The Culture War is Over. Is It Still Worth Fighting?

SharpInk.net ^ | 7-31-03 | E. Andrew Eccleston

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Shhh! You're waking up the SheepRepublicans.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"The values have always been there, but we were shamed into hiding them."

So if we can't enforce our values through the law, and we are too afraid to voice our values for fear of annoying others, then how do we support these values going forward?

The values that conservatives support are not easy to maintain. Being responsible, paying one's debts, learning from history, etc. these are harder to live by than all the carpe diem crapola that has been fed down our eyes, ears, and throats for the last 50 years.

If people are too timid to support these values in public, and in future are actively prevented from doing so, then I don't see anything but more and more lost battles in the ongoing Culture War.

For example, who/what is going to stop the process by which we will eventually lower the age of consent to the Western European level of 16 years? And then work with them to lower it again to 15 or 14?

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"It tells us that the media and academia have lost touch with any sense of reality about the human experience"

Pray tell what is the human experience? With the advances in birth control and an armed truce against STDs, there are minimal consequences to a libertine lifestyle.

All we need is a little more economic and physical independence from one another and we can all live egomaniacal lives using everyone else to satisfy our own increasingly deviant desires.

Such a system will work whether under a socialistic welfare state or libertarian-style free market.

In the future we will be able to genetically modify and/or technologically upgrade most or all parts of our "human" bodies. We will no longer need to even behave as humans or worry about the human experience.

Of course there's always the hope that normal people will somehow be more economically advantaged than libertines in any reasonable economic system and will triumph in the end. But conservatives with money seem to be the first to pander to the libertines in exchange for more wealth, e.g. Rupert Murdoch, Disney, etc.

[savagesusie]

Democrats (leftist commies) are losing but the leftist press and their manipulated polls are trying to convince us that WE are losing......so don't fall for it!!!! The media is POUNDING us with their agenda---but it is the view of a small minority!!!! (that control the press--which is the basis of their power).....their control is slipping (internet,etc.) and they are getting desperate trying to prevent a major backlash and their demise!!! (At least, this is what I hope is happening!!)

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"Perhaps we have become so privatized, so preoccupied with prosperity and civil peace, so plugged into the media/consumer culture, that when the decisions authorizing gay marriage come down, people will simply yawn and accept them."

I used to live in Colorado. Coloradans prided themselves on being independent. So when the wave of Californians started arriving, they all pretty much independently decided to stick to their own business and ignore the Californians.

When they finally pulled their heads out of the ground, they realized that they no longer lived in Colorado, but in a weird hybrid state run by herds of RINOs roaming the newly created and taxpayer-subsidized open spaces in search of bond issues and gun restriction legislation.

The same thing seems to be happening vis-a-vis the Culture War. Individuals may be trying to protect their families by pre-screening movies, nannying-up their internet connections, and starting to go back to church more often. But the wave of raw sewage is pouring through all the cracks that no single person can totally plug up.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"the people who belong to the culture of death tend to die off"

Rappers have lots of babies before their respective a**es are capped.

As far as lesbians go: All they need is turkey basters and an aging rock star.

The pharmaceutical companies through a weird combination of innovation, compassion, and greed will see to it that the death-cult doesn't die before sending scads of money their way ... and generating a few evil spawn to guarantee future revenue growth!

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"and networks of business and professional people."

If anyone ever finds out that you are only doing business with "godfearing" people then you are economically toast!

All I can envision is an endless wave of boycotts and civil litigation.

We no longer seem to have the implied right of disassociation in this country. We do have the right to "free" association, if by free we mean free to associate with everyone else ... whether we want to or not.

[TheWriterInTexas]

I would like to read more, but I can't.

Hint...the comma is your friend.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"It is because of the media and the PC crowd"

I hate the media as much as the next guy, but I would tend to accuse the media of being craven herd-following cowards rather than courageous shocktroops in the advancement of the Queer agenda.

The media is giving us what we collectively want. Want "we" want seems to be rather quite sickening these days.

[anniegetyourgun]

As you may know, our Lord told us there'd be days like this.

"9 But be on your guard; for they will deliver you to the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them. 10 " The gospel must first be preached to all the nations. 11 " When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. - Mark 13

[Ohioan]

You ask what is the human experience, and suggest that modern innovations somehow alter the human experience.

The human experience to which I referred is the social history of civilized man. And it runs in cycles, sometimes very licentious, sometimes very puritanical. It was always so, and almost certainly always will be because of conflicting psychological factors, which are not altered by being able to escape some of the consequences of a particular phase of those cycles.

