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Many of us sometimes wonder, “What’s the future going to be like?” The answer is simple: we don’t really know. However, one solution is to recognize that culture matters, and it matters a lot! These lines try to suggest how valuing culture has helped me respect it and fight for it.
One of the current crises Western nations face in today’s political climate is that they have forgotten about Christianity, especially its cultural contribution to it. For instance, it was the Church who brought the university to the West. Advances in the sciences and arts occurred at these cultural centers, where the mind and soul were cultivated. On the other hand, today one can witness the lack of diverse opinions due to censorship and speech codes on many university campuses.
Universities have a moral crisis, students are not eager to learn, party-lifestyle like there is no tomorrow has captured the interest of today’s generation instead of reading the curriculum of Great Books that made Western culture the most beautiful, welcoming, and admirable culture in the world. Massive tiredness over a healthy mind occurs. What has happened to the Socratic method? “I know that I know nothing,” Socrates famously said. It is easy to say that university humanities departments no longer create curious-minded individuals. God only knows what the future of the humanities will end up being.
As culture progresses towards de-Christianization, so do its moral values such as respect for life, protection of the nuclear family, and ideas of right and wrong. Today many youngsters believe in what German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche promoted: relativism. “A fetus is not a human being!” feminists shout, protesting at many pro-life events. Little do they know that it was suffragist feminists like Susan B. Anthony who promoted the right of women to keep their babies and not have abortions. Margaret Sanger, on the other hand, once mentioned that only the fit should reproduce.
Families based on natural law believe in the sanctity of the individual and help him/her to be a well-rounded individual in a secularist world. The Christian family needs to keep fighting, so their children can be protected from the malicious moral standards of today. Families will not survive if they do not agree with moral values such as respecting the sanctity of life and other moral values based on Christianity. “What yesterday is right, tomorrow it becomes wrong. What yesterday is wrong, tomorrow it becomes right,” says your average relativist. Transcendent ideals are no longer respected because people are afraid of not being politically correct. Cancel Culture seems to win everything and where its tentacles reach it seems to get worse and worse.
However, while it is true that the world sometimes seems chaotic and destructive with all the cultural changes, I still believe that we should be optimistic about it. Let me briefly explain why. To start, there are many conservative and Christian organizations on college campuses and these two groups are becoming increasingly on the internet, academia, and culture. I have witnessed in my own college experience that most students are tired of censorship and are eager to learn about transcendental ideals such as the common good and natural law when I explained it to them. There is definitely hope and 2022 should be just that for us! Parents are seeking alternatives in the type of education their children receive, many are opting in sending their children to private, charter, parochial, or homeschool.
The silent majority is waking up, I have seen it on the internet and on student attitudes when in my undergraduate years I talked about transcendent values, and not the Nietzschean language of relativism, or live & let live attitude. In order to win the current cultural battle, one must recognize that there is a Gramscian spirit in the soul of Western man. Antonio Gramsci’s “long march,” towards Western institutions may be seen as a victory, but is it really winning when more Western individuals are waking up against the evilness of the world? One should always be hopeful and remain faithful to God and humanity because at the end of the day we know we will triumph. As Christians, we must defend our moral views, and C.S. Lewis reminded us why. He said:
“As Christians, we are tempted to make unnecessary concessions to those outside the Faith. We give in too much… there comes a time when we must show that we disagree. We must show our Christian colors, if we are to be true to Jesus Christ. We cannot remain silent or concede everything away.”
There comes a time in history where our silence becomes indifferent to the transcendent. We must never remain silent about the things that matter dear to us. Let’s begin our New Year with faith, hope, and charity!
