Briefly Noted: Modern Social Collapse

Today looks to be a busy day for reading and writing, so I want to start with some relatively brief items.

The idea that modern Western society is in a state of collapse is hardly original—the roots are deep and subtle, but the symptoms have been evident for quite some time. Increasingly so. And the Covid Regime has exposed them in undeniable ways.

Two articles at American Greatness today discuss some of the manifestations of this collapse. Religion is the soul of any society and, as Dennis Prager points out, that soul is corrupted to a degree that should alarm even non-believers:

COVID-19 and the Failure of America’s Major Religions

Churches and synagogues will pay a price as people will gradually come to understand how weak their religious leaders were. Many of their congregants simply may not return.

Of course, my point is not that the organized religious bodies “will pay a price” for siding with the Covid Regime against their adherents. Society as a whole is paying a price for the betrayal and will continue to do so. Organized religion has, throughout Western history, been one of the most powerful restraints on the bad behavior of the secular authorities. The history is long and complex, so I’ll leave it at that statement.

Prager hits on a key factor, using Judaism as his example:

And what has animated most Jews—and nearly all non-Orthodox (and more than a few modern Orthodox) synagogues—to obey irrational and immoral rules of secular authorities?

One obvious answer is that most non-Orthodox Jews are on the Left. And the Left lives in fear (of COVID-19, of global warming, of secondhand smoke, of diving boards, and much else) and is prepared to subvert any freedom to assuage their fears. In any event, freedom is not a left-wing value; it is a liberal value. But most liberals, Jewish and non-Jewish, support the Left.

There are two other, less obvious, reasons for the unquestioning obedience of most synagogues and other Jewish institutions. One is that Jews tend to idolize doctors and the other is that Jews tend to unquestioningly obey “experts.” “Experts say” is to most non-Orthodox Jews what “Thus says the Lord” is to most Orthodox Jews. Of course, non-questioning obedience to “experts” also characterizes many non-Jews; in fact, it characterizes most well-educated people. …

Prager doesn’t go into the history behind this, but it seems clear to me that most educated Americans are imbued—often unwittingly—with the spirit of the Progressive Era in American history. The optimistic notion that government education is the main force for social progress and goodness and that if we all get together in that spirit we can solve pretty much all societal ills.

Prager hints at these dynamics, although not as explicitly as I would prefer. He also frames the issue in a way, and using terminology, that avoids addressing the pressing questions of exactly what “religions” are? Is there a secular “religion,” for example, that explains the behavior of liberals? Are “Right” or “conservative” appropriate words to describe some or all “religious” people? It turns out that “religion” may be a word that obscures insight into these matters. However …

… most religious institutions and leaders have become largely indistinguishable from their secular counterparts. With the exception of attending church or synagogue, most Christians and Jews think and act like most secular Americans.

Regarding COVID-19, most religious leaders have been as scared as most secular leaders. And regarding fear, the only major difference between Americans has not been between religious and secular, but between Right and Left. Conservative clergy have been less scared than liberal clergy, just as conservative nonreligious Americans have been less scared than liberal nonreligious Americans. Which, of course, prompts the question: Does religion make people wiser, better and more courageous? Or has religion largely become something that serves only to make adherents feel good?

Since our constitutional order is one of representative government it follows that we should pick educationally credentialed experts to lead us, and the task of the non-representatives is to obediently follow and to evangelize those less enlightened. And punish resisters. All of this has been very much in evidence during the course of the Covid Regime, including the ever more enthusiastic and ingenious punishment of resisters and even simple dissenters.

Prager suggests that Christans—in addition to the influence of the Progressive mindset that is so characteristic of the modern West—are disposed to obey secular authorities due to injunctions in the early Christian writings. I assume he’s referring to Paul’s words having to do with those who carry the sword. This, however, is simplistic. Paul’s injunction to obey those in authority is simply one side of the coin that is embodied in the Dominical injunction to render to Caesar … what is Caesar’s. Not what is God’s. But, since the rise of the nation states the strong tendency of our governing elites has been to identify the State as a type of god—omnipotent in all spheres except those in which social resistance is strong enough to enforce restraint on the authorities. Certainly since the French Revolution the Church has been aware of this looming threat, and of the need for believers to draw a line between the things of Caesar and those of God.

