Over-Civilization

Back in early September, Candace Owens interviewed her fiancé—now husband—George Farmer on her weekly PragerU podcast. They answered questions from viewers as a way for us to get acquainted with him.

Candace Owens and George Farmer
screenshot from here

There’s a segment where they’re talking about one of the things she learned from him, which was about hunting—he does big game hunting—and which has been fascinating for her. He was talking about the difference between what liberal Westerners think compared to the Africans, who benefit from the hunting. It keeps predators down. When it’s an animal such as an antelope, which is mainly what George has hunted, the village cuts up the meat to share. So they get income from the hunters, and they get the food. It’s in their interest to keep the animal populations healthy so this can continue.

The conversation goes on to talk about how out of touch with nature some people are—maybe particularly in New York and California. Candace Owens suggests they should, “Go out and see the lions. Pet them. Talk to them about their feelings. And see what happens.”

George Farmer then brings something to the conversation I’ve been thinking about since: “Let’s put it like this; they’re not having a debate about which bathroom to use in Africa. Right? Because, at the moment, it’s about survival.” And this leads to more on this and related subjects. I’ll just share some of the transcript here:

CO: We’re so over-privileged… We talk about this a lot, the idea of over-civilization, where your society has become so civilized that it starts going backwards, and you start treading just towards stupidity. Like if you’re debating bathroom signs, you are way too privileged—way too civilized, if you are even talking about bathroom signs.

I mean, go to Africa. This is like one of you and I—we’re really big on just watching clips on the internet and just cracking up for hours. The best clip, I mean, the one that never gets old, is this African reporter who’s breaking a story, and interviewing someone, because they cannot grasp the concept of being gay or being a lesbian.

GF: Oh, yeah, that’s brilliant.

CO: And the interviewer is, “Welcome here to the show,” and he’s got this woman who’s a lesbian. She’s a girl and she’s a lesbian, and he just turns around to her, and his question, in this African voice is, “Why are you gay?”

"Why are you Gay"
screenshot from here

[I looked for the video. I think this is it. Being interviewed is a transgender male—i.e., a female who presents as a male, who is attracted to females. The interviewer doesn’t understand the motivation for making such choices.] 

GF: It’s the supposition, something that we’ve talked about. You’re absolutely right, the word over-civilization is a great word.

I’ve been to the Far East as well. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been— This is making me sound edgy and trendy. I’m not, as you well know—but, I went to Bhutan, which is this kingdom in the middle of the Himalayas. It’s the last Himalayan kingdom. And it’s a Buddhist kingdom. It’s basically sealed off to the world. It’s very difficult to get into. And they perform a—they are part of a Buddhist theology which involves tantric Buddhism, which is a form of sexual Buddhism. And, this was about six years ago—seven years ago. And I said to them, I said, “What’s the feeling about the gay rights movement in this part of the world?” And they looked at me as if I was an alien. They had never even heard of this. And I said, “Well, you know, relationships between men, and relationships between women.” And they just said, “Well, he’s my friend. Please explain,” kind of thing. 

And it was just bizarre. Because it was a case where, we’ve got to a point in the Western world where the debate’s become self-fulfilling. We start talking about these issues that become issues. The issues develop their own issues, etc., etc.

I’ve written here on this blog[i] quite a bit about LGBT issues. But this idea that, in some parts of the world these issues don’t even come up was surprising to me. I’m wondering what the social research would show, if the question of LGBT issues occurring in a society focused on survival were asked, or in a society that had never had the idea brought in.

In J. D. Unwin’s research[ii], in which he showed the power of what he calls absolute monogamy on a society—using data on every society in history he had any social data on—he had a sort of throwaway comment about homosexuality. He didn’t research it, but it appeared to him that it was a phenomenon that shows up in a society that is in decay. By decay, he means a society that does not embrace absolute monogamy.

I don’t know if we could get the right question studied today. For one thing, so much of the world is connected that the Hollywood culture has affected all but very few pockets. And you’d have to be able to do the study without introducing the idea where it hadn’t previously been thought of.

