While We’re At It

♦ Tish Harrison Warren documents the changing character of American Christianity, which is as profoundly affected by immigration-driven demographics as the rest of our society. Writing for the New York Times newsletter, she assesses the implications:

This influx of nonwhite believers will challenge white religious conservatives to choose between xenophobia and building alliances with immigrants who share their views on social issues. These trends will also challenge them to unbundle their religious views on social issues from a kind of libertarian economics that harms those who are less wealthy. In the same way, white progressives will be in the awkward spot of choosing whether to continue to push boundaries about sexuality and gender—which will put them on the side of largely white, wealthier Westerners—or to be in solidarity with those from the majority world who most likely hold views that are out of step with social progressivism.

The “xenophobia” slur is gratuitous and without basis. Do there exist any conservative groups, religious or non-religious, that are not eager for allies? Is it a New York Times requirement to ring the changes on the charge of “racism” when speaking about conservatives? As for the parallelism between conservative and progressive, count me unpersuaded. It is far easier for First Things readers to dismiss the Cato Institute than for the readers of the Christian Century to do or say anything not authorized by the Human Rights Campaign.

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♦ The mistreatment of Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford Law School was widely reported, so I will not detail the thuggish behavior. President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Law School Dean Jenny Martinez subsequently sent a letter of apology to Duncan, which of course triggered further protests. In the 1920s and 1930s, Bolsheviks and Fascists were uninterested in discussion and debate. When they judged it advantageous, they exploited the rule of law to destroy their enemies. When procedures impeded them, they employed intimidation. As I note above, today’s tyranny does not resort to brass knuckles and bullets. It is satisfied with verbal aggression. But it shares a desire to destroy the opposition. Dean ­Martinez issued a further statement with strong language in support of a legal culture based on rational debate. I wish her well, but I’m not optimistic. A Bolshevik and Fascist mentality has colonized elite law schools, and it happened on the watch of the faculty and administration that promoted Dean Martinez. It’s a sign that our ­society is heading for trouble.

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♦ In my reflections above on today’s tyranny, I expressed gratitude that, unlike their totalitarian predecessors, progressives are satisfied with destroying careers and reputations. Perhaps I was too optimistic. In the aftermath of the uproar at Stanford, Wayne State University English professor Steven Shaviro posted his thoughts on Facebook. After an initial throat clearing (“Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes”), he went on to say, “I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.”

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♦ During the uproar at Judge Duncan’s lecture, Tirien Steinbach, associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Stanford Law School, intervened and delivered prepared remarks that implied the “the harm” of his presence was “so great” that Stanford ought to waive its free speech policies. This appeal to “harm” and threats to the emotional “safety” of students led a friend to send me a passage from C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves:

There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

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♦ Like smoking, social media can be bad for your health. W. Bradford Wilcox and Zach Whiting observe the correlation between dramatic increases in social media use and equally dramatic declines in mental health. Rates of depression for teen girls have doubled (from 12 to 26 percent) since the widespread use of the smart phone began in 2010. Suicide for that demographic has rocketed to forty-year highs. Self-reported anxiety and sadness are also at historic levels. “So, what’s the answer?” Wilcox and Whiting ask. In response, they venture: “We must treat Big Tech the way we dealt with Big Tobacco at the end of the last century—as an industry whose access to a vulnerable population, our teens, must be curtailed.”

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♦ Ed West is not a fan of life-sucking social media. But he questions the assumption that our smartphones explain the spike in mental health problems among the young. He notes that the rise in negative indicators corresponds to the rise of wokeism. Climate catastrophe, rampant white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia: Today’s progressive mind is filled with dire diagnoses. West quotes Jill Filipovic:

I am increasingly convinced that there are ­tremendously negative long-term consequences, especially to young people, coming from this reliance on the language of harm and accusations that things one finds offensive are “deeply problematic” or even violent. Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life—to mix metaphors, that they are captains of their own ship, not that they are simply tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean—are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response.

Perhaps one cause of rising teen suicide is late-model liberalism and its embrace of the cult of the victim.

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♦ Interestingly, depression and other mental health problems track both sex and ideological orientation. West cites a 2021 study, “The politics of depression: Diverging trends in internalizing symptoms among US adolescents by political beliefs.” From the study abstract: “Trends in adolescent internalizing symptoms diverged by political beliefs, with female liberal adolescents experiencing the largest increases in depressive symptoms.” Conservative boys showed the lowest rate of increase in depression.

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♦ Writing in Tablet magazine, Jacob Savage notes the remarkable decline in Jewish enrollment at elite universities. Early in the twentieth century, quotas limited Jewish enrollments at Ivy League schools to 10 percent or less. When quotas were eliminated, the proportion of Jews surged, only to fall dramatically in the last decade. “Harvard has gone from being 25% Jewish in the 1990s and 2000s to under 10% today.” Yale’s Jewish population represented 20 percent of its undergraduate student body in the 2000s. Now it makes up around 10 percent. Other elite universities reflect that same trend. Intermarriage and a drop in Jewish self-identification may partly explain the sharp declines. But Savage recognizes that our DEI regime surely plays a role: “To even suggest that a 15%-20% Jewish undergraduate student body might be acceptable in a country in which Jews make up 2.4% of the total population is anathema in today’s liberal society.”

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♦ The New York legislature has passed an amendment to the State constitution that will come before voters in 2024 to be ratified: “NO PERSON SHALL BE DENIED EQUAL RIGHTS UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS STATE OR ANY SUBDIVISION THEREOF BASED ON THAT PERSON’S RACE, COLOR, ETHNICITY, NATIONAL ORIGIN, DISABILITY, OR SEX INCLUDING PREGNANCY AND PREGNANCY OUTCOMES, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, AND GENDER EXPRESSION.” With this wording, women will have a constitutional right to abort their children right up to the moment of birth—and perhaps after (“pregnancy outcomes”). The amendment will compel public recognition of all transgender claims. In sum, the Rainbow Reich gets full control of state power.

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♦ A friend from out of town visited the office. He related recent changes at his urban parish. More young people are coming. They kneel to receive the ­consecrated host on their tongues. Some of the women wear veils. “Am I witnessing a slow-burning Catholic version of that wildfire Protestant revival at Asbury University last February?” he wondered.

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♦ Deliberatio.eu is a new web magazine. Drawing upon a wide range of European authors, it offers intelligent conservative commentary on current events, as well as longer essays on seminal figures and timeless topics. Recommended.

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♦ The annual First Things Intellectual Retreat in New York City will take place August 11–12. Our topic will be “Creation and Fall,” with readings drawn from Scripture, theology, poetry, and literature. The retreat begins with dinner and a lecture on Friday evening and continues with seminar discussions of assigned readings on Saturday. The full day ends with a festive dinner and a concert by the Hillbilly Thomists, a bluegrass band of Dominican friars whose recent record, Holy Ghost Power, reached #5 on the Billboard bluegrass chart. Great books, good company, and fine music—it’s a marvelous opportunity to feed mind and soul.

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♦ Fr. Joseph Fallon of Garnerville, New York, would like to form a ROFTERS group. If you live in or near Rockland County and would like to join, you can reach him at sgbrectory@gmail.com.