American Optimism is a Strange God
Nov 8, 2011
Elizabeth Scalia
I am told in some of my email that when writing about the future of the church or about the future of America, I tend toward the cynical and the pessimistic, and that these qualities are unhelpful to and unwanted by readers who—for reasons that defy comprehension—log on to the internet expecting to be soothed, reassured, and entertained. While reading the news.
The news is not good, and it is not good on any front. Europe is, to put it mildly, in disarray. The United States looks increasingly like a funhouse mirror of itself, its government gone feckless, its people stricken with uncertainty and its cities occupied by a “movement” that is all appetite for chaos.
Chaos is the three-engined vehicle forging this transitional path: economic chaos, social chaos, and spiritual chaos have already cleared the brush; electoral chaos will bring the asphalt. Homosexual couples are marrying, but heterosexual couples are not (fully 40% of all live births in America last year involved unmarried women) and the whole concept of marriage is being reduced to its material parts—the “right” (not Rite), the ring, the dress, the party. There are numerous television networks dedicated to the “things” of weddings but a woeful lack of teaching or understanding about why marriage matters or what it even is. Forget about proposing that marriage reflects the covenants forged between heaven and earth, Creator and creation.
No one conceived and raised in the vapor of celebrity-obsession, “reality” TV and short-attention-span marriages can understand the language.
Last week Mark Steyn wrote, “America is seizing up before our eyes,” and that is a spot-on image. She is like a brilliantly conceived machine that, poorly maintained for more years than any of us cares to admit, has gone too long untuned; the oil of her invention has thinned out and broken down and now bit-by-bit, gear-by-gear—economically, socially, spiritually—she is making an ungodly noise and grinding to a halt.
And yet people want optimism. They crave it, especially when a president is telling one half of the country that it is “time to eat your peas” while simultaneously encouraging another half to take to the streets and demand more dessert. “Where is our Ronald Reagan,” is a phrase that rises with alarming frequency, in some comboxes, and it always unsettles me to see it, because it seems so determinedly obtuse; if we can just find someone exactly like the president from thirty years ago, we will be alright. If only someone will smile and tell us it is morning in America, again, and the city has not slid down the hill!
There are probably ten thousand articles to be found on the Internet all fleshing out their theories of what is behind America’s swift collapse. Curiously, most of them will touch—all without realizing it—on the seven deadly sins; Capitalist Greed; Spiritual Sloth; Physical Lust; Nationalist/Military Pride; Consumer Gluttony; Partisan Wrath; Class Envy. Good arguments can be made blaming some are all of these sins for our current dire straits and for the sense that we are standing upon a precipice.
But I wonder if it is not the first and greatest sin named by Yahweh and given to Moses, that is most at fault: the sin of idolatry. We have loved ourselves so well; we have denied ourselves nothing and placed too much of what we love between ourselves and God; we have cherished mere things or other people; over-identified with ideas or ideologies and made an afterthought of God, who will not be mocked.
Make no mistake, America is not only on a precipice, she is watching the supporting ground below as it shifts and cracks and bits of edging break loose and fall—and a nation tumbles quickly once the foundations are fragmented. Nations fall all the time, of course, but America was supposed to be special—the “exceptional nation” or, as Madeleine Albright called it, “the indispensable nation”—the “last best hope” for the world.
But the last best hope for the world was always the Triune God of Creation. And even some religiously minded Americans seem to have forgotten that.
Perhaps God is tired of the idolatry that has snuck into some hearts disguised as patriotism—where the pledge is nearly equated with prayer and an excellent but earthbound document written by men is treated like the word from on high. Maybe he is tired of the idolatry of the parents whose darlings were over-indulged into stupidity, or the idolatry of the consumer who will stand in line overnight for the latest “must-have/already-obsolete” iToy, or the idolatry of mere ideas that trend and pass and carry off with them our charity and our clarity, leaving us more confused and distanced from God and each other, than we were before. Maybe it is the idolatry of our own earthly “power,” that has brought us to this shaky place.
Contemplating the drop from our trembling heights is dizzying. We are safer on our knees. Even so, if we are going to survive what is before us, we’ll have to cast off our idols and cling to something else, without despair. And it will have to be something that can bear us up when all about us goes into collapse. Something like a rock; something that has managed to continue even as one government after another, one nation after another, one trend after another, has been swept away. Something that is promised to prevail.
Elizabeth Scalia is the Managing Editor of the Catholic Portal at Patheos and blogs as The Anchoress. Her previous articles for "On the Square" can be found here.
RESOURCES
Levin speaking at Americans for Prosperity
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Comments:
11.8.2011 | 6:02am
DVO says:
I remember back in the 80's, people being puzzled by Pope John Paul II simultaneously calling for the downfall of communism and excoriating western capitalism. This bewilderment is understandable if one's world view consists primarily of partisan political concerns and a materialist ethos. I suspect that this same willfully stunted outlook is at the heart of so much of the dysfunction of a culture whose functional underpinnings were based in a recognition of God's sovereignity.
11.8.2011 | 6:46am
arty says:
When I was an undergraduate, I took a course on urban history, and at the end of the course, expressed a certain pessimism as to the future of the American city, given all of the past an ongoing problems the course readings had illuminated. The professor said: "well, some of us would like to be more optimistic than that." I responded, "me too, but where is the evidence?" The rest of the class looked as though I'd had the bad form to point of the nakedness of the emperor.
Great article, we should put our optimism where it belongs, and ridicule the bland optimism of the here and now, when it is pretty clear (as it should have been to Pangloss), that there isn't much to be optimistic about.
Great article, we should put our optimism where it belongs, and ridicule the bland optimism of the here and now, when it is pretty clear (as it should have been to Pangloss), that there isn't much to be optimistic about.
