Where Did We Go Wrong?

[timmyo]

Great question. I wish I totall knew, but I know a lot of the reasons. A great place to start is to read “The Architects of the Culture of Death”. This book came out last year and goes in to detail about all of the people of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries who came up with all of the ill conceived “modern” political, social and religious philosophies that plague us today. The problems we are facing today are a result of people actually putting in to practice the madness that was concocted by such famous philosphers and social manipulators such as Nietsche, Marx, Freud, Sarte and Kinsey to name a few. These “great” thinkers largely rejected God, the Church, good and evil, sexual morality, beauty, you name it.

None of the ideas are new, but the actual application of these ideas began steadily in the early 20th century and then accelerated after the 1950’s into the present. These hairbrained philosphies were only held by the elite “educated” class of society until the 1950’s. Since the 1950’s, the college professors became increasingly liberal and started adopting much of the radical philosophies into their teaching. Starting in the 1950’s and 1960’s you had a great increase in college bound people in the United States. Small wonder that many of the Baby Boomers who went to college back then, turned out so liberal. This has had a trickle down affect on the rest of society and on the world as these radicals starting applying what they had learned.

That’s just scratching the surface. I believe we can’t turn around our present situation unless we understand how we got here.

 

[JimG]

Leslie K. makes some very good points. The '50’s were pretty conservative socially compared to today. Yet, both Church and society were rather quick to marginalize anyone who didn’t fit the standard mold. That caused a lot of unseen and unacknowledged heartache.

And Archbishop Sheen–well, he was tremendously popular (like I say there were only 3 TV channels)–but with respect to Catholic apologetics or Catholic culture, he was pretty much all we had. There was nothing to compare to the enormous variety of Catholic apologetics and outreach that is available today. Catholic Answers is a case in point, along with numerous others.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Today in Cologne perhaps Benedict XVI offered another clue to the collapse of modern morals. Christian disunity … increasingly denominations not promoting a consistent point of view on the great moral issues of our time?

sg.news.yahoo.com/050819/1/3udeh.html

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Technology had a lot to do with it.

We used to have to depend on a very few media outlets to tell us everything.

Now it’s easier for minority groups to communicate even if sparsely populated, and plan group activities much more effectively than by U.S. Mail or by the relatively lousy long distance telephone service we had then. Does anyone remember when the farther away your call was, the weaker it sounded, back before digital? If Al-Quaida had tried to use those phone lines, they could have been listened in by other party line users.

We knew a lot more about our neighbors and a lot less about people anywhere else.

Now we get information overload. I hardly watch TV but the other night I saw the TV news and it looked like a much-too-busy web page.

When whoever-it-was president was in a wheelchair, the media intentionally avoided showing that aspect of him because they didn’t want him to be seen as weak. Now we want to know every character flaw and we will not stop until we find one – even if we have to Make It Up. The media has contests to see which one can “break” sordid information on public figures fast enough. It’s called “metrics” and people’s jobs and salaries depend on that sort of stuff.

The other day I heard a report like, “fire crews have just arrived at a house fire in southern Wichita. The exact address, cause of the fire, and whether anybody was in the house is not known at this time.” Now, what in the world is the use of that news? I’ll tell you what – metrics. They had to be the first in Wichita to have mentioned it, so that if it becomes important they can say you Heard It Here First.

Oh here’s another rant about metrics. Last I flew, prior to 9/11, in an effort to “improve” air service, they started keeping metrics on “on time” flights. This meant flights leaving on time; the airline complained they could not control arrival times so it’s unfair. So guess what they did? Once on a hot summer day with a full flight to Newark or somewhere, they pushed us away from the gate, where we sat an hour and a half for a paperwork procedure they had to get signed off before we could depart. They left the gate, knowing specifically we would sit in a poorly ventilated airplane, pushed back only maybe 50 feet from where our puzzled relatives are waving to us from the air conditioning, for at least an hour. Why did they pack us in the plane to bake? Because it “makes their metrics look bad” to show late departure. Technically, since they pushed away from the gate, even though they had to have a technician come in from off the golf course to sign a piece of paper because of a faulty fuel gauge, the flight went down as On Time and the crew kept their good standing.

Bean counters. That’s what’s wrong. Faulty sub-optimization. Meaningless metrics by which promotions and power and money are determined. People sitting in meetings with charts stewing over how to Fix The Shop when if they’d get out of the darn meeting room and go talk to the People Who Work In The Shop Everyday they might find out the shop people already know how to fix themselves, if we would only allow them to.

Alan

 

[springbreeze]

Dear friend

Secularism .

