What’s Wrong with the World

Lydia,

I woke up this morning determined to revisit the e-mails/Facebook posts from the Illinois Family Institute on this very subject. I had been preoccupied and had not read any of their missives this week. I wanted to put something up on FB asking in question form, what you have stated in your last paragraph.

I have yet to do all the reading I need to make any definitve statements, but what appears on the horizon is not only comprehensive sex education with a particular emphasis on sodomy, etc, but laws making that education mandatory so that Christians and other parents will not have the option of pulling their kids out of the programs.

Also, you are aware that here in Illinois the State Senate recently tried to pass HB136 which would have required Illinois homeschoolers to register with the state and/or local school districts. Although, on the surface, that seems to be a purely educational concern of the authorities, I have felt deep in my bones it is a measure of control that the state desires, having to do with the long term goal of making sure that homeschoolers can be identified and eventually required to have within their curriculums certain subject matter, chief of which will be pro-homosexual content. I do believe that the homosexual agenda is driving much more of the political agenda than people realize.

I also believe that certain powerful politicians in Illinois are the recipients of big bucks from homosexual activist individuals which is why the civil unions bill passed so easily among those that usually highlight their religious affiliations to their constituents when running for re-election.

We are being surrounded from all sides and yet conservatives and worse, conservative Christians are very quiet. It's all very disturbing.

No society on earth that is afflicted by the homosexual agenda has a government willing to oppose it. Whether individuals, even those actuated by Christian principles, can transform the entire situation by, for example, resisting homosexualized curricula seems increasingly doubtful. Successful but strictly local defiance of liberal ordinances at this school or that college is creditable of course; but the task in hand is way beyond accomplishment by articulate and powerless individuals acting on their own.

The scandal of exalting the 'life style' of homosexuals (in schools and elsewhere) is an aspect of cultural Marxism. And to deal with it, nothing less than the destruction of the lefty-liberal apparatus in politics, education, the media, and in countless particulars of social life is required. That's an undertaking which calls for organized protest in the form of political parties, mass movements, and the like.

Destroying the lefty-liberal apparatus would amount to dismantling modern America (or Britain for that matter). Is there any sign that an army of demolition men and women are on the march? I think not.

Amen Lydia. I read this post and immediately thought of this warning from the lawyer who worked on the Johns case:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/262234/are-children-infected-judeo-christian-values-paul-diamond

Something left unnoticed here or in discussions of this matter is the issue of women's ordination. WO turns on fundamentally the same point as the above mentioned positions, namely that one is not their body. Sexual difference makes no difference to gender. And so sex can make no difference to function. The arguments are the same at bottom from the context of theological liberalism to that of the polis. There are two horns on this bull.

Great link, Jeff. Good quote:

If someone had told me [in 1997] that within little more than a decade, stable Christian households would be deemed unsuitable to foster children, or that Crosses would be banned, or that hate-speech laws would be used to crush the very ideas of dissent, I would not have believed it.

This is all happening with absolutely breathtaking speed. I'm guessing the homosexual activists themselves are a bit surprised at the speed. Look at the "developing" ideas of our own President. How many years has that taken? Three, by my count.

Perry, I definitely think that in general, feminist ideology has paved the way. The allusion in the main post to the function of the ERA goes along with this.

I read the beginning of an article the other day by a religious feminist (aka "egalitarian") expressing bemusement and annoyance at the idea that some people might think there is an "ontological difference" between men and women. "Well, yes," I was inclined to reply. "You see, one is a man, and the other is a woman."

This will not stop at homosexuality. Look next for the relaxing of attitudes towards childhood sexuality and pushes for the lowering of the age of consent.

They were making "progress" on that a decade ago or so, Rob. IIRC, the University of Indiana at Bloomington was particularly in the avant garde regarding that issue. There was an interesting article in First Things (it may have been an On the Square post) hypothesizing that that particular agenda was slowed by the Catholic Church scandal. Suddenly it wasn't chic anymore.

I will say, though, that as far as attitudes "towards childhood sexuality" in general, as long as the activities are between children and young people not "that" far apart in age, the attitudes are already so far "relaxed" that it's insane. Planned Parenthood colluding with Girl Scouts International to teach all manner of "forms of expression" to girls and so forth.

Indeed. Much of the real harm that is going to be done is the sexualization of children. In order to even understand what a "homosexual" is, you have to understand sex acts and their nature. In order to understand sex acts and their nature, you have to introduce children to a dimension of interpersonal interaction that they are not biologically capable of or psychologically equipped to deal with. And since we can't push the meme that homosexuality is normal into our children's minds without the requisite groundwork, we have no choice but to damage all of their minds by forcing sexual knowledge on them before they can process it. "Innocence" is not merely a nostalgic notion. It cuts to the very core of how people conceive of themselves and each other. To be innocent is to be incapable of many, many forms of guile. But our sex-obsessed, monomaniacal society can see one, and only one, form of psychological harm within the sexual domain- repression or "sex negativity" (which is now the technocratic buzzword among those in the therapy industry).

