A Post-script for the Post-modern era

By Curtis Dahlgren

"Happy birthday, Thomas Jefferson." —CD

FROM THE DARK AGES to the "Enlightenment" and "Romanticism" to Existentialism and beyond, this old world keeps "recycling" itself. More than 20 wars are being waged at any one time now as we cycle through the post-Christian era toward — WHAT? — back to the future? Back to that era which followed the age of revelation in the first century?

Modern "thinkers" still believe that the humanist "isms" were all improvements on revelation and that any one of them could have been successful if only they had been run by the "right people" (namely THEM, the modern "thinkers"). The proverbial "spectrum" runs, left to right: Communism, socialism, National socialism (fascism), "Christian" Democratic socialism, cooperatism, capitalism, to individualism. If these isms were to be considered a circle in which if one goes so far left that you become "right," they would meet at a point called "anarchy" (still to the left of Communism). No matter what angle you view the spectrum from, Fascism is still always far, far, LEFT, with Communism more "left."

As I like to remind people, I have on my wall at home an auto license plate from 1917 that survived in a roadside ditch longer than the Evil Empire lasted. That rusty plate lasted through literally hundreds of wars and "storms of the century." And the Truth is like that license plate — buried in the sand and forgotten — just like the Book of the Law buried under rubbish in the Old Temple in Jerusalem. By the way, since 20 percent of the 10 Commandments are aimed at protecting private property, Communism — and most of its socialist cousins that allow confiscation of private property — are out of the question, so Christian Democratic socialism is a double oxymoron.

Our Founding Fathers such as Washington and Jefferson spoke of "truth" without blushing, and without mocking the Truth like it was mocked every week on Laugh In (and "that's the Truth!). Today we live in an era in which people are incapable of blushing (at anything) — and our children probably wouldn't know what the word "blushing" means! The last time I saw a woman blush was in 1961, and I didn't make her do it.

Anyway, we have reared a generation of "bored" teeny-boppers who flash just a little skin here and a little skin there in the name of "Freedom" and "liberty" (more exactly, "license" and denial). They have forgotten the history of empires because they've never been informed about all these empires that were constructed on SAND. But one can tell by their grumbling that our bored teenagers — and breathlessly sophomoric adults — are as equally disappointed by the Fruits of the Flesh as any of their forebears who took the same tack. Contemporary "fulfillment" only comes in small victories regarding even smaller issues of "victimhood."

Sometimes one has to escape to the funny papers (as we called them) to dig a little Truth out of civilization's roadside ditches (which are increasingly decorated with crosses). One of the most insightful comic strips is Cathy. In a recent strip, Cathy and her Irving are going over a "to do" list for their planned wedding. Cathy "volunteers" one by one for every item on the list, trusting no jobs to her "man." Finally, Irving asks a dumb question: "Can someone tell me how you can be a control freak and a victim at the same time?" Cathy, of course, says I can do that!

The institution of marriage is going the way of the horse and carriage in places such as Scandinavia and France, and those who would "lead" us through the Wilderness cause us to stumble by encouraging the imitation of them. With Friends like these, who needs enemies?

Speaking of enemies, though, although people have been anticipating WWIII for decades, now that we are actually IN it, people are in complete denial. The other day, which was called "Good Friday," I was in line at the counter at the Quik Trip when I saw a man pick up a local newspaper by the other cash register. The smug, smirky look on his face instantly gave me bad vibes. I didn't hear his exact words, but the clerk came back with, "You LIKE it when people die?" Evidently, he had made a snide remark about a local boy who had just been buried, because the clerk asked him, "Have you talked to any of the veterans who have been over there?"

I was out the door, but the newspaper buyer was obviously relishing the prospects of his political buddies' return to power so that he could "cash in" on freebies in the form of "federal aid"! As the caissons go rolling along in Iraq, I recall true tales I had heard about WWII. On the day after a battle in which the Nazis had battered the Allies, a man walked into the local meat market and said to the clerk, "We really gave 'em hell yesterday, didn't we?" That clerk didn't challenge the guy, because they were both Nazi-sympathizers. Some people do "like it" when people die, and the only thing that's different now is the enemy's uniform. Now it's kids wearing backpacks or more cowardly bombers in roadside ditches. But it all sells newspapers!

