Speaking as someone who got really involved in a church group in my late 20s, sexual norms and the purpose of dating were the big dividing lines between the church group and secular society (and hedonism in general). One rejected the sexual revolution and one embraced it.
There were plenty of reasons people were in the church group. Some were lifers brought up in it. Many had undergone a personal trauma that had got them looking for answers. But at the end of the day "where do I meet a decent spouse and start a family" seemed to be either the driving force or at least what was necessary for endurance.
This is the primary reason I think classical liberals and the religious can't ultimately get along, there is a fundamental disagreement on the purpose of life in general and on sexual/familial morality in particular. You can't really have one foot in the sexual revolution and one foot out.
For the religious, the excesses of modernity are the natural consequence of a particular sexual and worldview, not an aberration. For classical liberals sexual freedom is too valuable to give up for any tradeoff. If classical liberals had to choose between premarital sex and wokeness, they will swallow wokeness. You can see it in the fact that the parts of wokeness they hate are the parts that criticize them for their excesses (especially sexual).
A very important and insightful post. The outer forms and norms of Christianity also foster the beliefs and ideas of Christianity. Societies are built around ideas and beliefs. As the Christian ideas fade, we face a vacuum of beliefs. Some ideology will eventually win the struggle for the post-Christian supremacy of ideas, and our society will be re-made around those ideas. In the past, it has always been an energetic religion that has arisen from the decay of a declining civilization. It will be interesting to see whether that pattern continues or whether a secular ideology can gain sufficient traction to become a galvanizing force for the emerging society (though we probably won’t live to see the equilibrium).
I'd add another two elements to the "unraveling" hypothesis--death and suffering. Christianity offers a meaning to the problem of death and suffering. Modern North American and European culture removes the need for this meaning by unraveling death from daily life. Modern culture weakens a major benefit of Christianity--explaining death role in life.
Modern people avoid even the mention of death. When death approaches and occurs, it's removed out of common experience. The pain and cruelty of death is hidden from view. Funeral are no longer about death and burials. Funerals are now replaced by a "memorial to life".
The effort to remove the sick and dying reached a new extreme during Covid. The sick were isolated, taken away to care facilities and died alone. Deaths were statistics; abstract numbers rather than intimate, shared experience for the living.
What about pain and suffering? Modern culture first tries to isolate it, removing it to hospitals, old-age homes and hospices. If it can't be physically isolated, material culture offers distractions and anesthetics. Feeling down, depressed or anxious? Buy something, take a vacation or surf the internet. Overwhelmed? Find a doctor or a street dealer to get a pharmaceutical solution.
Decades ago, I lived in a rural community Latin American community. Death happened all the time--infants, kids, teenagers, young adults, and older people. Close friends died: an older friend got hit by a bus; another bled to death after a car accident; a neighbor child sickened and died. Each received a sorrowful funeral attended by friends, family and acquaintances.
Funerals were days-long events, not fleeting "memorials to life". Months-long mourning in black remained a reality. A good funeral involved a wake, an open casket for viewing, a memorial Mass, a burial in a graveyard and a post-burial meal. Family, friends and acquaintances gathered to console each other, remembered the departed and renew the common experience of the living. Death was a real and touchable part of life. Catholic culture and faith gave life and death a needed purpose and meaning. Death was the bridge to eternal life.
Christianity can't be unbundled. The underlying rationale for any of its tenets completely fall apart. If you think about things economically, it radically reforms incentive structures to promote social trust and cohesion. By introducing infinite value, which can only be truly attained beyond the grave, it provides proper incentive to resist base desires.
Each of the separate components are built on sand, surviving on the fumes of cultural memory. Nihilism and materialism will continue to erode the culture.
Thankfully, being a Christian means that you believe it is impossible for Christianity to die. The current decadence is setting the stage for a reawakening. We just don't know how bad it will get before we come to our collective senses.
Many of our churches are also stuck in the past. I recently was on the committee to call a pastor. If this were any other job, it would be posted on one or several of the online job search systems, and potentially millions of people would see it. But no, the denomination exercises absolute control over the process. The church can't even see the names of all available candidates. An assistant to the bishop, i.e. a bureaucrat, filters the candidates and allows the church to view one or two profiles. It's just impossible. When a candidate is chosen, the denomination becomes the Teamsters, dictating salary, hours, benefits, and even the church-affiliated agency that provides very high-cost health insurance. It's a system designed to control, but it succeeds only at failure. Not surprisingly, many of the older and more affluent members thought the new person was too woke, and left and took their money with them.
Great alternative, more secular & materialistic review of the agreed effect - Americans losing their Christian faith. Different axes of analysis.
Two Best Lindsey Quotes: "As a dissenting principle, the romantic impulse can be liberating and invigorating; but as a governing principle, it becomes a ruinous heresy."
"The acid bath of romantic hyper-individualism has degraded all the connections of contemporary society — connections to one’s family, to all the major secular institutions, to the land of one’s birth, all the way to the shared sense of the sacred." [My longer comment is there]
Robin Hanson's issues on the sacred are related to these issues.
Also to a great Kling quote from the prior Rationalists vs. Community: "the most rational policies at the national level can undermine local community strength and solidarity, and vice-versa."
Speaking as someone who got really involved in a church group in my late 20s, sexual norms and the purpose of dating were the big dividing lines between the church group and secular society (and hedonism in general). One rejected the sexual revolution and one embraced it.
