Once
upon a time there was a quaint, civilized northern kingdom, a culture of people
living comfortably and gently. People were industrious and frugal, and enjoyed
adding color in their homes and clothing, to the white that covered the land
through much of the year, echoing the northern lights in the long night sky.
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| photo from here |
Despite
the cold and other natural challenges, the people remained gentle and constant for a
good long time.
And then
something began to change. The people experimented in centralized ownership.
Taxes became extremely high, but the people tolerated this in exchange for long
vacations and guarantees of food, housing, health care, and other things they
thought they ought to have but were tired of struggling for.
They
decided to be the example of society working together for the good of all.
Things that had been tried in nearby countries, to massive failure. But that
was with the wrong kind of people These gentle people would be the ones to make
it work.
For a
while the world looked on in wonder: “See, it can be done. We want to do it
like them.”
But
after a time, they faced some challenges. Motivation to excel may have been one
of them. Without the necessity of hard work to guarantee a family’s survival
and thriving, less innovation took place. Less work got done. Even working
together, and sharing alike and evenly, the standard of living wasn’t as high
as many had foreseen and wanted.
Another
thing that happened was a weakening of family strength. If the collective was
going to take care of offspring, that meant a mother and father were relieved
of the necessity of overexerting themselves to provide for offspring. It even meant
mother and father might not stay together. Or they might not get married in the
first place. The negative consequences of living without marriage, whether or
not children came, were mitigated by the collective.
In time,
a higher portion of children were born outside of marriage. And a smaller
portion of adults had children, or fewer children. The next generation lacked
the inculcation of culture that used to be a hallmark of this peaceful people.
The next generation was taught more about relaxing and avoiding stress (not a
bad thing in its place and in moderation)—but with greater burden per person to
provide the collective needs.
The
wealth and the culture of past generations was being depleted. Something had to
be done. The logical solution seemed to be to invite foreigners to move in, to
contribute to the collective work.
What
they did not foresee was that inviting almost unlimited foreigners was a risk
to the culture. The new workers did not want to settle in and become like the
northern society; they wanted a new place to work and live, and they wanted
their share of the guaranteed food, housing, health care, and the rest, if they
were the ones adding to the workforce. But they wanted to bring their own
culture with them. They wanted to be who they had always been—even thought that
included being a people who had not made their former countries thrive.
It was
too late when the northern gentle people realized the danger to their way of
being. They tried making laws that would limit the invasion of a foreign
culture. They tried altering laws to lessen the power of the collective. But
without the power of family—which brings with it financial stability and
continuity of culture—there was no vitality to stand up against the threat. It
would not be long before the northern culture succumbed to the influx of an
entirely different people. The centuries-old culture would disappear. Without
war. Because of their own mistakes.
I haven’t really exaggerated. This is Sweden. The northern
centuries-old culture is one I love; it is my heritage. My dad was the first
generation born American instead of Swedish. We keep a few of the traditions
during the Christmas holidays.
But I’m concerned that it’s disappearing. Socialism hasn’t
worked. And lately the country seems to be realizing that, and making
adjustments toward free enterprise. (Read here and watch here.) That’s a good thing. But it might not be
enough.
The refugee/immigration problem reached crisis limits during
2015. According to a story earlier this week at PJ Media:
When the small, crumpled body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed
up on the Aegean coast Sept. 2, Europe’s humanitarian superpower sprang into
action. Sweden’s prime minister headlined gala fundraisers, Swedish celebrities
starred in telethons, and a country that prides itself on doing the right thing
seemed to rally as one to embrace refugees fleeing for their lives.
But after taking in more asylum seekers per capita than any
other nation in Europe, Sweden’s welcome mat now lies in tatters. Overwhelmed
by the human tide of 2015, the center-left government is deploying
extraordinary new border controls and slashing benefits in an unmistakable
signal to refugees contemplating the long trek to Sweden in the new year: Stay
out.