11.8.2011 | 8:14am
harry says:
I fully agree with Elizabeth Scalia's assessment of things. But the great American experiment in self rule and government the purpose of which is to protect the inalienable rights of humanity doesn't have to fall apart due to our idolatry. It is not inevitable even at this late date, although I suppose knowing that it wasn't inevitable makes it all the more painful as we lapse into godless, totalitarian government acknowledging no authority above itself – which, of course, is a denial of the very foundation of the government instituted by the founders, the purpose of which was to protect the inalienable rights bestowed upon humanity by an authority higher than the government itself. Here is why, even though it looks like America is a “city on a hill” rapidly sliding down that hill at the bottom of which is godless totalitarianism and anybody who doesn't see that is clueless, it is not necessarily inevitable that government dedicated to the protection of our inalienable right to life and liberty must disappear:
Then the word of the LORD came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
--Jeremiah 18:5-10
Yeah. I know. Citing the Bible is laughable to many people – that is a huge part of the problem. So, you scoffers, open your mind to a few possibilities for just a moment. If there is a God, and if He has interacted with humanity, and if the Bible is a record of that interaction, and if that Bible reveals a God Who is interested in humanity, not a an indifferent God but one Who loves us as a father loves his children – including punishing them when they need it, a God Who does indeed make nations rise and fall, then the above citation is telling us that it isn't necessarily a lost cause. It is up to us.
Then the word of the LORD came to me. He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
--Jeremiah 18:5-10
Yeah. I know. Citing the Bible is laughable to many people – that is a huge part of the problem. So, you scoffers, open your mind to a few possibilities for just a moment. If there is a God, and if He has interacted with humanity, and if the Bible is a record of that interaction, and if that Bible reveals a God Who is interested in humanity, not a an indifferent God but one Who loves us as a father loves his children – including punishing them when they need it, a God Who does indeed make nations rise and fall, then the above citation is telling us that it isn't necessarily a lost cause. It is up to us.
11.8.2011 | 8:25am
Mike says:
I’d like to focus on Scalia’s statement “Where is our Ronald Reagan…”
I think that the quality of the leaders we elect are a reflection of those of us who elect them. Highly influential leaders like Reagan, the Roosevelts, Wilson, and Lincoln were a reflection of a great people. Only a great people can produce and elect leaders such as these. I don’t see anyone of this stature at the moment (which doesn’t mean we won’t find great leaders in the future).
Now that the greatest generation is passing, those of us who have taken the reigns may not be of their stature. Vision and the need to excel and contribute are being replaced by self-destructive illogic (examples include out of wedlock births, the loss of 50 million pre-born, dumbing down of our art and general culture, etc.). We are becoming less visionary and more of a society of self-indulgent, soulless, narcissists – more concerned with security than freedom – experiencing more pleasure with waning joy – possessing full bellies with empty spirits. We can exist but not truly create. Consider that first half of the 20th century produced many great writers like Chesterton and C. S. Lewis to name two. Has western culture produced any literature and writing giants like these in the last 50 years?
Western culture is receding, like a huge ship drifting into oblivion, with so much momentum to be extremely difficult to stop. I guess that’s not very optimistic, but I think I see the problem, and it is us.
I think that the quality of the leaders we elect are a reflection of those of us who elect them. Highly influential leaders like Reagan, the Roosevelts, Wilson, and Lincoln were a reflection of a great people. Only a great people can produce and elect leaders such as these. I don’t see anyone of this stature at the moment (which doesn’t mean we won’t find great leaders in the future).
Now that the greatest generation is passing, those of us who have taken the reigns may not be of their stature. Vision and the need to excel and contribute are being replaced by self-destructive illogic (examples include out of wedlock births, the loss of 50 million pre-born, dumbing down of our art and general culture, etc.). We are becoming less visionary and more of a society of self-indulgent, soulless, narcissists – more concerned with security than freedom – experiencing more pleasure with waning joy – possessing full bellies with empty spirits. We can exist but not truly create. Consider that first half of the 20th century produced many great writers like Chesterton and C. S. Lewis to name two. Has western culture produced any literature and writing giants like these in the last 50 years?
Western culture is receding, like a huge ship drifting into oblivion, with so much momentum to be extremely difficult to stop. I guess that’s not very optimistic, but I think I see the problem, and it is us.
11.8.2011 | 8:48am
Rhinestone Suderman says:
So far from being idolotrous, I would say that, ever since the 60's, America has suffered from the opposite problem---self-hatred, and self-contempt, generated by an elite class that was very much smitten by Marxism, and despised America as being too flawed, imperfect and just not the paradise of utopian dreams. Our country was denounced as being racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist; on 9/11, we were scolded for having brought that attack upon ourselves---"Chickens coming home to roost!" we were told. Who would want to take care of such a terrible machine? Better just to let it run down, and hope for a better, purer, millenium, right?
Unsurprisingly, this sort of self-hating "You're no good!" "You're worthless!" "You're not living up to my expectations!" attitude doesn't help nations with introspection, or actual self-improvement, anymore than it helps individual people. (And, yes, I know our country has faults, but I see far, far more self-hatred and contempt for America in our current culture, than I do over-idealization; and what idealization there is often seems to be reaction to the former attitude.)
Unsurprisingly, this sort of self-hating "You're no good!" "You're worthless!" "You're not living up to my expectations!" attitude doesn't help nations with introspection, or actual self-improvement, anymore than it helps individual people. (And, yes, I know our country has faults, but I see far, far more self-hatred and contempt for America in our current culture, than I do over-idealization; and what idealization there is often seems to be reaction to the former attitude.)
11.8.2011 | 9:01am
Rhinestone Suderman says:
As Christians, we walk a constant tightrope, between one extreme and the next; we can't give into despair, on one hand; on the other, we can't put our faith in worldly things.
What happens after Western---or, more properly speaking, Judeo-Christian---culture goes? What takes its place? Islam? African tribalism? Secular hedonism, and ennui? More collectivism, and totalitarianism, like we've seen in the 20th Century?
I would like to point out that, if America, this great experiment, does, indeed, go under, the suffering of millions of people---and not just Americans themselves---will be incalculable. And the aftermath, in the following decades (assuming that this isn't actually the end times, and there won't be any Final Trump to bail us all out---and, according to the words of our Lord Himself, we are never to assume this, since only The Father knows the time---) will also be terrible, and, again, involve great suffering for our fellow man. Think of the fall of Rome, and of Byzantium. This is not something we can just shrug our shoulders over, and ignore.
We will be judged as to what we did, here on Earth. One doesn't throw God's gifts away, be they mere material things, or the gift of a comparatively sane, and advanced civilization, which tried to live by rule of law, and not whim of the dicatator, or fiat by tribal elders. Maybe, we work for the earthly future, while never giving up our hope of Heaven? I'm not sure what the right balance here is. At any rate, I don't think "Tra-la-la, it doesn't matter because I only care about spiritual things!" isn't really the attitude to take. If disaster hits, please don't think you'll be allowed to sit back and simply watch the ship of Western civilization sail into the sunset, as you sip a martini and whisper a prayer, congratulating yourself on the fact you weren't some nationalistic idolator, and not, "Even as this Pharisee". . . etc. It's going to be a lot harder than that.
