“Self-love is the first sin, the first progeny of the devil, and the mother of the passions” – St. Maximus the Confessor
There is silence in LaFun except the muffled sound of distant screams from outside. Lights flicker, water pools, and the smell of sewage lingers. Aisles and aisles of empty convenience store shelves have been rearranged into barricades. The old convenience store has been aptly named, for that is all its current patrons do: Huddle, and hide.
Not even six hours into Student Government’s disastrous “Self-Love Week,” the cracks begin to show. Student Government, expecting low-to-moderate turnout for their giveaways, came underprepared with only a handful of stress balls and candy bars. The Roman poet Juvenal said, “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” But the bread was gone, and the circuses, quiet.
The spiral began when two students simultaneously reached for the final Whatchamacallit candy bar. Both realized that their love of self was being threatened by the other. Sharp threats turned to violence, and like a den of hyenas with a morsel of meat, a cutthroat war broke out.
The student body had been swept up in their government’s rhetoric of self-love. Self-love soured, mutating into self-devotion, self-obsession, and self-worship. False preachers outside the library cried novel doctrines: “Love thy neighbor or thine self.” The law was supplanted by Darwin’s texts, and the scarcity of care was discovered.
The following days saw a mass unraveling. One might have expected a factioning in times of civil unrest, but no alliances were made. The only thing close to human partnership and interaction remaining is the black market, operated out of the defunct NDPD station. What began as exchanges of candy and socks for money has rapidly escalated to the highest physical luxuries. Hammes Mowbray is now overrun with firearms, hard drugs, stolen jewelry, and several live tigers.
The administration has all fled, and the C.S.C. have turned Corby into a fortress capable of withstanding a month-long siege. They have already suffered three martyrdoms, all cases of Holy Cross priests attempting to evangelize or administer the sacraments when they are beaten and robbed of the crosses around their necks; metal has become a precious resource in the scarce economy of self-care.
Gudent Stövernment, a psychologist from the University of Berlin, remarked, “The perceptions of those subject to self-mania are horribly warped. A gentle case of self-care begins with a healthy amount of eating and sleeping. But if no fasting ever breaks up the feasting, it snowballs. Self-love persuades them to rely on more luxury than they need, and before long we end up here: self-mania.”
Stövernment cited several similar instances of self-mania among young educated Americans. “It starts with taking time off of work because of a break-up, which is fine. But then it’s skipping work to go on a cruise because it’s cold in January, then dropping out of school to travel the world with a wealthy septuagenarian, and it too often ends with black-widow inheritance-nabbing ‘suicides.’ A textbook decline.”
Government intervention has been impossible. President Trump declines to get involved, claiming that it is “a learning moment for how Biden’s America failed economically.” International aid is unlikely; most countries have been unsympathetic, claiming that “if Notre Dame students don’t have enough money, then nothing will be enough.”
“Self-Love Week” is still ongoing. On Friday there will be a memorial Mass for the 317 students who passed in the great Duncan Stampede for free Chick-fil-A. Following the Mass will be a workshop for one-person friendship bracelets and a talk entitled “Know Thyself: How Horoscopes Help Us to Love Our Ids.”
James Whitaker is a graduate student in the theology department. He has a cordial relationship with himself, but would be uncomfortable with the word “love.” To help build up his self-esteem, send your love letters to jwhitak5@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Notre Dame Student Government Instagram
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