The Genesis story of Creation (one of them anyway) ends each day's labor with the phrase "And God saw that it was good". I am not a biblical literalist, but in it I find extensive philosophical inspiration and moral guidance. If we are in God's image then we have also the power to create, and as a species we certainly have. Mechanically, structurally, morally- we have created in all these spheres. What we have not seemed to ask ourselves is if our creations are good. It is enough that we created them for us to approve of them.
But it is essential to ask if what we created is good. It is easy to measure that in personal terms, but we must also measure in societal terms. If we all lived separately then individual good could be a reasonable measure, but since we live communally collective good is every bit as much a measure. We must look at the fruit of our creative choices, and at what we are.
In 1964, when I was in grade school, we were proud of our founders, celebrating Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln. We fought an indigenous culture that had no written language or the wheel, and conquered them according to the values of the day. We took possession of a continent and exploited its resources to build the greatest industrial base in the world, and celebrated the men who did it as insutrial and commercial heroes. Their effort and industry were to be emulated.
In 1964 we were 20 years removed from winning the largest war in history, and while we didn't win WW2 by ourselves we were proud of what we did, and rightly so. At a visceral level, we rose up in response to a dastardly attck, and in righteous, vengeful fury destroyed two great nations. And there is no nice way to win a war. We burned down numerous cities, killed about a million civilians, used atomic weapons twice, and apologized for none of it.
In 1964, we had clear ideas of what male and female were, and clear archetypes for both. Men were expected to be hard-working, strong, resourceful, proud, self-controlled. Women were expected to be industrious, kind, the creators of beauty, order, and discipline, the maker and raiser of children.
We have created something very different now.
Some of that creation is admirable. Personal freedom and tolerance are greater than ever before. Blacks and other groups do not fear for lynchings or beatings simply as a risk of taking a walk (regardless of what the media tries to promulgate, such acts are rare). Interracial marriage, women getting schooling, toleration of homosexuality- all these things that were either literally illegal or frowned upon in 1960 are now ordinary. Women are considered the equal of men, and their sexual exploitation is not simply illegal but deeply frowned upon by the public.
Other parts are not so admirable.
Instead of being proud of winning and punishing our enemies, we whine and cringe about our 'misdeeds'. Instead of bombing Japanese civilians we should have negotiated, ignoring the fact that we had been doing so without effect. After 9/11, an even more dastardly attack on a civilian target, instead of harnessing our rage we made 'targeted' and 'surgical' and 'proportional' attacks. Obama actually went on an abasing apology tour to other nations. We are no longer proud of defending ourselves, do not have the will or pride to do it.
Instead of glorying in the conquest of a continent we abase ourselves trying to apologize to Indians and Blacks for taking their land and their labor. We are actively talking about reparations for slavery to a population that wasn't enslaved, most of whom have no slave ancestors, and all of whom live in far better conditions than if they were still in the lands of their births.
We are ashamed of the very acts and men whose creative effdort made us. Washington and Jefferson are denigrated as slave owners instead of celebrated as great leaders and thinkers. Lincoln is whispered to have been gay (on utterly specious grounds) by people who literally don't know what he did, or its constitutional and governmental consequences. We have functionally eliminated Columbus Day, taken down statues of the founder of the Americas. We now speciously honor Inuit indians who crossed a transcntinental bridge as the 'discoverers' of America, and if we absolutely have to honor a white man we say the Vikings (collectively) discovered America. The industrial giants who built our economy, and who donated their millions to cvreat concert halls, libraries, parks, colleges, and art museums are being ignored as 'privileged white men'.
In less than 15 years, gender dysphoria has gone from a 1/10,000 psychiatric condition to a 1/200 condition of which we are supposed to be celebratory. Trans women are chosen 'woman of the year', allowed to race, pee, and change with normal women. Even the word 'normal women' is a violation, for which I should be castigated as a cis-gendered transphobe.
While we ignore our founders, both political and economic, we have an entire month given over to gay pride. We are teaching prepubsecent children about homosexual sex acts (?why are we even talking about sex acts of any kind to 6 year olds in school?). We are shutting down web sites and pursuing federal and state prosecution of sites that do not agree with these social positions.
BLM riots are called 'peaceful protests'. These peaceful events left 19 dead and more than 1 billion in total property damage.
In the name of eliminating 'systemic racism' we do not prosecute shoplifting, public intoxication, public defecation, homelessness, or loitering.
And out of these moral and physical acts, we have created an emotional and physical miasma.
After 9/11 we are left with a resiudum not so much of dead buildings as of dead self-respect. We have destreoyed the intellectual and emotional edifices of our national definition, and replaced them wtih....nothing. No national heroes, no values to emulate, no history to learn as good. America is now defined not by collective, shared values, but only by some amorphous idea of personal freedom.
The cities mainly affected by BLM rioting have seen dramatic descreases in downtown businesses and business activity. Portland has lost 20% of its downtown businesses in 2 years, Seattle and Minneapolis nearly the same. The refusal to prosecute crime has led to its increase. Stores have abandoned central Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis. We have a model for this- Detroit- but no one seems to care as we try to combat the chimera of 'racism'.
These are not good results; they are chaos. And there are people who try to defend, even celebrate, these results in the name of freedom and equality. Others tell us simply to ignore them as long as they are not happening to us.
But we can't ignore, we can't put on blinders and say 'it's not happening to me'. For all those who believe this is good and progress, I ask-
-Will you stay in the downtowns of these decaying cities, without guards or a gun, relying on the police you wanted to defund?
-Do you want your son to be gay? Do you rejoice if he is?
-Do you want your daughter to cut off her breasts, take hormones, and grow a clitoris capable of intercourse?
-Do you want the US to cringe and whine while we import our goods?
Just as God looked upon His creation, we should look on ours, and simply ask if it is good. I think we all know the answer.
Ted
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