What happens after Western---or, more properly speaking, Judeo-Christian---culture goes? What takes its place? Islam? African tribalism? Secular hedonism, and ennui? More collectivism, and totalitarianism, like we've seen in the 20th Century?
I would like to point out that, if America, this great experiment, does, indeed, go under, the suffering of millions of people---and not just Americans themselves---will be incalculable. And the aftermath, in the following decades (assuming that this isn't actually the end times, and there won't be any Final Trump to bail us all out---and, according to the words of our Lord Himself, we are never to assume this, since only The Father knows the time---) will also be terrible, and, again, involve great suffering for our fellow man. Think of the fall of Rome, and of Byzantium. This is not something we can just shrug our shoulders over, and ignore.
We will be judged as to what we did, here on Earth. One doesn't throw God's gifts away, be they mere material things, or the gift of a comparatively sane, and advanced civilization, which tried to live by rule of law, and not whim of the dicatator, or fiat by tribal elders. Maybe, we work for the earthly future, while never giving up our hope of Heaven? I'm not sure what the right balance here is. At any rate, I don't think "Tra-la-la, it doesn't matter because I only care about spiritual things!" isn't really the attitude to take. If disaster hits, please don't think you'll be allowed to sit back and simply watch the ship of Western civilization sail into the sunset, as you sip a martini and whisper a prayer, congratulating yourself on the fact you weren't some nationalistic idolator, and not, "Even as this Pharisee". . . etc. It's going to be a lot harder than that.
11.8.2011 | 9:48am
john primm says:
Thank you Anchoress, and all the previous comments--we are NOT done as a nation. Yes, we are at a precipice and the ground is moving underneath us...well heck, we have been heading this way for over 40 years and the chickens have come home to roost...but not in the way Jeremiah Wright and the Left think they have. I was a fervent supporter of RR even in the 1970's when he was Governor...but that was then, and we cannot look back to the "good old days" which were only 'old' and not so 'good'...The events of the last two years have done nothing to sway me from the knowledge that Obama has been the best thing that could have happened to us...why? Because he brought all the sickness to a head--after decades of avoiding our problems, we are staring them in the face--and we will come back, so help us God!
11.8.2011 | 9:56am
Fred says:
Mike, The Baby Boomers _may_ not be of the stature of the Greatest Generation? Yeah, and Stephen King may not be of the stature of Shakespeare; Lady Gaga may not be of the stature of Bach, and Obama may not be of the stature of George Washington.
11.8.2011 | 9:59am
CatholicDad says:
Tremendous column.
We have witnessed the complete collapse of faith in our institutions. The only institution which still holds the respect of the American people is the military. I served 24 years on active duty, but I tell you, it is not a good thing in a democracy when the only revered institution is the armed forces; it is a bad thing. Watch our fellow citizens rise and swoon when they see the uniform. Our military is awesome, but it is not the solution to our many, many problems in this country.
Ms. Scalia notes that 40 percent of our births, nationally, are out of wedlock. In our cities the number is closer to 80 percent. It is a churning sea of misery, dependency, and crime. Yet, when an Outlook feature in the Washington Post Sunday identified six American factors that should be "occupied" in order to reduce income inequality, fathers abandoning their offspring was not mentioned.
My brother, a Catholic priest and a pastor in a major US city, says that, in the last 5 years, he has not had one young couple come to him, say they were in love, and that they wanted to get married. Not one couple. It is all illegitimacy and half-brothers and teenage moms with two illegitimate children, all fed and housed (and, one day, imprisoned) by the state.
We have become the country Mencken described, where half the people work for a living and half vote for a living. We already know half the American people pay no federal income taxes. And we know this half supplies the angriest occupiers. They will be eager voters next fall.
Finally, we were told that tens of thousands of non-violent protesters were violent. Now we see protesters who burn and attack cops and attack one another, and we are told they are non-violent. It is a country upside down. The man in the street concludes "the Tea Party and the Occupiers are equivalent." We are a people unable to make basic distinctions in truth.
We are in huge trouble. May God help us.
We have witnessed the complete collapse of faith in our institutions. The only institution which still holds the respect of the American people is the military. I served 24 years on active duty, but I tell you, it is not a good thing in a democracy when the only revered institution is the armed forces; it is a bad thing. Watch our fellow citizens rise and swoon when they see the uniform. Our military is awesome, but it is not the solution to our many, many problems in this country.
Ms. Scalia notes that 40 percent of our births, nationally, are out of wedlock. In our cities the number is closer to 80 percent. It is a churning sea of misery, dependency, and crime. Yet, when an Outlook feature in the Washington Post Sunday identified six American factors that should be "occupied" in order to reduce income inequality, fathers abandoning their offspring was not mentioned.
My brother, a Catholic priest and a pastor in a major US city, says that, in the last 5 years, he has not had one young couple come to him, say they were in love, and that they wanted to get married. Not one couple. It is all illegitimacy and half-brothers and teenage moms with two illegitimate children, all fed and housed (and, one day, imprisoned) by the state.
We have become the country Mencken described, where half the people work for a living and half vote for a living. We already know half the American people pay no federal income taxes. And we know this half supplies the angriest occupiers. They will be eager voters next fall.
Finally, we were told that tens of thousands of non-violent protesters were violent. Now we see protesters who burn and attack cops and attack one another, and we are told they are non-violent. It is a country upside down. The man in the street concludes "the Tea Party and the Occupiers are equivalent." We are a people unable to make basic distinctions in truth.
We are in huge trouble. May God help us.
11.8.2011 | 10:21am
Elizabeth Scalia says:
Rhinestone, that -- of course -- is PRECISELY how I envision it all: everyone else downtrodden, suffering and paying the price for all of our mistakes while I stop trying to do anything to make my little portion of the world better, and sit around saying, "tra-la-la it doesn't matter, because I only care about spiritual things". I will my Pharisee hat, sip a martini and cackle, even though I prefer Guinness.
