What Remains To Be Seen?

     Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. – Originator unknown

     Have you ever heard someone use the phrase “That remains to be seen” to dismiss an argument someone else was making? If you’re above-average eloquent, perhaps you’ve used it yourself. It’s a polite way of doing an impolite thing, much the same as replacing “You’re wrong” with “That turns out not to be the case.” (Or “Are you quite sure of that?” delivered in a mock-solicitous tone, rather than “You need to see your brain-care specialist.”) One who has mastered phrases like that is usually embarked on a career in some disreputable occupation, such as politics.

     Of course, there are propositions for which the evidence is not conclusive…yet. There are many such propositions floating around today. Let’s have a look at a few samples.

1. America’s “Multicultural” Society Is Doomed.

     I think it was Mark Steyn who first said that the acceptance of “multiculturalism” is a form of “societal Stockholm syndrome.” This is a telling formulation, for large variations in cultural norms tend to engender intercultural hostility. There’s certainly enough hostility on display today to compel us to ask whether there must be a confrontation that ends with one or another culture supreme and all the others either accepting subjugation or fleeing the country. In such confrontations, the one that’s first to “go militant” tends to have a large advantage.

     Much printer’s ink has been expended to rationalize the rampant crime and violence of American blacks as a mere cultural difference. If we take that at face value, the contrast between a law-abiding homeowner and the home invader who victimizes him is merely an outcropping of “multiculturalism.” And of course, the same could be said about such specimens as strong-arm robber Michael Brown, late of Ferguson, Missouri. Larger instances of such “cultural variations” were observable during the riots of 2020.

     Is it possible for a society founded on public order, a high degree of trust, and open access to “public accommodations” such as retail stores can endure the burgeoning of such “cultural variations?” Or can such variations be tamed and somehow regularized? That remains to be seen.

2. Without The Judeo-Christian Ethic, The Law Is Impotent.

     A memorable brief video from Clay Christensen puts that proposition nicely:

     Rose Wilder Lane was of the same opinion:

     The real protection of life and property, always and everywhere, is the general recognition of the brotherhood of man. How much of the time is any American within sight of a policeman? Our lives and property are protected by the way nearly everyone feels about another person’s life and property.

     Lane’s and Christensen’s reasoning is persuasive. Yet there are nations – apparently stable ones – in which the Judeo-Christian ethic is far from dominant. How those nations maintain stability is something to study. It involves totalitarian rule whether autocratic or oligarchic, a disarmed populace, a large, mobile, and powerful force to keep order and suppress dissent, and a far lower degree of affluence than that achieved in the United States.

     The “freedom from religion” movement that first began to blossom in the Sixties may yet be seen as the most destructive though superficially non-violent force ever loosed upon a Western nation. It did not target any of the toxic religions (e.g., Islam, Satanism). Rather, it set its sights on Christianity specifically, almost absolutely. Christianity, in its several flavors, is the source of the ethic for the great majority of the persons of this nation; without it, the young are without an ethical mooring. Far too many go adrift.

     Does the degree of law-abidingness and public order we can enjoy depend upon the near-unanimous acceptance of the Judeo-Christian ethic? Or must we allow that such a society is possible without that ethic, even though no such society exists today? That remains to be seen.

3. Sexual Perversion Is The Entering Wedge For Chaos.

     Leftists used to get upset about the U.S. selling weapons to despotic states that were then used to kill women and children, but now they are too concerned about transvestites being allowed to waggle their genitals in front of children to worry about human rights. — Arthur Sido

     “Bringing the war home” – i.e., using the American media to upset Americans over conflicts in other lands where American weapons could be found – was a Leftist tactic for fomenting domestic unrest and opposition to the current federal administration. However, the Left found that it only works to satisfaction when American soldiers are fighting and dying in the conflict of interest. Whether the conflict is one in which the United States has a legitimate interest is essentially irrelevant. No one cares much when America’s sons aren’t on the line. After Vietnam, the Left had to find a new tactic with which to stimulate chaos.

     It found one in sex.

     The original “sexual revolution” of the Sixties was probably not a designed and planned thing, but rather an outcropping of other developments. Consider the decline in fertility, the growing social acceptance of divorce, the availability of cheap and convenient contraception, and the “youth movement.” All of that could have been kept within acceptable bounds. For a time, it was. But the Left spotted an opportunity.

     Homosexuality, bisexuality, promiscuity, and the sexualization of children provided fertile soil for undermining families and thus critically destabilizing the social order. The infiltration of the schools with “sex education” curricula under the rationale of “combatting teen pregnancy” and “fighting venereal disease” was the key. Few Americans realized at first how vital the old norm of heterosexual fidelity was to the structure of our society. But Lenin and others of his persuasion knew. The American Left followed their lead.

     Hearken to the brilliant Arne Stromberg of Gallatin University:

     “Families are the fundamental building blocks of a stable society. Extended families — clans — are the best conceivable environment for the rearing of children, the perpetuation of a commercial forte, and the germination of new families and their ventures. A clan like yours, Miss Albermayer, conserves a brilliant genetic line and a priceless medical specialty at the same time. A clan like yours, Mr. Morelon, makes possible a benign agricultural empire and produces natural leaders one after another while connecting Hope to its most distant origins. And all healthy families, which cherish life and bind their members to one another in unembarrassed love, can find far more to occupy and amuse them than they need.”
     Teresza’s mind lit with memories of the way the Morelons had enfolded her and made her one of them. No day could have been long enough for all they had to say and do and share with one another.
     “When Earth’s regard for families and their most fundamental function deteriorated, her people ceased to enjoy the sorts of ties that had held them together throughout the history of Man. Without families, and especially without children, they groped for other things to fill their time, whether to give them a sense of purpose, or to distract them from the waning of their lives. Some invested themselves in industry or commerce, but without the sense of the family line to be built up and made prominent, those things failed to satisfy. Others immersed themselves in games, toys, fripperies, and increasingly bizarre forms of entertainment, which palled on them even faster. Still others made a fetish out of sex; there was a substantial sex industry on Earth, though it tended to operate in the shadows and was seldom openly discussed. They needed emotion and substance, but all they could contrive was sensation and novelty, and they pumped an ever greater share of their effort and wealth into seeking them. That’s my thesis, for what it’s worth.”

     The weakening of the Judeo-Christian ethic made an inroad for sexual perversions of every sort. Today we even have this:

     Is it possible to have a stable and affluent society without the family and heterosexual fidelity as not merely the prevailing norms, but as requirements for social participation? Is it possible to have a stable, affluent society that doesn’t follow that pattern? That really remains to be seen.