There are countries where homosexuality is illegal, and those societies eliminate the issue by executing any instances of it. Nazi Germany did that. Iran does that. But we’ve assumed that instances pop up about as often as average—about 2% of the population—and just stay hidden when the consequences are so dire.

But those examples aren’t survival societies or even fully separate-from-the-outside-world societies. If these things appear naturally (nature, not nurture), you’d expect the same natural incidence regardless of circumstances.

If (and this is what George Farmer is suggesting, but not something I have data on) the incidence is near zero in a society focused on survival, that’s interesting. Even more interesting is the near incidence in a society that simply hasn’t had the idea introduced by the outside world. If these zero-incidence places do exist, that leaves causation to something other than nature. Which I think we knew the umpteenth time it turned out there’s no gay gene[iii], according to DNA mapping.

But we don’t know exactly what part of nurture (possibly combined with some personality trait or combination of traits we’re not sure of) is causal. If we knew that, could we prevent it? Or find a way to heal from it? (Assuming the person wants healing; I’m not suggesting anything by coercion or even pressure.)

I don’t think we’d want to voluntarily become a subsistence society focused on survival. There are way too many advantages to thriving economically and socially. But it would be interesting to know what it is about a survival-focused society that leaves no room for wondering about LGBT issues. If you’re going to survive—as a species—you need to reproduce. We know how that happens, and LGBT behaviors obviously do not get us there. As the African interviewer said on the video, “Why are you gay?” Why would you make a lifestyle choice that offers no chance of procreation?

Those who have these issues often do not feel like they have a choice. But if, under the surface, there are psychological issues combined with life experiences that lead to these LGBT issues—many of which could be described as failure to accept the body one is born into—then it would be a kindness to learn how to help[iv].

About the assertion of over-civilization: I don’t think it’s possible to have too much civilization. But, then, I am defining it a specific way here at the Spherical Model[v]. When Candace and George use the term over-civilization, I think they mean that we are disconnected from what is essential. We over-complicate and over-emotionalize all kinds of things that, if we had a better perspective, would simply not be issues. The fact that we never seem to face life-threatening issues—our privilege of being so safe—leads us to weaken, and decay, and invent problems that aren’t relevant to thriving.

I believe if we actually lived fully civilized lives, without the decay that so much of the sexual revolution has characterized, some or all of the symptoms of decay would stop afflicting us.

The simple but not easy solution is for a critical mass of society to honor God, life, family, truth, and property ownership. It’s what we find in the Ten Commandments. It’s still true.

---

[i] I compiled “The Defense of Marriage Collection” in 2013.  That’s a start, but these issues continue to come up regularly on this blog.

[ii] Joseph Daniel Unwin, Ph.D., “Sexual Regulations and Cultural Behavior," an address given to the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society in 1934, published in 1935 (Library of Congress No., HQ12.U52). I mentioned his work here and here.

[iii] I wrote about this in September, here. 

[iv] I’ve written here about the work of Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Jr., who has developed what he calls reintegrative therapy, which is intended to deal with underlying issues from childhood that lead a person to dissociate from who they are, and to then heal that underlying issue. The therapy is to gain a person greater peace but has in cases led to decreased or apparently erased feelings of same-sex attraction. It is my supposition that reintegrative therapy is based on principles that could also help people with gender dysphoria, although I haven’t heard Dr. Nicolosi assert that.

[v] At the Spherical Model, I describe civilization this way:

   Families typically remain intact, and children are raised in loving homes, with caring parents who guide their education and training, dedicating somewhere between 18 and 25 years for that child to reach adulthood, and who then remain interested in their children’s success for the rest of their lives.

   Civilized people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect property and safety—with honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with other civilized people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without fear.

   There is a thriving free-enterprise economy. Poverty is meaningless; even though there will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as poor, in a civilized society these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and adequate food and clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least for future generations to rise.

   Creativity abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed expectations. Architecture and infrastructure improve; innovation and invention are the rule.

