Transcripts For CSPAN2 In 20240703 : vimarsana.com

CSPAN2 In July 3, 2024

Adam and eve after the pill and a microscopic book for the revolution. A decade later published after the pill revisited which looks at the macroscopic effect of thf revolution on politics and society and christianity itself so the aperture has been widened in the biggest possible terrain. What are some of those that youve noticed . Lets try to do the short version. Ive been interested for a long time tracing the faultlines. Im not a reporter. I dont look at the surface. I try to get underneath that the big trends that are transforming our world. One is the sexual revolution and the collapse of christianity which begins in the early 1960s. Families are more broken than they used to be. This has been a transformative effect on our world. We can talk in more detail about that one. The collapse of theth family has meant we are sending more and more people into the world that dont havewo experience of the First Community of the family, andam this i think is beneath wt we talk about on the surface when we talk about the divisiveness of our politics for example. When we talk about the fact people seem polarized at each others throats. I believe that underneath of this are the accumulated factors of six decades now that have resulted in children that are less socialized that have resulted in because they didnt get their practice in the family. We are going to show a headline from the Boston Herald in 1960. This is about the fda approving thent contraceptive pill. You can see it right there on the screen, u. S. Drug agencies oks contraceptive pills. In your view, that event changed the world, is that fair to say . I think it was the most transformative thing to happen since youve took the apple in the garden of eden and the reason it transformed relations between men and women. We have to go back to the early 1960s to realize people thought this would be a positive thing. They thought that it would strengthen marriage, for example, by giving people more power over their fertility. And they thought that it would strengthen society. They were no longer tied to large families but something strange happened during the next few years. It had a destructive effect. Suddenly the forces skyrocketed and cohabitation also skyrocketed. Abortion quickly became legal and there were millions of those so whathe happened here, where s this thing that was supposed to liberate humanity having such a negative affect . Secular economists have looked at this and they concluded that what happened was the pill meant men were no longer responsible. There was no such thing as a shotgun wedding which was a phrase that probably some listeners wont have heard about it refers to the fact that if a woman got pregnant the man was typically held responsible. Birth control is a game changer in this way because it meant women were held accountable usually exclusively whether or not they became pregnant. This was a womans problem, a womans issue and simultaneously of course that makes the man less relevant in this situation. There is a wonderful sociologist named lionel tiger that wrote a book over 20 years ago and he argued that the pill had essentially sidelined men. They were not needed anymore. Only men who were in control of their fertility. So these are seismic changes in the relationship and today when we talk about the problem of men or what to do about all of these aimless men, i think what we are seeing is just the latest in this trend but i am describing that begins in the early 1960s. Host you write in adam and eve after the pill revisited that since the pill was introduced, there has been a rise in abortion and unwanted pregnancies. And that is a paradoxical effect and my first book talks about the paradoxes because a lot of this fallout was unexpected and talking about the revolution, i want to make clear that i am not being mono causal for the deterioration we are seeing. That is the one cause that has not been addressed sufficiently in sociology or by Church Leaders or others in authority. Its become the thing hardest to talk about and i think we need to talk about it because splitting the human out on the way we did in the 1960s and beyond is beneath a lot of the worst problems of our time. Im going to read for quotes from adam and eve after the pill revisited just to give viewers an idea of the themes youre talking about in the book. You can expand on any of them you want, but the short quotes, the revolution and workers as a force second to none. Six decades of social science have established the most efficient way to increase dysfunction is to increase fatherlessness. Third quote, christian believers are open unchartered waters and finallyy post1960s disorder was indeed generating casualties of all kind. Anything very you would like to expand on . I would like to start with the idea of casualties because everyone knows the subjects are difficult to discuss. Everyone in some kind of family affected by the trend is under discussion. When i raised the question i am not trying to point fingers and make people p feel bad. Im trying to connect the dots soto that the generations that come next might suffer a little less from what we are describing. After the first book came out over ten years ago, there was one thing that surprised me which was the emotional resentmentsth of the book. This was not a selfhelp book i thought of as a cynical kind of undertaking. It resonated with me. Let me tell you my story of how it destroyed my marriage. And there were even harder stories that i heard from all over. So the thesis that it was having negative consequencesce that wee not well understood seems to be vindicated by the personal stories, testimonials of people who wanted to talk about how they were worried about raising their child without a father, for example. So there was a lot of emotional resonance and intensity that i didnt expect and its part of why i continued to look at the subject resulting in the second book. One of the adam and eve books you talk about a High School Girl in 1972 who was pregnant and it was quite a scandal and today that doesnt raise an eyeblink in a sense. That is a snapshot. The story goes like this. I grew up in upstate new york in a series