By Angus Harley

Hamas, Israel, atrocities, rockets, Bud Light, Trump indictments, protests, barbarity, transgenderism- what on earth is going on? It’s like a surreal remix of Billy Joel’s song We didn’t start the fire and its line:

‘Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,

Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,

Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan….

We didn’t start the fire….’

Everything and everyone, including the next-door neighbor’s cat, seems swallowed up in today’s events, this world’s conflagration. It’s as if the fabric of the world is coming apart before our eyes. Or, one could cynically say, ‘Just another day at the office of depraved humanity.’  Postmillennialists, take note! So, what on earth is going on?

Back in the day, Francis Schaeffer gave overviews of history, religion, philosophy and culture that skillfully and insightfully described how Western ‘civilization’ had collapsed and general ‘Christianity’ and God had been dethroned. He took us specifically up unto the sixties and early seventies. More recently there was Don Carson’s The Gagging of God, a tome concerning Christianity’s interaction with the ongoing breakdown of society in the 1990s in particular, but his thoughts ‘prophetically’ played out in the 2000s. I am no Schaeffer or Carson, as what I write is my humble overview of the current situation, my presentation being a simplistic pseudo-philosophical, cultural summary. In a later article I will advance a theological response from an Evangelical perspective. This current article is from the point of view of a ‘concerned citizen’.

Let’s kick off with modernism.

The mirror (modernism)

There was a time, we were told, when the world was in its ‘modernist’ phase. Modern man had superior intellect, industry, morals, and technology, and by combining those virtues together it was thought inevitable that the world would be changed for the better- nations united, wars ended, the sick helped, poor nations made richer, the uncivilized civilized, and so on. This was the ‘Victorian Age’. In America, for example, the Captains of Industry blasted their way through life.  Such grandeur, imperialism, and loftiness were the ‘mirror’ or system man created for himself, and the image he chose to reflect.

Shattered mirror (postmodernism)

Then along came the First World War and blew the schnitzel out of this notion of paradisial progression. The Second World War sealed the tomb, as it were, a period fatefully marked by the modern technology of the atomic bomb blowing the Japanese obstinacy to kingdom come. In continuing to use war as a kind of reference point, if the two World Wars were the ‘dam buster’ bombs that cracked the dam from top to bottom, the ensuing wars between communism and democracy in the 50s to 60s were the critical point at which the dam exploded. Man’s triumphant procession to Elysium was over, modernist humanity’s dream shattered forever.

Out of this post-apocalyptic wasteland emerged the sixties and the decade of free love, hatred of ‘the man’, and anti-establishment protests. All attacked and eroded the so-called establishment and tradition. Seemingly passive free love was but a vicious attack on any morality remotely associated with even the weakest and most twisted forms of ‘Christianity’ (never mind Evangelicalism!). In short, ‘the man’s’ way of doing things, his form of daily, mundane morality and spirituality, his faith in technology and money, and, the mores and traditions of culture and society, were all specials on the ‘free love’ menu.

The typical accounts of the breakdown of modernist society normally start with academia, especially the discipline of philosophy and the philosophers and their influence on universities. Scholars mention that at the core of Satre’s existentialism, for example, was rabid activism necessary to create an ‘existential revolution’ of change that was what typified ‘living in the moment’. This view fell in nicely with his Marxist undercoat that painted the necessity of violent revolution for the transformation of society.

Whilst philosophy did its thing, and academic revolutionaries and campuses did theirs, society en masse also was turning. Many historical influences, people, events, and groups confluenced to influence the times and change the culture.

A perfect example of this societal disintegration is in the African American community of protest of the sixties, for there was a canyon between the peaceful protesters as embodied by MLK and the vigilantes as represented by Malcolm X. Note the Black Panthers. Ordinary, regular people rose in protest, in open embrace, with academics, clerics, the middle-class, and others.

Or again, there is the ascendancy of the media. American society- young and old, rich and poor- was shocked to the core of their being that the Vietnam War was filled with blood and death and real-life combat. So many sons; so much death! Yes, the beatniks protested, but concerned mothers were sobbing and fathers were anxious.

If the sixties brought open protest, the seventies hardened into cultural cynicism and despair. It is not merely to academia we go. The Ramones of the punk scene summed up the disillusionment and anger of the 70s, “I don’t like anything….and I’m against it!” Ladies and gentlemen, it is no coincidence that it was in the very late 70s at the height of the punk era that ‘postmodernism’ as a name rose from the pit of academia and was placed into philosophy. The monster of a culture of revolt and protest was growing, and it was controlling many of the groups and spheres of society, popular and academic, political and common.

