Book Review: Henry and the Great Society

Available for $5 from:
Pathway Publishers
2580N 250W
La Grange, IN 46761
or at milestonebooks.com

I highly recommend Henry and the Great Society to anyone who is willing to take a good, hard look in the mirror and get shaken up a little... or a lot!  It's a story of a simple life getting turned upside down by modern conveniences, supposedly making the main characters' lives better, but really turning their focus away from what's important.  At worst, it's a borderline straw man argument, where you have to wonder if the old life was really that rosy and the new ways are really so burdensome.  At best, the storyline can convict a person on any level of involvement with "the great society" to re-analyze their daily life choices.

There's enough truth in the story that it could be a genuine biography, and in fact, the social pressures that influenced Henry in his story were so widespread in the 20th century that I'm sure none of us are more than a few degrees of separation away from someone who became a victim of "progress" in the same way as Henry.  Perhaps we can even consider ourselves victims, though increasingly, many of us don't have life experiences before these busy modern times.  Written from a Christian perspective, yet not with a Plain lens, it's still a perfect read for Old Order Mennonites and Amish alike, reaffirming their way of life and demonstrating how the modern consumer culture threatens the simple agrarian tradition.

I feel like it would be unfair to recommend this book without sharing how intense it was for me.  This book made me weep about the current realities of the world.  I can't "unsee" the things I've read within it's pages, and I would warn anyone wanting to read it that it's truths are uncomfortably close to home.  As a pretty emotional person, I feel like I have to either change my ways or harden my heart to what it's convicted me of... so though I highly recommend it, be warned!

The last several chapters of the book are a more candid analysis of scripture and the consuming distraction of self-gratification, as experienced by the author in the 1960's.  Copywritten in 1969, Henry and the Great Society observes the suffocating effects that can occur in the age of consumption, well before the social media craze that's upon us now.  Here are a couple quotes from that last section of the book:

"A famous classical scholar, in describing the decline and fall of he Grecian and Roman empires, said, 'In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security, a comfortable life, and they lost ALL... security, and comfort and freedom.'  Like them, we are being institutionalized, regimented and enslaved by a 'something for nothing' philosophy that is destroying us all by the weapons of our own greed.  The great society stands by with its cleverly conceived credit system that allows us to spend our way to slavery while being denied even the pleasure of enjoying that which enslaves us."  Page 88

 "Suffice to say that the life [the main characters] Henry and Esther first lived is a life that brings man in daily confrontation with God. His handiwork all around us, His glory in every star-spattered sky, His power and voice in the peal of thunder and flash of jagged lightning, His peace in every riffling brook and shady nook... this is the constant revelation of Himself in every part of the earth and heaven that makes natural man uncomfortable and restless; for he knows that all of life is bringing him to a final face-to-face meeting with God. For this cause, the great society finds a fertile field in the deceitful and desperately wicked heart of man. As Adam hid behind the trees in the garden from the voice of God, so modern man hides behind gadgets, the 'things' of this affluent society. Under the background hum of the electronic age, man is seeking refuge from that final confrontation with God. Satan's masterpiece of strategy of the great society of today is his most successful venture since the seed of it was sown in Eve's heart with the lie, 'Ye shall not die ... ye shall be as gods.' And so, the promise of every time and labor-saving device, and the power of a universal credit system that places them all within reach of every man, have made us as gods... self-sufficient, rich, increased in goods and in need of nothing!"  Page 95

For further reading on our most current technology's grasp on our minds, from the very engineers themselves, see this article online from The Guardian, or view the printable version.  This article interviews many key players who created the integral pieces and programs that allow Facebook, Google, Twitter, and the iPhone to function so "naturally".  Now in their early- and mid-thirties, they are all setting up serious boundaries to limit themselves from addictive social media and smartphone overuse.