are lots of C-S people out there. You might know some, you might not. Their closest societal counterparts are pre-1970s homosexuals. Both live in the closet. The C-S knows he's less likely to benefit from society if he discloses his intellectual proclivities; the pre-1970s homosexual if he discloses his sexual. So both cover up who they are. The homosexual has been emancipated from the closet, though not necessarily for his or society's good. The C-S is as closeted (or is "ensconced" the better word?) as ever.
Everyone suffers from the kind of schizophrenia that Chodorov describes, even those people who seem most adept at squelching it through ennui-killing pursuits like golf, shopping, and television. The people who are pointedly conscious of it are the people Chodorov calls "conscious schizophrenics." They're the ones that get the stench of advertising slogans out of their nostrils "by nightly associations with the mediaevalists." They read Thoreau and know they're not alone. They contemplate Aurelius and admire serenity.
But the highest conscious schizophrenics are the saints. They're very aware of the need for a double life, but they don't dedicate the quiet side of that life to literature exclusively, like Chodorov's C-S. No, they dedicate that side of their life to prayer. Literature has a place, too, but first comes prayer.
And just as everyone suffers to some extent from the schizophrenia Chodorov describes, everyone is called to prayer. It's precisely because the world and its society are filthy and beautiful at the same time that we need to spend time alone, sorting it out, removing ourselves from the din and sitting in the closet, trying to figure out why we're wearing these ill-fitting clothes.