When the people you invite into your homeland turn you into
the rape capital of the world and threaten you with suicide
bombers, it’s time to pull up the welcome mat and bar the door.
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| Sweden welcomes Syrian refugees Associated Press photo found here |
An American Thinker piece from late December said this:
Despite their embrace of political correctness, the Swedes
are at heart very decent, humane people, their main faults being a desire to
please others in their community (which leads to silencing dissent and
conformity) and self-righteous hypocrisy.
But these are minor blemishes considering the personal decency most
people center their lives on.
Taking advantage of Sweden’s generosity, Muslim immigrants
have been arriving in large numbers and, in recent months, catastrophically
overwhelming the country’s budget and facilities to house and feed them.
That piece recommends watching this Pat Condell video from
2010 called “Goodbye Sweden,” showing the problem isn’t new; it’s just lately
intensifying.
When I watched that video, YouTube next recommended a Pat
Condell video from 2014, adding more evidence that the country is dying a sort
of suicide by political correctness, called “Sweden Goes Insane.”
We should have seen this coming.
I’ve quoted British psychological researcher Daniel J. Unwin
before. In the 1920s he did an exhaustive study of
every civilization around the world through world history for which he could
gather data. His purpose going in was to prove that marriage didn’t matter;
that was his personal belief. But that was not his conclusion:
The evidence was such as to demand a complete revision of my
personal philosophy; for the relationship between the factors seemed to be so
close, that, if we know what sexual regulations a society has adopted, we can
prophesy accurately the pattern of its cultural behavior….
Now it is an extraordinary fact that in the past sexual
opportunity has only been reduced to a minimum by the fortuitous adoption of an
institution I call absolute monogamy. This type of marriage has been adopted by
different societies, in different places, and at different times. Thousands of
years and thousands of miles separate the events; and there is no apparent
connection between them. In human records, there is no case of an absolutely
monogamous society failing to display great [cultural] energy. I do not know of
a case on which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been
absolutely monogamous….
If, during or just after a period of [cultural] expansion, a
society modifies its sexual regulations, and a new generation is born into a
less rigorous [less monogamous] tradition, its energy decreases…. If it comes
into contact with a more vigorous society, it is deprived of its sovereignty,
and possibly conquered in its turn.
It seems to follow that we can make a society behave in any manner
we like if we are permitted to give it such sexual regulations as will produce
the behavior we desire. The results should begin to emerge in the third
generation.[i]
It has been a decade since investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz wrote about “The End of Marriage in Scandinavia.” He referred to British demographer
Kathleen Kiernan, who places
Sweden in phase 4 of a 4-phase movement away from marriage, from which no
culture has ever recovered.
There are some who would claim all of this concern is just
homophobia, xenophobia, and/or Islamophobia. They shut down the discussion by
saying so, and that is harming Sweden and its dying culture. It would be like
shutting down discussion of cancer by calling a cancer patient cancerphobic.
A better solution would be to identify the problem with
exact truth, and then do everything necessary to get rid of the problem(s) and
recover. A dying patient who fears public opinion might call them “not nice”
(as though that could ever stick with the people of the traditional Swedish
culture) is not going to survive.
It’s likely that the language and culture of France will be
gone within another generation as well. And quite likely the same is true of Germany.
But my main concern is my home—the United States. Just in
the past decade we’ve been pushed from phase 2 toward phase 3 on Kiernan’s loss
of marriage scale. I don’t know exactly how to fit Unwin’s prediction with
Kiernan’s. I would guess that the US started to lose family strength with the
implementation of no-fault divorce, court-legalized abortion, and the
normalization of sex outside of marriage by media—at least by 1970. That
puts us possibly 45 years into a 75-100-year death.
If there is a chance of recovery, we must take the healing
actions right away. These are the simple, but not easy, principles that lead to
civilization.
[i] Joseph
Daniel Unwin, Ph.D., “Sexual Regulations and Cultural Behavior,” address given
to the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society. (Library of
Congress No., HQ12.U52)
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