This new wave gloried in brokenness, revolt, and change. They attacked the mirror (‘the man’s’ system), throwing it to the ground and shattering it. The Sex Pistols said so; the rebellious Anarchy in the UK and God save the Queen were rebellious youth-anthems in the UK. The rights of each ‘oppressed minority’ were voiced and protested for, in stark contrast to the monolithic nature of traditional society. Feminism, abortion, anti-racism, anti-free-market economics, socialism, sexual liberation, and a myriad of causes, were expressed and fervently defended and promoted.

The impact on truth was immediate and devastating. It was argued that the idea of truth that everyone agrees to- a monolithic, universal truth- was ‘the man’s’ idea to control everyone. This lie had to be exposed and destroyed.  The cultural revolutionaries claimed there were no absolutes in morality and truth. In particular, the Judeo-Christian model of truth and morality was named and shamed as a pernicious fiction that had to be removed. ‘The truth’ was replaced by many ‘truths’ or causes, multiple perspectives, and the individual’s outlook. Every group, every person, had its, his/her own truth.

Similarly, in the world of ethics a holistic model was replaced by many ‘pieces’ and moralities. Decades ago, a course on general ethics would have sufficed to cover any field and occupation of life, and one would have worked out those ethical principles for life and in one’s occupation. But, with the postmodern turn, ethics was no longer applicable to a monolithic mass of humanity, and as a discipline ethics splintered to accommodate the shattered pieces of the mirror: medical ethics, business ethics, feminist ethics, sexual ethics, gender ethics, African-American ethics, race ethics, political ethics, etc..

So, postmodernism was characterized by shattering ‘the man’s’ mirror, his system. It was all about deconstructing, breaking down, what ‘the man’ had built up. Some did this outside the system, some from inside, we are told. As a case in point, President Obama has been called the first postmodern president. He attacked the political system from within. Take for example the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Obama cited ‘scholarly’ opinion that supported an interpretation of that amendment that challenged the traditional reading. There is no doubt that the traditional reading is correct, however. Undettered, Obama simply bypassed the Constitution and the Second Amendment to chip away at, and undermine, its implementation. One way or the other, constitutionally precise or not, he was determined to undermine the Second Amendment.

Some have said that Obama was not so dedicated to the postmodern cause; he even denies he was postmodern. No doubt he had some ‘modernist’ tendencies- politics as usual for those in political power, just like ‘the man’. However, there is no questioning his postmodern credentials. Obama was a genius at acting, of moving from one character to another, from being the modernist to the postmodernist.  One moment he’s your standard politician, sounding boring, with the usual compromised stance on this or that. However, then he’s the Muslim, next the Christian, then the black activist, and when visiting a foreign nation, he joins with his international brethren to chastise imperialistic America for trying to dominate the world. He might look like ‘the man’ of modernism, but he’s not. Pope Francis was cut from the same cloth, as we will see in another article. 

Creating a new mirror from the shattered pieces (post-postmodernism)

This brings us to our present era of the late 2010s, early 2020s. Some of what we see today has affinity with modernism, but more is rooted in postmodernism. Modernism’s belief that humanity can change everything by an act of his/her/it’s/their will characterizes both postmodernism and post-postmodernism. Ironically, all believe in the ‘whole’, whether it be an unbroken whole (modernism) or a shattered whole (postmodernism), or the reconstituted whole (mirror) of the modern post-postmodernists. For these and other reasons, some consider that post-postmodernism is merely a kind of hybrid, a middle way, an inevitable outcome, or synthesis, of the other two contrasting views. There is much truth to this, but it is far more than a synthesis. What is happening in our day is an attempt to recreate the mirror to bring ‘order’ to society and culture, to ‘humanity’, to have a new ‘truth’, a new set of standards for living. Monolithic truth and ethics are back in vogue, and have been re-imaged, re-casted, and re-formed, but in a truly monstrous fashion.

