How Long Do We Have Left

Catholic Exchange posits a fascinating question, [h/t: Spirit Daily]

A friend recently asked: “How long do we have left as a society?” In answer to that question I informed her about an interesting and comprehensive study that a renowned British anthropologist, Joseph Unwin, PhD., presented to the British Psychological Society in 1935. Unwin sought to prove that the traditional monogamous model for marriage was not essential to the maintenance of a healthy society. After studying 86 different cultures, across time and continents –and much to his surprise — he came to the inescapable conclusion that the traditional male-female monogamous model for marriage was indeed the best foundation for a healthy and productive society.

Unwin found that societies that adopted this model typically took about three generations to reach their peak of productivity and progress. After that, frequently, a gradual development of complacency and licentiousness would take place and what he described as an ”outburst of homosexuality” would sometimes occur. When that happened, and the society started to move away from the traditional model of male-female monogamous marriage as its foundation, it would begin to unravel. It would then take another three generations of deterioration from that point for the society to collapse ...

From a mimetic theory point of view, the "crisis of distinctions" is indeed a clear marker of cultural dissolution, it being an indicator of a culture's religious center inability to command the social and psychological coherence of its people. The prohibitions instead of steering people safely clear of behavior that could lead to explosive and retaliatory violence become points of scandal, leading people to imitate destructiveness.

Need examples of such prohibitions? Okay. "Whatever you do, don't play with matches," to a five-year old. "Don't engage in unsafe sex, sex outside of lifelong, covenantal matrimony, sex with the same gender, different species, etc." to a _____ (fill in the blank).

Mimetic theory posits that after a certain amount of spiraling downward in the "sacrificial preparation," prohibitions actually promote more destruction of cultural framework rather than less as more and more people engage in kicking them down. It is like the Trojans tearing stones from their own fortifications to throw at the Greeks outside their gates.

The best plan of action now is not engaging in a spitting contest in bipartisan conservatism or utopia-messianic pipe dreaming. VOTE for the Culture of Life and the smallest, most voiceless victims of the degenerate west - the unborn. But the best plan is the one given by T. S. Eliot in his Four Quartets:

prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action

In upcoming posts, I will spell out what, for me, each of these injunctions mean for the Catholic person of faith living at A Time Near the End of the World.