Posted on 09/13/2022 5:00:26 AM PDT by DoodleBob
“It’s tough to be alive now. I think societal collapse is in the air, it smells like it, and without being pretentious, I hope that’s why these movies matter because that’s the role of the artist is to shine a light on what’s going on.” That’s Timothée Chalamet, an up-and-coming American actor musing on Bones & All, the latest film by the Italian director Luca Guadagnino.
The movie was wildly popular at the Venice Film Festival. The audience gave it a 10-minute standing ovation, chanting, “Luca! Luca!” Critics on Rotten Tomatoes ranked it 98 out of 100. One reviewer described it as: “an imperfect but effortlessly charming film, one that feels lived-in and loved … and speaks to the human desire to love and be loved, in spite of our flaws.”
Trouble is, the film is about cannibalism: “star-crossed lovers ravenous for human flesh,” in the words of another reviewer.
Bones & All is not a one-off, as Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal was a one-off in the 18th century. Cannibalism is A Thing in contemporary literary culture. The New York Times recently reviewed a clutch of novels, films and TV series about it.
If we are talking about societal collapse, perhaps we can begin with the image of the film’s young audience giving it rapturous applause. “I think there’s a young adult audience out there, all those alienated kids,” said another critic.
To bring talk about “alienated kids” closer to home, consider these three news items from the Australian media in the last week or so.
-Last week Anna Paul’s in-store appearance in Perth was canceled by police when thousands mobbed the venue. Fans had arrived at 10:30pm the night before to catch a glimpse of her. Never heard of Anna Paul? The 23-year-old is Australia’s seventh most important social media influencer, with 7.1 million followers on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. What sort of influence does she have? She’s a sex worker—one of the most popular stars on OnlyFans, a site for uploading home-made pornography.
-Last week police were called in to investigate Year 9 boys at one of Sydney’s most prestigious private high schools. They had created an online chat room featuring putrid child abuse, racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. “Imagine paying $35,000 a year to talk about Nazi propaganda and the denigration of women,” commented one politician who called for a government investigation.
-From today’s paper: “Investigators say they have discovered Australian children as young as 6 making their own [pornographic] content, with growing concerns that popular influencer-promoted websites such as OnlyFans are normalising making pornography for cash … no one had coerced or forced the children into making the content. Instead, the children believed it was normal behaviour.”
None of these incidents is conclusive evidence of “societal collapse.” But there is something deeply disturbing about crowds of young people idolizing representatives of dehumanizing practices like cannibalism or pornography. They have become alienated from traditional moral values–from their parents’ moral values.
We can’t be naïve about the consistency of the moral values of 35- to 55-year-old parents. But to judge from comments on talk-back radio, all of them were disgusted with incidents like these. But many of them haven’t managed to pass on their own values to their kids. What will our society look like 30 years from now when Anna Paul’s fans are running the show?
There’s a common thread in stories like this: parents are clueless. “Parents are beside themselves and ripping their hair out trying to avoid [the smutty chatrooms] happening,” said Carrie McCormack, of the Australian Family Association. “It’s soul-destroying for parents.”
The Sydney Morning Herald report that “police were now having tough conversations with parents after knocking on doors thinking they’re preventing children from harm, only to find the child was authoring their own exploitation material.”
And again, a child psychologist said that parents had no idea why Anna Paul was so famous. “That lack of awareness from parents makes kids vulnerable,” she said. “Talk to your kids.”
Gloomy intellectuals often talk about a civilizational crisis, but they differ wildly about its causes. Is it a climate catastrophe, or an economic meltdown, or food insecurity, or the fracturing of the international order? Is it out-of-control consumerism, or the sexual revolution, or political polarization, or democratic failure, or post-modernist hostility to truth?
All of the above have some truth. But perhaps the most decisive is a crisis in parenting. If parents fail to pass on traditional virtues to their children, society will inevitably be affected. Kids with screwy ideas about sexuality are unlikely to make a success of marriage or parenting. That’s why government policies have to be aimed squarely at strengthening strong, intact, traditional families. These are the bedrock of society.