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[CatQuilt]

This might make folks think…

**1963 Communist Goals
******The following was entered into the Congressional record by Albert Herlong, Jr. (a Floridian who served in Congress from 1949-69) in 1963.http://www.glennbeck.com/production/logos/Glenn-Beck-logo-bw-150.gif
15) Capture one or both of the political parties in the US
16) Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17) Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism, and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in text books.
18) Gain control of all student newspapers
19) Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20) Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21) Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.
22) Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings”, substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.
23) Control art critics and directors of art museums. " Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art".
24) Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25) Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography, and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
26) Present Homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy”.
27) Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch”
28) Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state”
29) Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30) Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man”.
31) Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of “the big picture:” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32) Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture - - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
35) Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI
36) Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37) Infiltrate and gain control of big business
38) Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.
39) Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40) Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41) Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42) Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a “united force” to solve economic, political, or social problems.​

found on the Glenn Beck website

I’m not saying that all that is wrong with American society was caused by a secret Communist plot but as I said, it is thought-provoking…

I’ll add the following, Feminism (women must work outside the home in order to be fulfilled, so either abort the kids or dump them in daycare and let other raise them)…

What killed the Black middle class? the Welfare State created by LBJ’s Great Society. Why should young girls get married when they can get paid by the Govenrment for their babies?

 

[CatQuilt]

In the 1940’s, a man by the name of Alfred Kinsey, did ‘research’ on human sexuality…

Fox Searchlight Films’ new movie Kinsey, about “sex researcher” Alfred C. Kinsey, was released on November 12, 2004. The film, directed by gay activist Bill Condon and starring Liam Neeson, presents Dr. Kinsey as a personally tormented man, but also as a legitimate scientist whose driving concern was to learn all he could about human sexuality for scientific reasons. The real Alfred Kinsey was not an objective scientist, and certainly not an emotionally well man. The information below is designed to help you learn the truth about Kinsey, his fraud and his crimes, and what you can do combat his influence in your community.

link to more info

 

[springbreeze]

CatQuilt:

In the 1940’s, a man by the name of Alfred Kinsey, did ‘research’ on human sexuality…

link to more info

Dear friend

Communism is just another ‘idealism’, another ‘ism’, happily following after Secularism, the Godless society.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[Jenlyn]

Birth control pills.

 

[CatQuilt]

CatQuilt:

This might make folks think…

1963 Communist Goals

I’m not really into conspiracy theories, but it is interesting that the ACLU was founded by Communists. Who has been more instrumental in removing religion from the public space…

 

[Pace]

Coolness. Sexiness. Hollywood.

The image caught our eye. Then the critics came in and taught us how to see that image. Now we are all addicted to critiqueing with just a glance…and giving the ‘thumbs down’ to execute. Did we accidentally execute the Lord… again?

 

[Contarini]

JimG:

Well, it may be that each generation has its own immoralities. But I feel constrained to put in a few good words for the ‘50’s since, growing up during that era, I didn’t particularly note that “hardness and materialism” were being glorified. Now, perhaps among the elite or the great Gatsby’s of the time, that was the case, but I didn’t see it in my own world.

And that was my point. A lot of what had already taken hold of the elites began filtering down to the “masses” in the later 20th century. At least that’s how I see it.

JimG:

(The elite of our own time are strikingly and unapologetically materialistic.)

Well, not the ones I know best (academics). There’s plenty of materialism among them, but it’s hardly unapologetic. On the contrary, I think the worst thing one can say about them is that they use language of social justice and liberation as a cover for a cynical materialism rooted in postmodernism. In other words, they sound as if they are ready to shoulder their rifles and march out to start a revolution, when in fact they live very comfortable life-styles and peddle their views at little or no personal expense. But as I said, that’s the worst way to put it. There is at least a cover of idealism, and that cover comes (it seems to me) largely from the 60s. Now you may think that this idealism is misguided at best (with which I’d largely agree) and demonic at worst. But it’s not the kind of thing Lewis is talking about, and of which I’ve seen other evidence as well from the mid-20th century (Ayn Rand is perhaps the most glaring example of this kind of thing turned into an official ideology). In other words, however selfish and materialistic many left-wing academics are, they at least feel the need to claim to be working for a just society in which the oppressed and marginalized will be delivered from their suffering.

JimG:

At the same time, black families were largely intact; and that is no longer the case. Somehow, in saving the black family, we have managed to destroy it.

I agree with that statement absolutely.

JimG:

Actually, there was no sex. But then, there isn’t supposed to be any among school children, is there? It wasn’t that some boys didn’t try. It was mainly that girls uniformly and universally said no. Second base, if not first, was their limit. Parents simply did not worry about their kids having sex, because it didn’t happen.

That’s hard to believe, although you were there and should know. Would you consider restating it to say that resistance was far more socially encouraged/expected and hence far more common? That I can easily believe.

JimG:

Divorce was a rarity. Nobody I knew or any of their friends had parents who were divorced. Ronald Reagan divorced Jane Wyman and it nearly killed his career.

But divorce is quite common in movies from that period. I’m thinking of Best Years of Our Lives, for instance, where one character’s divorce from his sleazy wife is treated as the perfect solution to his problems so he can marry the nice innocent girl. Again, I’m sure that Hollywood was very different from ordinary people’s lives. But that’s precisely my point–stuff hadn’t filtered down yet.