The difference now is that the leaders of organized religious institutions, imbued with the spirit of Progressive ideology, have come to see their duties as answering to state or—increasingly—globalist authority. It’s a basically Hegelian view dressed up in Judaic or Christian terminology. The clergy’s ambition is basically to be chaplains to the new ruling Progressive elite, who govern the earthly affairs of this new religion. Their job is bring their flocks along, to follow the globalist shepherds—like sheep. And this is exactly what we have seen the clergy, by and large, doing. The patently anti-knowledge nature of the Covid Regime have made no impression on most of these chaplains of the New Religious Order.

Prager’s article raises many profound and serious questions for citizens of the West, “going forward,” as we like to say. Primary among those issues is, if “religious leaders” have taken sides with the State, depriving society of a major form of restraint on authoritarian repression of the populace, who now will intermediate between rulers and subjects? Clearly the government run schools will not fulfill that function, and many of the religious bodies have been only too eager to abandon both roles: the role of being educators and the role of restraining the authorities. This should trouble all of us. Is the only recourse demonstrations in the street—or on the hiways? In a healthy society matters should not have come to this point.

The second article is more phenomenological—descriptive of what can happen in this state of affairs in a highly advanced country:

Darkest Moment of the Night in Austria

A large minority of Austrians suddenly woke up and saw in the full light of day that their constitutional and fundamental rights meant nothing.

I urge you to read the article to take in the shocking, even sadistic, measures that one group of citizens is ready, willing, and all too often eager to inflict on dissenters from a clearly irrational pandemic of fear. However, rather than catalog the examples, I want to quote from the article’s conclusion. The author notes the deep and dark nature of the societal and political crisis, while holding out a glimmer of hope. But that hope, as he says, rests on the willingness of ordinary people to insist on fundamental reform of the human spirit. This is what we, too are facing. Here in the US, and in Canada:

The crime perpetrated by the Austrian state is two-fold: First, it has acted as a shield for the legalized persecution and discrimination of the equally ill-defined “unvaccinated” in Germany, Italy, and France among others; secondly, it has stripped, with the support of the European Union, a large minority of its humanity and with it the idea of natural justice. 

The Jacobin “general good”—the idea that “we can sacrifice the individual to protect society at large”—now threatens to rule uncontested. 

While the darkest point of the night in 21st century Austria has not yet been reached (it will be when the state apparatus is in full swing), a new dawn is dimly perceptible. 

A local election took place a fortnight ago in the state of Lower Austria. The ruling party (OVP) lost over 30 percent of its support since the last election in 2017. The party is down to around 40 percent from more than 60 percent. 

All the parties who supported the vaccine mandate either lost ground or just kept their share of the vote. 

I agree. Those results are in themselves troubling—quite arguably more troubling than hopeful.

A new party, the MFG (Menschen, Freiheit und Grundrechte), loosely translated as the party for “People, Freedom, and Fundamental Rights” received 17 percent of the votes from a standing start a few weeks ago. 

In other words, it was a direct transfer from the ruling parties to this new challenger. 

In a country run on a proportional representation system, this suddenly means that between 20 and 30 percent of the electorate that has been attacked so profoundly could become a rock-solid political formation, which has the potential to play a key role in the politics of Austria for a long time to come. 

In other words, the post-1945 political settlement is, along with COVID in England, history. 

A new political constellation beckons. 

The parties that placed individual freedoms above state power will be remembered and rewarded, in particular as the COVID postmortem accelerates. 

Their support will grow. And not just in Austria.

That’s a brave new world. There’s a lot at stake, a lot that can go wrong, in instituting a “new political constellation.” And notice, not a mention of religion in a nation that for centuries was one of the very centers of Catholic culture in Europe. Who will lead this pilgrimage to the “new political constellation”? And who were these people who brought us to this pass?