   People feel free to choose their work, their home, their family practices, their friendships and associations. And they generally self-restrain before they infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. Where there are questions about those limits, laws are in place to help clarify boundaries of civilized behavior. When someone willingly infringes on the rights or safety of another, the law functions to protect that victim as well as society from further uncivilized behavior from the offender.

Basic Building Material for Civilization

I’m about to repeat some words from the Spherical Model website. I wrote this around 2008, published the website in 2010, but had covered many of the concepts much earlier. In the decade since I wrote this, the world has gone further in the opposite direction.

The solution to so many of society’s problems is simple: strong families. Religions have known this for millennia. Social science has known it for centuries. New data shows the truth we’ve known but too many refuse to acknowledge or live. It’s a simple solution, but not an easy one. Repairing decay is never as easy as keeping strong and healthy. Rebuilding is hard. But that’s what we need—rebuilding with the very material we started with: virtue.

Family is the Basic Unit of Civilization

Civilized societies value family as the most important and basic unit of governance. Alternatively, a hallmark of totalitarian regimes, which are savage, is the replacement of the family with the state. Totalitarianism resents loyalty to any societal unit other than itself. And it is this absolute weakness that will always prevent a totalitarian state from offering true Civilization as you’d find it in a free strong-family society.

A Basic Unit of Civilization,
the Spherical Model Family,
give or take a couple of decades

This is particularly important to know for people living in a sub-civilized society. As long as families are allowed to live among themselves (children are under the care of their own parents), it is possible to have a civilized society that is just one family in size. Then, if that family can find additional similarly civilized families to associate with, their society grows. If it could grow to the size of a village or township, all the better. The goal of the founding fathers was to have that civilization spread through the United States (and if that experiment worked, have other sovereign states adopt the plan). But a family doesn’t have to wait until the world changes; the family can live the laws of civilization and enjoy many of the benefits, at least within the walls of the home.

Families have the responsibility to safeguard women and children for the greatest benefit of both current and future generations. Families provide food, shelter, clothing, education, spiritual guidance, and training in how to live a civilized life in a civilized society. Elderly are honored for their wisdom. Youth are honored for their potential. Women are honored for giving and nurturing life, among their other abilities. Men are honored for providing and protecting, among their other abilities. Families are the main economic force, as well as the very means whereby civilization can perpetuate. Civilized societies therefore protect The Family as sacred.

A hallmark of civilized society is the importance of marriage as the only acceptable place for sexual relations. Every society that decides to try devaluing fidelity in marriage eventually (and often quickly) sinks into decadence. Sex within marriage not only provides offspring, it cements the bond between the two parents, so that the child will grow in a home of love and protection and guidance. No other situation is even remotely as beneficial for a child.

Humans being mortal, there will be incidents where some children will be raised without both parents. Ideally, there should never be divorce (a necessary evil in response to decidedly uncivilized behavior). But there will be death, which is inevitable. Nevertheless, in a healthy, peaceful society the abundance of intact, healthy families can help compensate for the few homes that don’t have the child’s two living parents.

It is probably possible to quantify what percentage constitutes a critical mass of functional families that can compensate for a smaller percentage of problem homes without an undue toll on civilization. But, in general, the more family health, the more civilized the society.

Sex Outside of Marriage Is Always Wrong

This is such a simple concept, and so many problems would be settled if people would believe it. It’s an essential of civilization. Every time a society attempts to “progress” or “evolve” beyond the old-fashioned notion of virtue, it slides into decay. Every time. This decay happens so frequently, and is currently so widespread that the need for virtue must not still be self evident. So we might as well spell out the reasons.

Human Children Take Time and Consistency to Bring to Adulthood

Human children grow slowly. It takes close upon two decades to get them from birth to functioning on their own, capable of supporting themselves, reproducing, and raising a civilized next generation. It requires consistency and care from someone with a stake in the child’s success. It takes a pair of parents, providing both male and female role models and ways of nurturing.