I agree with you that it's going to be "a lot harder than that." It's going to be awful. It's has to be awful, because only something unimaginably awful can bring about the glory that is, finally, promised to us. We confess in our creed that we "look for the coming of the Lord," but I think many of us do not believe in the Second Coming, or if we do we haven't actually thought much about it, or of what would have to precede that enormous supernatural event. It took the most unimaginable and unjust event -- the crucifixion of God Incarnate -- to defeat death and bring about resurrection. Given that, what will have to precede the Second Coming? Something akin to the crucifixion -- unjust, unimaginable, "a lot harder" than any of us can grasp, extrapolated by 7 billion lives -- or ten billion, or twelve. Your vision of how bad it will be and mine are probably very similar, and scripture warns us that all of this must happen. The only difference between us, I think, is in our respective measures of despair.
I agree with you that it's going to be "a lot harder than that." It's going to be awful. It's has to be awful, because only something unimaginably awful can bring about the glory that is, finally, promised to us. We confess in our creed that we "look for the coming of the Lord," but I think many of us do not believe in the Second Coming, or if we do we haven't actually thought much about it, or of what would have to precede that enormous supernatural event. It took the most unimaginable and unjust event -- the crucifixion of God Incarnate -- to defeat death and bring about resurrection. Given that, what will have to precede the Second Coming? Something akin to the crucifixion -- unjust, unimaginable, "a lot harder" than any of us can grasp, extrapolated by 7 billion lives -- or ten billion, or twelve. Your vision of how bad it will be and mine are probably very similar, and scripture warns us that all of this must happen. The only difference between us, I think, is in our respective measures of despair.
11.8.2011 | 11:02am
DavidReid says:
Optimism is not necessarily the ignorance of a wicked state of things, but rather an attitude of watchful hopefulness, just as Christian joy is not the euphoric happiness of infatuation, but a constant outlook on life. I know that America is definitely suffering, and it is important to call out the problems we see as they stand and not gloss over them and gild the issues with a false veneer of prideful insincerity. At the same time, it helps no one to only offer a thousand reasons why we have fallen to our knees. The reasons are important to understand, but only in the context of how they inform what we do next. I can understand very well that corporate greed and the corruption of the banking establishment may have contributed to bringing the American economy crashing down, but this by itself does me no good: what do I do with this knowledge? Optimism is not trite and disinterested enthusiasm; rather, it is the courage to offer a hopeful solution. To wallow in the despair of our sin is not Christian in the least, we must listen to the soft call of the Lord Jesus Christ to raise our eyes to Him, and trust that He always provides comfort and a path that is right.
11.8.2011 | 12:40pm
Sherry says:
The only people who should be more optimistic than Christians, are the Jewish, for they wait in joyful hope every day. We are charged to wait in joyful hope as well. Ours is to act and to be and to live and to speak and to serve and to love as if each person we serve is Christ. Our lot is to attempt to create a society in which, if the Holy Family were to arrive today, the inn doors would be thrown open, a fatted calf killed and prepared, and a feast with oil lamps thrown immediately with everyone equally seized in joy at the reality of our God. We are however, and will remain even if this country faulters, a fallen people, and it will be only with great grace, be it this country or what comes after, that we grow intropsective enough to recognize, we perpetually ignore, throw away and reject God's gifts and that we must be grateful for all we have received and continue to receive.
11.8.2011 | 1:50pm
Elizabeth Scalia says:
I like that, Sherry -- well said. I wish I could remember who it was that said something like, "all the governments will fall but the Jews and the Catholic Church will always endure." Might have been my pastor. Or Mark Shea! :-)
11.8.2011 | 2:16pm
Cmrmtv says:
I wanted to share an excerpt from a history book I just read.
There are, no doubt, lessons here for the contemporary reader. The changing character of the native population, brought about through unremarked pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increasingly unwieldy and rigid bureaucracy, whose own survival becomes its overriding goal; the despising of the military and the avoidance of its service by established families, while its offices present unprecedented opportunity for marginal men to whom its ranks had once been closed; the lip service paid to values long dead; the pretense that we still are what we once were; the increasing concentrations of the populace into richer and poorer by way of a corrupt tax system, and the desperation that inevitably follows; the aggrandizement of executive power at the expense of the legislature; ineffectual legislation promulgated with great show; the moral vocation of the man at the top to maintain order at all costs, while growing blind to the cruel dilemmas of ordinary life—these are all themes with which our world is familiar, nor are they the God-given property of any party or political point of view, even though we often act as if they were.
Reads like a description of the USA today doesn’t it? The author however, was describing the primary reasons for the ultimate collapse of the Roman empire in the closing years of the 4th century. The author goes on to conclude:
At least, the emperor could not heap his economic burdens on posterity by creating long-term public debt, for floating capital had not yet been conceptualized.
The history book was very interesting and enjoyable, written by Thomas Cahill in 1995. He is reported to be the director of religious publishing at Doubleday and a graduate of New York’s Union Theological Seminary. The excerpt above is word for word from the book ppgs; 29-30, “How the Irish Saved Civilization”.
There are, no doubt, lessons here for the contemporary reader. The changing character of the native population, brought about through unremarked pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increasingly unwieldy and rigid bureaucracy, whose own survival becomes its overriding goal; the despising of the military and the avoidance of its service by established families, while its offices present unprecedented opportunity for marginal men to whom its ranks had once been closed; the lip service paid to values long dead; the pretense that we still are what we once were; the increasing concentrations of the populace into richer and poorer by way of a corrupt tax system, and the desperation that inevitably follows; the aggrandizement of executive power at the expense of the legislature; ineffectual legislation promulgated with great show; the moral vocation of the man at the top to maintain order at all costs, while growing blind to the cruel dilemmas of ordinary life—these are all themes with which our world is familiar, nor are they the God-given property of any party or political point of view, even though we often act as if they were.
Reads like a description of the USA today doesn’t it? The author however, was describing the primary reasons for the ultimate collapse of the Roman empire in the closing years of the 4th century. The author goes on to conclude:
At least, the emperor could not heap his economic burdens on posterity by creating long-term public debt, for floating capital had not yet been conceptualized.
The history book was very interesting and enjoyable, written by Thomas Cahill in 1995. He is reported to be the director of religious publishing at Doubleday and a graduate of New York’s Union Theological Seminary. The excerpt above is word for word from the book ppgs; 29-30, “How the Irish Saved Civilization”.
11.8.2011 | 3:50pm
Maxim says:
Optimism and Pessimism are both delusional mentalities; one says, "The glass is half full!" the other, "The glass is half empty". The Realist enters, knocks the heads of the two aforementioned clowns together, and says, "Cut the crap; we have half a glass of water. What can we do with it"?