Frankenstein’s mirror. How do we know these things? ‘Surely the postmodern landscape of various groups protesting their rights and their respective truths are still as alive today as ever’, someone will say. Yes, they are. There are still the many pieces of a shattered mirror- no doubt about it. However, have you noticed how they all today club together as one? BLM joined hands with the Democrats, supported by the media, joined by the campuses, accompanied by the LGBTQ+ group, encouraged by major international organizations and governments, and upheld by religious voices. ‘Queers for Palestine’ is a thing. Do you not see how the shattered pieces are forming into a new kind of singular truth, a renewed monolith of morality, a new collective ‘humanity’? But instead of a regular shaped mirror, this mirror is all the shattered pieces stuck back together again, but with some added parts, and the only shape- if one can say that- the mirror has is the form of jagged brokenness, gaps and spaces, displacement, and irregularity. This is Frankenstein’s mirror, which reflects back post-postmodern humanity united in all its brokenness and rebellion. Truly monstrous!

Rearing children. It’s easy to break something up, smash it to smithereens, but quite another to put something ‘better’ in its place. I have often said to my students, and to posters on Facebook, ‘Don’t merely critique; give your position.’ It’s effortless to point the finger, but how does one expect to change anything by merely doing this? To merely criticize gives the impression that the one criticizing is bitter, or clueless, or powerless to recreate or change, perhaps even selfish, merely anarchistic, and maybe even a bit of a coward. All high negatives.

The reader might think that the postmodern rebellion would have been good enough- Anarchy in the UK and all that! It’s all well and good on paper to displace ‘the man’, but then what? As the seasons flew by, the youthful postmodernists came into power, grew up, became parents and adults, and were the ‘heads’ of society. It was now their turn to lead and to create culture at all levels of authority, from families, to schools, to churches, unto politics, businesses- throughout all things. Revolutionary counter-culture had had its moment; it was now time to recreate a new culture. After all, even monsters care for their offspring; they could not present the mere shattered pieces of a mirror to their progeny. They had to give something ‘complete’ to their offspring, an image to mimic. For when all is said and done, the world cannot escape God’s inbuilt disposition for the whole, even if this is rebuilt into a monstrous form by humanity.

Global. A fundamental characteristic of the new order is its geographically universal scope: it is global. It did not spout from academia; nor is it a ‘Western’ phenomenon. It is global. The entire world is on edge. And if ever we needed proof of this, we should look no further than the strife in Israel. Gone are the days of it being merely a Muslim vs Jewish conflict ‘over there’ in the Middle East, wherein the US backs Israel- sometimes willingly, sometimes reluctantly. The whole world is univocal in its call for a ‘freed Palestine’. The race card has been thrown down by the world to challenge ‘the man’ in the Western world who backs Israel. Muslims are united in protest with gays, people in power with single moms. All types throughout the entire world are voicing their protest.

And before this current Israeli event there was global warming and the global pandemic of covid. Illegal immigration was/is another hot-button, global issue. All garnering universal accord, unity, and protest.

‘Total war’. One would have to have been reared in complete isolation to not see that everything in life has been weaponized. It’s not just higher education and politics, the usual culprits; it’s the media in particular, especially social media, but also parents, school boards, businesses, teenagers, younger children, grandparents, and even churches themselves. In homes, it takes the form of gay parents who adopt, or a parent who brings up a gender-fluid child. It’s the bathrooms or the changing rooms that schools enforce that allow for transgender students. It’s a library having a drag queen read for children. It’s the restroom of many an establishment. Parents, teachers, principals, business leaders, teenagers are all involved, and even the younger children are co-opted and wave LGBTQ+ flags. Anything and everyone are engaged in a cultural war. In military terms, this would be called ‘total war’, the complete absorption of society for war purposes.

‘The man’ identified. It was formerly only certain groups that used to proudly display their colors, but now that the new wave is in power, it can go after, and call out, all who oppose it. The illegal immigrant is more powerful nowadays than the law-abiding citizen. A Muslim has the right to insist on her religion; but not the one named ‘Christian’. Indeed, the message ‘texted’ by the modern reconstructionist is that, the white Judeo-Christian man in power is to blame for everything. He started the fire! Males are toxic, but, really, its white males of a conservative and traditional nature. That slavery was in Africa before the entrance of colonial powers matters not. Nor does it move the needle that native Americans butchered one another before white man’s entrance. In America in particular, ‘Trump’ is to blame for everything; if your spigot is busted, it’s his fault!