The best (really, the only) way to plan for children to be raised by the same two (one male, one female) parents throughout their growing up life is for those two parents to be permanently bonded to each other. To be married. (See Why Marriage Matters[i]), Marriage isn’t as ephemeral as just a declaration of love between two lovers; it is a commitment to each other and to the entire society that they will stay together for life. This commitment establishes a family, the most basic unit of civilization. There isn’t any way to break up a family that doesn’t harm civilization. Therefore, there isn’t any possible way for sex outside of marriage to be acceptable behavior without harming civilization. Without the attitude of its sacredness, it is impossible to maintain virtue (chastity). And without virtue, families are always harmed.

Look, for instance, at what happens when two young people, believing they are in love, give in to sex. They have just admitted to each other that they value their own desires over the needs of the society they live in. They are both lessened for that selfishness. But what if they recognize that, though what they did was wrong, they could marry and move on? Yes, they could alter their course—what religious societies call repentance, change their thoughts and actions for the future. And if it is true that they love each other, they could go forward making a happy home, with very little harm to society. So, while society wouldn’t condone the mistake, it can easily forgive.

…..

Exceptions Must Be Rare

I’d like to note here that making the exception has to be rare, or else society cannot absorb the harm without decay. Making up a small deficit from ideal can be managed without much notice, just as it can in a family budget. But making up a large deficit, while simultaneously reducing the means for society to compensate for the deficit (raising children in the most likely way to bring them up to be responsible adults) inevitably causes damage to the society as a whole. It’s a fact borne out in inner cities in this country and in every culture in the world today where marriage is devalued. A large percentage of children being raised without both parents in a loving home means a significant decline in adults who know how to raise the next generation to be civilized.

___________________________

[i] Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-one Conclusions from the Social Sciences, © 2002 Institute for American Values, available through their website www.americanvalues.org.

Challenges of Our Day

I watched a 5-minute video clip of a talk given in 1978 by one of my favorites: Neal A. Maxwell. His words are beautiful—extraordinarily well-phrased—and the ideas he speaks of are even more beautiful.

As happens on YouTube, other videos of him popped up. So I thought it might be worth spending a day sharing quotes from a couple of his archived speeches.

“Meeting the Challenges of Today” 

This first was a Devotional Speech (regular campus-wide weekly speeches at BYU] from 1978. I was there the day he delivered this address. I have a stack of 3x5 cards I kept notes on, and I managed to capsulize his 40-minute speech on two sides of a card. I need a magnifying glass to read it, but several of the quotes below are in there. This was 39 years ago, and looking at our world today, it appears both relevant and prophetic. Here is the 5-minute clip. Then come the quotes.

We are now entering a period of incredible ironies. Let us cite but one of these ironies which is yet in its subtle stages: we shall see in our time a maximum if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.

Brothers and sisters, irreligion as the state religion would be the worst of all combinations. Its orthodoxy would be insistent and its inquisitors inevitable. Its paid ministry would be numerous beyond belief. Its Caesars would be insufferably condescending. Its majorities—when faced with clear alternatives—would make the Barabbas choice, as did a mob centuries ago when Pilate confronted them with the need to decide.

[Quoting M. J. Sobran]: It is startling to consider that a clause clearly protecting religion can be construed as requiring that it be denied a status routinely granted to educational and charitable enterprises, which have no overt constitutional protection. Far from equalizing unbelief, secularism has succeeded in virtually establishing it.

What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion. And—I repeat—the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism. It is in fact, to force the religious to internalize the major premise of secularism: that religion has no proper bearing on public affairs. [Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 51–52, 60–61]

A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, p. 58).

In its more harsh forms, as is always the case with those whose dogmatism is blinding, the secular church will do what it can to reduce the influence of those who still worry over standards such as those in the Ten Commandments. It is always such an easy step from dogmatism to unfair play—especially so when the dogmatists believe themselves to be dealing with primitive people who do not know what is best for them. It is the secular bureaucrat’s burden, you see.

There is occurring a discounting of religiously-based opinions. There may even be a covert and subtle disqualification of some for certain offices in some situations, in an ironic “irreligious test” for office.

Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established nor to have a particular religion favored by government. They wanted religion to be free to make its own way. But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church. Notice the terrible irony if this trend were to continue. When the secular church goes after its heretics, where are the sanctuaries? To what landfalls and Plymouth Rocks can future pilgrims go?