What makes the situation of the Nation irremediable is that those who control its destiny are mockers of God, full of obscene hatred for all that is holy, and we, ignorant idiots that we are, have willingly followed them into the wilderness, accepting the shabbiest pretexts for ignoring our clear duties as believers and as citizens. Now that we have arrived, and are being directed to fall in worship before the tawdry monstrosity they call the god Humanity, it would be possible, of course, to retrace our steps, if we had the will to do so, but we won't be permitted to. The tragedy of Democracy is that it has made control over the opinion of the populace a necessity for those in power; tools of propaganda forged during WWII and honed to a razor's edge by advertising wars waged in the creation of mercantile empires have also their political applications. We won't even buy anything unless our T.V.'s tell us to; what does that say about our ability to resist a sustained sociopolitical propaganda effort? In any case, I suspect the shell of democracy which still persists would suddenly fall away in the case of anything like a general retrograde motion in the populace at large; individuals, of course, can be permitted to do anything. Occupy Wall Street is not such a movement, for it has no direction, and no focus, and is therefore merely a passionate, unreasoning force available for the furtherance of the political objectives of those in power; Hitler rose from such a situation in Germany. Robinson Jeffers said it best, I think:
Shine, Republic
The quality of these trees, green height; of the sky, shining; of water, a clear flow; of the rock, hardness
And reticence: each is noble in its quality. The love of freedom has been the quality of western man.
There is a stubborn torch that flames from Marathon to Concord, its dangerous beauty binding three ages
Into one time; the waves of barbarism and civilization have eclipsed but have never quenched it.
For the Greeks the love of beauty, for Rome of ruling; for the present age the passionate love of discovery;
But in one noble passion we are one; and Washington, Luther, Tacitus, Eschylus, one kind of man.
And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom.
You did not say “en masse,” you said “independence.” But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also.
Freedom is poor and laborious; that torch is not safe but hungry, and often requires blood for its fuel.
You will tame it against it burn too clearly, you will hood it like a kept hawk, you will perch it on the wrist of Caesar.
But keep the tradition, conserve the forms, the observances, keep the spot sore. Be great, carve deep your heel-marks.
The states of the next age will no doubt remember you, and edge their love of freedom with contempt of luxury.
What makes the situation of the Nation irremediable is that those who control its destiny are mockers of God, full of obscene hatred for all that is holy, and we, ignorant idiots that we are, have willingly followed them into the wilderness, accepting the shabbiest pretexts for ignoring our clear duties as believers and as citizens. Now that we have arrived, and are being directed to fall in worship before the tawdry monstrosity they call the god Humanity, it would be possible, of course, to retrace our steps, if we had the will to do so, but we won't be permitted to. The tragedy of Democracy is that it has made control over the opinion of the populace a necessity for those in power; tools of propaganda forged during WWII and honed to a razor's edge by advertising wars waged in the creation of mercantile empires have also their political applications. We won't even buy anything unless our T.V.'s tell us to; what does that say about our ability to resist a sustained sociopolitical propaganda effort? In any case, I suspect the shell of democracy which still persists would suddenly fall away in the case of anything like a general retrograde motion in the populace at large; individuals, of course, can be permitted to do anything. Occupy Wall Street is not such a movement, for it has no direction, and no focus, and is therefore merely a passionate, unreasoning force available for the furtherance of the political objectives of those in power; Hitler rose from such a situation in Germany. Robinson Jeffers said it best, I think:
Shine, Republic
The quality of these trees, green height; of the sky, shining; of water, a clear flow; of the rock, hardness
And reticence: each is noble in its quality. The love of freedom has been the quality of western man.
There is a stubborn torch that flames from Marathon to Concord, its dangerous beauty binding three ages
Into one time; the waves of barbarism and civilization have eclipsed but have never quenched it.
For the Greeks the love of beauty, for Rome of ruling; for the present age the passionate love of discovery;
But in one noble passion we are one; and Washington, Luther, Tacitus, Eschylus, one kind of man.
And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom.
You did not say “en masse,” you said “independence.” But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also.
Freedom is poor and laborious; that torch is not safe but hungry, and often requires blood for its fuel.
You will tame it against it burn too clearly, you will hood it like a kept hawk, you will perch it on the wrist of Caesar.
But keep the tradition, conserve the forms, the observances, keep the spot sore. Be great, carve deep your heel-marks.
The states of the next age will no doubt remember you, and edge their love of freedom with contempt of luxury.
11.8.2011 | 5:42pm
Raymond Takashi Swenson says:
Those of us in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that these are the last days before the return of Christ, so while Matthew 24 and Revelation warn us that tribulations lie ahead, we are optimistic about the eventual outcome. In the meantime, we will continue to work with all of our neighbors to help those who suffer from the calamities, both natural and man-made, that are likely to continue coming, so that we may be among those who are told by the Savior that we have succored the least among us, his brethren.
11.8.2011 | 5:50pm
Mike D'Virgilio says:
I'm afraid I have to disagree with Elizabeth on this one. I don't think optimism is a god or idol. I lived through the Cold War, and came of political age at Reagan's election. I noticed that conservatism write large was not a monolith, not unlike Christianity, much to my Catholic brethren's dismay. One stream of conservative thought I noticed was distinctly negative and embraced our inner curmudgeon. I think I began to realize this when I read Whittaker Chambers and about him. He was convinced beyond doubt that the West was on the losing side of history. I had a certain empathy with that perspective, but I found myself embracing the ashcan of history perspective of Ronald Reagan: "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev!" You know, Mr. Chambers and a whole lot of conservatives during that time would have never made such a statement.
I think negativism can be just as much a strange a god as optimism can. As much bad as can be pointed to in our culture, there is just as much good. I know that is heretical to some, but I experience it every day. I'm always amazed at how kind and decent most people are. My wife works in a public school, and I've interacted with a lot of her co-workers and other teachers of my children. Over the years I've been impressed with the good hearts of many of these people, how hard they work, how much they care about the jobs they do. I excoriate public education as much as the next conservative, but these people are not horrible people who bring to mind images of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I love pop culture as much as the next American, and in spite of all the garbage, I find much that is admirable. Even heathens are made in the image of God, and even they partake of the common grace of God and know of the natural law they may in fact deny. We should not stop pointing out the bad, the lies and the ugly, but there is more good, truth and beauty than we sometimes admit.
