- Laziness, Vanity And Fear

In place of my typically apocalyptic view I have a note of optimism today. For some time now I’ve been saying that the 60’s were a one off. A generation of hyper-liberalism frozen Peter Pan like in a time warp of permanent adolescence, and surrounded on both sides by generations who were considerably more conservative than they are. On a broader scale it doesn’t look so much like a continuation of a liberalizing trend as a profound deviation from it.

Today we have another data point that points to societal mean reversion at the very least. Reported in the Washington Post of all places, is a study which indicates that rather than descended into a non stop amoral orgy today’s youth are in fact being much more selective about their sexual partners. The WP article is here.

In my experience the motivation for most of our actions come from laziness, vanity or fear. And it’s the degree to which we resist these three motivators that we can consider ourselves ‘good people’. But the 60’s generation has made succumbing to these motivators high art – elevating them to an inverted brand of morality in and of themselves.

They support socialism out of laziness and consider it more ‘moral’ than capitalism. The movement to ban DDT which was sprung exclusively from vanity, and is still considered more ‘moral’ in spite of the millions of children it killed. And the urge to punish law abiding gun owners absent any supporting evidence, is considered moral even though it’s driven exclusively from fear. But this emergent data point makes it clearer than ever that a more objective view has a permanence that the self congratulatory view of the 60’s generation does not.

Most of the problems in a society are caused by teenagers. They commit the vast majority of crime and are responsible for the majority of the social ills of any society, not just ours. So to have an entire generation stuck permanently in that mindset has been tough on America, as even a cursory glance at our national balance sheet will show you.

These people lost their innocence long ago, but because of the way they’ve rationalized their laziness, vanity, and fear, they haven’t gained any of the wisdom that typically comes to a person in trade for it. And as a result they fight on - doing their level best to destroy the fundamental institutions of our society, and all the while claiming that they want to change them for the better.

Thankfully, theirs is not an influence that will be around for ever.