Finding sanity in the 'New Dark Ages'

What is life for? To die? I am afraid. Then I must live. But what for? In order to die? I could not escape from that circle.

-- Leo Tolstoy

A newborn zebra stares at its mother's pattern during its first 10 minutes of existence as the means to ensure lifetime identification. We humans may take a bit longer, but eventually we find ourselves mesmerized by the hypnotic patterns of television, alcohol, sports, sex, pleasure-seeking and careerism.

As such, it's high time to come down from the clouds and get into the business of finding out who we are and who we can be in these "New Dark Ages." We can indeed start anew in this new millennium.

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The first step is putting things in perspective. Just how tenuous is our existence as individuals and as a part of the human race? Did you know that in the spring of 1989 an asteroid packing the power of 20,000 hydrogen bombs missed colliding with the earth by six minutes?

How horrifying! Imagine it. No more MTV or Pizza Huts or Dennis Rodman! The whole world changed into one giant North Korea in an apocalyptic instant.

The near miss of the asteroid tells mankind that our very lives hang by a thread! Such cataclysmic bolts from the blue aside, there exists that eerie thought in the back of our minds that our country, Western Civilization (not to mention the West's colonial outposts in Southern Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East) are being overrun and are falling apart at an exponential rate.

The second step is accepting that nothing makes sense anymore. We can no longer find our Judeo-Christian sanity in politics, race, our nation or civilization.

Graffiti is now art. So is dung on the Virgin Mary. Giving China America's nuclear secrets is called a "Strategic partnership." Tax money to help Russia build the Kursk is "engagement with Russia." South Africa decays to a hell of rape, murder, anarchy and Marxism, and it is hailed as a foreign policy "achievement." Condoms for all. Stability for no one. To paraphrase Huey Long, who once said, "Every man a king -- no man wears a crown," I counter "Every man a slave -- no man wears a chain."

So Like a reborn zebra, we stare blankly at the decaying culture, scarcely able to believe our own eyes. Thankfully, having lived overseas for most of the 1990s, I managed to escape American TV shows, although they have saturated the global market. Shows like MTV and South Park are broadcast in Germany, Israel and elsewhere.

Now, back in the States, I have also glanced at the offerings of the television industry. There is sex, sex, sex and more sex. Is it a surprise that Americans having sex in public or at school is becoming more and more commonplace? There's the new "nasty dance," an epidemic of oral sex in middle schools (thanks to Bill and Monica!) and now the Clintonistas want to hand out the RU-486 abortion pill on demand in all middle, junior and high schools across the land.

Just turn on the television on Sunday. Remember when Sunday used to be "the Lord's Day?" Gone are the blue laws. Instead pull up a chair and sit down with a six-pack of Miller Genuine Draft and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. There's NASCAR racing, complete with crashes and, in the case of Dale Earnhardt and others, even death; hail the Roman chariots of the 21st century. Football, basketball, ice hockey. College, professional. Even my high-school football team's alumni game was put on local television in New York. Wrestling, XFL, tennis, golf, Extreme Sports, ESPN, ESPN2. Then there's "The X Files," "King of the Hill" and "Malcolm in the Middle" and on and on, ad nauseam.

When Jesus rebuked the Jewish religious elders and said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," I don't believe this is what he had in mind.

After spending Sunday analyzing the television industry, I was overwhelmingly depressed. Why? Sunday is about God. Saturday is about God for Jews and Seventh Day Adventists, but in general, the picture is clear. The pagan spirits of Rome, Egypt, Sodom and Greece manifest themselves while we cheer the gladiator millionaires, sporting their tattoos and body piercings. Yes, I remember when Sunday used to be Sunday. I remember living in South Africa when all the shops closed after a half-day on Saturday to
prepare for Sunday. I remember the blue laws as a little boy.

Hidden deep in the collective psyche of the American and Western remnant there is a disturbing notion that we dare not dwell upon for too long. We feel as though we have been "left behind." There is nothing left to "conserve." The nation, its leaders and media and citizenry are filled with greed, lust, violence, pornography, murder and gluttony. And the days of the Mickey Mouse Club aren't coming back anytime soon.

Why can't we admit that we are turning into zebras and sheep as we drift along with the rest of society?

Point of fact: If the world is moving further and further away from God every day, then we too must also be moving farther away from "the world" every day. If not, we too are drifting away from God. Do you feel a growing sense of separation from "the world" and
our sick society on a daily basis?

Is the remnant in America and the West afraid to admit that our only purpose left is to become closer to God and a more integral part of that remnant? What else is there? Jerry Springer? Beavis and Butthead? Madonna?