I think negativism can be just as much a strange a god as optimism can. As much bad as can be pointed to in our culture, there is just as much good. I know that is heretical to some, but I experience it every day. I'm always amazed at how kind and decent most people are. My wife works in a public school, and I've interacted with a lot of her co-workers and other teachers of my children. Over the years I've been impressed with the good hearts of many of these people, how hard they work, how much they care about the jobs they do. I excoriate public education as much as the next conservative, but these people are not horrible people who bring to mind images of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I love pop culture as much as the next American, and in spite of all the garbage, I find much that is admirable. Even heathens are made in the image of God, and even they partake of the common grace of God and know of the natural law they may in fact deny. We should not stop pointing out the bad, the lies and the ugly, but there is more good, truth and beauty than we sometimes admit.
11.8.2011 | 7:03pm
Floyd Castle says:
It is not inevitable even at this late date, although I suppose knowing that it wasn't inevitable makes it all the more painful as we lapse into godless, totalitarian government acknowledging no authority above itself – which, of course, is a denial of the very foundation of the government instituted by the founders, the purpose of which was to protect the inalienable rights bestowed upon humanity by an authority higher than the government itself.
11.8.2011 | 7:38pm
Rhinestone Suderman says:
Elizabeth, honestly, I wasn't referring to you, personally at all. It does seem to me that, when this subject arises, too many do express a sort of "Ah, well, we look to things beyond this world"---which is fine, as far as it goes, but I don't think they're really thinking about what this means. It's a little bit too cozy with the idea of (mostly other people) suffering; many who talk this way don't really seem to realize just how bad things could get.
My remarks weren't directed to you, personally.
I do think there are some dangers in anticipating the end times; we don't know when they will come. We may be in them now, or we may not. Our Lord Himself didn't know when they would come. Given that, it seems to me that all we can do, is carry on, and work as if we believed our world is going to continue on into the future---even if it's going to end tomorrow.
My remarks weren't directed to you, personally.
I do think there are some dangers in anticipating the end times; we don't know when they will come. We may be in them now, or we may not. Our Lord Himself didn't know when they would come. Given that, it seems to me that all we can do, is carry on, and work as if we believed our world is going to continue on into the future---even if it's going to end tomorrow.
11.8.2011 | 7:56pm
Gil Costello says:
Elizabeth,
We're not supposed to be that honest. But after all, He is the Truth. God bless you and keep you.
We're not supposed to be that honest. But after all, He is the Truth. God bless you and keep you.
11.9.2011 | 6:54am
Boobus Americus says:
@Mike said:
"a society of self-indulgent, soulless, narcissists – more concerned with security than freedom – experiencing more pleasure with waning joy – possessing full bellies with empty spirits."
Can you say "Baby-Boomers"?
"a society of self-indulgent, soulless, narcissists – more concerned with security than freedom – experiencing more pleasure with waning joy – possessing full bellies with empty spirits."
Can you say "Baby-Boomers"?
11.9.2011 | 8:10am
patricksarsfield says:
CatholicDad writes:
"My brother, a Catholic priest and a pastor in a major US city, says that, in the last 5 years, he has not had one young couple come to him, say they were in love, and that they wanted to get married. Not one couple. It is all illegitimacy and half-brothers and teenage moms with two illegitimate children, all fed and housed (and, one day, imprisoned) by the state."
While there are some marriages going on, the fact remains that there are alarmingly high rates of illegitimacy. Now, the white rate of illegitmate birth is at the same 30%+ level that so alarmed Prof. Moynihan back in the 60s when black illegitimacy (now 70%) was about 30%.
What does illegitimacy do? It reduces everyone to a whim or caprice of the dam that bore them. No right to life; people are the result of a "choice" by the mother that the mother retains the right to deem a mistake.
Thus, even if Sentient Being No. 1's mother allows him (or her, but him hereafter for ease of writing) the privilege of being born alive--a necessary pre-condition for SB1 to have an awareness of his lot in life--she may show that she regrets her choice because the next child she aborts or allows to be born may not be from the same sperm-donating male. If she chooses a different sperm-donor to be the next sire, what does that tell SB1: that the mother is unsatisfied with the last genetic material mixing experiment?
SB1 doesn't even get to sell his birthright as Esau did. He doesn't have one; he is only the by-product of his mother's choice.
"My brother, a Catholic priest and a pastor in a major US city, says that, in the last 5 years, he has not had one young couple come to him, say they were in love, and that they wanted to get married. Not one couple. It is all illegitimacy and half-brothers and teenage moms with two illegitimate children, all fed and housed (and, one day, imprisoned) by the state."
While there are some marriages going on, the fact remains that there are alarmingly high rates of illegitimacy. Now, the white rate of illegitmate birth is at the same 30%+ level that so alarmed Prof. Moynihan back in the 60s when black illegitimacy (now 70%) was about 30%.
What does illegitimacy do? It reduces everyone to a whim or caprice of the dam that bore them. No right to life; people are the result of a "choice" by the mother that the mother retains the right to deem a mistake.
Thus, even if Sentient Being No. 1's mother allows him (or her, but him hereafter for ease of writing) the privilege of being born alive--a necessary pre-condition for SB1 to have an awareness of his lot in life--she may show that she regrets her choice because the next child she aborts or allows to be born may not be from the same sperm-donating male. If she chooses a different sperm-donor to be the next sire, what does that tell SB1: that the mother is unsatisfied with the last genetic material mixing experiment?
SB1 doesn't even get to sell his birthright as Esau did. He doesn't have one; he is only the by-product of his mother's choice.
11.9.2011 | 9:54am
Steve says:
Thanks Elizabeth. And thanks for the great comments, esp. for the excerpt from How the Irish Saved Civilization, and Shine, Republic. There is a balance to be kept between Optimism and Pessimism. As a melancholic, I tend toward aggrandizing the pessimistic and cynical: Just as media and literature aggrandize the sanguine, temporary, and optimistic as The Way (to think) for life success. A mature path seems to be more akin to DavidReid's description always keeping in mind that every day is the Last Day, or could be for us individually, just as corporately we do not know the Last Day for the world. This (the four last things?) is sobering for one who spends so much time ignoring and rejecting graces and in mortal separation from my Lord.
11.9.2011 | 9:59am
Howard says:
I seriously doubt we'll see anything dramatic. More likely, we're looking at something intermediate between the collapse of the British Empire at the end of WWII and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We'll probably retain our territorial integrity, nukes, and continuity of government, but with a significant loss of wealth and power. Frankly, the wealth and power have not been good for us. How many great statesmen have we had after WWII, as opposed to before?
