6-6-16<\/p>\n
There is a danger in being a historian. Even the amateur historian and those who love to read history benefit from the special aspect of what my lodestar Theodore Roosevelt called \u201cHistory as literature\u201d \u2013 the thrill of past glories, the tragedy of conflicts, sensing the real lives of real people long ago. We gain perspective as we confront our own challenges. Even better, we legitimately feel like a player in the world\u2019s great events \u2013 a part of the contending ideas and possibly grand visions; a soldier in conflicts, if not military then intellectual and spiritual.<\/p>\n
Well, you can tell I am enthusiastic about history. The study, the pursuit, the lessons. George Santayana famously said that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. A cartoon-meme popping up on the web these days has an old guy reflecting that those who DO know history are doomed to watch other people repeat the mistakes.<\/p>\n
That IS a danger. But I began by saying that being a historian \u2013 having a historical perspective \u2013 can have its pitfalls. The broader the view, more seductive is the tendency to believe in cycles\u2026 pendulum swings\u2026 and what the writer of Ecclesiastes averred: \u201cThere is nothing new under the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed. The awful aspects of human nature are unchanged. So too are the propensities in the human breast to hope. There are elemental virtues and common sins. I believe these are the things referred to in Ecclesiastes. But too many people think \u2013 when they think at all about such things \u2013 that our<\/em> challenges and problems can\u2019t be all that bad, because countless civilizations have experienced them before us.<\/p>\n Experienced, yes. Survived? Usually not \u2013 and especially not when we talk about moral decline, fiscal irresponsibility, decline in family values, sexual immorality, addictions, loss of patriotic fervor and appreciation of heritage and tradition, lessened charitable impulses, and turning away from God\u2019s Word. Yes: review history. We are not<\/em> the only culture to experience these things.<\/p>\n But, in your review, notice that few societies, precious few, have redeemed themselves and crawled back into the sunshine. Virtually all have withered and died. Some over long, painful gray periods of dissolution. Some quickly, as by invasions. But the law of civilization and decay is that when societies fall, it is usually from within<\/em>.<\/p>\n I pivot from the panorama of history, behind us, to the current situation about which I will say as dispassionately as I can: The world has gone mad. To me, the only question is the tense: future-progressive (still occurring) (by the way, I am inclined to capitalize Progressive, but that is another essay\u2026) or present tense. In either case, it is still a tense situation.<\/p>\n I employ benchmarks from history\u2019s record of self-destructive societies. I have considered that the great march of personal freedom, intensifying in the West over the past 500 years, has allowed humankind to let human nature overtake the structure of governments, laws, arts, and science \u2013 and resulted in the previous century birthing more slaughter than any other century; and this century, so far, reviving (to take an example) slavery on a grander scale than ever before.<\/p>\n So it is not only a madness of the West, although we madly lead the mad parade to \u201cthe dawn of nothing \u2013 O make haste,\u201d as Omar Khayyam wrote. Savagery, abuse, hatred: all alive and well around the world. Wars and rumors of wars.<\/p>\n We have rejected in many ways the concept of Absolute Truth, the possibility of its existence, and the benefits of seeking to know it. History\u2019s masses often suffered, but often they believed in improvement; in advancement; in better things and better days. They believed in themselves, in leaders they respected\u2026 in God.<\/p>\n The world, in turning inward instead of outward, living for today without regard to an afterlife, abandoning standards that nurtured their ancestors, of course will reflect disharmony and chaos. Art imitates life, after all (what Plato called \u201cMimesis\u201d). This should worry us very, very much about the state of things \u2019round about us. This world is not one politician, or one new fad, or one hangover, away from righting ourselves. <\/p>\n We have become lovers of our own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good; traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. <\/p>\n You might have heard these words before. They were predicted about our times \u2013 or, anyway, the End Times. Do they describe this age? If not revealed in our actions, and conflicts, and multiple crises\u2026 then in the writing on the walls of our art and culture. Our headlines.<\/p>\n Never since the Flood has humankind, over the face of the earth and not in isolated pockets, rejected Truth in such determined ways. II Timothy 3 continues: \u201cIn the last days, perilous times will come,\u201d and names the attributes of our times we listed above. <\/p>\n It concludes: \u201cFrom such, turn away.\u201d <\/p>\n