What is the point?

What is the point, you may have asked yourself, to these great thoughts that are being thunk? It is a question worth asking, and answering. But before we go there I think it might be profitable to spend some time putting the big picture together. This will give us some context for our future discussions, a framework to place the various puzzle pieces we examine.

First of all, it is my view that we aren’t headed for a glorious future filled with human accomplishment. I don’t know how long it will take us to not reach that end, but we are inexorably moving away from it. That was a backward way of saying that we’re headed towards an uninviting destination in the proverbial hand-basket. Of course, this outlook is colored by events happening in America that aren’t necessarily representative of the rest of the world, but I don’t think that matters. As an example, Mark Steyn has written in “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It” about the rapidly changing demographic in Europe, citing the low birth rates of the ethnic European peoples at the same time that immigration and the high birth rates of the Islamic people in Europe are already altering the political landscape and in as little as a decade or two that continent will be controlled by persons who lack a Western cultural heritage and are followers of an extremist religious philosophy bent upon domination and extermination of all who hold an opposing point of view. So, the bad news is all around us.

And the evidence pointing to this conclusion can be found in a variety of places. The shifts in cultural mores, political thought, economic conditions and geo-politics can all be indicators of the overall direction of life. I recognize, however, that others might look at the same set of conditions or circumstances that I am viewing and come to a dramatically different conclusion. That, in itself, is a strong argument in favor of my point. It used to be, not all that long ago, that Americans shared a fairly consistent view of the world. This view was independent of ethnic, economic or religious background. There was a common understanding that some things were right and some things were wrong. Kids didn’t grow up as hooligans because even when parents weren’t around there were always friends, neighbors and society to censure and decry shameful behavior. In fact, as a society we’ve entirely lost our sense of shame. How else can you explain the debased and moronic antics that pass for humor and entertainment on TV and in the movies? In some ways I can find sympathy for the revulsion that religious Islamists feel toward our society. I can’t sympathize with their extreme positions, but I think I know where they’re coming from.

I’ll pick up this thread next time and we’ll see where it goes from here.