If ‘the man’ has been identified, so have his enemies. To be ‘Woke’ is the only way, so they say. How many new labels and titles do we have? Woe betide you if you misgender someone! People and power-players in all, and every, walk of life are now openly and avowedly anti-Christian, anti-Israel, and pro-gay, pro-Islam, transgender, feminist, and so on. Names are at the center of it all!

The one ring. The ‘one ring’ that binds them all together is the power of social media. It is not just media, as in the case the tv news of the sixties, or the muckraking journalism of the Watergate affair. Government and academia are mere participants in this new way of things. All major groups have their own, individual ‘rings’ of power. But it is social media that alone is available by cell phones to all, and is the ‘one ring’ that binds them all. Anyone and everyone has one, it would seem: children, herders in Africa, cartel members, sex traffickers, jihadists, snowflakes in Australia, soccer moms, drunks, prostitutes- the whole of humanity.

The weapons of cultural warfare. Gone are the days where each group was allowed its voice in society. Even Evangelicals were kind of left at peace as their own entity. No longer! To say, ‘Merry Christmas’ is the new sin. The model of violence embodied in the Black Panthers has come home to roost. It’s war! It’s not a protest here, some disruption there, conducted within a democratic setting that by default relied on law and order. We’re way beyond the inevitable and predictable protests of campus students, or the revolutionaries marching and chanting down main street.  Now that they have their ‘rights’, now that they have the ascendancy, it is time to destroy the other side. Nothing else will do, and all the rings of power are united in this crusade. Conservatives politically or socially, but especially those that are within the Judeo-Christian model, are barred from universities, government posts, and jobs. The media goes after them. Their businesses are outed. Children in schools are even stigmatized and attacked for daring to voice an opinion in opposition to the new order. An inverse form of apartheid and Jim Crow is growing; blacks are excluding whites. ‘The man’ must pay: both literally and metaphorically. Reparations must be given. ‘The man’ must not only be dethroned, but put six feet under! To that end, ‘law’ and its partner ‘order’ were sworn in as agents of the revolutionary way. Disruptive and violent protest, and the evil of terrorism, dominate. The media and government ‘doxes’ those they hate. Flash mobs rob stores. Protesters turn up at peoples’ houses to terrorize them. Judges, politicians, and government agencies loosely conspire to condemn and imprison the ‘enemies of the state’. Not even presidents are beyond the power of the new cultural revolution. Witness the farce, recently, of Trump being attacked for supposedly lying about the value of his property in Mar-a-Lago. Yet, President Biden’s son and the President himself have their shady business dealings swept under the carpet. BLM and its supporters burn a government building- nothing happens. ‘The man’s’ supporters crowd Washington D.C., the capitol is ‘attacked’, and the traitors sent to prison for decades.

The un-man. ‘Doesn’t this make these protestors the equivalent of ‘the man’? Aren’t they now in power?’ Yes and no. To ‘normies’, it is evident that the modern wave of post-postmodernism is just another play on ‘the man’. Same gig, different band! But to them it is not so. Perhaps you have seen the Matrix series of movies. It all boils down to two men: Neo and Agent Smith. Both ‘men’ are the distillation and embodiment of their sides. Agent Smith is ‘the man’; Neo is the opposite, the ‘new (neo) man’. Both men rely on technology and violence to achieve their endgame. That’s the way the new order sees things: it is fighting against Agent Smith. It is Neo, the ‘new man’. Except, it isn’t. It is an un-man, a man-like monstrosity that parodies what God has created, using violence, terror, and disruption as means of justification for perceived prejudices and hatred. It is Frankenstein’s monster!

Morality. If postmodernism smashed ‘the man’s’ morality and ethics into a thousand pieces, then post-postmodern culture has brought together as one those many broken pieces of morality to create a whole. Israel was attacked, and children and women murdered and literally burned to a crisp. In a form of moral indignation, the murderers screamed they had a religious right to kill the ‘Jewish pigs’ but also as Palestinians they had been oppressed for decades by their Jewish ‘masters’, treated as slaves, lashed and beaten to a pulp. None of the terrorists’ outrage is surprising by the standards of postmodernism, which injects a form of moral equivalence and self-righteousness into every ethical debate with ‘the man’. What is new, however, is that the world joined in with the terrorists’ protest. Social media has been carpet-bombed by ‘shorts’ of ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’ Teenagers, younger children, grandparents, activists, couch potatoes, YouTubers, social media ‘influencers’, businesses, moms, dads- you name the group- has joined in the global chant.

