Article by William D. Howard in "The American Thinker":
Beginning
in the 1960s, society began to give up parental rights to the creators
of mass popular culture. Movies, TV, video games, and of course music
are now the surrogate parents of our young. During the same period of
our history, large numbers of Americans began to abandon traditional
Judeo-Christian sexual morality. The results are now obvious: an
increase in premarital sex, out-of-wedlock births, divorce, and
single-parent families. The one thing that didn't increase was the
percentage of Americans who were religiously affiliated and who
regularly attended religious services. The high point of religious
practice in America was reached in the 1950s and since then has been in
steady decline, but most alarming is the fact that as a percentage of
our national population today, young adults make up the largest group of
those who call themselves non-religious.
These
cultural trends led to a steady increase in all types of
violence. Mass murders are getting the big headlines, but there are
many types of violence that, taken as an aggregate, are exponentially
greater. Violent crime quadrupled between 1960 and 1991. The rate of
suicide has increased 33% between 1999 and 2017. Since 1973, in
America, there have been over sixty-one million abortions, and
human-trafficking is increasing in every state.
Should
we now be surprised that the proportion of young people committing mass
murder is increasing? That the majority of these young people come
from broken homes and 85% of the shooters are religiously
non-practicing?
The
two main ways our present national culture has departed from our past
is its increasing disrespect for human life and its acceptance of a low
level of sexual morality. If the history of the world proves anything
about the future stability of a civilization, it is the fact that its
success must be rooted in families where there are a high degree of
morality and discipline. Without these, the peace and order of a
society soon begin to unravel. History provides many examples of what I
call "cultural self-genocide." The process is always the same: honored
values and beliefs that had defined a civilization for centuries
suddenly become the topic of social and cultural ridicule. Other values
or beliefs are accepted with little scrutiny and even turned into a
culturally fashionable campaign.
Herodotus
said thousands of years ago, "Culture is King." Morals, norms, and
religious beliefs are the true foundation of a civilization, and if that
template is broken, violence and chaos will soon follow.
