It is a Big problem - that has been ongoing and increasing for something like 250 years - that more and more people have stopped wanting "the past" - and, even those that do want it in theory and as an ideal, cannot actually do it.
This is the case for Christianity (in all its types), and it is the case in every area of culture of which I am aware.
Modern Christianity is (much) worse than the past, but there are never enough people to prevent the present, and those who want the past don't want it enough, or else (when push comes to shove) can't actually do essential bits of it. Modern pseudo-Christianity takes over, and dies - but the traditionalist shrink, are overwhelmed by politics and infighting - and yet become more theoretically extreme and hard-line in their fantasies and aspiration of "how things could be" if only...
The present is rubbish, yet the past has no traction.
Same in classical (and no even popular) music; the same in politics and government, science, medicine, law, education, journalism, the police and military... the same everywhere.
The same in marriage and the family.
All significant changes in all domains of living turn-out to be net-destructive; yet the good stuff somehow is not preserved; because somehow people don't want it enough... or can't justify why they want it - or they want it but cannot actually live it when the chips are down.
Therefore; whatever the future holds - it is neither going to be a recurrence of the past nor a continuation of the self-annihilating present.
We can of course, and nearly-everybody does, be either reactionaries or radicals; but both are futile.
Reaction is futile because of the above, but radicalism is futile because it continually destroys-itself, and leads only towards a situation of chaos that only demons and their mind-controlled puppets would actually desire.
Yet, here we are, you and me.
We can be sure that we all have potential access to salvation and the guidance and sustenance of the Holy Ghost (else we would not be here in the first place); and in our actual lives have experiences and lessons that are potentially of great value for eternity (else we would not be sustained alive).
So, although I see no grounds for optimism in societal terms; there is every reason for hope in personal terms.
it's not that, say, 'marriage' or 'music' or 'religion' are worse. they are no longer. not as collective culture. that doesn't exist. or is very close to not existing anymore. because spirit and body go together, the fragmentation of society is inevitable when there are sufficient numbers of people with individual consciousness. because each of these is a culture unto itself (or can be). having said this, it's like Lewis says: evil gets eviler and good gets gooder. perhaps most marriages are terrible (or don't even happen), but a few are holier than they could have been before: because they are fully chosen. good taste in music today has more value too. and on and on for everything including religion. so the present and the future are very bleak. but also, in some way, bright. it's just... the two are diverging and coexisting more and more. it's very strange but i think part of what needs to happen. so we can have bonds in the next life based on love alone.
ReplyDelete@Laeth - wrt marriage. It's not the same as with social institutions (like governments, schools, or law courts) - because marriage is ultimately or even primarily Not a social institution.
ReplyDeleteThe way I would put it is that marriage *as an institution* is in terrible shape.
What we now have is relationships between two people, that depend (very fully, if not completely) on those two people.
And, as you say; this Can be very good indeed, exactly because the relationship is not much subverted or muddied by social institutional aspects.
@Bruce, agreed. that's precisely what i was saying. but i think the same has to be true for everything else, for everything shared.
ReplyDeleteman and woman are the foundation. then children. family. village. culture. etc. that's the ideal, is what i mean. but the possibility of the ideal has enormous costs, and implications, of course. the irony is that you can't put the genie of consciousness back in the bottle. no more middle ground.