Monday, October 27, 2014

Chestorton’s Solution to Our Rotting Culture

Here’s some food for thought regarding the loss of the culture war as it currently stands:

There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it"; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore. I claim a right to propose as a solution the old patriarchal system of a Highland clan, if that should seem to eliminate the largest number of evils. It certainly would eliminate some evils; for instance, the unnatural sense of obeying cold and harsh strangers, mere bureaucrats and policemen. I claim the right to propose the complete independence of the small Greek or Italian towns, a sovereign city of Brixton or Brompton, if that seems the best way out of our troubles. It would be a way out of some of our troubles; we could not have in a small state, for instance, those enormous illusions about men or measures which are nourished by the great national or international newspapers. You could not persuade a city state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman, or Mr. Dillon a desperado, any more than you could persuade a Hampshire Village that the village drunkard was a teetotaller or the village idiot a statesman. Nevertheless, I do not as a fact propose that the Browns and the Smiths should be collected under separate tartans. Nor do I even propose that Clapham should declare its independence. I merely declare my independence. I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe; and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because they have been used.

Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (2012-05-12). What's Wrong with the World (pp. 34-35).  . Kindle Edition.

Whatever cultural shifts there are in our society, the fact is we can always shift back, provided we have to will to do so.  I have heard people say that we should ban contraception in order to turn back the tide of women’s “sexual liberation”.  This is magic thinking.

Focus not on external things and focus instead on encouraging responsibilities that are inherent in our actions.  In the case of birth control, we must merely let women understand the responsibility of using them (though abortion should be outlawed as it does snuff out a life).  We must also impress upon men the social implications of such a thing (learning about Game for starters) so that they are better equipped to deal with it.

Despite all the damage that has been done by the rotten culture we now live in, it is all fixable.  Never forget that.