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I teach high school students literature and history. On Friday a most fascinating conversation grew out of Frankenstein - all I can say is something is afoot. I've been a teacher for 12 years (and it is my second career), and the conversation in that class coupled with the intense interest my freshman take in any discussion of the ancient religions of the Near East in my ancient history class, tells me that something has suddenly shifted. Other teachers are noticing it as well, our students know something is profoundly wrong and the older ones are increasingly not interested in what the entertainment-porn-social-media industrial complex is pushing on them. They are still young and who the heck knows where this goes, if it goes anywhere, but it is a sea-change in student attitudes and it has happened in the last month or so. The critiques and concerns are beginning to cut across all of the cultural and political lines that my students have knowingly or unknowingly previously embraced as well.

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I am a data point of one, and an “elder millennial,” but I have found myself increasingly fascinated by religious traditions over the past year after I jarringly divorced myself from decades of wokeism. I grew up as “technically Catholic” but never took it to heart, and remain firmly agnostic when it comes to the supernatural, but I’ve been rediscovering some of the wisdom behind Christianity, and the cultural comfort of Catholicism. I think for me, I realized one day how cold and soulless the social justice movement had become, even though my investment in it had genuinely been aimed at being a good human and making the world a better place. When I began to search for alternative approaches, MLK stood out for his moral clarity rooted in Christianity.

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Oct 10, 2021Liked by N.S. Lyons

Another straw in the wind is a series of essays on the origin and nature of our modern megamachine by the wonderful English/Irish writer Paul Kingsnorth at his relatively new substack site "Abbey of Misrule." Kingsnorth has gone through a series of transformations from militant environmentalist, to Buddhist, to Wiccan and now orthodox Christian.

For one of the more prophetic accounts of this possible turn of events see the mid-1960s analysis of the sociologist Philip Rieff "The Triumph of the Therapeutic," in which he argued, in part, that a key assumption of the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s--that innocence will be established when our characters are liberated from "thou shalt not's" or what he called sacred interdicts, was mistaken--because "behind the hippie stands the thug."

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Oct 10, 2021Liked by N.S. Lyons

I can only speak to what’s going on in America, but this country is swimming in spiritual anxiety. I just am not convinced that it will lead to an uptick in traditional religious affiliation. What is going to realistically replace the crumbling (crumbled?) Protestant Mainline? The best book I have read on the subject—which I think really describes what is happening in America these days—is Joseph Bottum’s An Anxious Age.

America has always been a very religious country. But these days you see it on the left in wokeism (with its christalogical overtones) and in the environmental movement (with its heavy eschatology), on the right perhaps more with traditional religion. But on top of all of that, America’s predominant religion is clearly scientism (“trust the science”) and its pervasive folk religion is the cult of wellness (take a listen to the Conspirituality podcast to see how wellness and right wing culture have developed into a fascinating admixture).

People are clearly channeling their spiritual energy in a variety of ways … but I don’t see it moving toward traditional religion. I would be more inclined to believe that we are moving toward a new form of pagan society. David Roberts, on his environmentally focused substack, recently mentioned how the environmental movement has left him looking for meaning but that he wasn’t comfortable going back to his Christian roots. He was looking for new ideas for secular spirituality. I think we’ll see a lot more of that.

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Oct 11, 2021Liked by N.S. Lyons

As far as a future political direction of a possible religious/cultural or psychological revival of some sort, I have more questions than answers. For example:

Philip Rieff has argued, from a sociological perspective, that Marxism was a conservative movement culturally (it tended to be led by an elite that believed in a particular credal doctrine) that then deteriorated into a movement with the Party as the prince. Rieff also believed that in the future all of our new elites were likely to be anti-credal and as a consequence we would be moving toward a new type of unrestrained barbarism

In 1992 Margaret Conovan argued that a problem which occupied Hannah Arendt throughout much of her life was "...if common sense morality had turned out to be a very weak barrier against totalitarianism, and religion was no help where else was it possible to turn?" Arendt seemed to place her hope in a type of philosophical thinking which overcomes the type of thoughtlessness she believes she had observed in Eichmann.

