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.

Swedish Story

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.

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.

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.

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[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)

Cultural Death Wish

Back in early February 2012 I wrote a three-part piece on Why Civilizations Die. The short version is: Civilizations die when the culture no longer has a will to survive.

Civilization—with a capital C—is an ideal. It may be neglected, ignored, left alone. But the concept itself is eternal and undying. So when we say civilization is dying, we’re saying a particular culture, or group of people, that may have qualified as civilized relatively recently, is dying out and disappearing.

In September I mentioned some reasons for considering Russia’s Slavic culture as dying. Some of the data came from the author of a book called Implosion: The End of Russia and What It Means for America, by Ilan Berman. At that point, I was writing from information from a radio interview with the author. The book finally showed up at my local library, so I’m adding to that discussion with a few more details from the book.

Here’s a summary of the decline:

Russia is dying. Russia is undergoing a catastrophic post-Soviet societal decline due to abysmal health standards, runaway drug addiction, and an AIDS crisis that officials have termed an “epidemic.” The population of the Russian Federation is declining by close to half a million souls every year due to death and emigration. At this rate, the once-mighty Russian state could lose a quarter of its population by the middle of this century. And according to some projections, if Russia’s demographic trajectory does not change, its population could plummet to as little as fifty-two million people by 2080. It’s a phenomenon demographers have described as “the emptying of Russia”—a wholesale implosion of Russia’s human capital and a collapse of its prospects as a viable modern state (pp. 10-11).

There’s a rather short three-generation pattern for civilization demise. If you’ll recall the words of J. D. Unwin, who studied the role of monogamy in civilizations throughout world history:

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…. The results should begin to emerge in the third generation.[i]

That does seem to be happening in Russia. Simultaneous with the severe demographic decline is the ethnic and religious transformation from Slavic Christian to Muslim. According to Berman, “Muslims are on track to account for a fifth of the country’s population by the end of this decade [by 2020], and a majority by mid-century (p. 11).” Compounding this demographic change is a xenophobic effort to keep the growing minority as an underclass, which pretty much guarantees separation rather than assimilation (p. 33).

The collapse of the Russian family is at the core of the decline:

In 1958, divorces in the USSR were virtually nonexistent—just 0.9 per one thousand citizens. By the end of the 1970s, that rate had risen slightly to 3.6 per one thousand. But Soviet-era restrictions on individual mobility, coupled with widespread economic hardship, helped keep most families together.

By contrast, the past two decades of freewheeling capitalism and post-Communist disorder have coincided with a collapse of the Russian family. According to the UN’s 2011 Demographic Yearbook, Russia now has the highest divorce rate in the world, with half of all unions ending in divorce (and 60 percent of those dissolving within the first decade.)… Nuclear families with multiple children are quickly becoming an endangered species in Russia (p. 19).

What does “freewheeling capitalism” mean, and why is that a negative thing? In Russia, corruption is rampant. There’s the kind of uncertainty you find in the Spherical Model southwestern quadrant—chaos of organized crime, economic takeover by the biggest and strongest. Freedom to enjoy the fruits of your work requires limited government that protects property rights. (See Wednesday’s post.) Russia, by contrast, has “organized corruption on a staggering scale”:

According to a February 2013 study by research group Global Financial Integrity (GFI), Russia lost more than $200 billion in illicit financial outflows stemming from crime, corruption, and tax evasion between 1994 and 2011. All told, the study estimates “the size of Russia’s underground economy—which includes, among other things, drug smuggling, arms trafficking, and human trafficking—are a massive 46% of GDP” over that period (p. 72).

On the surface, Putin’s regime is attacking this corruption, but that doesn’t reflect a systemic, internal change: “Indeed, the very foundations of Putin’s state—and, by extension, his hold on power—rely on loyalty that is secured through informal dealings and graft. Without them, the Putin government’s hold on power would quickly loosen” (p. 73).

These are not random factors; they’re all cultural factors. On the Spherical Model, we can see what leads to thriving civilization: living God’s laws, starting with the Ten Commandments—with honesty, honoring family, including honoring parents and fidelity to spouse, and valuing life standing out.

It might be that Russia is already in its death throes. But with God nothing is impossible. I don’t know how the nation can solve all of its problems (other than massive personal religious conversion). But I am certain that no authoritarian regime can do it—attempts to encourage marriage and childbearing notwithstanding (p. 24 mentions the “mother’s capital” program to encourage childbearing). Living the principles of civilization by individuals, and individual families, in large enough numbers to become a critical mass, is the only cure for the cancer.

