In the
previous century when California still elected Republican governors like
Reagan, Deukmejian, and Wilson, I penned an editorial for the San Diego Tribune that began with this
counterintuitive observation by Alfred North Whitehead: “Sometimes we see an
elephant, and sometimes we do not. The
result is that an elephant, when present, is noticed.” Though I subsequently explained Whitehead’s
meaning, the young editor at the soon to be defunct paper still did not grasp the
philosopher’s point, namely, that what constantly surrounds us is hard or
impossible to notice. Consequently, the
philosopher’s statement was altered to fit the editor’s cognitive parameters:
“. . . an elephant, when present, is not always noticed.” A more prosaic but
still apt comment by Allan Bloom in The
Closing of the American Mind might have passed editorial muster: “It may be
that a society’s greatest madness seems normal to itself.”
Either of
these observations could explain the blindness of never-Trumpers like George
Will who seem oblivious to America’s cultural wasteland. When national radio host Dennis Prager
recently interviewed Will about his book The
Conservative Sensibility, the columnist spoke confidently about the
strength of America’s institutions, presumably its economic, legal, and
political institutions. Not a second
thought was given to the corruption of political agencies like the IRS, DOJ,
FBI, and State Department under President Obama—corruptions designed to stifle
conservative political activism and to defeat and later unseat a lawfully
elected president.
Even that unprecedented
level of institutional corruption, however, pales in comparison with the
tsunami of decadence emanating from the powerful speech- and
thought-suppressing institutions of the culture: big tech, mainstream journalism, education at
all levels, pop-entertainment, and large swaths of advertising. Indeed, freedom of speech and religious
liberty have been under attack by these cultural despots for decades, and the attacks
are getting more brazen and far-reaching every day. Even non-conforming bakeries and flower shops are now targets for destruction,
alongside corporate entities like (“homophobic”) Chick-fil-A and
(“misogynistic”) Hobby Lobby for the high crimes of opposing same-sex marriage and,
in the latter case, resisting a federal mandate that compelled the business to
cover abortifacient methods of birth control.
It should also be noted that the Chick-fil-A calumny arose purely from
the owner’s support of traditional marriage, not from any discrimination
experienced by customers.
Perhaps
Will’s anti-Trump posture has spared him from the fascist tactics typically
employed to silence the likes of Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro. Shapiro, however, long ago made clear his
displeasure with the President, but Shapiro, unlike Will, is profoundly
conscious of the depths of America’s institutional depravity, an awareness doubtless
amplified by his traditional Jewish faith.
In short, Will seems nose-blind to the ongoing secular effluvia in which
he is professionally ensconced. Thus, he
appears relatively unperturbed when viewing the “transformational” shift in America’s
mores and customs over the last half century:
forty percent fatherlessness, profound confusion about male-female
distinctions, plummeting birth rates among non-immigrant Americans, mass legal
and illegal immigration, and a tidal wave of cultural crudity.
Anyone contemplating
contemporary America from the perspective of 1960 would see marauding elephants
devastating the country by stoking racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual animus—a
leftist political tactic that is ubiquitous but virtually impossible to
detect via a generalized Google search.
Our sixties voyeur would also be amazed at the frenzy for drug
legalization in a nation currently drowning in opioid hopelessness and urban
homelessness. He would be further astonished at the sordid mixture of pornography and political propaganda regularly dispensed by today’s comedians, actors, artists, journalists, and even politicians. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, for example, did
not shrink from employing an F-bomb in front of a packed arena audience that
included hundreds of kids, plus thousands watching on TV, when he celebrated the
city’s hockey championship in 2014. Yet
even that degree of decadence would appear tame when compared with the “celebration” of abortion, and even after-birth abortion in New York.
The proximate
origins of this cultural cesspool can be located in the triumph of the
electronic media when moral misfits in Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Manhattan,
and academia took the place of parents, ministers, and traditional teachers as
the primary molders of culture. (See the
concluding chapter, “What Went Wrong” in Moral Illiteracy. . . .) These corrupting forces
surround us all the time. Consequently, Seinfeld decadence seems non-existent when
compared to Jerry Springer, Two and a Half Men, or most rap lyrics. In addition, appealing commercial slogans
designed to promote “fun” and eliminate difficult or unpleasant tasks (like
grammar or working one’s way through school) have replaced temperance, courage,
wisdom, and virtue as life’s primary goals.
Moreover, these ephemeral aspirations are supposedly achievable via
political nostrums that rival “Make a wish upon a star” in audacity. “Anything your heart desires will come your
way”—free medical care, free college, legalized drugs without negative
consequences, free abortions, the gender of your choice, energy without fossil
fuels, et cetera.
As Allan Bloom commented thirty years ago, “Parents
can no longer control the atmosphere of the home and have even lost the will to
do so.” In their stead stand “the
purveyors of junk food for the soul,” among them various entertainments that
have “all the moral dignity of drug trafficking.” No rehashing of Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind will alter these
entrenched and corrosive realities that have brought us to the brink of cultural
and political collapse. As John Adams
correctly observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a
moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any
other.” Mr. Will doesn’t appear to be
aware of the fact (or to care very much) that these categories no longer apply
to those who control America’s most powerful cultural institutions. The destructive elephants that have been running
amok for the last half century are, for the eloquent secular pundit, invisible.
Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in
Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy:
"Who's to Say?" is also available
on Kindle