Will we be able to rely for counterforce on value education in school systems that are increasingly secularized? And if our governments and schools were to fail us, would we be able to fall back upon the institution of the family, when so many secular movements seek to shred it?

It may well be, as our time comes to “suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41), that some of this special stress will grow out of that portion of discipleship which involves citizenship.

[This next quote references Lehi’s Dream, which I mentioned in my last post.]

To go on clinging to the iron rod in spite of the mockery and scorn that flow at us from the multitudes in that great and spacious building seen by Father Lehi, which is the “pride of the world,” is to disregard the shame of the world (1 Nephi 8:26–27, 33; 11:35–36). Parenthetically, why—really why—do the disbelievers who line that spacious building watch so intently what the believers are doing? Surely there must be other things for the scorners to do—unless, deep within their seeming disinterest, there is interest.

Let us have integrity and not write checks with our tongues which our conduct cannot cash.

Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even these, however, must leave a record so that the choices before the people are clear and let others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, that others will step forward, having been rallied to righteousness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds—a majority which was, till then, unconscious of itself.

Even when we face stern challenges and circumstances, “these are great days”![i] Our hearts need not fail us. We can be equal to our challenges, including the aforementioned challenge of the secular church.

When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed.

“Behold, the Enemy Is Combined”  

I probably also heard this address live, broadcast rather than in person. But no notes; I had three young children then, so my hands were full. It is from the April 1993 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I recommended this speech and included the video in a post I wrote in May.

We must not be intimidated or lose our composure even though the once morally unacceptable is becoming acceptable, as if frequency somehow conferred respectability!

Today, lust openly parades as love, license cleverly poses as liberty, and raucous sounds mockingly masquerade as music. Evil even calls itself good and often gets away with it!

While I would not shrink the circumference of freedom, the size of that circle is not the sole measure of social well-being.

Hence, to exult, as some do, over how much decadence is permissible at the edges ignores the erosive effects of such grossness upon all within that circle.

Attributed to historian Will Durant are these relevant words: “If the hunger for liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.” In this connection, how can there possibly be a disturbing loss of individual impulse control without a corresponding loss of collective freedom?

No wonder the adversary steadily promotes all the ancient sins, not because he is uninventive but because his harvest is so constant.

In their search for identity and belonging, too many supposedly savvy teens are now confined to the solitude of a lonely gang. What is the lasting advantage of becoming streetwise if one is on a street to nowhere?

We are lathered with soap operas in need of nothing so much as soap—for the scrubbing of themselves! Some seriously maintain that media violence and sleaze leave consumers untouched. But revenue is received from commercials precisely because of their influence. Either we deserve reforms, or sponsors deserve refunds!

Those who mock the traditional moral values should heed this lesson of history from the Durants:

“A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume both the individual and the group.” (Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968, pp. 35–36.)

Lasciviousness wrongly celebrates the capacity to feel, so that people lose their capacity to feel!

Even with its flaws, the family is basic, and since no other institution can compensate fully for failure in the family, why then, instead of enhancing the family, the desperate search for substitutes? Why not require family impact studies before proceeding with this program or that remedy, since of all environmental concerns the family should be first? Hundreds of governmental departments and programs protect various interests, but which one protects the family?

Only reform and self-restraint, institutional and individual, can finally rescue society! Only a sufficient number of sin-resistant souls can change the marketplace.

We can have love at home, even though the love of many waxes cold in the world. (See Matt. 24:12.) We can have inner peace even though peace has been taken from the earth. (See D&C 1:35.)

We can keep the seventh commandment even though others break it and mock it. We can render individualized, humanitarian service even though the mass of human suffering seems so overwhelming.

We can use our tongues to speak the truth in love, while refusing to use them to bear false witness. (See Eph. 4:15; Ex. 20:16.) We can stand fast “in holy places” even though in the world “all things shall be in commotion.” (D&C 45:32; D&C88:91.)

