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Without an
Anchor
By Kate Burch
I read this morning a headline about the cratering sales of “organic”
milk. At first, I thought it a positive sign that perhaps people
had begun to wake up to the fact that paying a premium for so-called
organic foods is a waste of money and comparable to buying a purse with
a designer logo so that one may be perceived as somehow special or
superior to others. Then, when I read the article, I found that
was not the case; that increased demand for “milk” made from almonds,
soybeans, cashews, and the like has caused the decline in sales of the
“organic” variety. Apparently, we are nowhere near seeing the end
of people needing to demonstrate their specialness by requiring special
foods. Part of this need to be special comes from a feeling of
being unsafe or threatened. People not afflicted with celiac
disease convince themselves that they are “sensitive” to gluten;
or they believe that they are “lactose intolerant” without having the
clinical signs and symptoms; or they fear that foods produced by
large-scale agricultural methods will cause them harm absent evidence
that such is the case.
This issue is of a piece with the larger and pervasive question of
identity politics. We see today, very prominently in colleges,
but also in society at large, people ragefully claiming victim status
by virtue of their sex (real or imagined), their skin color, their
sexual proclivities, ethnicity, religion, and other aspects of
identity. The rage is palpable, real, often infantile and
terrifying. We have seen “demonstrations” devolve into violent
riots with murders, assaults, looting and property damage. We
have seen speakers at universities and public events not only heckled
by those who disagree, but harassed and assaulted, needing at times to
flee in fear for their safety or their very lives. School
administrators have responded to their student “victims” by providing
“safe spaces” and other comfort measures when they claim to feel
threatened or offended by ideas that are different from their
own. At least one public official has famously called for
allowing violent demonstrators “space to destroy.”
Along with the social unrest, there is significantly rising incidence
of mental illness in young adults; and of course the opioid “epidemic”
that affects youth, but also people into middle age. I
first saw references to rising levels of psychopathology in children in
the psychological literature about twenty years ago. My guess was
that a causative factor might be children being brought up by strangers
in the daycare culture while their parents were both working and then
too exhausted to provide attentive and thoughtful care. I
still think that’s a driver. Clearly, these young people are
miserable. But why?
In America today there is ongoing, large-scale destruction of
humanity’s most basic institution, the family, disrespect for American
symbols, and discrediting of the shared values and ideals that have
embodied the American identity. While America is still
predominantly Christian, at least nominally, we also see more and more
in the popular media warnings about the threat posed by Christians and
Christianity. I am convinced that undermining the institutions
that provide a secure and healthy identity is purposeful and part of an
ongoing program that started more than a century ago and relentlessly
labors to transform the world according to Marxist
ideology.
The sexual revolution unmoored sexual congress from reproduction and
opened the floodgates for the factors that have caused so much damage
to the family: out-of-wedlock births, abortion, and fatherless
homes. It might also be mentioned that people of color and those
in lower socioeconomic groups have suffered from these social
pathologies to the greatest degree. Anyone who has experienced
family breakup or parental abandonment, or who has been closely
acquainted with those who have, knows the rage and sadness and feelings
of worthlessness, disconnectedness, and grief that are associated with
a broken family. It’s a huge question, obviously, but it makes
sense to me that a young person who is deprived of the security of
family, primarily, but also deprived of encouragement for patriotism,
and even for positive religious identification, is going to be angry,
and will be vulnerable to seizing on an unhealthy or pseudo-identity
that will provide not security, but rather a wellspring of rage.
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