March 18, 2024 at 3:30 PM

At War with God

@MarkEckel

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Versta, Photostock ID: 317290838 (Shutterstock)

We blame others. But it’s our own fault. It’s all our fault. Complaints about “identity politics,” “structural racism,” or “cancel culture” begin with us, according to Mary Eberstadt from her speech, “Men Are at War with God.” Eberstadt’s research into the storied wreckage of human lives begins with breakdown in families. She reports:

As I researched their stories and read their own words in interviews, something stunning emerged. Every individual on the list shared two common harms: divorced or absent parents, and violent childhood or adolescent abuse, in almost all cases sexual.

Youth are trying to fill a “sense that the world into which they were born is somehow inhuman.” The result stands to reason: if something is missing, it must be replaced. “Family” is now whatever identity or ideology seems to satisfy. I have had decades of experience with young people broken by familial and sexual destruction. Students at the public university will remain after class to talk with me. They are seeking to fill the abyss of meaning, purpose, and reason – for anything.

The one circled word in my print copy of Eberstadt’s speech exactly depicts the reason in the search for reason; the word is “anguish.” Eberstadt writes

There is a common denominator beneath the bizarre rituals occurring on campuses and elsewhere, beneath an increasingly punitive social media, beneath the performative rage of BLM—indeed, beneath cancel culture itself. It is anguish.

“Anguish” is no trite word. “Anguish” is the deep yaw of “The Scream” so well depicted in the 1893 Edvard Munch portrait. Anguish is more than anxiety. Anguish is the cry of the tortured soul, a pain so deep, so primal, that the only recourse is the scream. Yes, Mothers in Massachusetts scream. And “Science Says Screaming is Good for You.” But Eberstadt speaks about an emptiness that has yet to be satisfied.

Endemic to the problem of anguish is “the steep rise in psychiatric problems among American teenagers and young adults.” A counselor friend tells me that his calendar is full, people are waiting months out. Calls about mental health are put on a waiting list, days that must seem innumerable. “Loneliness studies abound, spotlighting the isolation of the elderly in every Western nation.” On the phone with my mom once a week, she tells me how friends in her age group have been abandoned. Contact with their children is spotty at best, non-existent at worst. The situation is nothing new if Harry Chapin was right when he sang “Cat’s in the Cradle.”

Eberstadt’s solution? The “rollback [of] abortion [and] divorce” should be the highest “social justice priorities of our time.” She gives an ultimatum,

In the end, the choice before people of faith is simple. We either believe that there are souls on the line, or we don’t—including the souls of those who hate what we stand for, or what they think we stand for. We either believe that they, like us, are created in the image of God and for a purpose, or we subject ourselves and all who come after us to perpetual self-invention and its miseries. So let us witness as best we can to the truth that humanity’s problem today is not with creation. It’s rather with interference in that creation by an ongoing revolutionary experiment—one that sweat and prayer and grace may yet turn around.

We bear responsibility for the problem and the solution. Perhaps instead of marking our territories with fences to keep others out, we should erect bridges to let them in. If you are in anguish, you do not look for sociological responses; you are looking to fill the hole in your soul.

First published at Salvo 14 February 2022 with the title, “Souls on the Line.” Apocalyptic scenarios dot the news. Everyone from billionaires building underground shelters to preppers preparing for the worst are concerned about the future. My suggestion is to look in the mirror, to consider your place in the world, and be mindful in the present of your future state in the eternal.

[Published at MarkEckel.com]

