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So Trump pays off a porn star and it isn’t even the biggest story of the day. On the second COMMENTARY podcast of the week, we explore all angles of this peculiar state of affairs. What does it say about us politically? What does it say about us morally? And what does it tell us about the condition of the American soul? Give a listen.
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Typical Trump-bot reaction to the Prez’s new poll numbers:
”Meh. Polls are meaningless.”
”Fake news!”
”I recall Trump fooling those pollsters before — in 2016!!!”
Etc.
The idea that virtue must be maintained if the republic is to be retained is as old as the republic itself and needs to be reflected upon from generation to generation.
This is not about hubris or nostalgia. It is about continuity: a passed-down attachment to core principles that one is required to hold if one is to value freedom.
On that note, religion is not necessary to ignite what were the Founding Fathers’ concepts about commitment to civic virtue, but religion certainly reinforces those concepts as they provide a sense of objective morality and duty. Thomas Jefferson would say as such, I think, and he was very much a [close to secular] rationalist.
Additionally, while serious religious people certainly understand the fallen nature of man, they also understand the concept of an American nation striving to be a “shining city upon a hill.” There is nothing dour at all in knowing that people are imperfect. There is a deep optimism, actually, in understanding we are all works in progress.
Therefore, I love that Pope John Paul II’s exhortation to “Be not afraid” is recalled here. This is a message of great hope, and it is at the core of people of faith. The only thing they expect to remain the same is God, so they find their sense of stability in Him.
Finally, I teach, so I don’t think kids have to absorb greater amounts of information than ever before. (I kinda snorted when this point was made.) They grew up with technology and know how to work with computers and I-phones, which gives them more data at their finger tips, but so what? It is often forgotten as soon as it is accessed! That is a unique sort of problem, actually.
Regardless, the world is changing no faster for them than it was for countless other generations in the past. Think, for example, about England in flux as the colonies were being founded. The whole world was turning upside down! Fast forward a few years and consider the textile worker’s son caught in the midst of the Industrial Revolution in the United States.
Do you really think running Carnegie Steel was less complicated because Andrew didn’t have any computers to help his business get more efficient?
Are younger Americans doing well? (Are we doing well as a country?)
“Compared to what?” is an apt answer.
(I love this bit of Jewish wisdom.)
I am optimistic about the future, but I have no idea what it holds for the country.
I recall polls showing that 61% of either Trump voters or voters that voted in the national election thought he was unfit for the office. Did I garble or misunderstand that stat?
With my computer background, I am in wonder that we went to the moon with the computers they had back then. The computers were much simpler back then, which meant programming them was more complicated. The recent movie Hidden Figures show how before computers they had to do very complicated math by hand. It boggles my mind what they could accomplish.
Many years ago I worked as a waitress, and I remember the cash register breaking. The girl who was making change was absolutely flummoxed. She could not–literally could not–do the math without the cash register. She was almost in tears–wanted to close the whole restaurant!!!–when I took over her station.
Technology is a great thing, but it is also a double edged sword. Kids today do have their own unique challenges, but the thought that they are unique in some way because of this seems weird to me.
I will say that email and phones have made the workday longer, but… again… compared to what? Not to the coal miner or steel worker in the Gilded Age! Holy smoly. I’ll take a late phone call!
I’ve not heard of the positive effect of the “Teen Mom” TV show. I’ve only heard of it as a symptom of cultural decline. Very interesting.
I also don’t think it had enough viewership to create a sea change in pregnancy numbers. It’s a theory though!
Compared to what?
Compared to the American civic “religion,” which consists of the theory of governance that’s enshrined in the Constitution, plus auxiliary ideas that informed that theory. You look at which of those ideas are becoming increasingly difficult to defend, which ideas that used to be taken as axiomatic by both sides of the aisle are now credibly (or “credibly”) questioned:
The long Gramscian march through the institutions is bearing its fruit. The extent to which Marxism’s children and their ideas have taken hold in our culture and government are a good measure of decline and decadence.
Fine men of the Commentary Podcast. Decline of Civilization is not primarily seen in a failing economy or decline in population. Civilizations fall as they become less and less able to deal with stress on the civilization. So even when a civilization has been in decline the civilization usually has the resources to survive but they simply can’t manage it.
The Republic of France was more powerful than Nazi Germany in nearly every single category. Economically, militarily France was the stronger country. However Germany conquered the country in six weeks. Because the people had lost their morale and could not cope with the stress of the invasion from Germany. The Byzantine Empire had more than enough men to fight for it in Greece proper, they had just under gone a cultural revival in the 15th century but their institutions simply could not mobilize the men to face the Ottoman invasion in 1453.
When you are talking about America the measures you use to understand decline is how we manage stress to our system. Because your civilization is just going to continue as it is until it comes under stress from something. So when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the Japanese thought America was weak. However at Midway normal American Pilots flew outdated, under armed planes into certain death and helped in one of the most critical battles of World War II. Our morale and industry were so high that we just simply swamped our enemies in ways our enemies could not even imagine were possible.
The Crisis that America is going through now is one that is corrosive to our unity as a nation and is corrosive to our political institutions. As the country segments and different cohorts begin hate one another our congress becomes less and less functional we are due for a stress test on our society.
When we were last in this position Reagan came out and won the Presidency and the feeling in America changed dramatically, we felt like things worked again. Our confidence grew and we became stronger as a country again.
We are right now more like the late 1970s then any other time in recent history but Trump is in the Reagan position. The War on Terror has been managed without really stressing our system. So we have all continued as before with increasingly fragmented political system.
We can imagine a stress test like a Nuclear strike from North Korea that does not destroy but begins a massive economic crisis and that cause some of bills to become due all at once. The question is would our institutions survive that. Can we produce the politicians who can be statemen and can we produce the Dauntless Pilots when that crisis comes or not. If we can not America could be destroyed or perhaps just crippled. and new powers could rise. If we still can produces such people and in turn the people of America can unity than we will survive and be stronger than before.
Until the stress test happens we won’t really know. However what I can say is that we are making ourselves look weak, we are attacking the basis of our unity and strength in the country and that means our enemies might believe they should test us. Just like 9/11 but perhaps on a larger scale this time. Can we deal with that stress successfully? Can our institutions rally us all to unity of purpose in meeting the challenge or do we continue our infighting even in front of an adversary? I don’t know for sure but what I do know is that we are institutions and sense of unity is weaker than it was in 2000 and far, far weaker than it was in 1990. In that way I think we are clearly in decline. The question is will that decline be arrested by a major stressor on our civilization or will our current decline be turned into a civilization threatening crisis? That is the only real question.