Yes, “the enemy is combined,” but when we are combined with the Lord’s “chariots of fire,” then “they that be with us are more than they that be with them”! (2 Kgs. 6:16–17.) Furthermore, the divine promise is that no weapon formed against the Lord’s work shall finally prosper; this “is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.” (Isa. 54:17; D&C 71:9.)

---

[i] Quoting Winston Churchill, from an address at Harrow School, October 1941, found in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, p. 923.

Still the Only Way Up

This past weekend we had rioting in Milwaukee, ostensibly because of racist violence by police. But it was a black criminal, running from, and threatening police, being shot by a black police office. Racism isn’t part of the equation, but rampages happened anyway.

How do we get back to civilization? The same, only way.

Today I’m re-posting a piece from October 2011, on The Way Back Up to Civilization.

The Way Back Up to Civilization

Over the weekend I was reminded of a piece from August in the WSJ concerning recent riots in London. The editorial, by Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, addresses what has happened there (and what to expect here for the same reasons), and what is the way back.

Panos Pictures, from original editorial.
A priest and imam joi with community
in prayer for repair of society

What caught my attention was how well he was saying what I say at Spherical Model, only without the graphic model. So I’m going to take his words and apply them to the model, in the hope that it will make his words even more convincing. 

First is a description of the chaos, the anarchy of the southwestern quadrant on the sphere: 

The world was watching London again as hooded youths ran riot down high streets, smashing windows, looting shops, setting fire to cars, attacking passersby and throwing rocks at the police. 

…This was no political uprising. People were breaking into shops and making off with clothes, shoes, electronic gadgets and flat-screen televisions. It was, as someone later called it, shopping with violence, consumerism run rampage, an explosion of lawlessness made possible by mobile phones as gangs discovered that by text messaging they could bring crowds onto the streets where they became, for a while, impossible to control. 

Much of the history of the world has been the oscillation between the chaos of the southwestern quadrant and the statist control of the southeastern quadrant. But we know, particularly here in America, that there’s a whole northern [hemisphere] to move to—with effort, and with principles to follow to get there. Rabbi Sachs identifies those very principles. First comes the description of the movement away from those principles: 

In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. The Judeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you. The Ten Commandments were rewritten as the Ten Creative Suggestions. 

In Britain today, more than 40% of children are born outside marriage. This has led to new forms of child poverty that serious government spending has failed to cure…. 

Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women—91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data—is practically absurd and morally indefensible. By the time boys are in their early teens they are physically stronger than their mothers. Having no fathers, they are socialized in gangs. No one can control them: not parents, teachers or even the local police. There are areas in Britain’s major cities that have been no-go areas for years. Crime is rampant. So are drugs. It is a recipe for violence and despair. 

What is one of the main principles for civilization: Family is the basic unit of civilization. Married parents who raise their own children, inculcating in them the principles necessary for living a civilized life, are necessary. There is no guarantee that all children will turn out well, nor is there only hopelessness for children in broken homes. There are exceptions both ways, but the critical mass of society gives direction toward or away from civilization. Here is Sachs’s summary of raising these children without the civilizing influence of intact families: 

They are the victims of the tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement. 

So when responsibilities are ignored, civilization decays. At this point we can probably summarize the other northward moving principles as moral principles. Religion is key: 

We have been spending our moral capital with the same reckless abandon that we have been spending our financial capital…. 

There are large parts of Britain, Europe and even the United States where religion is a thing of the past and there is no counter-voice to the culture of buy it, spend it, wear it, flaunt it, because you’re worth it. The message is that morality is passé, conscience is for wimps, and the single overriding command is “Thou shalt not be found out.” 

In the Spherical Model, I have said that, while not all religious societies are civilized, every civilized society is a religious society. This does not mean state-sponsored religion—the opposite. But the civilizing principles hold true: Honor God, who is the giver of human rights, and to whom we are held accountable for our choices in this life and the next. And beyond honoring God, following these basic commandments makes it possible to live in harmony with others:

·            Honor parents

·            Do not murder (take innocent life)

·            Do not have sex outside of marriage

·            Do not steal

·            Do not lie

·            Do not covet (want what belongs to your neighbor)

These are the principles families will pass along, so civilization can continue. So, if the principles are true, it must be possible to move northward into civilization—and that gives us hope. Sachs reminds us, savage chaos has happened before, and the solution was to follow the principles that move us northward. 

