The young always believe that what they believe is not only true but morally superior to what their elders believe. Yet in the present age it is clear that the beliefs of the young must generally be false, since what the young believe changes radically from one generation to another, and clearly not every generation of youth can be sole possessors of both truth and virtue. Most likely, none are. On the contrary, it is pretty clear that every generation is sold a load of rubbish by the media and by what Britain's next prime minister has called corduroy-jacketed, snaggletooth, lefty academics.
Peter Hitchens, who's been around for a while since swallowing the Trotskyite Kool Aid that dominated the progessive youth of his day, made clear in an interview about his book,
the Abolition of Britain, how radically ideas change from generation to generation.
In brief, he says:
People no longer believe in certain things,
he says, meaning by reference to "people," grown-up people, not the Troskyite youth of his day.
The change, he says,
is not a positive thing. ... We've seen a decay of something.
What has decayed, he says, is:
the Christian belief that used to inform every action and thought in this country (Britain) and now doesn't.
See the interview on Hitchens' book: The Abolition of Britain |
Thus one sees that what H.L. Mencken call the acids of modernity are able not only to entirely destroy a civilization, as a moral, cultural and intellectual way of thought and life, but to bring about a similar revolution with every generation. Young people need to think about that a bit. Are they really the vanguard of a new enlightenment, or the dupes of snaggletoothed lefty academics, to use a phrase coined by Britain's next Prime Minister, wading into an ever deeper civilizational swamp.
No comments:
Post a Comment