From the front lines

Once again on this blog, I find myself largely in agreement with someone who I'd normally consider a political adversary.

Again, as Rod has pointed out before, the difference is over sexual issues. I think I can agree with the characterization of sex as a consumer good, and I think I can agree that that is bad. Where I must disagree is with the idea that all sex outside of heterosexual marriage is, therefore, little more than a consumption decision. I've simply known too many committed gay couples for this to ring true.

Surely, though, there is enough common ground there (with people like you and your reader, and with people like me) to see the beginnings of the "post-progressive marriage" (though I dislike the term) you've written about.

Of course "there is almost unanimous support for gay marriage". Marriage is a good thing, along with its inherent promises of commitment. How this is somehow tied in with alleged 'immorality' escapes me.

And just what IS "11th grade morality" anyway? How many grades of morality are there?

I agree with the high school teacher that we have lost the younger generation to secular values, but tracing the blame back to consumerism alone is questionable. It's a bigger picture than that. When conservatives took over Congress, they didn't take over the media, which is more influential over the culture than law makers ever thought of being. Some blame the parents, but the secular influences are so all encompassing that even good parents will lose many battles for their children's soul. Chris Lasch was attuned to the full scope of the problem when he wrote The Culture of Narcissism in 1979. The narcissistic culture sucks young people into vain pursuits. It's like Pleasure Island in the movie Pinocchio. They start out having fun, but wind up turning into jackasses.

As a fellow Catholic school teacher (21 years) I might suggest that the teacher try to secure a position at Ave Maria with the rest of the "faithful Remnant" of Catholicism or perhaps consider that perhaps he might be able to learn a few things from his students...and they from him!

I'm not sure how productive it is to blame a whole generations sexual mores on big business but it is fairly obvious that unquestioning support for any sector of society (be it the church or the party or big business or whatever it is liberal people are meant to have innate respect for) is a recipe for disaster. At some indistinct point in the past a left wing blogger emailed some right wing bloggers and asked them a hypothetical question, "how many kittens would the let George Bush kill in the name of the war on terror". I'm not sure how many (if any) serious responses he got. Thankfully George isn't killing any kittens but if you ever put yourself in the position that no matter how many he kills you will never question his behaviour stuff will go downhill. I can not really understand the mindset of people who can never contemplate under any circumstances voting for a party (D or R , whichever unfloats your boat).

While I agree that current problems with today's youth exist, I believe it an ignorant statement to put the burden of the problem on the Republican Party...or any other group outside the family.

One of the key aspects of CC that I agreed with was the focus on the home. Prioritizing the family and the raising of our children above that of materialistic endeavors. The impact that society makes on children is at best a distraction and at worse a finger pointing justification for our own laziness as parents.

Perhaps it is easier to focus the blame on government, society, a political party, big business, the environment, etc. as they are what our media focuses on most. The single biggest cause of our failure with youth however rests with the lack of responsibility & interest that parents take with their children.

my students are almost completely secularized (at least 80% are cultural Catholics, at best, and could not care less about anything the Church has to say); there is almost unanimous support for gay marriage, total indifference to abortion, divorce, premarital sex, etc., etc.

Honestly, the only thing in this litany that strikes me as being a somewhat new development is the increased support for gay marriage. But the rest of it has been going on for decades. I went to Catholic schools in the 80s, and I don't think any of my classmates were any more devout or religiously observant in these matters than kids today - looking back, in many ways I think we were a lot worse. And this all flies in the face of research that suggests kids today are actually more likely to have their act together than at any time in the last few decades - they're less likely to do drugs, smoke, or get pregnant, while being more pro-life, more likely to be involved in religious and family communities, and more conservative on matters of marriage and divorce. What your letter writer decries as "total indifference" to this matters probably has more to do with being bored by culture-warrior harping.

"And I blame consumerism."

Consumerism can only fill a void left by absenteeism on the part of the parents.

"...and could not care less about anything the Church has to say."