Russia is something like a failing uncle in the European family—aging, addicted to alcohol, often non-functional, with such depression and despair that he seems unwilling to take the action necessary to prevent an early death. Only that internal willingness to change—eschewing the self-harming behaviors—can move this enfeebled uncle to get his life back. Many of us are shaking our heads and thinking, it doesn’t look likely.

One concern for us in America, upon the possibly imminent demise of this uncle (this Slavic people), is what happens to his assets (nuclear weapons material), which look like they’ll be taken over by whoever moves into his tenement (people, probably Muslim, that are gaining prominence in the region), especially if that new occupant has radical ill will?

That’s a big question. Another reason for concern about Russia’s imminent demise is as a cautionary tale for us. The US divorce rate, while not quite as high, is too high (70% remain married for life, but the near 50% divorce rate shows a high number of serial divorcers). The abortion rate here, while not as high, is too high. Our birthrate is right at replacement level of 2.1—but that depends mainly on higher birth rates among active religious people and immigrants; much of the rest of the population mirrors below-replacement rates of other decaying civilizations. Our level of corruption is lower, but is growing under this administration, which functions with a southern (on the Sphere) tyranny mentality.

We know what leads to cultural death. And we know what leads to thriving civilization. We need to consciously choose life.

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[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)

Family Ties to Economics

We’ve talked here before about the formula for success in America (which I wrote about here and here):

1.         Don’t have sex before age 20.

2.         Don’t have sex until after marriage.

3.         Stay married.

4.         Obtain at least a high school diploma.

I first had this formula spelled out in a speech from Richard Wilkins in 2001, the first time I met him. While going through various tributes following his early death (this is a good one, from Sharon Slater, who worked with him for Family Watch International), I found a link to one of his last speeches (full speech here) Richard Wilkins was the keynote speaker at the June 2012 UN event Standing for the Family: The Family in the Context of Human Rights. The speech is called “The Family as the Cradle of International Human Rights,” and again he asserts that the necessary solution to poverty and other social and economic issues worldwide depends on strengthening marriage and family. As always, it is clearly laid out and well documented.

He points out the founding UN documents that validate the family as the basic unit of society, and then laments the failure to abide by those founding principles.

During the past 65 years there has been great (and laudable) progress in individual rights and freedom, particularly with regard to equality for women. But the family—and the associated civic virtues of hard work, tolerance, patience, kindness, forbearance and forgiveness that are taught to children by wise and loving parents—has been ignored. It is well past time for the international community to acknowledge the fundamental roles played by the family and to take appropriate action to strengthen and support the family.

He spends the body of the piece outlining the specific benefits to men, women, and children—and to society as a whole—provided by marriage and family, well-documented by mounting social research. He then outlines social problems stemming directly from family breakdown. And ends with a call to strengthen family:

Because families are the fundamental unit of society, governments and other social assistance actors should not bypass the unit that can best strengthen society. Fathers and mothers, by and large, love their children. Policies and assistance that permit fathers and mothers to work together to strengthen their families to improve the condition of their children will not only be more successful than other possible approaches, they will strengthen society itself. By building a healthy family, we build a healthy society and—ultimately—a healthy world.

In the shadow of some looming economic catastrophes in our own country, I think we need to make the connection to family breakdown as the root cause and stronger families as the ultimate only solution.

Paul Rahe
Photo from Uncommon Knowledge interview

While I was thinking this, I happened to be doing a little catch-up watching of things I got behind on, and tuned in to Glenn Beck’s November 30^th show—last Friday. Glenn wasn’t there that day. BYU History Professor Paul Kerry  hosted, and his  main guest was Professor Paul Rahe of Hillsdale College (I recognized him from Week 3: “The Greek Miracle,” from Hillsdale’s free online History 101 course). Much of the hour talked about the need for a long-term view, and what perpetuates that view. Family is one of those things. Starting at about 21 minutes in, the discussion gets somewhat specific:

Paul Rahe: Let me give you some statistics that I think will shock you and surprise you. In 1940 what was the rate of out-of-wedlock births, in other words the percentage of children born who were not born to people who were already married? The answer is somewhere between 2 and 3%. That was true in 1950,2-3%. It went up to 5%, a shocking number, in 1960. And, among African-Americans, it went considerably higher than that, to about 12%, which caused Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was an assistant secretary of labor, to work on the so-called Moynihan report about the crisis of black families.