The dominant forces in the human psychology--the adult human psychology--arise out of the sexual awareness that kicks in both both boys and girls at puberty. While this awareness may provide a source for the licentious, it also provides a source for the reverse. One of the reasons that drug use is so prevalent today, is because of the loose morals surrounding sexuality. Sex has lost some of its adventure. This leads not only to increased perversion, but also to pursuit of alternative forms of adventure. (I am not suggesting that a completely rational person would think that getting stoned is an adventure; but this is hardly the "age of reason.")

After a while, the licentious period runs its course, and the very same sex-role driven internal dynamics in the remaining population--remember the death rate is by far the highest among the most licentious, so there is even a selective genetic factor present, although that is not the dominant cause--will suddenly make repression seem very appealing. Then the very societal tendencies that fed the break-down, will feed the era of repression.

I realize that every brainwashed academic will deny the phenomena described; but history is replete with examples.

The only question is, how long before the next wave of repression hits. When it does, the true Conservative, who has denounced the present moral nihilism, will be trying to defend the reputation of the poor girl who yielded in a moment of passion, from the reformed zealots of the new Puritanism. It is, after all, the Conservatives, who in every age try to stand up to the extreme "reformers." And that too will continue.

William Flax Return of The Gods Web Site

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"The dominant forces in the human psychology--the adult human psychology--arise out of the sexual awareness that kicks in both both boys and girls at puberty."

It seems that people in this age are trying to extend puberty as long as possible. With the economy doing relatively well, people can afford to remain immature longer and still get by. Kids can totally debauch themselves at Spring Break and still recover in time to cajole/threaten their professors into giving them A's. CEO's can even whoop it up until the VC's all gone.

I suppose it will take a really bad recession or even a depression or economic realignment in order to require people to mature sooner again.

If this is what happens, then we have gotten ourselves stuck to a quasi-deterministic economically-driven pendulum.

This is more depressing to me even than the thought of a world of radical reformers forcing us at gunpoint to debauch ourselves for the good of the state. At least then we could choose to resist and be shot.

Now we just have to wait for our jobs to completely go away and our hormones will trigger us to finally grow up.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Question: "The Culture War is Over. Is It Still Worth Fighting?"

Response: It is only lost as to the use of the usual political means. The "winners" are defective. By the very nature of their bungled beings they will bring about their own defeat; and, it won't be nice.

[Wallace T.]

In many cities, especially in the South, there are phone directories of self-declared Christian business and professional people, often called "Christian Yellow Pages." Mormons, Hasidic Jews, Muslims, Amish, Korean-Americans, etc. have networked for many years. The right to voluntary association has eroded, as you state, but proving collusion in these matters is extremely difficult. Additionally, due to the complex character of a market economy, members of one minority must deal with outsiders. For example, Jewish and Muslim butchers and grocers who sell to their co-religionists who observe their respective dietary laws must deal with ranchers and farmers, most of whom come from a Christian background.

[nopardons]

You've misunderstood the case. The pendulum swings and has done, from time immemorial. What is now considered to be Victorian prudishness, began long before Queen Victoria ever took the throne and was in retaliation for extreme libertinism. As business cycles are cyclical, so too is man's swings from the prurient to a more prudish society.

[Ohioan]

My friend, you sound--or rather read--very depressed. While I have absolutely no use for modern American Higher Education in the Humanities, and not much intellectual respect for the bulk of the students, who may indeed be as you describe, I do not think things are quite so hopeless.

The social pendulum is not so totally dependent upon economic trends, as you suggest. But I will grant you a major depression would cause many to reexamine where their lives have been going. The problem, there, of course, is with the changed demographics. We might be able to restore some family values, and see "alternative life styles" in a more realistic light, but still lose what is left of the other values of the Founding Fathers. It is very far from obvious, who would be doing the sorting out of values--and whose values would be sorted out.

But there remains the possibility of people waking up. Consider some of the other wakeups in human history--when a profound switch in attitude happened almost overnight. Conservatives interested in articulating a truly Conservative value system, could help that happen, sooner than you think. We have been losing the initiative since 1994, because so many of the politicians who gave lip service to our values, earlier, have lost their nerve in the face of moronic media smears. A new breed, who understand how to stand their ground in the face of fools shouting hateful and unsupportable vilification, could make all the difference in the world. Some of the intellectual ferment, taking place daily at this venue, could lead to something that would literally turn the world around.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site