Vacua

     It seems that for some kinds of learning, you have to get old.

     I’m old. I’ve lived 73 years as of the fifth of September in this Year of Our Lord 2025. And I sometimes thank God that I can’t clearly remember the foolishness I espoused in my younger days. I’d die of embarrassment if some of it were to come to light. And that’s enough for personal disclosures.

     I was educated as a physicist. I’ve retained very little of that knowledge. I couldn’t solve a Schrodinger’s Equation problem to save my life. But I did hold on to one critical insight. It’s one you probably acknowledge, too, even if you would express it in other terms.

Excepting the effects of entropy,
The universe is ruled by equilibrium.

     Practical living incorporates that insight in particular ways: “The goldfish will grow to the size of the bowl.” “Water seeks its own level.” “Dirty is automatic; clean takes work.” “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

     That last one is much on my mind this morning. No calculus will be required to follow it out.

***

     Experimenters create vacua for specific purposes, often to gauge the consequences of a reaction that cannot occur in air. Vacua are also required for certain types of high-tech manufacturing. But have you ever contemplated the production of vacua by activists and politicians? Why would they do it?

     (Before we proceed further, yes: the plural of vacuum is vacua. The alternate plural vacuums is best reserved to the discussion of floor-cleaning devices.)

     Nature abhors a sociopolitical vacuum just as much as the physical kind. Indeed, a sociopolitical vacuum is often paralleled by a physical one. Both demand to be filled by something. All it takes is time.

     Now consider what’s happened to birth rates in the First-World nations. I don’t know of any advanced nation other than Israel that’s reproducing at or above replacement rate. Without an influx of immigrants, those countries would “empty out” within a few generations. The effects are already visible in Russia and Japan.

     Those declines in fertility don’t create a hard vacuum... but they indicate a reduced pressure within the affected countries. The pressure against their borders is higher than the pressure to maintain racial, ethnic, and cultural norms can resist. Moreover, there are elements within those countries that want a flood of immigrants, regardless of any countervailing considerations.

     Those pro-immigration elements have effective control of the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

     Yes, movements have arisen in all those nations to agitate against unrestricted and unqualified admission to their lands. But to this point, the pro-immigrant elements in their governments are holding sway. It’s unclear whether the balance will tip in the other direction in the near future.

     I’d bet against it, because of a cooperating vacuum that’s been under construction for several decades.

***

     Moral and ethical norms are best inculcated in the young person by his parents. Should they fail to do so, he might manage to acquire them in some other fashion, but he’d likely give and receive a lot of pain and damage in the process. Some of that damage would be to his beliefs about individuals’ rights.

     For decades the trend in Western nations has been away from firm moral-ethical norms and toward a freewheeling relativism: “whatever’s right for you.” Parents have been swayed in that direction as much as anyone else. But relativism acts like a vacuum. Under the guiding principle of “whatever’s right for you,” even a nation whose heritage is strongly Christian will lack the will to defend Christian norms against an incursion by an aggressive and confident opponent.

     Relativism synergizes with the reluctance to confront – an unwillingness to risk conflict, even if it’s just verbal conflict. The relativist will not argue for any absolute norm. How can he? Under the relativistic principle, there are “no right answers.” Everyone is entitled to “his own truth.” But a time may come when someone else’s “truth” mandates the relativist’s subjugation or death.

     That’s what’s happened to Canada, Britain, and Australia. It’s beginning to raise its head here in the United States. The great majority of Americans are at least nominally Christian. Our Nation’s laws were founded on Commandments Four through Nine of the Decalogue. But we have exhibited an increasing disinclination to take up cudgels in support or defense of Christian norms.

     Those norms will not prevail without a stouthearted defense. Their adversaries’ numbers are growing while ours are stagnating. Do the math.

***

     My personal conviction is that Islam is toxic to human life and must be destroyed root and branch. I feel similarly about the tide of Negro savagery that’s manifested in recent years, most notably in the larger cities. But underlying those threats to Christian-Enlightenment civilization are the vacua of relativism and non-confrontation. Those vacua will be filled by something. It behooves us of the Christian Enlightenment to be ones to fill them.

     Time is not on our side.