And since we can't push the meme that homosexuality is normal into our children's minds without the requisite groundwork, we have no choice but to damage all of their minds by forcing sexual knowledge on them before they can process it. "Innocence" is not merely a nostalgic notion.

Yes. The schools will be the vector for this epidemic virus. They already are, what with cross-dressing days and other stuff. And so, we will see Christian homeschooling pass from a quaint but (barely) acceptable alternative, to an absolute necessity for anyone who still believes the Bible's injunctions against sexual perversion. All in one lifetime, almost in one generation.

Lydia,

I think there is a view that runs through all of these, namely that you are not your body, which is a most curious view to hold in the face of contemporary metaphysical naturalism. Lewis' view that magic and scientism would go together in the future seems to have been right all along. The feminist view is just another manifestation of the old gnostic thesis regarding personal identity and the body.

Of course the feminist line runs afoul of clear Trinitarian thinking. Just as the head of every woman is man, the head of every man is Christ and the head of Christ is the Father, yet there is no inequality of essence between Father and Son and so no essential inequality between women and men.

"Innocence" is not merely a nostalgic notion. It cuts to the very core of how people conceive of themselves and each other. To be innocent is to be incapable of many, many forms of guile. But our sex-obsessed, monomaniacal society can see one, and only one, form of psychological harm within the sexual domain- repression or "sex negativity" (which is now the technocratic buzzword among those in the therapy industry).

Wow. That's extremely well-put. And I didn't know that that was the new buzz-word.

Although E. Michael Jones may have some odd ideas about other things, I become more and more convinced every day of his thesis that modernity is at root really nothing more than a concerted effort to throw off the "bonds" of Christian sexual morality. The rest of it is frippery and gingerbread.

An ironic aspect of this is that, in general, leftists and liberals do tend to hate/despise homosexual persons in just the way they are forever falsely accuse Christians of doing.

@lydia:

Remember the psychology professor who put on a sexual demonstration for his class? He was trying to shake people out of "sex negativity".

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/lower-education_554092.html?nopager=1

It really is amazing to watch, as institutionalized hedonism becomes the moral norm, it also becomes the standard against which coercive actions are justified. Our culture is in the middle of a moral "race to the bottom".

Reading back through the comments, I think Alex makes the right point. The only thing that is going to stop this assault on humanity is for us to systematically dismantle institutions such as the education schools, the psychiatry and therapy industry, and the nanny state regulators and education bureaucrats. It is these institutions alone that give such a tiny minority of politically obsessed ideologues such an incredible degree of control over so many people. With the economy in such dire straits, the climate is right for the dismantling to start taking place. I hate to say it, but Conservatives are going to have to get serious about defunding and disenfranchising the educational establishment. Stop giving these leftist freaks complete control over our children's education, and watch how the situation improves.

This is all happening with absolutely breathtaking speed.

Aye. And Christians are succumbing to it as well. I won't name the person or the blog, but he was a Catholic convert that achieved some noteriety. Then people started to notice some odd things he said when it came to same-sex marriage. We knew there was trouble when he changed his blog banner from a Catholic theme to one of the preamble of the Constitution. (The blog since went invite only).

This is going to test us all.

It's funny you should say that, Untenured: On Facebook someone posted a link about some stupid Philosophy Dept. in England getting shut down. It was known throughout Europe as a center of postmodern and continental philosophy. When I said in the comments that I couldn't get at all riled up about this shut-down, people implied that this was some sort of disloyalty to fellow philosophers. One even said half-jokingly, "First they came for the continentalists, but I did nothing, because I was not a continentalist."

The problem is that at the level of higher education, if it goes dowwwn, it will all go down--the good, the bad, and the ugly. There is a randomizing effect of financial cuts. In fact, it can work the other way: The administrators are sometimes happy to make deep financial cuts in the good stuff ("You will have to make your logic-class bricks without straw now") while carefully preserving the Women's Studies and Africana Studies programs.

I don't honestly know what to do or say about this. There is a "burn it all down" effect that may be, net, good, but it's very hard to predict.

Lydia, I wonder if the good people in Rome circa 400 to 430 felt this way: it's very bad and getting worse, and there is no even sort of likely way for people of good will to achieve a turn-around. And clearly, if things keep going this way, society WILL falter and go down as a whole. I wonder if the saints of that time eventually started praying, not that the coming tribulation be avoided, but that it be moderated to only the extent necessary to destroy the evil. I am thinking of Abraham and Sodom - he basically recognized that Sodom had to be destroyed if there were too few to justify leaving it. Oh, the same evil, too. Doesn't that make you comfy with our condition?

Untenured, reform psychiatry if you will, but do not shut it down. Some of us need pills to avoid living on the streets.

