The Coarsening Of The Culture (Kelly Hollowell On How A Value-Free Society Can't Last Alert)

Worldnetdaily.com ^ | 05/14/05 | Kelly Hollowell

[goldstategop]

Liberals and libertarians like to ask, "How can the relationship of two people who love each other but are the same sex be detrimental to society?" How does porn hurt you or me? How does smoking pot hurt my community? What is the impact of casual sex or general filth on TV to my family?

Perhaps George Will said it best when he wrote, "Some pleasures are contemptible because they are coarsening. They are not merely private vices; they have public consequences in driving the culture's downward spiral."

All the vices listed above in some way do touch our lives. Pornography shops and adult video stores fuel the vile lusts of sex offenders. Promoting same-sex marriage strikes at the foundation of traditional family infrastructure and its inherent values. Violent movies, video games and song lyrics encourage uncontrolled and outward expressions of rage without regard for human life. Drug users don't merely abuse or harm their own bodies but frequently steal to support their habit. What may begin as petty theft can ultimately become home invasion, rape and murder – all to pay for the next fix.

If you doubt any of this is true, spend a day in a local courtroom. Listen to the charges and crimes and the defenses. Look on the faces of the victims as they file past you one after the next. As you do, remember you sit in only one courtroom in one city in one state. Imagine courtrooms all over the country. You might begin to get the picture. The individual examples seen in a single courtroom or reported on the evening news are but a microcosm of what is taking place nationwide and attest to nothing less than a national crisis.

One root of the crisis is clearly our culture's lost distinction between right and wrong. Moral absolutes are not taught to our children anymore because they are no longer accepted as real or true. To the contrary, the loss of absolutes is the hallmark of the "me generation." "What's right for you may or may not be right for me."

Of course, this isn't really a problem if we are to believe the secular media. To hear them talk, "all is well." We are a progressive people and our children live an enlightened existence. Evidently, mothers from across America don't agree – this according to a new survey issued by the Institute for American Values in New York.

They report mothers of all stripes, income levels and backgrounds are in fact concerned about their ability to impart positive values to their children in today's morally declining culture. They feel directly challenged by Hollywood movies, TV, the Internet, electronic games and advertising. Issues include all the vices liberals and libertarians assure are purely private matters and of no public consequence.

Addressing the concerns of these mothers, a friend of mine, Rebecca Hagelin, wrote a book called It speaks specifically of a culture "gone mad" and how to defend and protect our homes and children against its negative effects. Sadly, the entrée of this book into secular media outlets is being blocked. For instance, when a call was made to one major talk show, the response of their producers was: "We don't believe the culture has gone mad, but we believe the author has."

Obviously, they took a pass on an interview with Hagelin, but days later focused their programming on child molestation taking place under the noses of unsuspecting mothers. One woman interviewed was the ex-wife of the infamous "Mall Rapist." He was a child molester in Wisconsin who, living a double life preyed upon young girls in shopping malls. He also began molesting his own daughter while she was in kindergarten.

The question is: How do you explain the apparent contradiction in the producer's position?

The refusal of some secular producers to interview Hagelin either smacks of delusion about the state of society and the needs of parents and/or reflects a media bias so extreme it is willing to sacrifice the welfare of our children to maintain its secular agenda. I am talking of course about the media bias against anyone such as Hagelin holding openly Christian values.

It goes without saying that the bias against Christian values isn't new, but it is growing as secularists attempt to eradicate every vestige of Christianity from our society. The saddest part of all is that this wide-sweeping bias stifles truly beneficial input from an entire segment of our population. Truth is the media liberals may not want the advice contained in Hagelin's book, but mothers across the country are crying out for just this kind of help.

Clearly, the secular media is out-of-step with the nation on this one because liberals dominate most mainstream outlets. There is simply no such thing as a private vice without public consequences. And parents need every new tool available to defend their families against our ever-coarsening culture –even if they come from a professing Christian background.

Beyond that, our culture is in dire need of a morality check and a re-education on the traditional principles of right and wrong. It is a seriously flawed notion that we can raise our children in a moral vacuum and expect society to become continually improved and enlightened. Our courtrooms, jailhouses, drug rehabs and seven-step programs for every imaginable addiction make that abundantly clear.

[Bogolyubski]

You got that one right. Wish YOU were running the GOP in California!

[strategofr]

"Just look at Sweden to see where this is going. Not pretty."

Denmark

[strategofr]

"Yes, at least in a historical context, and at least on a somewhat-temporary basis. See Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, the Roman emperor who actually managed to stave off the inevitable collapse and begin to reverse it between 284 and 304. He made some mistakes, but he bought the Roman Empire almost two centuries."

Quite interesting. I never heard of him. Could you expand a bit?

[Jaysun]

I recently read the Theodosian Code among other things, and it seems to me that their social, economic, and political reforms relied to heavily on coercion and resulted in loss of individual freedom. That was one mistake. I also think Diocletian goofed by setting up a tetrarchy (rule by four) instead of a trinity. Constantine had it halfway right. In my view, success requires Christianity and freedom. This also is a subject we can debate some other time.

[goldstategop]

Diocletian. He changed the form of government from a Principate to to a Dominate. The Republic had been a dead letter for centuries but Domitian's principal achievement was to invest the Emperors with all the pomp and circumstance of oriental despotism. In his time, the fiction the Augustus was the first of equals was finally dropped and the Senate sank into complete irrelevance.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Spktyr]

Too much to try to fit in a post here - but Diocletian came to power at a time when people in the Roman Empire percieved that the Empire was fast winding down. Dangerous cults, rebellions against authority, and massive moral decay were commonplace. As I said elsewhere, historians now believe that before Diocletian, the entire Empire would have collapsed and fallen onto the ash heap of history by 300AD.

