America-- In With a Roar...Out With a Tweet.

Alternate title: The transition from "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" to "Give Me an Obama-phone and Birth Control Pills or...I'll Riot""   

Jamey's Cultural Postmortem, Part 1 of...??

Many questions have been in my mind over the past few weeks regarding the direction of our country, or more precisely, the people of this country.  How did we get to this point?  What are the principle factors that led to the decline of our culture over the past few decades?  How is it that a nation founded on personal responsibility and a unquenchable desire for liberty has been transformed into a population filled with people who want to take the easy way, often at the cost of their own spiritual and economic prosperity and fully on the dime of others?  How is it that the majority of citizens (or more precisely, voters) do not even see this as a problem?

There has been an unmistakable change in the foundational values that used to guide us as a country.  I do not sit here and blithely assert that there is an easy solution to the problems we face as a people.  I grasp that there are myriad numbers of issues and factors that have influenced our fundamental transformation.  However, knowing this may sound naive and childish, I do think there is a simple solution.  What that solution is, I will get to in due time, but first want to briefly outline how I believe we arrived at the current state of affairs.   I do not, at present, hold much optimism that the simple solution I have in mind will be implemented, as it is contrary to all the darker aspects of our fallen nature as human beings. 

We live in an age that is unlike any other in history, one that has witnessed the visual entertainment media become the dominant methodology through which people develop their knowledge base. In  Neil Postman's excellent book "Amusing Ourselves to Death",  the author argues that we have sacrificed a great depth of the knowledge that comes from reading, writing, and verbal discourse, to an entertainment based approach that facilitates a shallowness and ultimately accentuates our self-centered inclinations. 

As even the news of the day gets transformed into a media event, our perspective on vital topics becomes so much "me" focused.  It does not take much reflection to see how this ultimately would impact our ability to contemplate and grasp such critical issues as politics, economics, and religion and their effect on the wider community (outside oneself), and even on future generations.  Postman describes this change of thought as a "descent into a vast triviality" and leads to an inability to grasp the deeper issues inherent in these vital areas of life. 

Building up the "me-centered" worldview in such superficial and transiently pleasing ways ultimately feeds the essence of what is wrong with humanity, namely our propensity for selfishness and pride. When the self is magnified, and people are no longer holding to a view of biblical morality, why would they act in a way other than to serve the self?  What would restrain the individual from taking what he can get, regardless of who has to pay?  If the dominant media culture feeds the inclination that "the world does indeed revolve around me", why would I then seek to protect the interests of others?

Our founders feared this mindset as they cautioned us against losing our moral footing.  Although our nation was based on an understanding that all people have certain inalienable rights granted by God, this was clearly tied to an understanding of Biblical values.  Understanding our divine heritage led to a view of life that understood that there is eternal accountability for our actions here on earth, and that should provide a foundation for an individual's behavior. 

Further, they understood that this Republic, based on morality and the rule of law, with limits placed on governmental power to enable the people the freedom to pursue their interests and talents, would not long survive when the people lacked restraint and could vote for themselves the fruit of some other person's labor.  A moral and God-fearing people were essential to making this experiment in liberty work. 

Now, I do not here suggest that all our founders were Christians (although many were).  Nor do I think that all of the population living in that day necessarily were either.  However, there is no doubt that there was a foundation of moral restraint that provided a critical backbone for the society at large, an anchor that kept the people from so easily giving in to the inherent desire to serve self.  This led them to more readily consider the broader needs of their countrymen and the legacy they left for their descendants.  I would submit that we have now deified and glorified the self to such a degree that those living today care little for the society as a whole, and posterity does not even come into the individual consciousness, as long as the self is gratified.

It is upon this somewhat gloomy backdrop that I will examine what I think is the simple, but not easy, solution to the crises we face, whether it be as individuals, families, churches, or the nation at large.  

...and by the way:  A blog post is not the best forum to document all the different citations and quotations to support some of my claims, or to recount all my experiences and evidences that expand on some of what I have asserted in this post.  I think this would be more akin to a book than a blog if all that were added (perhaps some day?).  Those details I would be happy to supply to interested parties.  Suffice to say, that is commonplace among most academics and history courses to incessantly critique America's founding fathers, primarily based on picking apart their individual flaws.  Which of us could withstand such scrutiny in our own lives?  So, it is enough at this moment to focus instead on the foundational values and principles that they espoused and that guided them in their understanding of human nature and, by extension, the proper role of government.