There are a few disturbing differences from what was happening before. There is really nothing new under the sun; the moral rot we see today existed in the 1920's, but it didn't percolate down so much to the average American. This time it does. Also, people have gotten used to loving the USA not because it's home, but because of its ability to bribe and punish. Even the government becomes too weak to bribe, it will remain strong enough to punish for some time; and if we go through a period where the only reason people have "loyalty" is from fear of punishment, we're in for a rough several decades.
There are a few disturbing differences from what was happening before. There is really nothing new under the sun; the moral rot we see today existed in the 1920's, but it didn't percolate down so much to the average American. This time it does. Also, people have gotten used to loving the USA not because it's home, but because of its ability to bribe and punish. Even the government becomes too weak to bribe, it will remain strong enough to punish for some time; and if we go through a period where the only reason people have "loyalty" is from fear of punishment, we're in for a rough several decades.
11.9.2011 | 2:23pm
Randall says:
The situation is not as bleak as the article says.
First, while conceding everything the article says about the decadence of institutions and morals today, I honestly wonder if any generation is significantly better or worse than others. The nature of the corruption may be different, but is the "total" amount of corruption and decadence different from generation to generation?
Thought experiment: Suppose one could quantify the total corruption in America and its culture from year to year. Call it the "Corruption Index". Clearly the Corruption Index for those values cited by the article, out of wedlock births, for instance, is worse now than in the 1950s. But the article does not cite other values. For example, the number of abortions annually in the USA has been dropping. Why? If people are choosing not to abort because the pro-life arguments are persuasive, then, arguably, the Corruption Index for abortion has been improving. What if, as the Left claims, the number of abortions is dropping only because violence, and threat of violence, by pro-lifers renders people unwilling to perform abortions? If the threat of violence is the reason for the drop in abortions, how does that affect the Corruption Index scoring?
As another example, the Framers, who were wonderful and visionary statesmen, wrote our Constitution but accepted slavery. Certainly the acceptance of slavery nudges the Corruption Index in 1786 up in a way that should have been reduced by 1865. Similarly, racial discrimination in the 1950s boosts the Corruption Index then by a few points that should now be subtracted.
The Bible teaches that all people in all generations are fallen. I don't know whether we can really know that we are worse than previous generations. All generations been rotten to the core, although perhaps in different ways.
Second, the Lord remains active in the world, and His Holy Spirit is very much invloved in our struggles with sin, which is the source of our decadence and corruption. Improvement, led by the Holy Spirit, tends to happen when we least expect it.
Example: The UK in the late 1700s was a rather decadent, corrupt nation and society, at every level, from the monarch to the poor. The forms of their corruption may not have been identical to ours, but I think it beyond dispute that the UK, including the churches, was in very poor moral shape inthe late 1700s. No one then imagined that the religious revival in the 1800s, which eliminated much of the decay of the 1700s, would happen at all. The people of the UK did not improve themselves; God, in His providence, caused the religious revival that transformed the UK.
Post-modern nihilistic mockery of "Victorianism" is beside the point, which is: God remains in charge and is active. If left to ourselves, I agree with every prophecy of doom noted in the article and discussion thread. But God does not leave us to ourselves.
First, while conceding everything the article says about the decadence of institutions and morals today, I honestly wonder if any generation is significantly better or worse than others. The nature of the corruption may be different, but is the "total" amount of corruption and decadence different from generation to generation?
Thought experiment: Suppose one could quantify the total corruption in America and its culture from year to year. Call it the "Corruption Index". Clearly the Corruption Index for those values cited by the article, out of wedlock births, for instance, is worse now than in the 1950s. But the article does not cite other values. For example, the number of abortions annually in the USA has been dropping. Why? If people are choosing not to abort because the pro-life arguments are persuasive, then, arguably, the Corruption Index for abortion has been improving. What if, as the Left claims, the number of abortions is dropping only because violence, and threat of violence, by pro-lifers renders people unwilling to perform abortions? If the threat of violence is the reason for the drop in abortions, how does that affect the Corruption Index scoring?
As another example, the Framers, who were wonderful and visionary statesmen, wrote our Constitution but accepted slavery. Certainly the acceptance of slavery nudges the Corruption Index in 1786 up in a way that should have been reduced by 1865. Similarly, racial discrimination in the 1950s boosts the Corruption Index then by a few points that should now be subtracted.
The Bible teaches that all people in all generations are fallen. I don't know whether we can really know that we are worse than previous generations. All generations been rotten to the core, although perhaps in different ways.
Second, the Lord remains active in the world, and His Holy Spirit is very much invloved in our struggles with sin, which is the source of our decadence and corruption. Improvement, led by the Holy Spirit, tends to happen when we least expect it.
Example: The UK in the late 1700s was a rather decadent, corrupt nation and society, at every level, from the monarch to the poor. The forms of their corruption may not have been identical to ours, but I think it beyond dispute that the UK, including the churches, was in very poor moral shape inthe late 1700s. No one then imagined that the religious revival in the 1800s, which eliminated much of the decay of the 1700s, would happen at all. The people of the UK did not improve themselves; God, in His providence, caused the religious revival that transformed the UK.
Post-modern nihilistic mockery of "Victorianism" is beside the point, which is: God remains in charge and is active. If left to ourselves, I agree with every prophecy of doom noted in the article and discussion thread. But God does not leave us to ourselves.
11.9.2011 | 3:31pm
Michael Fumento says:
Wow! Elizabeth, you nailed it! I served my county for four years as a paratrooper, went to war four times as a journalist, and spent 25 years as a journalist who specialized neither in pessimism nor optimism but truth. THAT has now become a sin. Essentially nobody in the U.S. will even run me anymore. (Haven't tried First Things.) But in any case, part of what I have done over that quarter century is merely pointing out the OBVIOUS. The writing in on the wall in huge, bold, upper-case letters. I had no choice but to leave and am now living in Latin America, where the Seven Deadly Sins are still perceived as sins and "sin" isn't a word only used in "snickering" as in "sinfully delicious."