Consumerism plays a role, absolutely. But let's not forget the many ways in which the Catholic Church has eroded its credibility with young people. The pedophilia scandal (this would be enough, just by itself); the election of an elderly, hard-line pope; the continued refusal to allow women equal status in the Church; a -- I'm sorry to have to say it -- ridiculous position on birth control; intolerance of homosexuality; and on and on.

What the author calls "the onslaught of securalism", I'd call progress.

As the teacher who sent Rod this letter, I’d just like to say I wasn’t trying to offer a detailed critique of the problems faced by our young people; I was merely dropping him a line to say how much I loved the book and comment on one aspect that really hit home with me. I certainly believe that the cultural situation is complex. But I also believe that consumerism is public enemy number one. And I’m frustrated with the Republican Party, not because it is totally to blame, but because I had trusted it to help provide the resources to fight the consumerist dragon. They have not, in my opinion.

I love my kids and I love teaching, the reason this concerns me so much is because I’m concerned about them. I’m a capitalist through and through, but in my opinion, rampant consumerism (what Rod so eloquently called in a recent column, ‘the evils of Capitalism) is a whirlpool that is sucking these kids down into a black hole.

Incidentally, the school I teach at is in a somewhat rural area, very conservative, very blue collar. There is a relatively strong focus on the family throughout the area, and yet our kids are still headed in the wrong direction. The family is without question the most important aspect in the socialization of a child, but the family can only do so much in the face of consumerism.

How is it possible to be pro-Capitalism while be anti-Consumerism???? At the heart of Capitalism is consumerism. One cannot exist without the other, unless you chose to regulate business which is, ultimately, anti-capitalistic.

Could be that the kids don't feel the need to legislate other people's morality.

Also, "cultural Catholics, at best, and could not care less about anything the Church has to say" does not necessarily mean a lack of morality

The Republican party has openly advertised itself as the party of lower taxes, free enterprise and free trade for decades.

To wake up in 2007 and say, "Oh, my Gosh. The Republican party seems to often side with corporate America and consumerism," can only be explained by inattention to politics.

Do you know how difficult it is to win an election on a platform of, "Vote for me and you will have fewer consumer choices four years from now than you do today?"

There seems to be a belief that legality is equivilent to morality and that the activities of government represent all of society's activities. But one can donate money to help the poor even if one's government doesn't have an anti-poverty program funded by taxpayers; one can abstain from pre-marital sex even if pre-marital sex is perfectly legal.

Perhaps the author has placed too much emphasis on goverment's role and not enough emphasis on society's role. He certainly hasn't listened to very many speeches by Republican politicians over the years.

Newsflash: The Democrat party is the party that is anti-capitalism (yet it still wants people to have everything they want).

The founding fathers were convinced that their experiment in democracy could only survive so long as the people were moral. I would say that capitalism is much the same way. Capitalism is simply a mechanism by which an economy handles the movement of money and goods. There is nothing inherent in capitalism which demands that nothing can be considered more important that a profit. That comes from people who have no moral grounding greater than securing profit. Such people make a mockery of the good intentions of every economic system ever conceived of in human history, not just capitalism.

One of the things which has always appalled me about the Republican's form of capitalism is that rather than allowing free market forces to work, they continually stack the deck in favor of existing industries and against individuals seeking to share in the the bounty. The mess the insurance industry has made of health care, wages depressed by rampant illegal immigration and support of old energy sources are just a few examples off the top of my head.

Every time Rod makes one of these posts and I read the responses I lose hope that our country will ever be able to serve the people again. We're just too divided. There's no common sense of purpose at all. Neither side is able to muster even a modicum of respect for the other without seriously compromising their core values. The only hope I have for my children living in a world that isn't a replica of the future pictured in "Idiocracy" is that religious folks have more kids than non religious folks and may be able to create a functioning majority in another couple of generations as opposed to the divided country we have today.

Rod, can you imagine the massive depression that would ensue in this country if our consumerist spending habits were to come to a grinding halt?

