Posted on 11/20/2007 6:32:13 AM PST by Between the Lines
A book review by Martha Gies-Chumney
Grownup men and women essential to the preservation of Western civilization are missing from the American landscape according to Diana West author of The Death of the Grown-Up. Ms. West chronicles the loss of adult values and judgment through the 1950s and 1960s leading to the present day politically correct multiculturalism. Unless Americans reclaim adulthood, we are perilously close to losing our country and our civilization to radical Islam.
This shift from grown up judgment, responsibility, and constraint began, posited Ms. West, not in the 1960s, but in the 50s. The World War II veterans returned to a culture already adrift. Society was becoming child centric as attention was riveted on the happiness of the new generation of Boomers. The adult became subordinate in this power shift, resulting in loss of cultural restraint, of standards, and of morality. Additionally, the median age of Americans was rising and has been rising ever since, even as “the behavioral age of our society has plummeted.” Teen values took precedence. The consumer power of this vast emerging subculture marginalized even further the role of the adult.
In addition, new liberal modes of child rearing and child centered education became entrenched. “Between Dewey and Freud, not to mention Spock, the traditional parameters of childrearing and education were being redrawn with command and control functions being ceded to institution, authorities, and theorists outside the home.” The guidance of the older generation now lacked the “social counterbalance” to offset this trend.
The “spoiled” rebel world of the infamous 1960s derived from this 1950s transformation. The young rebels destroyed the establishment leaving society floundering with the present relativistic culture. Civility and decency, as well as shame, all but disappeared. Standardless, society accepted all behavior but failed to stigmatize any. Parents enthralled with the adolescent mindset adopted it. Even the courts by the end of the 1960’s had lost the ability to declare standards and set limits. West speaks of the “strange conspiracy between young and old, child and parent, hip and square that distinguished the 1960s from every decade that came before them.” Society surrendered to students with guns which made it easier later to surrender to students armed only with politically correct epithets (racist, sexist, elitist, and homophobe). “But a culture without boundaries - a society without grown-ups and a middle class without guidelines can be a dangerous place to live.”
We now live in such a dangerous place indeed. Cultural relativism has “morally paralyzed” us from making survival value judgments. “Five or six decades of nonjudgmentalism and multiculturalism have taken their toll on education and knowledge.” We no longer judge the merit of writers and ideas in educational texts. Consequently, “…Alice Walker and William Shakespeare, the Federalist Papers and the Seneca Falls Declaration, Western capitalism and gulag communism, Tolmec culture and Ancient Greece, Standard English and so-called Black English, self esteem and self respect” are all morally equivalent. Multiculturalists have insulted and derided all “the dead white males” who form the foundation of our Judeo-Christian identity. Our culture has been “sapped” of its confidence.
A culture with no confidence can not defend itself. We have defaulted in our war against radical Islam, calling it euphemistically “a War on Terror.” Ms. West contends this is a result of “Moral paralysis born of the conditioned response to suspend judgment.” We no longer have “a resilient set of moral beliefs.” She further attacks this “neutrality and suspended judgment” as dangerous to our very survival. The Baby Boomers’ refusal to grow up has left us with “vacuous values and flexible forgiveness” too spineless to protect our country. We are unable even to recognize the truth of Islam: “censorship and religious repression, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, so-called ‘honor’ killing, and suicide bombers.” All cultures and civilizations are not equivalent. “In the real-life endgame of multicultural inclusion, then this would seem to make the West’s dismantlement inevitable.”
Islam, unlike the Judeo/Christian faith, knows no separation of church and state (Sharia law). Islamic tolerance is a myth perpetrated throughout history. The truth is that people of “unbelief” have lived throughout Islamic rule under dhimmitude defined by historian Bat Ye’or as “Sharia-sanctioned religious inferiority.”