Those who have their "eyes open" must not let the war distract them totally from the even bigger war, the war with ourselves. We're in uncharted waters and we must not only focus on where the reefs are but on where they are NOT. There was once a ship that became stuck in the ice. There was nothing the crew could do but sit tight and take a measurement of their position in the morning. When they did so, they found that they had actually drifted backwards several miles. So it goes with our personal lives sometimes.

These columns are my attempt to gauge and convey the latitude and longitude of civilization's "position," and it is an understatement to say that we are ADRIFT. Even many churches are drifting "down the river" or sometimes backwards along the muddy back-waters with the Popular Culture (PC), frozen in ice. And if treachery abounds even at your local Quik Trip, one can only imagine the international intrigue going on behind the curtain.

We exist at a time of vast international poker games and Russian roulette. They "shall speak lies at one table" and "the heathen assemble and imagine a vain thing." He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; "the Lord shall have them in derision." Their arrows shall enter into their own hearts because they imagine in vain that they can build a successful secular society on the ashes of the failed Evil Empires of the past.

My critics may say, "If you know so much, why have you spent the last 40 years climbing trees? My answer is, because they were there, like the Grand Teton (that I climbed in 2002). That's an aside, but at least if they ask me Have you been to the mountaintop?, I can say "Yes," and if they ask me Which one?, I can tell them.

On August 23, 1966, I stopped at a Wisconsin Welcome Center on the Interstate highway and overheard a conversation between the smiling, blonde girl behind the counter and a man and his boy. She asked the little boy, Where are you from? and he said, "Berwyn." So she asked him What state are you from? And the little boy said:

"AMERICA."

I had to get back in my car and drive away because I couldn't hold back the tears. The fall was coming and terrible times were on the horizon beyond the rolling hills. I've shed a lot of tears for our "state" and our "country" over the last 40 years. In his farewell to the United Nations, President Reagan said, "Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams." And I've been there, both as a young man and an old.

Critics or no critics, in other ages tree cutters were one of the most important parts of an army, because they cut the path through the forest for the rest of the army. My, how our status has fallen! I was once working on a city beautification project, cutting out some dead and crowded trees when a little boy walked up to me and said, "Why are you cutting down the forest?" I said Does this look like a forest to you? and he said, "Yeah, sort of."

I often think about that PC little boy and the little boy "from Berwyn" (who would be in his forties now), because they are now in the Third World War, whether they know it or not. It's essentially a spiritual war, but the "suicide terrorists" aren't religious people. Whether they realize it or not, they are the same old Nazis, speaking other languages.

Abraham Lincoln told a story about a roadside bandit who stuck a gun in someone's back and said, "Stand and deliver, or I shall have to shoot you, and then you will have made me a murderer." Terrorist organizations AND modern Academia say, "Deliver us your children, and we will save civilization." But they will only "save" your children by destroying them.

Gene Edward Veith, Jr. says, "Although Postmodernists tend to reject traditional morality, they can still be very moralistic. They will defend their 'rights' to do what they want with puritanical zeal . . They want not only license but approval. Thus tolerance becomes the cardinal virtue . . The Postmodernist sins are 'being judgmental,' 'being narrow-minded,' 'thinking that you have the only truth,' and 'trying to enforce your values on anyone else.' Those who question the Postmodern dogma that 'there are no absolutes' are excluded from the canons of tolerance. The only wrong idea is to believe in truth; the only sin is to believe in sin." [Postmodern Times; a Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Crossway Books)]

Veith repeats the Psalmist's question, "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Or — (as Inspector Colombo would say), "Just one more question!" — when the Lord comes, shall He find [any] faith on the earth? Even more relevant to you personally, "If your life ended today, do you know that you would live again?" If, to answer the question, you say, "I don't know," there's your ANSWER.

Whatever your answer was, I want to repeat "just one more question": What can we DO? Unlike Jonah, who was hoping that the sinners would just "get it," I'm specifically making the official request that you actually "get the point" and honestly make a decision. Modernists like to say, "Think globally; act locally." I say: "Act individually, but think universally."

Abraham Lincoln said, "LET US BE NEITHER SLANDERED FROM OUR DUTY BY FALSE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST US, NOR FRIGHTENED FROM IT BY MENACES . . OF DUNGEONS TO OURSELVES. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT."

I second the motion, and may your young men see visions and your old men dream dreams. The flip side of beating your spears into pruning hooks is "beat your plowshares into swords." I hope that you do not overlook the obvious: we do have a choice.

President Reagan and President Lincoln (and I) have now said our piece, so you can take it or leave it. It's up to YOU!

THE END

© Curtis Dahlgren