The Sun Also Rises : A Response to a Friend's Dilemma

Hmmm...in my mind, the core problem would have to be relativism, or better yet, in a sense, Unitarianism, it is all the same, as long as you believe in something. There must be a right, even as we respect the other person's opinion. If not, we have this dire situation of yours, where there is no "good" but we are still supposed to progress as a culture. As Lewis said “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful.” It is an impossible dilemma.

Ask yourself what the final result of following through on any line of philosophy/thought is. What is the final solution to the problem? I know that phrase is Hitlerian, but in some sense, it is only Hitlerian because in Hitler we see what happens when we follow his Aryan Nietzschian and Freudian ideas out to fullest extent. For any line of thought, there must be a final solution. With relativism or Unitarianism, you get a world where in the end, the only thing that is important is the present or the future, but with no value or reason of why they are better, the best we can come up with is survival of the fittest, pleasure, history's march forward, or inner light.

I think that what you're asking is whether there is anything solid. Ironically, I find the idea of orthodoxy and the traditional is rather revolutionary. Tradition bids us ask how Eden was or Heaven will be, and then asks us to do our best to make it here on earth. It gives us something to fight for in the present and in the future, based upon a "historic" picture of how the perfect world should be.

You should read G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. I'm really enjoying it.

As for the corruption, I feel it's always existed, but perhaps was less accepted by God-fearing men. As for men getting married and surviving, living life, I think that has always happened. What I find is different perhaps is our replacement of hard work and the desire to live a good or comfortable life with it's near-neighbor- wealth and consumption. Again, I have to say greed has always existed, but maybe it is now not only accepted, but nurtured by our society and media.

On the point of self-actualizing, I think self-actualizing is crap. I think that finding oneself or finding one's inner light is the most egotistical godless opiate that the masses are buying. To shut off the world and seek personal happiness is not only wrong; it is ignorant and dangerous.

Asking what our generation needs...I would say our generation needs to rid itself of the vain belief that whatever is current is better and that our generation is special and obviously right. Ecclesiastes and Hemingway tell us there is "nothing new under the sun."