It is the casual, blandness of modern corruption which is so very disturbing...

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A few days ago I watched the pilot episode of the TV comedy M*A*S*H - viewed now (in contrast with my atheist teenage impression) it was very crude, obvious, in-your-face propaganda for the sexual revolution, pacifism and Leftism-in-general.

But, in its favour was that it was indeed crude, obvious, in-your-face and knew exactly what it was doing and why.

It was demonic, knew it was demonic - and revelled in the opposition that its demonic nature would evoke.

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Now we live in a world (I live in a world) where the attitude to historically-unprecedented, extreme and self-destructive behaviours is casual, bland - either indifference or mild-approval.

So, there is a decades-long epidemic of (among other things) extreme drunkenness, a cult of government-pushed gambling, incrementally expanding self-defacement (tattooing), self-mutilation (piercing of tongues, lips, faces etc), moralistic but astonishing triviality and small-minded spiteful vendettas or witch-hunts; and an active state policy of aggression towards marriage, parents, families, decency, subversion against once-valued and useful institutions - and all the rest of it...

And the general public response is... passivity, acceptance. A shrug or a wry-smile at most.

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The freshness and aggression of the sixties counter-culture was part of a society which was culturally at war - and knew it was at war.

But modern corruption is one of surrender: we live in the soma-drugged Brave New World of Huxley, we are the Eloi of Well's Time Machine, Cowslip's warren from Watership Down - we dwell in the situation of dull, routine officially-sanctioned sin described in C.S Lewis's follow-up to the 'Letters' volume - Screwtape Proposes a Toast...

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