Sunday, September 30, 2007
Take the good, leave the bad
Like many other conservatives, I’ve become quite dismayed at the decline of our culture. It is evident in many ways - educational standards that have been reduced and refocused on pointless things, the near complete lack of any original art of any value, the slow degradation of moral standards, entertainment that is crude, pointless, and really a thinly veiled vehicle for advertising, etc. All of these seemingly unrelated things tie together, as results of the glorification of the masses - a lynchpin of the progressive agenda.
That’s not really want I wanted to discuss here. This is about my reaction to it all.
When I was younger, I knew there was something wrong with our culture, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I hated our society, and I wanted no part of it. I threatened to move into a cave and become a hermit.
As I grew older and more intellectually capable of analyzing the situation, my dismay only grew stronger. How could people have taken this wonderful thing called America and screwed it up this badly? And then rabidly call for more of the same, because clearly it isn’t screwed up enough? Every conservative victory I saw ended up reversed wholly or partially, while creeping socialism infected our government and our culture.
I saw no possible victory, I only saw a slow decline into socialism. I had to get out. I investigated other countries, to see if there was some place that would be better for me. There wasn’t. A friend and I started making plans to get rich and buy an island somewhere, to live away from the rest of the world. It was a joke, with a grain of truth at it’s core.
I got to the point where I was stressing myself out, so unhappy was I with the state of the world. It affected my outlook on everything.
Then, slowly, elements of understanding came together.
I began to understand the inevitability of it all. I began to understand that if you dig into the annals of history, the cyclic nature of civilizations becomes readily apparent. I began to understand that individuals that single-handedly influenced the course of history were extremely rare. Far more often, people of note were merely the embodiment of a movement that took place behind the scenes, the face of something much larger than themselves. If that particular person hadn’t been involved, the same events would have occurred, with someone else in their place.
Simply, I began to understand that the forces of history are much larger and infinitely more powerful than me, and that raging at them is as futile as raging against a roaring freight train.
This led to several things. First, an acceptance of my place in the world. To rage against the world is an act of supreme arrogance, thinking that the world, as big and complicated as it is, even cares what I think. Second, I no longer felt responsible for changing it - the weight of the world was off my shoulders.
Just as those responsibilities fell away, others took their place. I felt responsible for preserving the good in the world that has been lost, and passing it on to others and to the next generation. I felt the obligation to become a custodian of the culture that we are leaving behind.
The one thing that made the most difference - I no longer felt a need to escape. In my prior analysis of places to live, I learned very quickly that despite all of it’s flaws, America still is by far the best place to be. Even as our freedoms are compromised and eroded, as more and more of our wealth is confiscated and transferred to others, not only is everywhere else worse in these respects, but only here is there a tradition of freedom and liberty. That tradition lives on to this day, in individuals that are just as unhappy with the state of our culture as I am.
It was then that I developed a personal philosophy that I’ve applied to many aspects of life - take the good, leave the bad. I can enjoy the good aspects of America while isolating myself as much as possible from the bad aspects. If I don’t like the educational system, I will homeschool. If I don’t like my entertainment options, I’ll ditch the TV and hit the library. If I don’t like the food options, I’ll grow my own. If I don’t like the culture, I’ll refuse to participate in it.
I still occasionally get angry when I hear about some particularly stupid or intrusive government proposal, but unless it affects me directly, my ire generally fades much more quickly than it used to. Take the good leave the bad has brought me a sense of peace that I didn’t know before. It’s made me much less self-conscious about the decisions I make, as I no longer have any expectations of other people seeing the world the same way I do. Individuals are largely representatives of the masses, and as such, I have no expectations of anyone having similar values or a similar philosophy to mine. When I do find someone similar, it’s a rare treat.
Take the good, leave the bad has caused me to refocus my energies. Rather than being angry at the world, I look more inward, to learning about history, culture, and the humane life, to working toward increasing our independence from mainstream culture, to bringing up children in a completely different environment than most. I try to expose them to this culture that I appreciate, hoping to instill in them a love for it while they are still young. This, I think, will be my greatest contribution to the world - children that see modern culture for what it is, and choose something different of their own free will.
That is how change happens. One person, and one family, at a time.
Comments
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Take the good & leave the bad seems like a good strategy for relieving stress and for avoiding absorbing those less beneficial aspects of culture. We have to be careful, though, not to drop out completely. I don’t think I can, in good conscience, completely ignore the bad aspects of our culture.
We’ve all heard that “all that is necessary for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing.” I believe that.
I think we have to continue to work against the negative elements. It can be as simple as conversations with people that leave them thinking.
You work against the culture by home schooling your children, but working to preserve an ethic sadly lacking now, and by posting here.
I home school, write to my elected representatives, and work on the conversation thing. You do more than I do, and I hope by your example to expand what I do. Thanks for the inspiration.
Weetabix | 9/30/2007 10:40 PM CDT -
At one time, I did want to withdraw completely and let society collapse on it’s own. I don’t feel that way now.
I do feel compelled to work towards preserving what good there is about this country we’ve inherited. That means voting and being politically active.
