Financial and Social Meltdowns Converge: Part II

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by Joseph BH McMillan | November 12th, 2008

The Financial and Social Meltdowns gripping the world are not the result of some alien visitation; they are the result of the breakdown of the family. If we get that focus right, the rest will fall into place.

"The 21^st century will not be about the battle between capitalism and socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism. The [forces of conservatism] that [said] women should not work and those who do are responsible for the breakdown of the family."

That was Tony Blair in his ridiculous "Forces of Conservatism" speech on September 28, 1999, some two years after a wave of ignorance swept across Britain bringing in its wake New Labour, with Blair at the helm.

And this was Tony Blair six years later at a speech in Watford, England, on September 2^nd, 2005. "I can't raise people's children for them, and I can't personally go out on the street and make sure that everything is fine within the local community."

In that same speech in 2005, Blair enlightened the British people on just how he intended to sort out what had effectively become a total "breakdown of the family" in Britain (and it is significantly worse today than it was in 2005).

You know a few years ago probably the talk about sort of parenting orders and parenting classes and support for people as parents, it would have either seemed somewhat bizarre or dangerous, and indeed there are still people who see this, is this an aspect of the nanny state, or are we interfering with the rights of the individual. And I think the point is this, we need to give people that support, and we need to do that particularly in circumstances where if we don't give people that support, and also put pressure on them to face up to their responsibilities as a parent, they end up having an impact on the whole of their local community.

Parenting orders offer a programme of activity to support parents, they define their rights and responsibilities. For example a parenting order can make clear to parents their responsibility to ensure that their child attends school, that the child takes part in literacy or numeracy clubs, or that they attend programmes dealing with problems as varied as anger management, or drug or alcohol mis-use.  Parenting orders can also stop children visiting areas such as shopping centres, ensure a child is at home being supervised at night where that is necessary. Parents themselves can be forced by the order to accept support and advice on how to bring discipline and rules to their child's life. An order can for example ensure that parents face up to problems such as not attending school meetings where their kid has been misbehaving at school, or being unable to control their children in the home." [Grammar as per 10 Downing Street website]

And how does this Social Meltdown that Blair was referring to converge with the Financial Meltdown we are now seeing? Well, Blair references that point, although the Financial Meltdown had not yet taken hold. He said this: "The fact is that if we are civilised countries like this who have tremendous material advances, who have managed to bring our economies to a high level and all the rest of it, who enjoy a quality of life that frankly our grandparents would have found absolutely extraordinary, if we can do all of this we surely can find the right way to bring that precious respect that many of us grew up with and value, back in the right way for the modern world, and that is what it is all about.  It is not a very complicated notion, but it is a very desirable one and I hope together we can achieve it."

Now Blair was right about one thing – bringing back "that precious respect" that previous generations knew is "not a very complicated notion" – its just that no one has the courage to even mention the only and obvious way that that can be done – for fear of being branded a sexist, or a Neanderthal, or bigoted.

In fact, all Blair discovered in the six years that passed between these two speeches is that the dreaded "forces of conservatism" were absolutely right – the breakdown of the family is directly attributable to the fact that too many children no longer have homes in the proper meaning of the term. They simply have houses where people sleep together – occasionally. In short, children do not have a mother at home, so all the malign "influences" Blair refers to are the influences that shape children today, and thus shape what we euphemistically call today's "adults."

To the want of freedom, we have to add the evil of overstrain . . . This overwork hits him indirectly even in his childhood, for his parents, caught in the inexorable toils of work, cannot devote themselves to his upbringing as they should.

As a result, says Albert Schweitzer in his Decay and Restoration of Civilization, "he [man] does not want to think, and seeks not self-improvement, but entertainment, that kind of entertainment, moreover, which makes least demand on his spiritual faculties."

And entertainment requires money. People are entertained by the most ridiculous diversions. They are especially entertained by the admiration of others when they can dangle some logo, especially an expensive logo, before admiring onlookers. Their worth is measured by their logos, not their characters.

Thus the end comes to justify the means. The end is the accumulation of logos to pander to vanity, and whoever may suffer as we all clamber over one another to get the logos is irrelevant, even our own children.

But when I talk of logos, I don't mean just the right make of car, or the Armani suit, or the ridiculous baseball cap signifying allegiance to a bunch of children running around a field hitting or kicking a ball, I also mean the job, the holiday, the school, summer camp, the right house in the right area, and so I could go on. As the Preacher said, it is all utter vanity.

The Financial Meltdown perfectly illustrates the point. Credit was showered down on the masses by appealing to the most basic instincts of human vanity. No longer was a telephone a device to communicate, it became a status symbol. No longer was the job a means of providing a living for the family, it too became a status symbol. No longer was the car a means of transportation; it was a symbol of "success." No longer were children human beings in their own right requiring, and deserving, the love and dedication they need, they were there to do Mummy and Daddy proud. They became just another logo.