In the 1820s it was unsafe to walk the streets of London because of pickpockets by day and “unruly ruffians” by night. 

What happened over the next 30 years was a massive shift in public opinion. There was an unprecedented growth in charities, friendly societies, working men’s institutes, temperance groups, church and synagogue associations, Sunday schools, YMCA buildings and moral campaigns of every shape and size, fighting slavery or child labor or inhuman working conditions. The common factor was their focus on the building of moral character, self-discipline, willpower and personal responsibility. It worked. Within a single generation, crime rates came down and social order was restored. What was achieved was nothing less than the re-moralization of society—much of it driven by religion. 

…[Toqueville, in Democracy in America, found] a society in which religion was, he said, the first of its political (we would now say “civil”) institutions. It did three things he saw as essential. It strengthened the family. It taught morality. And it encouraged active citizenship. 

Yes. Of course. If you apply the principles, you get civilization as a result. Sachs then turned to observations for our day. He quoted Robert Putnam, in Amazing Grace, saying,

Social capital… has not disappeared. It is alive and well and can be found in churches, synagogues, and other places of worship. Religious people, he discovered, make better neighbors and citizens. They are more likely to give to charity, volunteer, assist a homeless person, donate blood, spend time with someone feeling depressed, offer a seat to a stranger, help someone find a job and take part in local civic life. Affiliation to a religious community is the best predictor of altruism and empathy: better than education, age, income, gender or race. 

Religion, individually lived, and extended generation to generation by families, can change people’s lives in ways governments simply cannot do. Religion is “a shaper of behavior, a tutor in morality, an ongoing seminar in self-restraint and pursuit of the common good.” 

What evidence do we have that moving northward will work in our current world? How about China? Historian Niall Ferguson, in Civilization,

…quotes a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tasked with finding out what gave the West its dominance. He said: At first we thought it was your guns. Then we thought it was your political system, democracy. Then we said it was your economic system, capitalism. But for the last 20 years, we have known that it was your religion.

It was the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave the West its restless pursuit of a tomorrow that would be better than today. The Chinese have learned the lesson. Fifty years after Chairman Mao declared China a religion-free zone, there are now more Chinese Christians than there are members of the Communist Party.

I didn’t know that. A civilized China may be a formidable economic foe, but if we move northward as well, they will not be an enemy—they will be friendly trading partners in a more peaceful civilized world. If we stop the southward decay and make the necessary northward repairs.

Rebuilding after the Damage

Helping the neighbors after Hurricane Ike.
I told Mr. Spherical Model he ought to let younger, shorter
guys with better knees do this job.

Here in Houston we have the occasional life-altering disaster: hurricanes, floods, tornadoes. In our seventeen years here we’ve seen all of these, but so far have remained fairly safe. During Hurricane Ike, in 2008, we lost power for eight days, had to repair a ceiling and reroof the house. That was pretty minor. We had neighbors, at the end of the cul-de-sac, who got hit harder and had some major rebuilding to do. We, along with people from church, helped cover the holes in their roofs with tarps. And we shared a generator with the neighbors on either side. We kept busy; there was plenty to do.

I recently came across an article, “From the Ruins:Rebuilding Civilization,” by Anthony Esolen, which talks about rebuilding after disaster—and compares that to the rebuilding needed in today’s culture. Here is the paragraph that caught my attention:

Some of the young men from church
helping rebuild our neighbor's fence
after Hurricane Ike

What shall we do now? The answer is both daunting and liberating. We do everything.
 That doesn’t mean that I do everything, or that you do everything. Suppose you find yourself in a bombed out city. There are all kinds of things to do, and all of them have to be done. Some needs are more pressing than others, and some things can be done only after other things are in order. But everywhere you turn, there’s work to do. You have to find clean water. You have to find food. You have to tend to the wounded and bury the dead. You have to erect shelters. You have to see which of the few buildings left standing are actually safe. You have to demolish those that are ruined beyond repair. You have to organize work teams. Someone has to prepare the meals. Someone has to keep the children out of trouble. In such a situation, it’s almost absurd to ask whether it’s more important to build a latrine than to gather together some undamaged books. All of it has to be done. So you do what you can do—the work that is ready to your hand.