Paul Kerry: And a Democrat as well…

Paul Rahe: Yes. By 1980 it was 18.4%. Last year it was 39.6%. Now, think about that. We are approaching a situation in which half of the children born in the United States are born to young women who are not married. This is a very good example of a lack of long-term planning. Because they’re taking on heavy responsibilities that it’s hard enough for two parents to manage, especially with one working full time and the other at home (which was the old pattern) to manage. And they’re doing this without thinking.

Now, it’s even worse than I say. Because, if you go back to 1940, there’s almost no form of contraception available. So, in the absence of contraception, the out-of-wedlock birthrate was 2-3%. With the presence of contraception, it’s 39.6%. And I’ve left abortion out of the picture. In 1940 there are almost no abortions; last year in the United States there were three-quarters of a million abortions. There have been 50 million abortions since 1973.

So the pattern, which is among young people—because 50-year-olds aren’t having this problem, since they’re not giving birth—the problem is a lack of impulse control. The problem is a lack of long-term planning. The problem is that a moral revolution has taken place.

So a question you  might want to ask yourself is, can a republic sustain itself in a world in which people are acting on impulse and irresponsibly—and I say irresponsibly, because there are other human being involved, not only the sexual partner but the offspring—can a republic be sustained in those circumstances? Because the women who have children out of wedlock are in fact going to be dependents on the state. And what they’re going to do is call upon other people to pay their bills, to take care of them. Not the father of the child, but welfare, food stamps, things along those lines.

It was a nice connecting of the dots. Who teaches impulse control and encourages a long-term outlook that helps individuals and communities? Families do that. Who does it in broken homes or single-parent households? No one. Especially if the broken family situation happened because of choosing short-term impulse over long-term perspective. In those cases the burden to teach the values falls on someone who does not hold those values.

The solution to economic problems is not to forcibly take income from successful people and hand it unearned to people whose behavior led to dire circumstances; the solution is to strengthen families, where the formula for success is taught. A backup is for churches and schools to also teach the values traditionally inculcated in families, rather than working against them. The social problems caused by an out-of-wedlock birthrate of 2-3% are much easier for society to solve than the overwhelming 39.6% rate. Too many problems, and too few successful society members to make up for the problems.

We know the formula for success. We know the path to take. Some of us will take that path no matter what. The question is, why isn’t that the direction followed by everyone who ever sought to be a leader? Because a leader moving people in any other direction cannot lead to success.

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 join 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 quadrant 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.

Devaluing Marriage: Part III--Decay of Civilization

Today is the third in a three-part series on the results of Devaluing Marriage. Last Thursday we talked about historical examples of devaluing marriage in Part I, and on Friday current worldwide examples in Part II. Today Part III of Devaluating the Family shows what can happen in our own country, what society looks like when family no longer functions as the civilizing influence it is meant to be. 

Let’s say we have a US city, formerly thriving, some 40 years ago. With a high minority population, it used to have the highest rate of home ownership of any black urban population in the country, with an unemployment rate for blacks of just 3.4%. 

This city has a population of around 3/4 of a million people, about half of what it was during its thriving years; those who could get out have gotten out. Housing is surprisingly cheap. Many of those who left the decayed city were unable to sell their property, so they abandoned it. Houses average a mere $7,000 (let’s say as of March 2010, down from $98,000 in 2003) and continue to drop.  

In its previous thriving years, the city had a lot of industry. Much of it was concentrated in one market sector, but that is a sector that continues to grow worldwide, yet edges on bankruptcy in our study city.

Education in our city is disastrously poor. The high school graduation rate is a rock bottom 22%.  Public schools are known to be so bad that, even though the cost per student is nearly double the national average, and 27% of families live below the poverty line, only 38% are willing to subject their children to the public school district. The rest resort to charter schools (17%) or private schools (45%), no matter the cost. Only 11% of the population has a college degree. Combining this data with the brain drain of capable workers escaping to find work elsewhere, this means that in an increasingly technological world, this population is woefully inadequate to fill job needs.  

Without workers worth employing, it is unlikely that businesses will risk opening new facilities that could help remedy the high unemployment. Unemployment hovers about 11.6%, 2.5% higher than the national average, 1.3% higher than the state it is located in. 