@ Tony:

The Fall of Rome, glibly speaking, happened on account of political lassitude within the state and external pressure from 'the barbarians' - who, prior to the collapse, had also been enlisting (or forcibly enrolled) into the Roman army for almost a couple of centuries. They were taught the superior skills of conquering and laying waste by the masters they eventually ruined.

Our fall, if it's imminent, will be on account of domestic barbarism, moral cowardice, and folly.

Tony, I've often thought of the "ten good men" discussion between Abraham and God. The Dark Ages were pretty darned dark, but the seeds were kept alive.

A book that I do think of a fair bit is A Canticle for Leibowitz. And it ain't just about nuclear weapons, either.

The left has always hated traditional Christian morality and traditional families. The traditional Christian marriage and family structure tends to get in the way of the radical social enginering required for the brave new world they want us to have. So they have to subvert the traditional family to advance their anti-christian agenda. The sodomite is the perfect agent for them, for he/she/it has no loyalty for the social norms. This is also why they go after racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. Rightly or wrongly, many of these groups are disaffected by the majority culture they live in, and they are vulnerable to the appeals of the left. Of course, once the left has acheived it's goals, all of these groups are expendable and no longer needed. After all. they might subvert yor brave new world you're building!

Lydia, it's strange, how many things we've both read, and cared about.

*A Canticle for Leibowitz* blew me away (if you'll forgive the expression) when I first read it, so many years ago.

It seems that the author, Walter M. Miller Jr., participated in the allied bombing of Monte Cassino in 1944, and never really got over it.

In 1996, he shot himself to death.

*A Canticle for Leibowitz* is about a lot of different things, but, mostly, I think it's about Mrs. Grales, and Rachel, and The Immaculate Conception.

Alex, I have thought that "political lassitude" well describes a populace in which about 50% of qualified voters bother to vote, and of those fully another 40% are CLUELESS as to the actual issues, the real views of the candidates, and the character of the men involved. It also describes a populace that cannot live without Super Bowl circus, bread from welfare (and farm subsidies, and 10,000 other subsidies), but cannot be made to take notice of the neighbor 4 doors down who is out of work.

Combine this situation with a Muslim threat that is significant now and ripening to become severe within 10 years or less, and with a populace who cannot be bothered to take up a real discussion of whether they want the government to actually deal with the menace from outside out borders and if so with what means. I think we have reproduced your internal and external crises.

It is about those, Steve, but speaking as a Protestant and trying to be as objective as possible, I can't help thinking that more than anything, Canticle is about the Catholic Church and its significance as, in a sense, the one sure thing, the one thing that continues and that preserves mankind, while all else is destroyed by man's evil. Mind you, I don't _agree_ with Miller in assigning that role to, specifically, the Roman Catholic Church. But it's a huge theme of the book.

I've often had the rather bizarre and perhaps uncharitable thought that Vatican II was partially responsible for Miller's despair, withdrawal from society, and eventual suicide when he was suffering with cancer--the vast changes in the Church and the loss of the Latin liturgy which plays such an enormous and moving role and is such a symbol of continuity and stability in the midst of chaos throughout Canticle. For this I have no evidence. It's entirely my fancy.

The greatest passage in Canticle, IMO, is the passage at the end where the Father Abbot knows that he must suffer as much pain as the child.

Tony, I agree that we can see the lineaments of external and internal crisis. I would add too the increasing disdain for the rule of law. It's a quaint phrase, and in the past it was one more often used against conservatives than by them. (You know, "The rule of law means that we all have to believe that the Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means, however absurd, and behave accordingly.") But now matters are becoming serious, because the presently ruling party really has no respect for the rule of law in the most basic sense. The administration, for example, encouraged the recent lawlessness in Wisconsin and ignores or flouts such laws as it pleases. "Hardball" doesn't even begin to describe it. We face the very real possibility of mob rule in an American city in the not-too-distant future. In other words, we have the crazy spectacle of anarcho-totalitarianism--a government that will encourage the storming of a state capitol building by thugs of its own persuasion, on the one hand, and micromanage and punish the innermost thoughts of those it views as enemies, on the other hand.

What will happen to those of us trying to defend and maintain some small cleared area of sanity, I do not know.

Tony writes:

...that "political lassitude" well describes a populace in which about 50% of qualified voters bother to vote, and of those fully another 40% are CLUELESS as to the actual issues, the real views of the candidates, and the character of the men involved.

In a democracy, the power to effect change is largely in the hands of the great untutored multitude. Such people - perhaps always the majority - are easily dazzled by the prospect of bread and circuses. Thus we depend, at least theoretically, on the votes of large numbers of capricious people to rescue us from our predicament (whatever it may be).

This risk of manipulated mob sentiment is inherent to popular democracy and was feared from the start. Madison, Jefferson and others feared the 'tyranny of the majority', and with good reason.

With this backdrop in mind, one can read one compelling analysis after another (which are published here at WWWW by clever people), but end up thinking that despite the nail being hit on the head time after time, it never goes further in.