While I’m more familiar with natural disaster, the bombed-out city is maybe more apt, since the chaos of societal ruin that we face is man-caused.

Esolen suggests a list of things to do—in no particular order. Some require reading more than the enumerated item to understand what he means. But, take your pick of what you want to take on:

·         Build new schools, reform old schools, and abandon irreformable ones.

·         Restore your parish church and bring reverence back to the liturgy.

·         Acquaint yourself with the proper use of the zipper [i.e., remain sexually chaste, regardless of what others do].

·         Be social.

·         Read good books.

·         Recover the human things.

·         Pray like the pilgrim you are.

·         Whatever you do, do it as if everything depends on just that.

·         Begin.

I won’t quibble with any of his suggestions. But, since we look at what is Civilization, here at the Spherical Model, I thought I might add to his list.

Civilization requires certain things: a religious people, who value God, family, life, property rights, and truth. So, here are a few tasks to take on, under those headings or combinations thereof.

·         Pray. Read scriptures. Go to church. Take your children. Pray and read scriptures with your children.

·         Love your spouse, and together love your children. Don’t consider divorce—except under the most severe causes—abuse, adultery, abandonment, or unwilling-to-treat addiction. Let your children know that working things out with those you love is the normal way to live. It’s the civilized way.

·         Stand up for your God-given inalienable right to freedom of religion. Respect others and their beliefs while standing absolutely strong in your own.

·         Live a chaste life: no sex outside of marriage, and absolute fidelity within marriage. You can understand someone with same-sex attraction, but you do not condone—not any more than you understand someone attracted to a married person, but you would not condone adultery.

·         Take responsibility for the education and upbringing of your own children. It’s not up to the schools, or the Sunday School or youth program leadership; it’s up to you. Use those resources if they’re helpful. If they’re not, find something better, or do something better for them yourself.

·         Share uplifting communications in social media, and in all your conversations. Stand strong and firm, and ever respectful, but avoid contention.

·         Volunteer in the community. Lend your help to sports teams for children, charities that match your values, that are working toward goals you admire. Work with people who have challenges you don’t have—it helps you understand and relate, and learn how to truly help.

·         Give to charity. Tithe plus offerings. Give where what you give can do the most good for what you care about.

·         Educate yourself, and share what you learn. Education isn’t just about learning the knowledge and skills for a career (although that’s important too); it’s a beautiful way of living, always. There have never been more ways of learning at little or no cost than there are today.

·         Weed out the things in your life that don’t uplift: the entertainments, the music, the media. Fill those spaces with lasting things of value—better music, better books, better movies, better entertainments.

·         Participate civically. Vote—and be a prepared, educated voter. Participate in grassroots forums: parties, clubs, groups, town halls. Find other like-minded people in the community and join with them in doing good. Influence groups to be better. Contact school boards and elected officials at all levels; let them know what you believe and what you expect from them. Support good candidates, and then keep in contact and keep them accountable.

·         Read the founding documents, and a good variety of history. Understand the beliefs that led to our Constitution. If you’re fuzzy on how defend the basic ideas, study up. I suggest the nearly unlimited short videos at Prager University online, and the free online courses provided by Hillsdale College—start with their Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution.

·         Avoid cynicism. Being smugly right about negative things doesn’t help rebuild anything. Yes, things are dire. But assuming everyone is untrustworthy is just hopeless and discouraging. Find the good, and build on that.

There’s more to do. There will always be more to do. Get yourself anxiously engaged in a good cause, or two, or ten.

Start with yourself. Spread the good to your family. Then connect with other families and individuals with the same goals. Strengthen one another. We’re in a mess here in this world, including in this country. There’s plenty to do. Just do what you can. And pray that there will be enough others that our combined efforts will be enough.