For the lost, twice-dead and plucked up by the roots, mesmerized by television, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, there is also a growing fear. That fear was expressed by Ernest Hemingway who wrote, "life is nothing but a dirty trick, a journey from nothingness to nothingness."

Jean Paul Sartre added that "man is absurd, but must grimly act as if he were not."

Our parents and grandparents have the Great Depression, the Nazi Holocaust,
the 50 million deaths of World War II and Hiroshima to teach them perspective. Our generation has MTV. We have no Great War. We have no Great Depression. Our lives are our "great depression."

The third step toward regaining perspective is realizing our place in time and space. Did you realize that most 21st century Americans enjoy a lifestyle the kings and emperors of the ancient world never dreamed of? Even the grandest king ate rancid meat. Ever consider that the average life expectancy in the Dark Ages was about 30 years? Yes, marriage was an
institution back then. There were many such institutions. Why? Life was hard and often bitter. You needed your neighbor to help raise the barn or deliver a breech birth among your cows.

Today you have your cell phone, customized license plate and Pizza Hut coupons.

The fourth step is realizing that this is no point in stressing over our lives and the downturn of our society. The remnant understands that the Internet and global economy is not the "birth of a new age," but rather we are witnessing the death of all that was good about the old era.

Why worry and stress over future careers that may or may not materializes when more than 80 percent of Americans claim to be unhappy with their jobs. Even the most successful career will rarely be as fulfilling as one would imagine. Just ask any Hollywood star. Ask yourself why Princess Diana mutilated herself with cut glass?

The fifth step towards a return to sanity in these "New Dark Ages" is a reach for self actualization. A mild reach. Maslow's "Heirarchy of Needs" had "self actualization" at the top of his pyramid. Below it were esteem, safety, food, shelter and other factors. St. Thomas Aquinas might say today that Maslow's pyramid of needs is upside down in importance. Yet since in the West, our basic needs for food and housing are met -- and then
some -- we do want to reach for high levels of spirituality, achievement and meaning. This is not wrong, per se.

Just what are we capable of as individuals and as a society? Beyond fat-free ice cream?

Did you know that Japan's invasion of Manchuria ultimately led 30 million Chinese to move 2,000 miles away. Literally carrying industrial and medical and educational institutions on their backs and in ox carts all the way to Southwest China? These same Chinese then constructed the infamous "Burma Road" with hand tools in 11 months. (Note: my uncle, the late Joseph D'Angelo, helped build the Burma Road with Allied troops.) This, after
the top engineering firms in the West said it would take eight years to build the road -- with the most modern equipment and machinery.

Did you know that the technology now exists to "terraform" Mars into a planet capable of supporting life? Yet, how can we bring such a dream to fruition when we are a people who invariably settle for less in almost every area of life?

The sixth step is acquiring a new sense of vision. Did you know that author Roy Norton's 1907 novel, "The Vanishing Fleets," predicted Japan's sneak attack on America and the eventual nuclear response of the United States? Are there any such men and women left to guide us through the pitfalls of the next century? Where will we find the fire to go on and convince ourselves that the future is worth living for -- in spite of the evil and anarchy unfolding all around us?

One countermeasure to such gloom and doom is to place one's faith in human nature. Others, mindful of history, will seek an anchor of "God and salvation" in various forms, choosing to believe that the man praying on his knees sees more than that philosopher/existentialist on his tiptoes. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, in 1900 A.D. there were 490 million Christians in the world and only three million atheists. In 1999, there were 1.6 billion Christians on earth, but also 1.5 billion atheists.

We would do well to remember that through the ages, the future has generally looked bleak for most of mankind. (The great exception would be the era between 1865 and World War I.) Yet even the Pax Romana was drenched with blood. And the Pax Britannica gave us the world's first concentration camps during the Boer War.

Our parents and grandparents who preceded the spoiled Baby Boomer generation -- if we choose to embrace their spirit of hope and sacrifice, rather than forgetting them -- will tell us that out of the deepest pits of darkness, a light will eventually appear and things have a way of working out.

An example of this is the fact that over half of the European Jews who survived the Holocaust were under the age of 12.

Considering the purge they had endured and the collective spirit of the nation of Israel they would forge, it seems they were a better brand of zebras than we in the post-Christian West.

Sure, immigrants are rebuilding our cities, and Eastern Europe is moving in some ways towards democracy and a market economy. There are many positive signs, but only by feeding our souls can we find a slice of sanity in the "New Dark Ages."