Ms. West notes what it would be like to live under dhimmitude. Witness the recent erupting of riots in Europe in protest of the depiction of Mohammed in Danish cartoons, as well as the hukn against Salman Rushdie, and the French riots. Why? Because all beliefs except Islam have been exposed to criticism, study, analysis, comparison, and even ridicule, but this examination is strictly forbidden under Islam. Further, the situation in Europe is a harbinger of things to come in America if we are not careful: radical Muslims believe they have a responsibility to God to impose Sharia law not only on themselves but on others as well.
Christianity and Islam are not interchangeable belief systems as some Americans naively think. If Americans and the West do not reclaim our cultural identity and our ability to make value judgments, to throw off this debilitating multiculturalism, we will forfeit our freedom and democracy to Islamic Jihad.
Ms. West reminds us, we are in a struggle to protect “not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit.” We need to grow up to understand and accomplish that.
This book is a good read, and a must read.
“Gies-Chumney”?
People don’t grow up unless they marry and have families. Men stay adolescent until they marry and deal with real life. Men hardly give marriage a thought now, the morality level of women is such that the “why bother” mentality is bringing the country down very fast.
A good article. Now, the question is — how do we resurrect the grown-up?
One look at the art exhibit from the 60s and 70s at LACMA tells the tale: it’s either junk or nothing where in one room one must be shoeless, and one wonders whether the shoes are part of the display.
The no-good, stinking, worthless, G— D-— hippies have taken over society.
Thanks for posting. I would not have likely come across it on my own, but now am inclined to seek out the book to read. Many good points listed as to what has lead to the degradation of our western society and our once great Judeo-Christian based value system.
bookmark
>>A good article. Now, the question is — how do we resurrect the grown-up?<<
Adversity creates grown-ups. The great depression gave us grownups.
IOW, it has to get worse before it gets better.
Marraige doesn’t necessarily grow-up a man. My one son-in-law is 31 and hasn’t got a clue about what a real man is inspite of spending four years in the Corps. We keep praying though...
Gesundheit.
Don’t worry, I’m not contagious.
Generalizations are the beginning of wisdom. Generalizations by their nature invite exceptions, but these variances do not take away from the macro. Marriage, for some, does not guarantee anything, but singlehood pretty much is a no-growth state especially for men.
LOL! Don't bother us with details....
While I agree with the premise of the book being reviewed, I was struck by the rather callow and childish tone of the review -- your comment perfectly captures what I disliked about it.
One of the big differences between a child and an adult is that a child will say, "We need to grow up to understand and accomplish that." An adult knows that there's more to it than just saying "We need...." An adult must consider costs, consequences, and (perhaps most importantly) whether we really "need" it at all.
And indeed, the author's irritating use of "we" is another bit of childishness that epitomizes the demise of the grown-up. How many times has one heard somebody like Bill Clinton talking about how "we" must do more for "our" children, or some such?
That use of collective terms is a way of hiding -- of avoiding adult actions. But to be adult is to be individually accountable and responsible. "We" don't have duties, I have duties.
"We" need to grow up? No, Martha, you and I and George down the street need to grow up.
Not believable, coming from a mother of 8 .... ;-)
Agreed. Just feeling exasperated with SIL this week. Bloom
‘s book on men and marraige says the same thing.
The difference between a “wild” animal and a domestic animal is that a domestic animal has been bred so that it never reaches emotional maturity.
The same rule applies to people. If they do not emotionally mature, they seek collectivism instead of individualism, and they are less capable of surviving, much less prospering, on their own. Their emotions are easy to manipulate and their intellectual development is often stunted as well as their emotional development.
Importantly, the emotionally immature are far more interested in “going through the motions” of reproduction than in actually reproducing and raising offspring. For this reason they also tend to be poor parents. They sometimes try to imagine their children as siblings or peers, and avoid asserting unwanted authority over them.
Government of all types tends to prefer citizens that are not fully emotionally mature, as they are often far more responsive and even solicitous of governmental authority and direction. Like children they tend to appreciate firm boundaries, and while they proclaim their individuality, unlike real individuals, they prefer to embrace conformity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.