Even more than that, I feel compelled to reach out to other people with similar ideals. I don’t expect the country to give up socialism, but I do hope that individual people can be encouraged to do the right thing for their families.
American Farmer | 10/1/2007 07:18 AM CDT -
I’d like to think that you’re right ... that decent individuals will do the right thing for their families.
I’d LIKE to think so.
BUT ... I “know” that ain’t gonna happen. People allow their children to be ruined in an education system that exists so that others can indoctrinate children, and so that a privileged class - quasi-teachers - can be supported for life.
People allow the government to be responsible for their health. I recall an old adage where the punchline is “if you don’t have health, you don’t have anything” ... and people allow a bunch of lazy interfering bureaucrats to dictate their health?
We have a group of (basically) non-contributors - AARP - actively trying to force taxpayer (which, in most cases, they are not) supported healthcare—with commercials using young children. The good ole liberal mantra ... “it’s for the children.” Yeah! If you want robots rather than original thinkers.Oh, and art? Why should we get decent or new art when support of art is forced on us by government fiat? The so-called artists know what the dreck who manage the departments buying art want, and give to them ... same sh!t, different day.
Back in the day ... artists had to produce what SOLD, or starve.When I was young, I despaired of the direction Canadian (and US) society and decided not to have any children. I have to admit I have seldom regretted that choice.
pete in Midland | 10/1/2007 09:51 AM CDT -
Pete, you are right. However, I think you misinterpret my meaning. I don’t cast a net that large. I have no intention of trying to change the world. I only hope to influence one little corner of it.
I don’t have any expectations of society at large changing in any significant way. If all I do with my life is put a few well-rounded intelligent children out in society, I will have considered my life a success. If others see what I do and are inspired to do likewise, so much the better.
American Farmer | 10/1/2007 10:08 AM CDT -
I have every intention of changing the world… one person at a time.
Mrs. du Toit | 10/1/2007 11:12 AM CDT -
Good piece.
Thought long and hard about home schooling but decided that I wanted to have a say in what the end product of the local schools was and I need the kids there to have that vested interest. In all honesty I have to say I have been far more impressed with the vast majority of unionized public school teacher than I have been with the parents of my kids peers.
If the schools are “abandoned” by those who can leave, look at Seattle as the perfect example, then you WILL have a savage underclass that robs, rapes, murders, tortures at will.
If I am forced to shoot people I really prefer them to not be Americans.
I also think that there might be a wee bit of romanticism regarding the purity of the Arts and Culture in the past. I hate rap almost as much as I hate opera.
Dbltap | 10/1/2007 01:24 PM CDT -
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
I have been thinking about things like this a lot lately: things like, and Mrs. du Toit’s “will of the people” (attribution, not scare quote) post from a week or two back, and some other things. It is clear that we cannot hope to solve everything for all time; we cannot hope, in particular, to solve problems that have been three or four generations in the making, in the space of a Presidential term...much as we Americans would like to do. Fred! may be twelve stories tall and made of radiation, but even a miracle man can do only so much. </snark>
That said, we are, I believe, in broad agreement that we are trying to preserve America. But is America the geographic/sociopolitical construct necessarily the same thing as America, the last best hope of suffering humanity? Can both be preserved simultaneously?
“Nay, though all things must come utterly to and end in time, Gondor shall not perish yet. Not though the walls be taken by some reckless foe that will build a wall of carrion before them. there are still other fastnesses, and secret ways of escape into the mountains. Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley, where the grass is green.”
I do not know that we will be able to simultaneously preserve both the sweet land of liberty and the product of Manifest Destiny much longer, because there are a lot of people, as Mrs. du Toit points out, who want something entirely different from liberty.
I do know, however, which of the two I prefer. Should the would-be subjects have resources enough (whether from George Soros, overseas assistance from places with no love for liberty either, or wherever else) to carry the day, I would like our well-rounded and intelligent children and grandchildren to have an alternative to knowing themselves to be slaves and cursing our memories. Bill Quick over at his place has opined that if the Supreme Court agrees to hear Parker v. District of Columbia, and rules in favor of the collective rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, that among the immediate consequences will be the summoning of a Constitutional Convention. I tend to agree, and am on record as stating we should go ahead and call one in any case (and will do my level best to be named a delegate), as a means of either settling existing Constitutional questions, or of breaking up the Union into separate nations of free people and socialists, without a cataclysm.
MiddleAgedKen | 10/1/2007 03:05 PM CDT -
Wow. I could have written this myself, only I’m not quite done wanting to be a hermit or rage against it all. (Oh, and I was going to buy an island with a friend, only, since we were both in an evolution class at the time, we’d decided to bring a small group of like minded people with us and attempt to cause a speciesization event and because a new species of hominid. Um. Yea.)
But I can stand society, so I just quit my job to homeschool my kids. I’m apparently still trying to find a way to be a hermit.
(A constitutional convention? I seriously doubt it. But if someone even talks about one, I’m seriously thinking of stocking up on weapons and foods and running off to the middle of nowhere, because it’ll probably mean civil war.)
silvermine | 10/5/2007 11:50 AM CDT