There were plenty of reasons people were in the church group. Some were lifers brought up in it. Many had undergone a personal trauma that had got them looking for answers. But at the end of the day "where do I meet a decent spouse and start a family" seemed to be either the driving force or at least what was necessary for endurance.
This is the primary reason I think classical liberals and the religious can't ultimately get along, there is a fundamental disagreement on the purpose of life in general and on sexual/familial morality in particular. You can't really have one foot in the sexual revolution and one foot out.
For the religious, the excesses of modernity are the natural consequence of a particular sexual and worldview, not an aberration. For classical liberals sexual freedom is too valuable to give up for any tradeoff. If classical liberals had to choose between premarital sex and wokeness, they will swallow wokeness. You can see it in the fact that the parts of wokeness they hate are the parts that criticize them for their excesses (especially sexual).
A very important and insightful post. The outer forms and norms of Christianity also foster the beliefs and ideas of Christianity. Societies are built around ideas and beliefs. As the Christian ideas fade, we face a vacuum of beliefs. Some ideology will eventually win the struggle for the post-Christian supremacy of ideas, and our society will be re-made around those ideas. In the past, it has always been an energetic religion that has arisen from the decay of a declining civilization. It will be interesting to see whether that pattern continues or whether a secular ideology can gain sufficient traction to become a galvanizing force for the emerging society (though we probably won’t live to see the equilibrium).
Rather than being a condescending phrase, “Judeo-Christian tradition” is an acknowledgment that Christianity is not understandable without Judaism.
I'd add another two elements to the "unraveling" hypothesis--death and suffering. Christianity offers a meaning to the problem of death and suffering. Modern North American and European culture removes the need for this meaning by unraveling death from daily life. Modern culture weakens a major benefit of Christianity--explaining death role in life.
Modern people avoid even the mention of death. When death approaches and occurs, it's removed out of common experience. The pain and cruelty of death is hidden from view. Funeral are no longer about death and burials. Funerals are now replaced by a "memorial to life".
The effort to remove the sick and dying reached a new extreme during Covid. The sick were isolated, taken away to care facilities and died alone. Deaths were statistics; abstract numbers rather than intimate, shared experience for the living.
What about pain and suffering? Modern culture first tries to isolate it, removing it to hospitals, old-age homes and hospices. If it can't be physically isolated, material culture offers distractions and anesthetics. Feeling down, depressed or anxious? Buy something, take a vacation or surf the internet. Overwhelmed? Find a doctor or a street dealer to get a pharmaceutical solution.
Decades ago, I lived in a rural community Latin American community. Death happened all the time--infants, kids, teenagers, young adults, and older people. Close friends died: an older friend got hit by a bus; another bled to death after a car accident; a neighbor child sickened and died. Each received a sorrowful funeral attended by friends, family and acquaintances.
Funerals were days-long events, not fleeting "memorials to life". Months-long mourning in black remained a reality. A good funeral involved a wake, an open casket for viewing, a memorial Mass, a burial in a graveyard and a post-burial meal. Family, friends and acquaintances gathered to console each other, remembered the departed and renew the common experience of the living. Death was a real and touchable part of life. Catholic culture and faith gave life and death a needed purpose and meaning. Death was the bridge to eternal life.
Christianity can't be unbundled. The underlying rationale for any of its tenets completely fall apart. If you think about things economically, it radically reforms incentive structures to promote social trust and cohesion. By introducing infinite value, which can only be truly attained beyond the grave, it provides proper incentive to resist base desires.
Each of the separate components are built on sand, surviving on the fumes of cultural memory. Nihilism and materialism will continue to erode the culture.
Thankfully, being a Christian means that you believe it is impossible for Christianity to die. The current decadence is setting the stage for a reawakening. We just don't know how bad it will get before we come to our collective senses.
Many of our churches are also stuck in the past. I recently was on the committee to call a pastor. If this were any other job, it would be posted on one or several of the online job search systems, and potentially millions of people would see it. But no, the denomination exercises absolute control over the process. The church can't even see the names of all available candidates. An assistant to the bishop, i.e. a bureaucrat, filters the candidates and allows the church to view one or two profiles. It's just impossible. When a candidate is chosen, the denomination becomes the Teamsters, dictating salary, hours, benefits, and even the church-affiliated agency that provides very high-cost health insurance. It's a system designed to control, but it succeeds only at failure. Not surprisingly, many of the older and more affluent members thought the new person was too woke, and left and took their money with them.
It's fun to talk like than an economist. God is dead; the assets of His estate - faith, hope, and charity - are depreciating at varying rates.
Great alternative, more secular & materialistic review of the agreed effect - Americans losing their Christian faith. Different axes of analysis.
Two Best Lindsey Quotes: "As a dissenting principle, the romantic impulse can be liberating and invigorating; but as a governing principle, it becomes a ruinous heresy."
"The acid bath of romantic hyper-individualism has degraded all the connections of contemporary society — connections to one’s family, to all the major secular institutions, to the land of one’s birth, all the way to the shared sense of the sacred." [My longer comment is there]
Robin Hanson's issues on the sacred are related to these issues.
Also to a great Kling quote from the prior Rationalists vs. Community: "the most rational policies at the national level can undermine local community strength and solidarity, and vice-versa."
The parts of wokeness the classical liberals hate most are more likely "racial collectivism," as collectivism of any sort is the true bugbear.
(The religious are more likely to be hung up on sexuality per se, so they see their enemies as especially consumed by it as well.)
I'd be interested in a live event based on the WEIRD book. I am about half way through it. It is dense and significant in scope. Very good so far.