Creating our own mirror

What to do, then, against this hatred of conservative, traditional, and Christian values? We must, with haste, create our own mirror. This is the way ahead. No need to borrow the current ‘man’s’ monstrous mirror, or work according to its Woke, liberal, agenda. Let us recreate a wholesome mirror for society. This has certain conditions with it, of course.

‘You hypocrite!’  ‘You’re promoting the same model as the Woke mob’, it will be said. Let me be clear, I’m not against a ‘system’; I’m dead-set against one that is sheer nasty, however. Big difference! Nor is the call for a new mirror naïve. It will strike for the high mark of societal good, but no doubt evil will always be there. I’m not painting a picture of a past that was heavenly…far from it! Trump is far from being a morally upstanding guy. People in power will always abuse power, whatever their color, politics, or gender. All and any engaged in wrongdoing must be challenged and disciplined. No favoritism. As an example, let’s take the current situation in Israel again. Israel has not always been the perfect neighbor, and has rather brutally at times gone about its business. I see no wrong in Palestinians and people worldwide protesting any of this. If Trump is a brute, let him be called out on it. It’s not complicated, folks! However, a neutral ‘law and order’ must prevail to police all of this, to prevent excesses, and the judicial system must be free from bias. The media must honor a kind of code here not to spin its own political agenda.

Remember, as the old saying goes, ‘If one finger points at me, four point back at you.’ Check yourself in the mirror, Mr. Woke. You are good at shutting down dissenting voices and harassing your enemies. You load the dice in your favor. You do everything to protect your own. Global weaponization is the name of your game, not mine! I allow for free speech, promote a neutral media, and acknowledge that passionate counter-protest must be allowed. You don’t! You would bring back the gulags in a heartbeat. Whereas, I would bring back a policed open-forum, a public square for rigorous debate and disagreement, and call for the type of unity that builds up the nation and its structures, one that does not tear them down!

No moral equivalence. So, let the Woke follower understand- there is no such thing as moral equivalence. Ordinary, more traditional, citizens do have rights to defend themselves. Their growing intensity in protest, and even in their physical responses, is due to reacting against those forces that attack them. They have no alternative but to defend themselves. To ignore the current atrocities by Hamas is evil. Terrorism must never be excused. Nor is it wrong for Israel as a sovereign state to defend its citizens from such evil, pursuing the perpetrators unto their death. Since when was it right for the media and government agencies to attack conservative political figures? This is just plain wrong. That persecuted figures are ‘fighting back’ using normal legal and law-abiding means is hardly surprising. Why shouldn’t ordinary citizens and businesses defend themselves against flash mobs and crazed attackers? This is not an evil.  Violence as a ‘natural’ or revolutionary mode is evil, however. Violence should be used only in extreme circumstances that require some form of self-defense. Nor is protest a normal way of achieving anything, but is to be used as a tool to address severe issues. So, let us not pretend that there is some kind of moral equivalence going on here. Terrorism and violent protest are not built into everything, as if part of nature.

Don’t flee the fight. My fellow warrior, it is a cultural war, as real as any other war that mankind has been in. Because of its cultural, global, and mundane nature, one can be so easily lulled into doing nothing. I lived in the UK, and I could see before my eyes that traditional society was being destroyed. This was 25 years ago. Many sat by passively as inch-by-inch traditional conservative values were eaten up. Many told themselves that politics was not their game, or thought that things weren’t that bad. Yet, Britain is now 25 years ahead of the US in terms of moral decline and anti-Christian beliefs and practices. If you sit on your hands, ignore it, claim that as a Christian it doesn’t apply to you, or perhaps you generally don’t care, then you are not contributing to fighting against a corrosive culture that is destroying society.

We must create a new counter-culture and take the fight to them. We are allowed to protest, to take people to court, to call out the enemy. It is warfare; don’t be naive about this. We need to fight to establish new businesses that are not Woke. Schools have to stand for what is right, and if they don’t, remove your kids and call for new schools. Even the church has to be re-done to purge it from the new ‘man’s’ agenda. Men are men, and women are women. We need a new entertainment culture freed from Hollywood. True morality must be put at the foundation of society. Social media, broader media, and government must be checked and delimited in their power. Our early founding fathers understood this need. Powerful organizations and groups must be prevented from weaponizing to promote nefarious agendas.  We must seek to make sure all culture is protected and that there are alternatives to the Woke nonsense out there. Aux armes, citoyens!