Picture credit: SnappyGoat.com

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Old Bathos@OldBathos2y

ReplyingtoHenry Castaigne

Henry Castaigne (View Comment):
Please check out the disturbingly accurate writings of Theodore Dalrymple.
I went on my recent trip to a secondhand bookshop that I had known from years ago, but loud rock music pulsing through it soon drove me out. Was this a case of market failure, or have the habitués of these shops changed such that they now cannot browse without the accompaniment of gross aural stimulation? The shop had a basement, and I thought to get away from the music there: but no, the owner had placed loudspeakers high up in the basement corners, so no escape was possible. It reminded me of North Korea, except that the inescapable was loud music, not political propaganda. It is increasingly difficult in commercial establishments to avoid amplified popular music; I had hoped that a used-book shop might be a last bastion of silence, but I was disabused. I had heard the future, and it was noise.
Such compulsory noise is not the only manifestation of modern British culture that has become like the nitrogen and oxygen of the air: so has vulgarity (nothing is specifically Scottish about it). This vulgarity is not a mere absence of refinement, such as has always existed among a section of any public, nor is it a satirical commentary on the overrefinement of a self-appointed cultural elite. On the contrary, it is a conscious, positive ideology: vulgarity as political virtue. It partakes of a false syllogism:
The common people are vulgar.
I am vulgar.
Therefore, I have empathy with, and sympathy for, the common people—the highest form of political virtue.
Only the second of these three statements is unequivocally true, though perhaps the first is increasingly true as ideological vulgarity seeps, or pours, downward. Vulgarity’s great advantage is that it is within the reach of all; no effort is necessary to achieve it. Everyone can be vulgar and therefore politically virtuous.
Such, at any rate, were my reflections as I passed the sandstone building, near the bookshop, of what was once the Salvation Army’s women’s hostel, but whose ground floor was now given over to the Kick Ass Café. The clientele was not proletarian but intellectual, bohemian, and feminist.
The name was of some cultural significance, since “kick ass” is not British, but American, usage. Ass in British usage is arse; to kick someone’s arse in British usage is not the same as to kick ass in American. The usage is vulgar on both sides of the Atlantic, true; but the Edinburgh Kick Ass Café patrons, if surveyed, would almost certainly object—fiercely—to Donald Trump, and not least because of his vulgarity.
“So,” I can hear a good social liberal object, “you would prohibit a café from availing itself of that name?” Social liberalism has become so debased that it thinks that anything not prohibited by the law is permissible in all other senses. Therefore, if I object to the name, I must be calling for its prohibition.
No. What I am commenting upon is a culture in which such a name is not only considered unobjectionable but, on the contrary, is taken as an expression of democratic sentiment and liberation from oppression, and objection to which constitutes reprehensible political reaction. This debased culture is a phenomenon not susceptible to mere legislative correction; what is needed is the cultural equivalent of a religious revival, but this, of course, would pose dangers of its own. At any rate, I do not expect to see any such revival in my lifetime.

NSFW!!! but accurate social commentary along the same lines:

Discussion (6)

