Mark Steyn contrasts domestic reactions to the Civil War with the Iraq War, and finds them discomforting:
There is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites — from the deranged former vice president down — want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it’s pain-free, squeaky clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we’re supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day.
My gut feeling is that the public is less supportive about the Iraq War, and the greater war on terror, because the populace was thoroughly, unapologetically Christian in the mid-19th century, but there is a huge population segment that doubts the afterlife these days. If you have faith, you’re more willing to die because you know death isn’t the last thing. If you don’t, then life is the greatest good, that you’re sure about, so you’ll try to preserve it, perhaps at any cost.
Read the whole article — there’s a riveting, shocking Civil War anecdote at the beginning.
My impression is that your judgment is correct, Eric. A corollary principle is that if society’s civic religion has no greater purpose than guaranteeing indivdiual autonomy to sate appetites, wars aren’t going to have meaning.
They become defensive actions to protect our security to be promiscuous, cohabitate, contracept, abort those babies we deem inconvenient, and consume material goods voraciously. What nobility is there in that? Sure, you fight, because we grasp rationally that the common good demands protecting. But it seems to me that there can’t be any rightly-appreciated glory in such a victory.
It would be unfair to say that the United States has sunk completely to that level. The Kerry-Communion controversy indicates that we Americans are haunted by bigger ideas that we just can’t seem to shake. And the current President (unlike the last) believes that freedom is about a lot more than sating appetites.
None of this bodes well for the future of the war on terror, especially if (God forbid) Bush is not re-elected. Let us continue praying for the conversion of our Nation.
To clarify a sentence above: A consumer-sexual autonomy culture will fight wars only when the common good has been so obviously attacked (as on 9/11) that the country is shocked into consensus. We won’t pursue the ongoing Cold War we need to fight against radical Islam with the appropriate vigor. And that itself would be a grave threat to the common good.