11.9.2011 | 4:42pm
Maxim says:
David Hart says something apposite to Mr. D'Virgilio's comment concerning the virtues of ordinary people in a depraved society:
"I do not intend to suggest that, because modernity has lost the organic integrity of Christianity’s moral grammar, every person living in modern society must therefore become heartless, violent, or unprincipled. My observations are directed at the dominant language and ethos of a culture, not at the souls of individuals. Many among us retain some loyalty to ancient principles, most of us are in some degree premodern, and there are always and everywhere to be found examples of natural virtue, innate nobility, congenital charity, and so on, for the light of God is ubiquitous and the image of God is impressed upon our nature. The issue for me is whether, within the moral grammar of modernity, any of these good souls could give an account of his or her virtue.
I wish, that is, to make a point not conspicuously different from Alasdair MacIntyre’s in the first chapter of his After Virtue: in the wake of a morality of the Good, ethics has become a kind of incoherent bricolage. As far as I can tell, homo nihilisticus may often be in several notable respects a far more amiable rogue than homo religiosus, exhibiting a far smaller propensity for breaking the crockery, destroying sacred statuary, or slaying the nearest available infidel. But, love, let us be true to one another: even when all of this is granted, it would be a willful and culpable blindness for us to refuse to recognize how aesthetically arid, culturally worthless, and spiritually depraved our society has become. That this is not hyperbole a dispassionate appraisal of the artifacts of popular culture — of the imaginative coarseness and cruelty informing them — will quickly confirm. For me, it is enough to consider that, in America alone, more than forty million babies have been aborted since the Supreme Court invented the “right” that allows for this, and that there are many for whom this is viewed not even as a tragic “necessity,” but as a triumph of moral truth. When the Carthaginians were prevailed upon to cease sacrificing their babies, at least the place vacated by Baal reminded them that they should seek the divine above themselves; we offer up our babies to “my” freedom of choice, to “me.” No society’s moral vision has ever, surely, been more degenerate than that.
And to the second objection, I would begin by noting that my remarks here do not concern the entirety of human experience, nature, or culture; they concern one particular location in time and space: late Western modernity. Nor have I anything to say about cultures or peoples who have not suffered the history of faith and disenchantment we have, or who do not share our particular relation to European antiquity or the heritage of ancient Christendom. “Nihilism” is simply a name for post-Christian sensibility and conviction (and not even an especially opprobrious one). Moreover, the alternative between Christianity and nihilism is never, in actual practice, a kind of Kierkegaardian either/or posed between two absolute antinomies, incapable of alloy or medium; it is an antagonism that occurs along a continuum, whose extremes are rarely perfectly expressed in any single life (else the world were all saints and satanists).
Most importantly, though, my observations do not concern nature at all, which is inextinguishable and which, at some level, always longs for God; they concern culture, which has the power to purge itself of the natural in some considerable degree. Indeed, much of the discourse of late modernity — speculative, critical, moral, and political — consists precisely in an attempt to deny the authority, or even the reality, of any general order of nature or natures. Nature is good, I readily affirm, and is itself the first gift of grace. But that is rather the point at issue: for modernity is unnatural, is indeed anti-nature, or even anti-Christ (and so goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom it may devour)".
"I do not intend to suggest that, because modernity has lost the organic integrity of Christianity’s moral grammar, every person living in modern society must therefore become heartless, violent, or unprincipled. My observations are directed at the dominant language and ethos of a culture, not at the souls of individuals. Many among us retain some loyalty to ancient principles, most of us are in some degree premodern, and there are always and everywhere to be found examples of natural virtue, innate nobility, congenital charity, and so on, for the light of God is ubiquitous and the image of God is impressed upon our nature. The issue for me is whether, within the moral grammar of modernity, any of these good souls could give an account of his or her virtue.
I wish, that is, to make a point not conspicuously different from Alasdair MacIntyre’s in the first chapter of his After Virtue: in the wake of a morality of the Good, ethics has become a kind of incoherent bricolage. As far as I can tell, homo nihilisticus may often be in several notable respects a far more amiable rogue than homo religiosus, exhibiting a far smaller propensity for breaking the crockery, destroying sacred statuary, or slaying the nearest available infidel. But, love, let us be true to one another: even when all of this is granted, it would be a willful and culpable blindness for us to refuse to recognize how aesthetically arid, culturally worthless, and spiritually depraved our society has become. That this is not hyperbole a dispassionate appraisal of the artifacts of popular culture — of the imaginative coarseness and cruelty informing them — will quickly confirm. For me, it is enough to consider that, in America alone, more than forty million babies have been aborted since the Supreme Court invented the “right” that allows for this, and that there are many for whom this is viewed not even as a tragic “necessity,” but as a triumph of moral truth. When the Carthaginians were prevailed upon to cease sacrificing their babies, at least the place vacated by Baal reminded them that they should seek the divine above themselves; we offer up our babies to “my” freedom of choice, to “me.” No society’s moral vision has ever, surely, been more degenerate than that.
And to the second objection, I would begin by noting that my remarks here do not concern the entirety of human experience, nature, or culture; they concern one particular location in time and space: late Western modernity. Nor have I anything to say about cultures or peoples who have not suffered the history of faith and disenchantment we have, or who do not share our particular relation to European antiquity or the heritage of ancient Christendom. “Nihilism” is simply a name for post-Christian sensibility and conviction (and not even an especially opprobrious one). Moreover, the alternative between Christianity and nihilism is never, in actual practice, a kind of Kierkegaardian either/or posed between two absolute antinomies, incapable of alloy or medium; it is an antagonism that occurs along a continuum, whose extremes are rarely perfectly expressed in any single life (else the world were all saints and satanists).
Most importantly, though, my observations do not concern nature at all, which is inextinguishable and which, at some level, always longs for God; they concern culture, which has the power to purge itself of the natural in some considerable degree. Indeed, much of the discourse of late modernity — speculative, critical, moral, and political — consists precisely in an attempt to deny the authority, or even the reality, of any general order of nature or natures. Nature is good, I readily affirm, and is itself the first gift of grace. But that is rather the point at issue: for modernity is unnatural, is indeed anti-nature, or even anti-Christ (and so goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom it may devour)".
11.10.2011 | 7:30pm
Gil Costello says:
Maxim - Yes, Nature is good and is the first gift of grace. And modernity (and post-modernity) is unnatural, even anti-natural, even anti-Christ. And it is devouring everything all around us, especially children before they even get a chance to move out into a world (God’s creation) that Satan abhors.
11.11.2011 | 12:23am
Maxim says:
Of course, if the Economy improves, everyone will go back to Capitalist triumphalism, and we'll still be just as deep in the wilderness as ever.