Parents have the most important job in the world. If they fail, we all fail.
It’s inevitable once government becomes the parent.
I have no optimism on this, but I’m thinking of the post-WWII Baby Boomer generation and how they were raised.
To be clear: I’m not a fan of Dr. Spock’s specific methods of child raising.
However, what interests me is the notion of a widespread cultural switch in how “everyone” decided that children should be raised in accordance with this new book. A whole generation brought up with a fairly common approach to parenting.
Could that happen again? Probably not. But just imagine a genuinely good book, emphasizing traditional values, practical values, discipline, and manners. A new generation brought up generally better than the last few.
But I don’t think out fractured society could possibly pull that off.
“They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.” Matthew 15:14
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Our sick government is a SYMPTOM, not a CAUSE.
God has promised to heal our land, WHEN we return to Him.
It’s not just parenting. It is a God problem. They have the wrong one
Cell Phones are today’s parents
The parents have been taught to be asses since 1965. Welcome to the Great Society.......
Babies raising babies for four generations now. Fewer intact families take a child from infancy to adulthood.
The immature environment leads to a dearth of emotional discipline.
This leads to kids shooting each other over stupid stuff.
And why not? Those same parents were raised by the great American baby sitter...TV!
Think of what influences kids today: cartoons on tv, internet, school (teachers and curriculum), other kids; not parents. Society shames and criminalizes parents into allowing these bad influences and minimalize the parents influence. People usually change their thoughts when they become parents for the good of the kids. The evil one fears parents.
It’s not remotely the same, not to say that it didn’t affect the moral climate of our generation....it did.
We didn’t carry tv’s in our pockets and have our faces glued to it. There were limits on what could be shown on television. There are no limits with cell phones that access the boundless internet.
What we are reading in this article didn’t happen by accident. There is a cause.
Our crisis is a lack of Faith in God, both expressed and lived.
It’s called evolution.
For years people complained that kids were glued to their transistor radios with that evil rock and roll.
Then they were glued to their TVs with all the violence.
Then they were glued to their computers with its internet.
Now, they take their computers with them and are glued to their phones.
What is next...I have no idea. But to say it is not remotely the same is just denial.
So the cause is “racism” and “homophobia”?
I would say societal decline is happening because of an inability to differentiate cause from effect, and vice-versa.
So the cause is “racism” and “homophobia”?
I would say societal decline is happening because of an inability to differentiate cause from effect, and vice-versa.
Ok, you are right. And the moral and political decline has been steady throughout our lifetime.
But with every step the indoctrination and effects are accelerating. What really frightens me is the graphic pornography available to children on the net. It is addicting and destructive. The above article demonstrates that something is clearly wrong.
Empires do not last forever....none do. Ours is in decline and it is hard to watch.
I recommend GENERATION OF PSYCOPATHS, where the author blames Dr. Spock as part of the reason Boomers turned out the way they did.
PSYCHOPATHS (sorry, typo)
But within that realm exists the ABSENCE of parenting.
Time after time, story after story involving a child being sexually abused at school or all the trans agenda happens when there is only ONE parent. The predators KNOW that these single parent homes are stressed, and they swoop in as "friends" and "helpers" -taking the neglected kids to ball games, and then worse.
To be sure, promiscuity is a contributing factor: of the 3.7MM live births in 2020, the number of live births to unmarried women last year was 1.5MM (whites lead this number with about 523M, followed by hispanics at 458M, and blacks at 373M). That leaves 2.2 million births to married couples. But half of these children will experience divorce over their lifetime.
Therefore, making some broad assumptions, in any given year about 25.5MM children under 18 were born out of wedlock, 18.7MM children have been devastated by their selfish parents' divorce, and 18.7MM children have married parents (hopefully they're thoroughbreds).
The absence of God clearly is a driving factor. Sex outside of marriage and divorce are both mortally sinful. But the former gets most of the vective while the latter is now a socially acceptable, often joked-about practice regardless if you're a lib or alleged conservative. The destruction of the family is now a punch line.
Small wonder things are the way they are.
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