“Many observers have rightly concluded that unless a democratic state is made up of citizens who are largely in agreement over what is “the good,” that state will tend to fly apart, forcing the government itself to become more and more powerful and intrusive to hold things together.”*
In the midst of the culture wars, this quote seems to describe America in 2009. A massive overhaul of our healthcare system is on the horizon, the government controls several of America’s car manufacturers and banks, and voices from the Right and Left hurl slanderous rants at one another instead of reasoned arguments. The role of government continues to expand as the fabric of America disintigrates.
“We call upon the state to shield us from vice or to set our vices free, because we do not have a culture devoted to the good, or dedicated to virtue, or capable of creating a civil society that is hospitable to any freedom more substantial than that of subjective will. This is simply what it is to be modern.”**
The triumph of moral relativism has led our society, and our generation in particular, to a place where virtue and ultimate good cannot be expressed because we believe that one cannot speak of absolutes. This is generally true, but holds most true in conversations about religion. The most offensive aspect of Christianity to our generation is that we have the audacity (intolerance in the vernacular) to argue that Christ and Christianity are the ultimate Truth.
The debate of “Christian America” aside, we have abandoned our Greek/Roman/Judeo-Christian virtues in favor of a very relative understanding of truth, morality, responsibility and limits. Is it going too far to assume that more government control and/or eventual anarchy will be the result if the current path is pursued unchecked?
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*D.A. Carson. Christ & Culture Revisited. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 137.
**David B. Hart. “The New Pornography Culture,” The New Atlantis 6 (Summer 2004). Quoted in Carson, 137.
A recent post on Dr. Mohler’s blog about trends in children’s picture books got me thinking about the logical extension of our modern education system that encourages cooperative, “democratic,” self-discovery at the expense of parental authority. It seems to me that the logical end of the undermining of parental authority is the eventual undermining of our republican democratic system.
Professional and popular psychology over the last 50 or so years has encouraged parents through literature and school curricula to treat kids essentially as equals. The assumption is that morality is not an objective reality but a concept that is determined by individuals from one situation to the other. Thus, the role of parents and teachers is to promote an understanding of how to make choices without passing judgment on which decision is the right one. This is all designed to protect and boost the self-esteem of students, which, in theory, promotes better decision making and better citizens.
The problem is that these assumptions are not proving true. Our society is filled with narcissists bent on nothing more than increasing personal gain and pleasure. Beyond the disastrous effects of this as seen in the mortgage bubble burst and Wall Street meltdown is the effect that this philosophy has on political thought.
Recent generations have grown up in a society that devalues the authority of parents and teachers. Children are taught, essentially, that rules are arbitrary because poor actions lack consequences. It seems to me that as these kids grow up (and many of them are in our generation and more and more are reaching voting age in the coming years) they will begin to question the authority of our law based system. If everything in life is relative, including moral choices, than law is relative and can be fudged upon to fit the felt needs of individuals in specific situations. This line of thinking then can only lead to hedonistic anarchy if followed to its logical conclusion. And that’s a problem.
With few American news outlets available in Brazil I have found myself watching Glenn Beck somewhat religiously in recent weeks. I try to keep a balanced view of things so I dip into the Huffington Post as often as I remember to keep abreast on the opposing side of the issues.
Both outlets accuse the other of being the embodiment of radicalism at the other side of the political spectrum. Words like radicals, hate-mongerers, fools, etc. are used to diminish the perspective of the other side. In the process, both sides claim to be dishing out the TRUTH of the matter that the other side is simply ignoring.
What strikes me about all of this is that both sides can do this with legitimate claims to the same truth because the understanding of truth has come to be understood as nothing more than perspective. Both sides come up with “facts” to support their points of views and laugh at the other side’s attempt to contribute their own to the issue. For the time being, Beck and FoxNews seem to be winning with recent congressional denouncements of ACORN and the resignation of Van Jones, but this is after years of victories for the left in the Bush administration.
But if one side can be “winning” for a time while the other is “losing” we have to ask ourselves if either side actually can claim to know TRUTH. When it comes to opinions or perspectives on policy there can never truly be truth because the future is unknown. Unfortunately, political rhetoric has been reduced to whose “truth” is less scary than the others to garner public support. Perhaps it is time for elected officials and the media to drop the use of truth from their rhetoric and utilize more pragmatic language to discuss the likely outcomes of proposed policies. When different organizations like think tanks and the CBO produce wildly different projections on the outcomes of policies, it is the responsibility of elected officials to discuss the aspects of these projections to determine what in bills should be changed to achieve a more desired outcome that is usually in between the projections offered by various groups.
Although highly unlikely, it would be a refreshing change to hear of lawmakers in Washington spending considerable effort hashing out the pragmatic details of proposed legislation rather than preparing character-degrading attacks on ideological opponents. It is remarkably easy to stand in front of a video camera or sit in front of a computer screen (I am aware of the irony here) and lambast ones opponents. It is an entirely different kind of person who can swallow his/her distaste for their sworn enemy, sit down with them with all the data available, and work together to find solutions that benefit constituents and the country as a whole. Does anyone like this exist in American politics, or I am stuck in the la la fantasy land of an idealized Republic?
Of all the social problems in Brazil the federal government has launched an ad campaign to help Brazilians help the environment. Flushing a toilet consumes a lot of water. So how do we decrease the amount of water flushed down toilets every day? Simple! Pee in the shower!
Here’s the ad. You don’t have to understand Portuguese to understand it.