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Old Bathos@OldBathos2y
We were told that we are too smart, too scientific, and too modern to rely on religion to provide meaning and context to our lives. And we can't let social connections, family, and that sort of thing curtail our independence. And so we escaped everything that once supplied meaning and are now depressed that meaninglessness is not very fulfilling.
Our "identity" is not our cultural heritage or religious denomination. (What are Lutheran pronouns?) "identity" is reducible to the preferred modes of how we use our genitals. Funny that that doesn't really feel like a happier, higher plane of existence.
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Henry Castaigne@HenryCastaigne2y
I work with poor whites at my job. No indication of a return to family or G-d. People want to live and breed in a way that brings their children misery.
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Henry Castaigne@HenryCastaigne2y
Please check out the disturbingly accurate writings of Theodore Dalrymple.
I went on my recent trip to a secondhand bookshop that I had known from years ago, but loud rock music pulsing through it soon drove me out. Was this a case of market failure, or have the habitués of these shops changed such that they now cannot browse without the accompaniment of gross aural stimulation? The shop had a basement, and I thought to get away from the music there: but no, the owner had placed loudspeakers high up in the basement corners, so no escape was possible. It reminded me of North Korea, except that the inescapable was loud music, not political propaganda. It is increasingly difficult in commercial establishments to avoid amplified popular music; I had hoped that a used-book shop might be a last bastion of silence, but I was disabused. I had heard the future, and it was noise.
Such compulsory noise is not the only manifestation of modern British culture that has become like the nitrogen and oxygen of the air: so has vulgarity (nothing is specifically Scottish about it). This vulgarity is not a mere absence of refinement, such as has always existed among a section of any public, nor is it a satirical commentary on the overrefinement of a self-appointed cultural elite. On the contrary, it is a conscious, positive ideology: vulgarity as political virtue. It partakes of a false syllogism:
The common people are vulgar.
I am vulgar.
Therefore, I have empathy with, and sympathy for, the common people—the highest form of political virtue.
Only the second of these three statements is unequivocally true, though perhaps the first is increasingly true as ideological vulgarity seeps, or pours, downward. Vulgarity’s great advantage is that it is within the reach of all; no effort is necessary to achieve it. Everyone can be vulgar and therefore politically virtuous.
Such, at any rate, were my reflections as I passed the sandstone building, near the bookshop, of what was once the Salvation Army’s women’s hostel, but whose ground floor was now given over to the Kick Ass Café. The clientele was not proletarian but intellectual, bohemian, and feminist.
The name was of some cultural significance, since “kick ass” is not British, but American, usage. Ass in British usage is arse; to kick someone’s arse in British usage is not the same as to kick ass in American. The usage is vulgar on both sides of the Atlantic, true; but the Edinburgh Kick Ass Café patrons, if surveyed, would almost certainly object—fiercely—to Donald Trump, and not least because of his vulgarity.
“So,” I can hear a good social liberal object, “you would prohibit a café from availing itself of that name?” Social liberalism has become so debased that it thinks that anything not prohibited by the law is permissible in all other senses. Therefore, if I object to the name, I must be calling for its prohibition.
No. What I am commenting upon is a culture in which such a name is not only considered unobjectionable but, on the contrary, is taken as an expression of democratic sentiment and liberation from oppression, and objection to which constitutes reprehensible political reaction. This debased culture is a phenomenon not susceptible to mere legislative correction; what is needed is the cultural equivalent of a religious revival, but this, of course, would pose dangers of its own. At any rate, I do not expect to see any such revival in my lifetime.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Old Bathos@OldBathos2y
ReplyingtoHenry Castaigne
Henry Castaigne (View Comment):
Please check out the disturbingly accurate writings of Theodore Dalrymple.
I went on my recent trip to a secondhand bookshop that I had known from years ago, but loud rock music pulsing through it soon drove me out. Was this a case of market failure, or have the habitués of these shops changed such that they now cannot browse without the accompaniment of gross aural stimulation? The shop had a basement, and I thought to get away from the music there: but no, the owner had placed loudspeakers high up in the basement corners, so no escape was possible. It reminded me of North Korea, except that the inescapable was loud music, not political propaganda. It is increasingly difficult in commercial establishments to avoid amplified popular music; I had hoped that a used-book shop might be a last bastion of silence, but I was disabused. I had heard the future, and it was noise.
Such compulsory noise is not the only manifestation of modern British culture that has become like the nitrogen and oxygen of the air: so has vulgarity (nothing is specifically Scottish about it). This vulgarity is not a mere absence of refinement, such as has always existed among a section of any public, nor is it a satirical commentary on the overrefinement of a self-appointed cultural elite. On the contrary, it is a conscious, positive ideology: vulgarity as political virtue. It partakes of a false syllogism:
The common people are vulgar.
I am vulgar.
Therefore, I have empathy with, and sympathy for, the common people—the highest form of political virtue.
Only the second of these three statements is unequivocally true, though perhaps the first is increasingly true as ideological vulgarity seeps, or pours, downward. Vulgarity’s great advantage is that it is within the reach of all; no effort is necessary to achieve it. Everyone can be vulgar and therefore politically virtuous.
Such, at any rate, were my reflections as I passed the sandstone building, near the bookshop, of what was once the Salvation Army’s women’s hostel, but whose ground floor was now given over to the Kick Ass Café. The clientele was not proletarian but intellectual, bohemian, and feminist.
The name was of some cultural significance, since “kick ass” is not British, but American, usage. Ass in British usage is arse; to kick someone’s arse in British usage is not the same as to kick ass in American. The usage is vulgar on both sides of the Atlantic, true; but the Edinburgh Kick Ass Café patrons, if surveyed, would almost certainly object—fiercely—to Donald Trump, and not least because of his vulgarity.
“So,” I can hear a good social liberal object, “you would prohibit a café from availing itself of that name?” Social liberalism has become so debased that it thinks that anything not prohibited by the law is permissible in all other senses. Therefore, if I object to the name, I must be calling for its prohibition.
No. What I am commenting upon is a culture in which such a name is not only considered unobjectionable but, on the contrary, is taken as an expression of democratic sentiment and liberation from oppression, and objection to which constitutes reprehensible political reaction. This debased culture is a phenomenon not susceptible to mere legislative correction; what is needed is the cultural equivalent of a religious revival, but this, of course, would pose dangers of its own. At any rate, I do not expect to see any such revival in my lifetime.
NSFW!!! but accurate social commentary along the same lines:
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Lilly B@LillyB2y
Mark Eckel (View Post):
Eberstadt’s solution? The “rollback [of] abortion [and] divorce” should be the highest “social justice priorities of our time.”
This is the same conclusion I’ve arrived at after witnessing the problems of young Americans. Eberstadt has also pointed out how contagious human behavior is, so of course the more people tolerate divorce and abortion, the more these practices spread. I don’t think the politicians or the people understand what they were encouraging when they enabled easier access to both divorce and abortion.

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