On a more psychological/religious level, Paul Kingsnorth has argued that the megamachine at

its origins represents "a tendency within all of us made concrete by power and circumstance which coalesces in a huge agglomeration of power, control and ambition."

All three of these individuals seem to put their faith in the unstated assumption or hope that there may exist a type of internal moral faculty within each of us (whether cultural, philosophical or religious in origin) which can be called upon to help each of us through dark times as well as possibly provide a foundation for establishing a new sense of limits.

Does history support such a hope?

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All political discussions are actually theological. I can’t even converse with anyone who thinks a moral framework can be constructed without a religious foundation. It’s also disheartening to see other commenters disparage those who reject vaccines.

I doubt I’ll comment again solely because of that.

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Is anyone else taking all this in and thinking about the eventual rise of Antichrist? A generation (or multiple generations?) of people who were not given a solid religious foundation by tepid parents, or who were given zero religious foundation because they were raised by “nones”, or who grew into adulthood in a post-Christian society, will be hugely susceptible to the sort of deception that Antichrist will perpetrate on the world. They will be looking for the very thing that previous generations (that would be us) have rejected and excised from the culture, and the result will be a…well, disaster doesn’t seem like a big enough word.

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As Sweden goes so goes…

Swedes.

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Spirituality did not avail the Right nor the Traditional religions, why does the Left think it will avail them and to what end? Personal Jesus du Left? Makes no difference to our fate Lyons, the Tribesmen of the past were quite eliminated by Christians even when they themselves were Christian converts.

Politics is Power. God has long since ceased to be a check or restraint. No King, no Bishop as it turns out, no Throne no altar.

And no easy way out, easiest is the way were on; lay down and die.

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Ever the pedant, I find an overuse of the word totalitarian to the point of it becoming tautological. Scholars of totalitarianism emphasize three things: The shattering of existing institutions, the remaking of society toward some unified structure (destruction of civil society) bound to a utopian ideology, and the need for violence in order to destroy the old and refashion the new man. I despair when I see Trump, or woke college kids, defined as "totalitarian." Authoritarian they may be, but totalitarianism is a whole other animal. I'd recommend Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan to everyone interested in this. https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2016/POL501/um/Linz_-_Totalitarian_and_Authoritarian_Regimes_-_1-40.pdf

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This religious revival is not only happening among the non-religious but is happening within religion denominations itself. Speaking for Catholicism, to which I am part of, this revival seeks what the Second Vatican Council upended. Specifically, it seeks a re-sanctification of the liturgy, re-introduction to classical Catholic education, exploration of traditional holy orders, revived classic Church architecture and art, the liturgization of daily life, restored family traditions and parish/diocese culture, etc. The council in effect protestantized the Church, making it vulnerable to globalist liberalization. The culmination of the council is really Pope Francis, who undoubtedly has a globalist agenda and why he cracked down so hard on traditional latin mass--which really embodies this revival. The revival is a reaction to the liberalization and loss of Catholic identity. It's a largely laity-driven revival. While I can't speak for other denominations, it seems the same may be happening among other religions. It gives some hope for the future.

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American society has become culturally fractured, diverse, various, and Balkanized. Some of that is good (variety, diversity), and some is not. There is room for increasing secularization and MIT celibacy clubs (do they vow chastity for life or until marriage?). There can be drag queen story hour in Portland Oregon and religious revival in central Virginia.

Based on the recent Pew data from this past spring, I’m not optimistic for a Third Great Awakening. A few secular people may use prayer apps. But more people are not only not going to church. They are self-identifying as not interested in religion at all. Still, human beings have a fundamentally religious drive deep in their souls, so something has to take that place and perhaps a new religious revival could supplant the reign of secular religions (environmentalism, wokeism etc.).

Or maybe all the secular people (especially the environmentalists) will stop having kids entirely (to save the planet), and only Catholics and Evangelicals will have kids and that will change the dynamic. And large influxes of traditional Christian immigrants from Asia, South America, and Africa. Along with Muslims and Jews and members of other faiths.

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Saying Brussels is like saying UN. UN= US State Department.

So Warsaw isn’t going against “Brussels “ its going against DC.

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