Crime is rampant. With an annual rate of 20 violent crimes per 1000 people, and 366 murders a year, this is nearly double other high crime cities. Compared to cities twice its size, our city of decay has nearly 200 more cases of arson per year and 4,000 more stolen vehicles. 

The previous mayor finally resigned under pressure after 10 felony indictments on numerous corruption charges, bribery, obstruction of justice, political favors in government contracts, and prostitution among them. (He was recently paroled following a plea deal.) The current mayor ran on a more honest, transparent government platform, and may be an improvement. Following his appointment, he then had to face election, in an election where only 15% of registered voters turned out. 

Taxes are high. Per capita spending on social programs is astronomical. No amount of social spending seems capable of bringing about a recovery. For those who have work, their prosperity is moderated by the high taxes and crime.

What is the family makeup of our decaying city? It takes some looking to measure the data. There are 269,445 households, but many of these are single people, in other words not families. There are 162,924 family households; that’s 60% of the total. But these include many empty nest or so far childless couples—which also contribute to society by being married. But what we really want to know is the makeup of households currently raising children. There are 74,251 such households. Of these, 22,871 are headed by two married parents. That is 30.8%. The remaining 51,380 families raising children are headed by single mothers, single fathers, single parents cohabiting with a nonrelated person, or some other scenario that is less than ideal for the children. 

We know that there is a critical mass of intact families necessary to stabilize and civilize a population. We don’t know the exact point of critical mass, but it is probably around 75%. During the Great Depression, FDR had the luxury of depending on a high level of around 90% intact families to mitigate the damage caused by governmental economic interference. Our study city simply creates social problems, rather than solving them. There is no room for social engineering failures. 

If only I were making up this hypothetical city of decay! This is in fact a description of Detroit, Michigan. There are many causes for the decay in this city; the rules for political freedom, free-market economics, and civilization are intertwined, which this city exemplifies in the negative. We could blame labor unions, who have limited hiring and limited new business. We could blame corrupt politics that offer giveaways in exchange for votes. But we could also blame liberal social policies, which have promised to solve problems better solved by strong families: food, clothing, and shelter for children; education; passing along a strong work ethic and other civilizing teachings.  

You get more of what you subsidize. When you subsidize mistakes like bearing children outside of wedlock and raising them in mainly fatherless homes (also subsidizing the dissolving of marriages through no-fault divorce), you get more of that. Nationally, single motherhood is the common factor for 70% of juvenile murderers, delinquency, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, dropouts, runaways, and suicides.

So the separation of parenting from marriage contributes to the decay in a way that will make recovery nigh unto impossible regardless of economic and political reforms. I don’t see recovery happening for Detroit, unless something huge changes the situation—something as huge as whole population religious conversion. (It happened in Nineveh, back in Jonah’s day, so let’s not assume it’s impossible, just unlikely.) 

After last week’s Part I and Part II, you may have been expecting an example of disaster hitting a city because of the imposition of “same-sex marriage.” We haven’t yet had an example of such a city or region in our country. But we do indeed have a number of areas where marriage has been devalued to something less than what it has meant for millennia. Instead of a permanent, exclusive commitment to society to establish a family, it becomes merely a vehicle to give benefits to two people in a current sexual relationship—something which has no innate benefit for society. 

Let’s imagine for a moment what is likely to happen in a marriage-devalued community. Children are raised without the benefit of their two parents—which results in more social problems: poverty, crime—which discourages business from locating there and increases unemployment. In other words, it could deteriorate into the very picture of Detroit. Areas within a number of US inner cities, where out-of-wedlock birth is the rule, indeed have social ills and economic failures to rival Detroit. Mostly these are pockets and not entire cities. 

If we’re looking for a remedy, it cannot be imposing a definition of marriage that prevents family from doing its civilizing duty; specifically, imposing “same-sex marriage” can only cause further harm. Such a social experiment is guaranteed to cause decay. Any remedy has to include strengthening families—encouraging marriage where children will be raised by their own parents, encouraging adoption as the expected result of out-of-wedlock births (instead of the current mere 1%), encouraging counseling for marriages in crisis so that no-fault divorce ceases to be an easy escape that then costs society as a whole.  

There is an additional sad result wherever “same-sex marriage” has been imposed: loss of religious freedom and freedom of expression for those who value marriage and family. That is a subject for an entire post another day.