Being "With It"

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Being “With It”

The following is from Thomas Sowell. Is Reality Optional? pp. 12 - 14.

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SHE IS THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MOTHER. When she had her baby, it was a family event in the delivery room. Not only was her husband present, but also other family members, including her 4-year-old son.

Photographs were taken during the delivery. These have been collected into an album that can be shown to visitors.

Now that the baby girl is home, her 4-year-old brother holds her. When he thinks nobody is looking, he sometimes drops her. This story is particularly horrifying because just a few months ago in New York, twin-baby boys died after their 4-year-old sister dropped them—also deliberately.

What can be the matter with parents irresponsible enough to leave newborn babies in the hands of 4-year olds?

It is more than just an isolated lapse in judgment. It is part of a whole new way of life in which being "with it" is the guiding light. Why so many people are so anxious to be "with it" at all costs is one of the great mysteries of our time.

Part of the reason is moral intimidation by "experts." Recently, a psychologist on the radio advised parents what to do if one of their children tells them, "Go to hell!" The way to handle it, the psychologist said, is to out-cool the kid. Don't let him see that it makes you angry.

Back in the old days, any kid who said that to his parents would not only have seen that it made them angry, he would have felt it—perhaps from a slap across the face that rattled his molars. But this modern psychologist's advice was given in lofty tones of total certainty. Hearing it, you would never dream that we had already messed up a whole generation of children by listening to "experts" like this.

Deep thinkers don't have to produce evidence that what they say works. All they have to produce is anxiety in the rest of us to be "with it."

Deep thinkers who advise students at Stanford University have said that it's OK for a woman to undress, get into bed with a man, and then decide to say "no." Now, that's being "with it"—not intelligent, but "with it." (Stanford women students average more than 100 "unwanted pregnancies" annually.)

Some of the trendy notions of our time are said to be "scientific" or "proved" by "studies:' Many of the people who talk this way haven't a clue about science and have never seen the studies that are supposed to prove so much. Some of these studies are so crude and shallow that you wouldn't choose between Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies on the basis of such shaky evidence.

There is a well-established pattern to the way fad thinking takes over.

First, you are morally intimidated into believing that only the most ignorant, stupid, or hopelessly old-fashioned people resist the new wisdom, whose benefits are obvious, numerous, and great.

Then, when it turns out that the bright new idea makes things worse, you are morally intimidated by being called "simplistic" when you point out how the great promise has ended in disaster.

There are always "many factors" involved—and the burden of proof is then put on you by those who were so positive before, with no proof.

Remember how freer, less structured schools with fewer rules were supposed to lead to higher performance—and led instead to lower performance?

Remember how sex education was supposed to lead to less venereal disease, fewer pregnancies, and therefore less need for abortion—and how all three have skyrocketed at the same time?

Remember how modern theories of criminology were supposed to reduce crime—and how crime rates soared after these brilliant ideas became part of our legal system?

Remember how foreign aid was supposed to help poor countries feed themselves, get out of debt, and become friendly to the United States—and how the opposite of all these things happened?

All this was just part of the price tag for being "with it." Those who are "with it" are often wrong but never in doubt. Whether the issue is the environment, crime, or the survival of Western civilization, their top priority is asserting their own superiority.

Some things must be done on faith, but the most dangerous kind of faith is that which masquerades as "science." As the pretense of science has replaced commonsense experience, we have abandoned many old-fashioned practices that worked in favor of high-sounding innovations that have led to disaster.

If someone ever discovers why lemmings stampede headlong into the sea and drown, it may provide a clue as to why human beings are so anxious to be "with it."

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What has gone wrong? America has lost her way. She no longer knows right from wrong. She has listened to all of the wrong voices. She has abandoned the Bible and the outlooks, attitudes, and values of Christianity and listened to the new voices of modern liberalism, accepted the so-called “scientific” ideas that have been set forward by the new gods of our new society — the psychiatrists and psychologists.

America has rejected the old-fashioned, moralistic outlooks and values of the Bible and followed the modern up-to-date ideas, followed the progressive “in” ideas, the modern spirit and outlooks of our times.

These new ways are in conflict with God and Truth, they are the way of Satan, and in following them she has lost her way. She has lost her good sense, her common sense, her power to discern and judge. And there is little in life quite as important as common sense and discernment.

America has lost her understanding. She no longer knows how to think. She is now working from a totally different moral, spiritual, and intellectual reference frame. She has surrendered herself to a new God, the God of this world — a god that will destroy her.

6 May 2024