of small towns and down the street at one point a young teenager got pregnant and it was the talk of the neighborhood because the father who was a young soldier newly returned from vietnam did not intend to marry her. That is to say the scandal was not about her. What was thought scandalous news he would leave her as a single mother. Y she went away and have the babyy and returned to school. There was no social program to my knowledge that was directed atec her. Twenty years later i went back and was talking to a former teacher. She said the third of the girls graduating that year were pregnant. None of themem were married. So in this gap i think we see what was repeated in america this story by the millions where no longer was it thought that pregnancy was something that two people were responsible for. Suddenly only one person usually frightening youngen woman was responsible for it and i think that is a civilizational step backwards. How did you get from new york to washington . I was very fortunate. I went to Cornell University on a scholarship. After that i thought i would like to be a philosophy professor. I double majored in philosophy and government but i decided to take a year off and to make a longto story short i started writing and got involved in the world of new york journalism of the smaller intellectual magazines that are not the thing today that they were back then. But in the 1980s, magazines like Public Interest and commentary were exciting places to write for and hang out in the end i ended up as an assistant editor at the magazine by Irving Kristol and ended up doing ghost writing for the Reagan Administration and from there ended up speaking with George Schultz for two years. What is your fulltime job currently besides offer. We have four children and did little writing for about 15 years. The faith and Reason Institute and alsoa i hold a chair at the Catholic Information Center in washington, d. C. And its fair to say you are a practicing catholic . I try. The most recent book after the pill revisited was written by cardinal george. Who was that . A great intellectual spiritual leader and i wouldnt pretend that i knew him well but he was kind enough to take an interest in some of my writing and we had a correspondence about some of the themes in my book. For example, one thing that caught his eye was a meditation that i wrote about the theme of chaos. In 1930 when the novelist converted to catholicism he was asked by a newspaper why he did that and he just said because in our civilization now the choice is between christianity and chaos. The chaos of his time was very different in 1930 the interwar period there was political chaos and the carnage of the 20th century. In our time its very different and yet we are seeing in more detail than was specified, chaos within christianity itself and because of that essay kindly offered to write a foreword to the book. Cardinal health went on to write that the Church Teachings over the years have been coherent and consistent. What did he mean by that . He meant that it stood as a sign of contradiction in the world that whatever was going on around it it would continue the same teachings. They go all the way back when jesus tells the disciples that unlike the jews his people are not allowed to divorce for example. These are hard teachings but there is a consistency. They were put off limit the end and thisteaching has not change. We talk about mercy and redemption just as that idea has repelled many people it has also drawn others in christian believers are an open unchartered waters. You will go on to talk about in your book the church of night. Under the pressure since the revolution, christianity has buckled and what, i mean, by that is there is, a desire to accommodate so lets not be georgie, soft peddled teaching at christianity and lets talk just about the teachings that they do like. Of the protestant churches have completely abandoned these kind of teachings that go all the way back. They lightened up on divorce, they lightened up on homosexuality and pretty much anything the revolution would claim as a prerogative. The interesting thing is the result of this has been institutional decline for the churches that ran in this experiment. At the Anglican Community for example comes to mind. Its collapsing. I read a story recently with a headline that said while the last person please turn out the light. So its every denomination that tries the church split over the question of the church and ended up going in the direction have not flourished as a result. Here we have a paradoxical thing because you would think that being nice would make it more likely people would show up in your church. Strong strict churches are strong as the saying goes. It seems to have been worse for the churches who decided to jettison the most unwanted teachings of teachings that make our contemporaries most uncomfortable. It was widely embraced including by catholics yet what we saw including the Catholic Church shied away from traditional teachings because they didnt want to make people uncomfortable in the post revolutionary era so we have this dynamic where the decline of the family fuels the decline of faith and of the practice of institutional religion and we can talk more about that one if you like. This came out in 2016 and in that book if you would expand on this for more than two centuries americans have prid themselves on their commitmt toreedom of religion. Readers the lien in a more secular direction might be surprised to hear anything has happened to shake that bedrock pledge yet in recent years the commitmenthi to freedom has come under siege. This is because the revolution is on a collision course with traditional christianity and judaism. Traditional christianity had a bed rock set of teachings that were unpopular in roman times and have been unpopular ever since. Along comes a sexual revolution and its devoted partisans which includes the great majority. The opinions im describing are minority opinions but the question is how destructive is that fight and i think its very destructive of the United States. For example, lets talk about how the adoption agencies have been shut down in some states the pressure coming out them is from real people who