The best most children can expect from their parents today is a few minutes or hours of "quality time" a week – like washing the car, or mowing the lawn. Mummy and Daddy are just too busy grooming their egos and accumulating their silly logos.

Yet these parents delude themselves that they are being "role models" for their children. But the only roles they are modeling for are their own vanities in a fantasy world of self-absorption, "self-fulfillment," and self-indulgence.

And that is at the heart of the Social Meltdown; and that is where the Social Meltdown converges with the Financial Meltdown.

Parents today have simply relinquished all responsibility for their children to some institution or other. I implore readers to peruse again the quotes from Blair's 2005 speech – all those "activities" that Blair thinks some institution or other should provide for children, and government's role in compelling parents to submit their children to such activities, are things that parents themselves should be doing for their children, not the state and its various institutions, and that includes a child's education.

But if a child doesn't have a parent at home, how can that parent meet its responsibilities towards that child? As Blair might say, it is "not a very complicated notion."

And we should not delude ourselves that sending our children to expensive schools or colleges somehow better discharges our obligations towards our children. It is precisely such "highly educated" people who have landed us in the Financial mess we are now in because these are people without character, and morally vacuous. They are motivated by greed and envy, and thus deceit and corruption are not some anathema to them, it is the very core of their beings. They know no better because they have seen no better from their parents – their parents were not there to provide an example of honor and dignity, honesty and integrity – their parents were too busy indulging their desires and egos. These are the people in Wall Street, in Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary. These are the people who sit in the banks and financial institutions; these are the people who run the large companies who spend millions telling others that they need some ridiculous car, or suit, or pair of sunglasses, if they are to have any worth – and people gobble up this nonsense like candy.

And it's all gone south!

So let me provide a brief explanation as to why the neglect of children on the altar of their parents' vanity had inevitably to lead to these converging meltdowns.

An Explanation

Scientific research shows that human genes create a brain "structure," or module, that enables children to learn language from an early age. Leaving aside the debate about whether this structure is an anatomical modularity or a functional modularity, let's call it a "language module."

We also know that by the age of about 12 this module becomes non-functional, so to speak, if it has not been "exercised." But, needless to say, this module is not "programmed" with a language – it is a module that must be "connected up" by hearing and practicing language. Literally, neurons are connected in the brain's language module which results in a child starting to communicate.

Yet, as I have said, if that module is not used by the time a child is 12 years old, the brain appears to reassign the brain cells which constitute this module, and the ability to learn a language is effectively lost.

"If a child hears little or no human sound, the brain waits in vain and eventually will 'retire' these cells from this function and give these cells a different function. By age 10, if the child has not heard spoken words, the ability to learn spoken language is lost." [Beth Fleming, Family Life Specialist, Iowa State University Extension]

Now, what is remarkable is that scientists are coming to recognize that we may also have a "morality module" in the brain. That seems to suggest that human genes create a module that also needs to be "connected up," so to speak, in order for human beings to behave in a moral way. And if this morality module is even remotely similar to the language module, that must mean that it needs to be "exercised" from an early age.

I examine this morality module, and what it may mean, in my article "Are We Genetically Programmed by, and with, the Ten Commandments?" [http://intellectualconservative.com/wp-admin/www.freedomvrights.com].

Nevertheless, let me remind readers of a reference I provided in that article.

It is from Robert Winston in an article titled "Why do we believe in God?"

Winston says the following: "This would suggest that there is a sort of 'morality module' in the brain that is activated at an early age. Evidence from neuroscience would back this up, to a degree."

Now, in order to "activate" this module it would have to be stimulated – in the same way that the language module has to be stimulated. It may also be (although I am not aware of any research into this area) that if the module is not stimulated, then it too, like the language module, is lost. Perhaps the cells which constitute the module are also reassigned if they are neglected!

If that were the case, and it seems probable given what we know about the language module, it would mean that we are bringing up children that are the equivalent of moral mutes, because, unlike language, which children can learn from even the dumbest of their peers, morality is an entirely different matter.

But the scenario may be considerably more troubling. Given the example set by so many modern-day parents, with a concentration on indulgence in vanity and the accumulation of material possessions, we may be "reassigning" the cells comprising the morality module in our children to the pursuit of these vacuous objectives.

Looking at Blair's assessment of what has happened to modern society, and looking at the greed and corruption that informs the every day thinking of even those who should be setting a higher example, the evidence we see all around us suggests that that is precisely what is happening. The Financial and Social Meltdowns are perfect examples – the morality modules of so many people have been so neglected and distorted that the cells have been assigned to the pursuit of pleasure and vanity and the means of achieving that, leading to the Financial Meltdown as we are crushed by the weight of credit taken out to satisfy those lusts, and the loss of the morality module has led to a Social Meltdown because the brains of so many people no longer have a functioning morality module that can bring anything like a moral judgment to their actions.