Yet, I wonder if consumerism doesn't suggest a gross misallocation of resources. We, who have so much, spend our money on so many things that we really don't need, while so many in the world go without.

Beyond that, I fail to see any connection between, say, same sex marriage (which I support-I'm gay) and consumerism. What am I missing here?

Nonetheless, your correspondent's message is thought-provoking.

Got to love that I read this entire well written journal, and at the end of the litany of lost causes that are conservative components...abortion, gay marriage, all those others she lists...'lost causes' that conservatives hold dear......... and she blames 'consumerism'.

I know where she's coming from and your book she alludes to. But it is the ‘wrap the flag in the Republican party and make the conservative cause Biblical’ that has lost this generation, and will lose probably the White House in life after GWB. This 'Christian' president and the 'you're with us or against us' cronies and opportunistic and self-serving administration, all wrapped in Jesus and God and America the Christian Family Values hype...has run its course, and run this generation as far from the GOP as Johnny Walker Red is from pomegranate juice.

Don’t shoot the messenger. I cannot tell you how distasteful the word ‘Christian’ is coming to sound after the last 6 years to so many of us who are, yes, Christians. When it is constantly equated with political shell games and obviously myopic policy on a good day, blind on a bad and manipulative mean on most.

As the poet said, ‘Let me count the ways’ this administration has laid down the gauntlet, and alienated many of its own, and everyone else. After this year after year crusade of born again political actors, (who also manage to be uninteresting…no mean feat) the young will be more secular than they would have ever been because now, they equate Jesus and Christian with this Bush era, and that dog’s hunting days are over. How unnecessary and sad, but it’s the price we’re paying for buying into this ‘Christian Politics’ charade. When religion (and certainly religion-as-politics) is shoved down your throats, one’s reflex is to gag. By now, everyone is gagging like anorectic sorority sisters who ate tainted sushi. Is this how the Shiites felt all those years?

>And just what IS "11th grade morality" anyway? How many grades of morality are there?

At least 11...

On to Rod's comment...

My comment:
>>>Also, "cultural Catholics, at best, and could not care less about anything the Church has to say" does not necessarily mean a lack of morality

Rod's response:
>>>I find it rather odd that you would [not] be bothered by a teacher at a Catholic school's concern that many of his students don't care what the Catholic church has to say about morality. If he were a drill sergeant and his recruits didn't give a fig about fighting for America, wouldn't that be, you know, problematic?

Rod, please correct me if the [not] was incorrectly placed. It seemed to make more sense that way given the context of your comment.

To reply to your comment, I would first point out that you are not actually replying to the comment I made, which was that cultural Catholicism and indifference to the Catholic Church's teachings does not mean that these students lack morals.

You seem to be replying to a comment in which you imagine that I have stated that I am either bothered or not bothered by a teacher's concern that many of his students are indifferent to the Catholic Church's moral instructions. I had not, in fact, made any such comment in my post.

Secondly, I would point out that there is an explicitly stated assumption in your comment that might not be correct:

>>>many of his students don't care what the Catholic church has to say about morality.

It is possible, is it not, that these students have considered and rejected the Catholic Church's teachings on the morality of a) gay marriage, b) abortion, c) divorce, and d) premarital sex based on an arguable belief that

a) marriage is basically a civil contract and two people who want to enter into this contract should not be barred from doing so on the grounds of their similar gender

b) prior to some stage of fetal development, the woman carrying the fetus may ethically terminate the pregnancy because the fetus has not yet developed into a full humanity

c) since marriage is basically a civil contract, two people who have entered into this contract may end the contractual relationship if they desire

d) having sex with someone is nice and fun but does not imply a committed relationship

The writer explicitly identifies himself as being part of the Culture War, and given your analogy of teacher:students::drill sergeant:recruits, it seems to me likely that you might do so also. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But if I am correct

But if you do share that view, I can certainly see why it would be distressing to you that Catholic students, presumably competently instructed in Catholic Morality might not internalize those teachings.

