As I sat watching the latest school shooting yesterday in Parkland, FL, it was almost disbelief that the gun control advocates were on their soap boxes even before the bodies were removed from the school. Then came the mental health lobby and half dozen other theories as to WHY with everyone wanting a quick fix for a very complicated problem. I’m here today to tell you the REAL REASON for these senseless massacres that no one wants to admit.
To paraphrase an insurance company TV ad that I saw recently, ‘I know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two’. I’ve had over 9 decades of experience in watching human behavior here in America and abroad and this is my summation of what I know to be the real reason for what we’re experiencing today in America.
In the 1920’s up until about 1941, we had The Great Depression. It took the Second World War and a lot of economic shuffling to bring it to an end. I believe we are currently in another, much longer and tragic depression. A depression of spirit. Take a look at any negative statistic. It almost doesn’t even matter which: Suicide, Mass Shootings, Illegal Drugs, Euthanasia, Single Parent families, Divorce, Pornography, Abortion, Street Gangs, Welfare State, the Mindless Adoption of Technology, Sense Of Entitlement, Extreme Political Correctness,…and dozens more. They all started to skyrocket in the late 1960’s with the birth of extreme liberalism.
Even though the Great Depression only lasted 12 years or so, I argue we are in a Great Cultural Depression that’s been going on for over 50 years.
What’s happened since the 1960s, that would cause a rise in these types of statistics? I argue cultural decline brought about by Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory. Cultural decline comes in many forms. It can be something as obvious as pornography, or as subtle as architecture. The very idea that Western Civilization could be undermined was unthinkable 50 years ago. The ideas of the family unit raised on Judeo-Christian values in a sovereign nation-state were unassailable. The rise of Communism and cultural Marxism in the 60’s started to undermine the very foundations of our civilization here in America. For those unaware, the beginnings of this cultural depression can be traced to the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory. Critical Theory teaches that instead of class warfare, it is easier to drive change through oppressed vs oppressor, leveraging perceived victimhood and challenging every single principle Western values achieved. Sound familiar?
We got a brief reprieve in the 80s with President Reagan as he waged the culture war against the insurgency of cultural Marxism. Post Reagan, the culture war has intensified on all fronts. Liberals continue their 60s era dominance over film, music, academia, and media. Pornography and prostitution continue rotting away the core. Architecture, which used to inspire and be a sign of an advanced civilization, retreated into postmodern concrete monoliths, devoid of any style or soul, and modern art has become largely an abomination. Critical Theory philosophy began eroding the very concept and values of Western Civilization. Sadly, religion and faith has become a battlefield, with a sort of militant atheism coming into vogue in the 2000s and the phrase “God is dead” was born.
I started thinking of this concept of Cultural Depression in the wake of the recent Texas Church mass shooting. Once the information about the shooter started coming out, I recognized a lot of the characteristics of the militant atheism of the 2000s. In today’s world we are always looking for a simple answer with an easy solution. On one side it’s lack of gun laws, on the other is mental health. The truth is far more difficult to process. The truth is Devin Kelley, the Texas church shooter, was created by a culture and system in decay. No one thing over the course of his 27 years made him take a gun into that church. He was created by a culture that is desensitized to violence, over-medicated, and absolved of personal responsibility. With no attachment to identity, as a non-religious, apolitical white guy, he found the group that he needed to feel attached to something, the atheists. Now, I don’t believe atheists are inherently violent, as most aren’t. But you take these kids, pump them up full of drugs, give them no ideal or identity to aspire to, show them a bunch of violent media or games, then give them a view of the world of rejecting all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless…there’s gonna be problems. Maybe they don’t shoot up a church, maybe they commit suicide or overdose on an opioid. One way or another, this cultural rot will ruin a lot of lives.
I would argue a significant reason that Donald Trump is in the White House is the cultural decay that’s taken place. All of the cultural degradation is fairly recent, so I, like a lot of you, actually remember a time when things were very different. For example, I remember Columbine. Back then in the 90s, school and church shootings were infinitesimal. I remember how blown away everyone was as a result of Columbine, and how everyone struggled and tried to find a reason for it. Even in the 60’s with the Viet Nam protests, the very idea of a school shooting was unthinkable.
Think of Devin Kelley. He was 27 when he shot up that church which means he was 9 years old during Columbine. He never existed in a world without significant mass shootings, and he grew up in a world where they were commonplace. This is why it’s difficult to talk to young progressives about these issues. They don’t even remember a world where this sort of thing wasn’t common. I’m 97, thus I’ve seen the entire massive cultural decline in America. It’s come on so slowly that no one seems to notice as it gets worse. Sort of like a frog being placed in a pot of cold water on a hot stove.
Now, I’ve painted a bleak picture. How can we possibly dig out of a cultural depression over 50 years in the making? It’s not all negative, we have tremendous technology, so communication and networking are far superior to what it was then. We have access to the entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips. Despite the bleak picture I’ve painted, we are actually surprisingly close to pulling out of it. Keep in mind that “culture” is a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy. If we think things are bad, then they are likely to get worse. If we think we are going in the right direction, then we will. But, at the end of the day, God is in control and he desperately wants us going in the right direction…towards his Son. The answers are all in His book and I believe that God has allowed us to hit rock bottom, thus our only course of direction is Him!
Blessings,
Ben
Comments? Email Ben: benalexander312@aol.com |
