A latest poll conducted this week has produced some disturbing findings. A study for the Wall Street Journal found that only 38% of Americans say patriotism is “very vital” to them. That is lower than 70% in 1998.
Only barely more Americans said religion was “very vital” to them. It fell again from 62% 25 years ago.
Not surprisingly, the things that accompany religious faith and patriotism fell at a similar rate. Only 27% of Americans said their community was “very vital” to them (down from 62% in 2019). And the belief that other people’s tolerance is very important has dropped from 80% of Americans 4 years ago to just 58% today.
Some of these numbers are relatively easy to explain.
Religious faith has been in decline in Western democracies for generations. Without a religious revival, this trend will proceed.
The community’s cliffhanger have to be due in part to years of isolation attributable to COVID.
But it surely is the numbers on patriotism and tolerance which are most annoying. Even though it’s even easier to explain.
Twenty-five years ago, it was normal for Americans to feel proud of their country. This country was an unparalleled dominant power in the world. It did so not by invading and colonizing other countries, but by liberating many (especially Europe, twice) and spreading the free market economy to much of the world.
Then, relatively recently, Americans were still a cheerful people – proud of their ancestors and proud of the great men and women who made up this country.
Never again. For greater than a generation, starting in the schools, Americans have been taught that that is a wicked country. They’re told that the country was founded in “sin”.
But why would America have a founding “sin” that is alleged to be ineradicable? Does every other country have anything like this? Would anyone like to go to Sudan and say that this country is steeped in original sin for practicing slavery not only in the past but still today?
No one does. It’s a one-way street, this attack on the American and wider Western past.
But when teachers, pundits and political hustlers consistently inform you that there’s nothing good about your past, why should you’re feeling patriotic?
Why should you’re feeling proud to be an American when all you have been taught is that America is evil?
The identical is true of a decrease in tolerance. Most of us can attest to the veracity of these numbers. Just 25 years ago, people could still get married, be friends, go to the same bars, and speak about politics without breaking anyone’s head.
Today, every minority and every political extreme insist that we cannot even live in the same country. It’s coming from every direction. Trans extremists this week called for a “day of retribution” in America. A silly move after a transgender man just murdered three children and three adults at a school.
But other extremes push the same narrative. GOP talkative Marjorie Taylor-Greene recently insisted that the US should crumble. She and other extreme Republicans agree with radical Democrats, trans-extremists, and all the other lunatics who believe you possibly can’t live in a country if everyone else in it doesn’t agree together with your own particular views.
Issue after issue was dominated by Armageddon-like extremism. Have a look at the way a generation of American schoolchildren were told that they were facing a climate emergency and that if we didn’t reduce the number of people on earth, they’d all burn alive alive. This shouldn’t be the most optimistic – or true – message that could be given to American youth.
But all this has its consequences, which it’s also possible to see in this survey.
Only 23% of American adults said having children may be very vital to them. This is totally remarkable – a demonstration of deep pessimism about America’s future.
If it had been July 1940, perhaps such fear of giving birth to children would have been comprehensible. But today? With all the benefits, rights, opportunities and other things that we’ve in this country?
Many sensible people have succumbed to the cult of climate. But even when their iconic claims were right, so what? Human life has all the time been on the edge of the abyss. If our ancestors had delay having children until the future was not terrible for them, none of us can be here.
But we’re here – and that is the point.
Our presence here is one expression of the optimism of our ancestors. An optimism much harder to feel in their times than in ours.
It shouldn’t be only our luxury but our duty to stand up to the sisters of doom and make it clear that tomorrow in America is probably not worse, but in fact could also be even better than ever.
Scary warning against artificial intelligence
I actually have rarely been as moved as a statement signed by Elon Musk and tons of of other tech pundits this week. The letter called for a six-month halt to AI research due to the “profound risks” it poses to “society and humanity”.
The incontrovertible fact that such a group of great human brains are starting to worry should stop us.
We have now known about this threat for a quarter of a century. Definitely since World Chess Champion – and Recent York native – Garry Kasparov lost to a computer in 1997.
In that match, Kasparov said in his notes that the computer wasn’t calculating – it seemed to be considering.
Then imagine that as a species we have spent the last 25 years fascinated with all this. As an alternative, we wasted most of our time being distracted by celebrities with big butts, gender madness, and “public thinkers” that made us dumber than we were before.
Sometimes I believe computers deserve to win.