I often read a blog titled “What’s Wrong with the World” which deals in topics of philosophy, politics, culture, and many other issues under the sun. The title is influenced by G.K. Chesterton, a great thinker that we all should know something about, whose clear writing influenced a generation like C.S. Lewis and others.
Since we are all in the world, it seems like begging the question to ask what is wrong with the world. It is very apparent that what’s wrong with the world is you and me. While this does not sound nice to our politically correct culture, some things are clear and must be stated before the barbarians come knocking at our gates as they eventually did to Rome. It is dangerous to assume that man is basically good. The assumption that the human race is not flawed is at the root of many of our problems. Goodness and niceness are two entirely different concepts which most people mistake as the same thing and to further the problem, the definition of goodness differs on each side of the political spectrum. Historically, people believed that moral goodness was based upon the nature of a thing and that human nature is fixed. For example, what is good for all human beings is to act according to their rational nature. Postmodernists, however, believe that there are as many human natures as there are humans. I want to apply the idea of man’s fallen state to two areas: education and politics. I hope to make the problems clear in each institution by starting from this assumption: That man is flawed and does not seek and does not understand man’s chief end in life, though he may deceive himself and blame others to justify this flaw. We can understand the goal if we truly want to.
Education is the foundation of all functioning societies. We are all born ignorant and need to be taught. However, let me make myself very clear that we are also born rational creatures with the laws of thought knit within our being, which is not to say that we are born with a blank slate. We have the capacity to understand and to grasp concepts, and these are the only things that cannot be taught. With that said, we have a public educational system based upon a worldview of Secular Humanism which assumes that our choices are not determined, not even by what we value, in order to uphold a false view of freedom. Value is the key to choice and to education because without the proper value system we are stuck in a relativistic mentality where anything goes and corrodes the minds of our children.
The public education system teaches that the goal of life is individual, which is ironic because they deliver their message by means of anti-individualism. We see this in the way the public education system raises our children in the name of neutrality and tolerance rather than meaning and truth. The very fact that we ignore the depravity of human nature in the area of education is the reason why universal values are ignored. This assumption that there is not a corporate goal for mankind, where our individual talents are used in relation to this goal, propagates the choices that lead to a meaningless and non-fulfilling life. In understanding that man must be taught, we must strive for what philosophers call “the good,” the end that is sought for its own sake. We have done a great job of creating little worker bees, but we have failed to teach the goal for mankind because of the assumption that there is no universal, uniting goal for mankind and that man is basically good. If the goal is individual, and man is basically good, then we all would intuitively know the things which education is meant to teach us. There is much more to be said, but I hope this opens the door for further discussion.
Within the realm of politics, we separate ethics and value systems once again in the name of neutrality and tolerance for the sake of just getting along. We blame the religious right for bringing morality into the public realm, while the progressive left gets a free ride with their moral claims and in their attempts to better the world. Recent examples of this can be seen in the push for gay marriage, abortion, cap and trade, and the belief that health care insurance is a natural right. Are not the agendas of both sides making moral claims simply based on two different ways of viewing the world? Without admitting the reality of competing worldviews we will never have unity and we will not survive as a culture.
We see this more clearly in foreign policy which ignores the existence of evil within men and instead blames evil on his environment and circumstances. What is wrong with the world? People are what is wrong with world, and ignoring this fact leads to disastrous ideologies like Nazism, Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Islamic terrorism, a nuclear Iran, an unstable Middle East, and a progressive push in America for a utopian society attempting to bring about heaven on earth through corrective statist control. Do you see the difference? Our founders understood that man was flawed, that evil was within, not without. Therefore, they set up a system of government with strict checks and balances, which was not limited in a general sense, but limited in a way to not intrude into the lives of the individual citizens.
The government is made up of flawed people that have much control over our lives. As it has been said, if men were angels, government would not be needed. So, what other institutions can we use to equip ourselves as flawed individuals? How about the church and the family? The definition of what is politically right or left rotates over time. This is not an attack on people or political parties, but rather a call to action that we need to understand how to correctly limit and balance institutions. What’s worse, big government or big business, when both are made up of flawed individuals?
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written by Gil , January 02, 2010
This is an EXCELLENT Reminder to society that the those in power, no matter whether they are a high school principal, or a small business owner, or someone in high office politically, NO ONE, not even those who run our current administration, is above making mistakes, whether it's creating law, and mandating policy. We must ultimately adhere to the our universal truths, and beliefs. I wonderful wake up call!!! Thanks for the article!!!
written by Jennifer Muller , January 07, 2010
Loved this blog. I think the analogy of the current education system creating "little worker bees" is dead-on. The current education system, in general, is teaching kids how to do tasks, not why they are doing them. Education as a right of passage and on to a job instead of education and understanding as a valuable things in and of themselves. The cultivation of "self" as apposed to valuing one's role in community or a larger meaning is a HUGE paradigm shift. Previous generations were taught to do things or not do things based on an accepted moral standard. Kids today are taught to do what benefits them, which is ideologically dangerous. Yeah, it's easy to get them to behave for rewards, but you look at where this leads, and you end up with a lot of little empty, self-absorbed, people with a certain sense of entitlement because they hit the "feed bar" so they expect to get a gumball. Or a government-mandaged healthcare plan. This only touches on one of your points. I may comment on others later.
written by Robert Janca , February 25, 2010
So much could be said on this but I think you are correct in your assessment. To put it simply, true theology leads to true anthropology. All the problems we face in this world are from a incorrect understanding of our creator and that in turn leads to an incorrect understanding of who we are.
Also check out the concept of Sphere Sovereignty as taught by Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd. Your post highlights several areas were institutions have over stepped their bounds. This also is part of the problem humans face, we don't understand the proper roles of the institutions we find ourselves in; family, church, state, economics, etc etc.
But again you said it well; we are the problem. Not our government, education, etc etc. It's us and that's why we need a savior.