And the cause of all this is staring us in the face. Children no longer have the example of moral behavior from their parents; they no longer get consistent moral instruction based on sound and reasoned principles; they get contradictory and often diametrically opposed ideas as to what constitutes "correct" behavior from a variety of sources; they see greed and vanity all around them, and self-indulgence from their parents; they get a diet of sexual indulgence as the ultimate happiness in life, and a diet of violence as the most effective way to resolve differences with their fellow human beings; they see their parents imitating and admiring the most primitive behavior in pop stars, film stars, and sports stars.

From an early age the morality modules of children are short circuiting, then finally blowing a fuse to be lost forever.

And then we see parents, "educators," politicians, priests and pastors all wringing their hands in despair. But what on earth did they expect?

When parents do not bring up and educate their own children, delegating their responsibilities to anyone or anything that will take the children off their hands so that they can indulge their fantasies and vanities, their children find solace elsewhere – in the comfort of a group of their peers, in drug and alcohol abuse, in sexual experimentation to make up for the love denied them by having a parent at home, in violence so as to discharge the rage of neglect, in video games that suspend their minds in a world of make-believe, or in simple and utter emptiness that drives them to see no point in continuing life that is nothing but vanity and self-indulgence.

That is the world we have created by sacrificing our children to the pursuit of our own pleasure and "happiness" – after all, God Himself gave us this right to the pursuit of happiness, and if the happiness of our children is the cost, then so be it!

And this is what we call "civilization"?

And no matter how much it may offend the sensibilities of the feminists, "men" and women feminists, pretty much the entire blame for this mess can be laid at the door of those who proclaimed that women can be of little or no worth unless they imitated what Nietzsche so astutely called "masculine stupidity."

"To be sure, there are enough imbecilic friends and corruptors of woman among the scholarly asses of the male sex who advise woman to defeminize herself in this way and to imitate all the stupidities with which 'man' in Europe, European 'manliness,' is sick." And not just in Europe Nietzsche, also in America, and around the world. [I know that Nietzsche went a little overboard to make his point, but his core theme remains as true today -- the de-feminization of women.]

So for decades women who have stayed at home to bring up and educate their own children, rather than abandoning them to the neglect of government, or anyone else who would be willing to do the job for them, have been scorned and ridiculed.

But only in the last decade or so has it become almost a cornerstone of government social and economic policy to promote and encourage the neglect of children by almost forcing women out of the home. Of course, it suited government – higher revenues; and it suited big business – more sales; and it suited the financial institutions – more credit. The only people it didn't suit were the children – but who cares about them when we have logos to collect, and egos to massage?

And it made it almost impossible for those families where the mother did stay at home to make ends meet. The prices of property rose dramatically because so many "families" suddenly had two incomes to throw at property. So the families where only one income was coming in were using a large part of that to simply keep a roof over their heads, and food on the table. Even mothers who would rather have stayed at home to bring up and educate their children were forced out into the milking pens of government and big business. In effect, even those parents who did care for their children were compelled to neglect them by pressure from government and big business.

Male v. Female as Homemakers

I have already touched on the differences between men and women in a previous article, to much derision from the "new conservative" feminists. But I shall do so again.

It is a simple fact of human anatomy that women are designed, whether by God or nature, to conceive new life, bring that new life to term, give birth to that new life, and then have the physical anatomy to feed that new life, even in the middle of a jungle or desert where no other source of sustenance is available to that new life. And the sustenance a woman is designed to provide to that new life is the sustenance best suited to that child's constitution.

Now to suggest that God or nature would have gone to all the trouble of providing women with the physical anatomies to bring new life into the world, but then deny those women the mental, psychological and temperamental attributes to continue the care of that new life is simply the height of stupidity.

To suggest that the carrying and bearing of a child would somehow have no different effect on the woman who bore those hardships, than the man who stood by and watched, is again utterly ridiculous. It is to say that the most profound experience any human being can go through should not have some effect on that person, or at least an effect no different to the bystander who witnesses the event – another instance of "masculine stupidity" raising its ugly head.

Feminine (not feminist) virtues have been admired and even worshipped throughout history, until the last century or so. Today they are scorned. Unless a woman imitates the worst and most primitive instincts of the male of the species, she will attract derision. Even to admire feminine virtues and strengths has been turned on its head to denote sexism and bigotry. There has been, and is, a concerted effort to eliminate femininity from the species, and from the planet.

And in doing so we have deprived our children of the people most gifted with the very qualities that children need in order to stimulate and exercise their morality modules and thus build character, integrity, honor, and courage.