I don’t disagree with a lot of what you are saying. I just think that a lot of seeds had already been sown and flowered in the 60s.

Actually, though I’m no expert, I get the impression that the 40s and 50s were more conservative than previous decades. So in a sense they were a relatively brief island, probably caused by war and the sense of being under siege. But the basic social forces were continuing to undermine traditional morality–the impression of an island of sanity was illusory (although I recognize that on the local level, in the experience of people like you, it was very real and something to be cherished).

I think we may be going through (or entering) a similar period after 9/11. But I think it’s important for Christians not just to jump on the social-conservative bandwagon, but to remember what happened last time around. We need to challenge a conservatism that is motivated mostly by the desire to preserve one’s way of life against foreign threats. This is not the same thing as the Gospel (which is the ultimate alien threat). If Christianity comes to be identified primarily as a “back-to-the-fifties” movement, then we will face an eventual backlash that will make the 60s look like the Age of Innocence. At least that’s how I see it.

That being said, I would love to have had the experience of growing up in a small town in the 50s. East Tennesee, where I grew up, is a very conservative part of the country, but the forces of dissolution are well underway there as well.

Edwin

 

[miguel]

JimG:

…But there’s no doubt—things were beginning to go bad. With contraception came promiscuity, divorce, abortion, and family breakups. Hugh Hefner found that naked women could be successfully marketed, and everybody else including advertisers got on that bandwagon.

Porn producers found big profits in video, internet, and pay-per-view.

Cable channels found that kids could be profitably marketed.

Sex educators found that increasing sexual promiscuity could create a big demand for their services…

I think you hit the nail on the head. Pope Paul VI prophetically pointed out where the general acceptance of contraception would lead in Humane Vitae (1968 not too long after the pill became available and after the Supreme Court ruled laws against contraception unconstitutional):

Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men—especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point—have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.
Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies. Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem? Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious? In such a way men, wishing to avoid individual, family, or social difficulties encountered in the observance of the divine law, would reach the point of placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy.

ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P6HUMANA.HTM

 

[JimG]

Contarini: Sorry, I guess you were thinking of academic elites; I was thinking of the Hollywood, literary, and business elites (i.e. Madonna, Trump, et al). Lots of conspicuous consumption there. (The hippies were a different story–not too much materialism, but a lot of narcissism.)

As far as movies, all I recall are the big musicals like Oklahoma, Music Man, Doris Day romances, Alfred Hitchcock mysteries, and Cinemascope blockbusters. In the movies, the guy always married the girl before they had sex (which was never on-screen.) Now it’s obligatory to demonstrate their love in a sex scene, even if they’re getting married in a few days (as in My Big Fat Greek Wedding).

I’ve had the high school sex discussion with a 30 year younger co-worker. He simply refuses to believe that no one at my high school was having sex. “You were just not in the right crowd,” he says. But it’s not that. If anybody was having sex, everybody would know. And my high school was not unusual in this. Yes, you could find the kids parked out in lover’s lane, but they weren’t getting too far. And you might find one or two, in some school across town, who had actually “done it,” but that would in any case be the town scandal for the year. “Resistance far more socially encouraged?” What can I say? Girls just didn’t do it! If they did, they became pariahs.

Up until sometime in the 1970’s, I believe, courses in Western Civilization were actually required in most colleges and universities, whether secular or Catholic. I recall my non-Catholic cousin commenting to me after his first year of college: “I never realized that up until the 1500’s, everybody was Catholic!” Now, one can go through four years of many universities without discovering that there ever was such a thing as Western civilization. And if there was, it was a bad thing.

In an earlier post, oldfogey cited 1957-58 as a possible turning point, and that seems about right. The social and sexual revolution, when it came, did not encounter much resistance from the seemingly solid Christians of the time. They seemed to welcome the new freedoms, only recently finding themselves sunk so far into the quicksand as to begin to object.

A strange thing, though: some of the new young priests coming out of the seminaries—they seem like 1950’s people.

 

[steve99]

JimG:

But we’re working on the white family as well. Among my classmates in elementary and high school, there were no pregnancies, no STD’s. Actually, there was no sex. But then, there isn’t supposed to be any among school children, is there? It wasn’t that some boys didn’t try. It was mainly that girls uniformly and universally said no. Second base, if not first, was their limit. Parents simply did not worry about their kids having sex, because it didn’t happen. Now, it seems, parents expect their children to have sex, and make sure that they have protection.

I’m a bit vague on the actual details of this, but I remember hearing about a study that was done comparing pre-marital sex at sometime in the 1st half of the 20th century with pre-marital sex a few hundred years earlier and found the rates of pregnant brides was about the same (30% I think). This was done by comparing marriage and births in parish registers. So there was plenty of pre-marital sex in the 50’s or earlier, but I don’t know what the average age of those concerned was.
However I believe from studies done the age of 1st sexual experience does seem to be dropping, and of course now no-one seems to think of getting married just because they are pregnant.

 

[FuzzyBunny116]

Contraception.