want to replace the teachings of christianity with the anything goes revolution theology. I believe this has become a rival to christianity. We have to ask ourselves is this good for people and for those adoptees to miss out on a loving home, is it good for the poor. Who does that help . It doesnt help the sisters of the poor were there were among the poor. My point is when we see this collision andec the attempt to e cap good work done by christians, we are seeing something that is bad for the worst off among us and i dont think that this is well understood. But people who are audiological go after kristin good works routinely into this isnt called out. I want to ask about the Supreme Court decision on roe v wade last year. That promise ended. Should abortion in either case be legal in your view . I am a constitutionalist and turning the question back to the states was an overdue constitutionalist collection. Its a very important decision and represents these First Time Since the 1960s that theres been serious institutional rollback involving the sexual revolution. And as it says in affect we call this wrong and we turn it back to the states. I think it may be a game changer not only in the u. S. But elsewhere in the world because what happened after roe v wade country after country watching the United States came to adopt similar walls to legalize abortion where it had always been criminalized for example. Those countries, both leaders having second thoughts as well so this decision will reverberate and i would predict that it would have a good effect in the United States because if bathere are more babies among us that will be a humanizing thing, not a bad thing. This is another issue that we should talk about. Taking care of people who are smaller and weaker than they are is one of the ways we get humanized. This is done routinely. Everybody knew what to do with abb et cetera. Im not romanticizing it. Im not saying we should go back to the 1950s which is a decade i didnt live in. What i am saying is they have a good effect, not a neutral just as having to take care of other people has a good effect. We see a coarseness that has increased as people are out of the practice of taking care of others and simultaneously as christianity is in decline they are not being told that one of their jobs on earth is to take care of others and these have affected us. It favored of those who are prochoice and favored abortion rights. So, realistically did this decision hurt your point of view ind a sense . I am not a politics first kind of person. I want to know what the right argument is and whats going on out there and i would rather be right fancy my party elected. The author of several books we will show you those in just a moment. Heres how you can participate. The numbers are on your screen. 202 7488201 if you live in the mountain at pacific time zones. If you cant get through on the phone line and want to make a comment, this is the text number, 8903. If you do send a text please include your first name andt, cy if you would. A social media several ways to contact uswa as well. We will begin taking those calls in a e few minutes. Home alone america the hidden toll of daycare behavioral drugs and other parent substitutes. The loser letters a comic tale of life, death and atheism came out in 2010. How the west really lost god, 2013. Its dangerous to believe the just freedom and its enemies came out in 2016. How the sexual revolution created identity politics in 2019 and adam and eve after the pill revisited came out in 2023. The first adam and eve came out in 2013. We will begin taking those. The subtitle, how the revolution createdid identity politics. The tie that together. They are in the midst of an identity crisis. Identity is all around us and a question that is asked constantly. Where is this coming from . Getting back to the world before the 1960s there were two fundamental answers to the question. If you were to say who are you, what common response would be im a mother, sister, cousin and we can define ourselves relationally that way. Simultaneously most people throughout history have had some belief in the cosmos and the deity. So what happens when the churches go mute what happens is the conventional ways of answering o the question far off the table so we see this tribal into politics and specifically identity politics. Especially among conservatives they like to poke fun at the idea of coming to call them snowflakes and say that they are just impossible to understand and so sensitive. I see suffering, not having what most human beings before us have. For the community and good work and redemption and words like that that we dont use so much anymore. These seem to be things people need in perpetuity and the fact so many grasp for these things. This is the generation that first comes of age after the sexual revolution and the first move is to declare men and women cant get along any longer. From there identity politics perceived to black lives matter. Black lives matter manifesto that isin heteronormativity and the nuclearar family. It also declares that there were apparently new problems and in relationships between men and women. Identity politics doesnt arise out of nowhere. We should have a look of empathy for the people that are drawn into this way of doing politics even though this way of doing politics i think is very divisive for the United States. Onists say to subsidize something is to ensure more of and this is what the sexual revolution has done. It is subsidized androgyny by raising the penalties from traditional masculinity and femininity. A lot of people are puzzled by how androgynous the society has become. What has happened is since the splitting of the human adam they have risen the traditional housewife is widely mocked. It makes you retrograde and makes people laugh at you. Simultaneously men who are tradition minded are also exiled for a different reason. In the means to see the hold it has over the imagination. In a way that we are only n beginning to understand, it appears the naturalamily as a whole has been a human symphony which god has historically been heard by many people into the gradual but by now regnizable muffling of

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