But even the debate of which parent is best equipped to bring up and educate children on a daily basis is almost beside the point – in the majority of households neither parent does – and that is what government and business want. They don't want parents – they want "productive economic units;" and they don't want children of character and independence – they want clones moulded to be the future productive economic units, not people who may rock the boat.

The result is the convergence of the Financial and Social Meltdowns we are now witnessing across the world – and it has only begun. As they say, "you ain't seen nothing yet!"

But before I get silly comments suggesting that my analysis means single mother families are the ideal, let me be clear. A family is a mother and a father, a male and a female, who join together to bring new life into this world, and then nurture and educate that life. The life they bring into this world is their responsibility and their responsibility alone.

And that responsibility is shared between them. But that does not mean that the responsibility is interchangeable. It is no more interchangeable than the fact that a woman carries that new life in her womb, and gives birth to that new life. Men cannot say "don't worry love, I'll carry and give birth to the next one!"

My point is that at present neither parent meets their obligations towards the life they create. At best, what most families have is the equivalent of two males, or "fathers." What is missing is the essential and fundamental element of a mother – mothers are too busy trying to imitate the males, and thus be pseudo-fathers – and not doing a very good job of that either – again imitating the stupidity of modern males.

If I had to give an analogy of the proportional importance of male to female in bringing up and educating children, at the risk of being crude, it would be this: the father's role would be proportional to the time it took to engage in the act that conceived the new life, compared to the time it takes for that new life to be carried to term by the woman.

But that is not to say that the role is insignificant. The man provides a vital pillar in the structure; the woman provides the elegance and stability for the rest of it. However, all we have in the modern "family" of today, at best, is two awkward and dysfunctional pillars sticking out of the ground – trying to compete with each other.

To have a sound and stable structure we need both in their proper proportions.

Conclusion

So what parents really need to ask themselves is what they think they are going to leave behind when they go.

The choice is really quite simple.

Apart from the obligation to leave our children at least the seed money to start off in life, like a piece of land, or better a house, what does the modern parent leave? The latest model shiny car that ends up as a mangled piece of metal in some scrap yard? Or those fashionable logo'd clothes that end up as yesterday's grotesque fashion in some charity shop? Or that best worker trophy awarded amid a fanfare of backslapping at some company function before you are thrown out for having expended your "productive" life – that trophy that ends up as a curious oddity on the back shelf of some pawn shop? Or more likely a whole bunch of credit as evidence of a life of irresponsibility and indulgence?

Yet, even if we could leave our children a fortune that obviates the need for them ever to have to work, at what price?

Or should we apply all our efforts to activate and perfect the morality module that dwells within them which will determine whether they become people of character, honor and integrity; people who, as Kipling would say, could walk with crowds but keep their virtue, or walk with kings but not lose the common touch; people who could lose everything but not complain, yet force their hearts and sinews to go on; people who could be lied about but not deal in lies; people who can be scorned, but yet dedicate their own lives to the children they themselves will bring into this world, and not succumb to the demands of their own vanity, nor the prevailing "wisdom"?

We don't change the world by hitching up to some silly political campaign, or some ridiculous "movement," or attending some "educational" institution. We don't change the world by speculating on some market or other, or by sucking up to some politician or boss or client. We don't change the world by going with the prevailing current. We change the world by leaving people, our children, with better characters than we had. We change the world by activating their morality modules so that they too don't become just another statistic, or economic and social "unit," in a world of greed, irresponsibility and self-indulgence.

We change the world by dedicating ourselves to our families, and recognizing that families make up societies and nations, not the other way round.

The Financial and Social Meltdowns gripping the world are not the result of some alien visitation; they are the result of the breakdown of the family. If we get that focus right, the rest will fall into place.

And it is pointless to hurl abuse at those few of us who dare to mention the cause of the problem. If, as scientists now suspect, there is such a thing as a morality module, and if, as I have argued in my books and previous articles, neglect in servicing that module results in social and financial chaos, then that is a fact.

Throwing around silly accusations of sexism and bigotry simply damages and dulls the morality modules of those who indulge themselves in such infantile discourse.

So what we have is a very stark choice. We can either recognize that there is such a thing as morality, and that it is more likely than not "programmed" into our neurological make up, what Christ called the Kingdom of God that is within us [Luke 17:21], and what Genesis calls the "image of God" [Genesis 1:27], or we can ignore it.

Thus far we have ignored it, even suppressed it, in favor of indulging our vanity. And we can see the consequences!

What we have done to the morality module is equivalent to not servicing our language module – when it comes to morality, all we can do is grunt, and stamp our feet.

But what may be worse is that our morality module may be intricately connected to our language module. By which I mean that language, in the proper sense, should be a function of morality. The neglect of our morality module would then perfectly explain why so much is said and written that means so very little – verbal sewage!