Indictments

     Relax! You haven’t missed a stunning development in some high-profile legal drama. This is just your old Curmudgeon warming up for an “assorted” rant. Bear with him.

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     I’ve been seeing comments on X from various sources arguing that “we should legislate Christian morality.” The proponents uniformly refrain from specifying what they have in mind. I’m occasionally moved to ask them “Exactly what do you mean?” I know that’s my cruel side coming to the surface, so I force it back into its cage before I can surrender to the impulse.

     For a few months not long before I retired, there was a young Nigerian woman, a graduate student at a university near me, who relied upon me to get her home from work each day. She too thought it proper to “legislate Christian morality.” Back then I was more curious about such views and the persons who espoused them, so I asked her for a specific example. She proposed the death penalty for adultery and fornication. I decided to let the subject drop right there.

     I don’t know if there’s ever been a Christian society that executed people for having sex outside marriage. I’m fairly sure that the idea wouldn’t have a lot of supporters in the First World today. But if that’s what would appeal to supporters of “legislated Christian morality,” I have to question their premises – and whether they’ve ever read the Gospel According to John.

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     Among the things I’ve learned these past seven decades is how indoctrination works: how the process is structured, what it must include and exclude, and its underlying goal. Indoctrination in a particular doctrine seems to be about that doctrine. To some extent that will always be true. But the foundation beneath it is common to all attempts to indoctrinate. The aim is to suppress resistance to the doctrine by making an attempt to think about it more painful than the target can bear.

     The obvious method of doing so is to punish dissent from the doctrine. The punishment could be anything from the infliction of physical pain to an expression of scorn from a respected authority figure. The point is to associate dissent inseparably with suffering in the targets’ minds. If that can be achieved, the doctrine becomes self-enforcing.

     In our time, the promulgation of political positions has the flavor of indoctrination, but with a twist of lemon. “You can’t be one of us if you think that.” Denial of fellowship with those one ardently wants as fellows can be a severe punishment. This is especially the case when commercial opportunities are involved.

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     There are two basic approaches to the discovery of important norms: the teleological and the divine. The divine method is simple: “God said so.” The teleological method requires the study of history, and the processes by which men and societies rise or fall.

     When what God said – or what some authority figure tells us God said – clashes with rules and practices that have advanced a society over its history, trouble will ensue. Authority figures lose standing. People ask “Did God really say that?” If some rule or practice with a lot of adherents is involved, social fissures will arise.

     But the other possibility is of equal if not greater import. If what God said does indeed favor human advancement, those who promote it will gain followers. Faith in divine benevolence will be strengthened. Those who dissent will be marginalized. And – dare I say it? Oh, why not? – God will be pleased.

     We’re in the middle of a century-long test of the rules, practices, and mechanisms that undergirded the rise of the West. In particular, we’re testing whether America can survive the hypertrophy of tolerance, which has swollen to embrace any and every imaginable deviance, no matter how demonstrably unhealthful or destructive. Whatever your personal inclinations, it would be well to keep an eye on the scoreboard.

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     I say and write a lot of things that elicit finger-wagging and clucking, but I think I could get general agreement to this proposition: It’s socially unacceptable to be seen giggling and joshing during a public expression of profound grief.

     Two of the least acceptable figures in public life, Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, did a lot of giggling and joshing during the 9/11 memorial ceremonies on Friday: specifically, during the reading of the names of the fallen. Perhaps they were confident that their behavior couldn’t lower the public’s opinion of them any further. No matter. But midterm elections loom, and a vigorous attempt to oust Mamdani from Gracie Mansion is in progress. Do please remember their giggling and joshing when the time comes to take a stand.

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     That’s all for today. As usual, I’m behind on many things. Worse, I have customer-assembled furniture to bang together a little later. Remember me in your prayers, and try to have a good day.