But what you see as questions of morality, these students might see as questions of personal taste or private matters.

I work with college students. What I find remarkable is that the consumer culture is so pervasive that it shapes every conversation. Teach a course on ethics and the question from students is: How could this possibly be good value for the money in tuition I pay? The generational values are just that - the ability to put a monetary value on everything in their life. Now if you are teaching Theology - the starting point has to be faith. If you truly believe that faith is a gift of the Almighty, can you really blame a generation that has no faith for the lack of it. In the end if the organizing principle for conservatism is maximizing profit, can we really be surprised when this undermines a metaphysics of morality and the language of faith?

Great post Erin Manning.

Catholic schools have been about "achievement" for some time now. I don't know when they started this crap and got away from instructing yoots in the Important Things, but the focus on achievement so you can make a lot of money was already present when I started high screwl in 1984.

In terms of us being divided and how that will change in the future...all I can say is lefties, you best start aborting less and actually having more babies because we are out-reproducing you.

There's hope yet. A lot of people don't begin to truly consider moral issues until their 20s or 30s. In this consumerist age, they are still more like children than adults in 11th grade. Still wrapped up with acquiring the right clothes, car, boyfriend or

I suspect, Rock, that your grandparent's move was not motivated by the promise of stuff for the sake of stuff, but rather to take advantage of the opportunities to prosper and provide security for your family.

And westward expansion was not born of consumerism. I think you confuse entrepreneurs with consumers. Our current crop of diabetic video game junkies and porn addicts are not going to go forward and conquer the world any time soon.

Loudon is a Fool,

I suspect, Rock, that your grandparent's move was not motivated by the promise of stuff for the sake of stuff, but rather to take advantage of the opportunities to prosper and provide security for your family.

I suspect that my grandparents came to America for economic opportunity, social mobility and freedom. In other words, they came here to improve both their material standard of living (i.e. making more money and being able to have "more stuff) and their social standard of living (i.e. being able to live in a society where people have freedom of speech and basic human rights).

And westward expansion was not born of consumerism. I think you confuse entrepreneurs with consumers.

Silly me. I thought that entrepreneurs are successful when they are able to sell to consumers. I guess if a entrepreneur could dictate to the consumer what he or she would have to buy, it would make things simpler for the entrepreneur. But, there again, the evil free enteprise system comes in and lets consumers choose how they will spend their money. Joe Stalin would not be pleased with that I'm sure.

Our current crop of diabetic video game junkies and porn addicts are not going to go forward and conquer the world any time soon.

I am pretty sure that my grandparents didn't come to the United States to play video games and view pornography. Still, one wonders why this makes socialism (i.e. hostility to "money" and "corporate interests") a better bet than free enterprise.

Who says you can't be pro-life and pro-free enterprise?

Rod,

You say:

"This teacher suspects that a lot of it has to do with having been raised in a consumer culture, one that places the autonomous choosing self at the center of moral authority. The students, in other words, have been conditioned by this culture to see their Church as non-authoritative in matters of morality."

Does recognizing and respecting an authority require unquestioning agreement with all that authority states? I feel like I was a little ahead of the Papacy on the matter of Limbo - was I putting self at the center of moral authority or using my faith, reason and belief in a just, loving and forgiving God when I, at age 8 in 1972, reasoned that God surely would not separate the soul of a newborn baby from those of its family for eternity due to an event beyond the ability of the newborn to control?

Crunchy cons seem to always lump support for gay marriage in with disregarding teaching on pre-marital sex and abortion, but to many reasoning people, it is possible to differentiate a social justice issue (gay marriage) from pre-marital sex and abortion.

And it is interesting to me that the consumerism lamented here is linked to sexual sins, while the enormous impacts to family from economic insecurity, dual-income households where both parents either choose to work or have to work, the fission of the larger family where grandma/grandpa live hundreds of miles away, the decline of the neighborhood as a social unit, etc. etc., are not considered.