Instead, by implementing many reforms (some at swordpoint) and by compartmentalizing the Empire, he managed to stave off and begin to reverse the moral decay and decline of the entire Empire for almost two centuries. And at the time he came to power, the Empire's moral status was far, far, far worse than we are now. He did make some mistakes (persecution of Christianity as just another of the many, many dangerous cults that ran rampant though the empire of the time and setting empire-wide fixed prices come to mind), but overall he was very successful at pulling the Empire back together and repairing the moral dissolution of the state. He is credited for saving the Empire from itself.

So yes, it is possible to redeem a "value-free" society; it has been done before, and it can be done again.

Here's some reading material on Diocletian and his actions, for those who are interested:
http://www.roman-empire.net/decline/diocletian.html
http://www.classicsunveiled.com/romeh/html/restorefallov.html

Chronology of the Emperors:
http://www.roman-britain.org/people/_emperors.htm

[Spktyr]

Theodosius was much later than Diocletian and had no direct contact. Individual liberties were greatly constrained at the time of Jesus anyway, unless you were a Roman citizen, and even then...

However, we're all hijacking this thread. The original question was whether a value-free society can be saved or redeemed. History's answer is yes - though it would be painful and the price would be high.

[weatherwax]

whilst I have no disagreement with the general message of this article, nor I suspect of the book referred to, I disagree strongly that a secularist society is to blame. It isn't the lack of Christian values that has caused the downhill spiral, but the lack of any values. You dont have to espouse religion to form decent principles and values. You simply have to understand what makes for a moral life for humans, and it has to be in line with what humans are and how they live.
A course in Objectivist philosophy and Rands work from age 5 upwards, in every school in the land, would reverse this trend in less than 15 years.

[Grut]

Without fundamental values to tie us all together, America will never be the great nation she rightly deserves to be.

I agree we need "fundamental values", but Hollowell's case for making Uptight Christianity the official policy is nothing but Mullah-ism.

[Lindykim]

The book is "Home Invasion: How To Protect Your Family In A Culture Gone Mad."

[Hardastarboard]

home invasion, rape and murder – all to pay for the next fix

Wow, I learned something today. Rape can yield the cash to buy me drugs. I'll have to try that sometime. //Sarcasm

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Moral values cannot be sustained by reliance upon man's self-restraint or intellect. Those values must be based upon Divine Law. That law comes from the One True God, the God of Abraham, who sent his only Son, Jesus, as a sacrifice to save mankind, every one of whom is lost without faith in Him.

That is not a pleasing answer to the secular humanists but it is the truth.

Man cannot stay on course without God's help. Man is fundamentally weak, sinful and flawed and cannot save himself by his own intellect or restraint.

No small child needs to be taught bad behavior. He or she must be taught to maintain proper and moral behavior. We are born flawed. People are not basically good. They are fundamentally sinful, from birth.

Even the concept of sin becomes irrelevant without the guidance of a Divine law because all morality is in the eye of the beholder without it.

It is not the dreaded Christians who invented and defined sin. God clearly defined sin and has left us a written policy manual on the subject.

One of my wife's friends said, "The Ten Commandments are really hard to obey."

My wife asked, "Which ones are you having trouble obeying?"

Maybe it's a good thing we don't have Twenty Commandments.

One Commandment would be too many for a lot of people.

[madprof98]

I certainly agree with the viewpoint here, but I think the case for it is weak unless and until some real study is done on the issue. Rebecca Hagelin's book, Home Invasion, was a terrible waste of money. Everything of substance in it could have been compressed into a short article in a ladies' magazine.

Here and there, writers have actually provided some documentation about the effects of the "coarsening of the culture." But the majority (the folks who have themselves been "coarsened") are willfully oblivious of what is happening to them--and, more importantly, to their kids.

[AFPhys]

The book is "Home Invasion: How To Protect Your Family In A Culture Gone Mad."

Thank you for finding and posting the title. I'll be looking into getting this book.

[theFIRMbss]

> I pity the upcoming generation and what they are sowing for themselves. It will become self evident in due time

I'm believe that you
and all of the doom mongers
are mistaking stuff

you see on TV
and in magazines and films
for reality!

That pop culture stuff
isn't a "mirror" of life,
it's artificial,

it's created, fake!
There are teenagers today
doing great things like

putting together
state-of-the-art electron
microscopes for their

science fair projects.
There are kids making music
cool as the 60s.

EVERYTHING today
is vastly more wonderful
than ever before.

But pop media
is built around keeping you
watching commercials

and looking at ads
(and, of course, buying more crap)
and the pop people

know their tools work best
on frightened people, so, Boo!
the media is

non-stop gloom and doom.
But that stuff's just, like, fast food --
Don't eat it, stay well!

[Mach9]

Thanks!

[Mach9]

If this culture isn't on the edge, how did John F. Kerry gather more votes than any but one elected president of this country?

[John Lenin]

The freaks of society have kids and I pity their children.

[Grut]

The freaks of society have kids and I pity their children.

Agreed! Stop circumcision now! :^)

[Jaysun]

Theodosius was much later than Diocletian and had no direct contact. Individual liberties were greatly constrained at the time of Jesus anyway, unless you were a Roman citizen, and even then...
However, we're all hijacking this thread. The original question was whether a value-free society can be saved or redeemed. History's answer is yes - though it would be painful and the price would be high.

The Theodosian Code is a collection of imperial edicts going back to Constantine and in that way is relevant to the subject. We'll talk about it later.

I agree with the idea that a value-free society can be saved - painful and pricey to be sure.