The Downfall of Civilization

Marx famously stipulated that criticism of religion is the premise behind all social criticism, and it was because he never lived to see just where all that irrational zeal would go once it had been cut off to the heavens above. Since his time, people have turned society's youngest members into demi-gods, ascribing to them all the super-human powers of omni-benevolence and purity with the same degree of fervent zealotry--instigating the same amount of destruction with the same amount of good intention--as mankind ever has brought about--with hand on heart--as a result of religion or political ideology. Childhood is the new religion, the new ideology, and it's adherents can be found in all corners of the earth. So truly, criticism of it must be the basis for all social criticism in the 21st century.

While terrorism, the politics of preemption, corporate imperialism, the threat of environmental meltdown, fear politics, and the increasing dependence on technology are critical issues facing our world--and while extremist ideologies of the 20th century have mostly continued to fade--the one ideology still capable of gripping the heart so strongly as to starve it of oxygen and common sense (because it can not reside in the rational head for very long), is the ideology of the deification of the child and childhood. In fact, it has only grown in strength and numbers. When the death of a child means the birth of a saint, sparking a candlelight vigil of thousands, we can only expect to see more saints being born as the human children are fiendishly disposed of. The exalted status of a child's ghost, as depicted on the nightly news, only means the dehumanization of those still living.

In an age where one can depict terrorists as anti-heroes, suicide bombers as misunderstood romantics, murderers as sympathetic father/mother figures, and all so-called sexual deviancy as a celebrated triumph over intolerance and bigotry... in a world where it seems anything is permissible, human beings still react, as if wound by sensational clockwork, with breath-stealing dread, unspeakable horror, and vigilant blood lust, at the mere sight or thought of a non-parental adult ever being depicted holding a child's hand. All human rights are thrown in the wastebasket to ensure that such an image never permeates the social conscious ever again, as if such were a sure indication of the downfall of civilization. Such a divine aura still hangs over all children so strong that if ever seen penetrated, there is nothing stopping any onlooker's head from exploding.

This is a society where gore and obscenity is vindicated and the love of children on a personal level, adult to child, is demonized. The sight of an adult infiltrating the inflated holy realm of the child to simply hold hands is bound to send ripples of shock and horror down the spine of many a seasoned fan of unbridled, uncensored gore and promiscuity--more accustomed to seeing the torture and relentless gratification of the human body as an acceptable form of human expression than the gentle, nurturing compassion that can exist between adult and child. It often seems that civilization will resort back to watching human death and mutilation unfold before their eyes as entertainment before they will tolerate the non-parental love that can be shared between an adult and a child. They'll watch the bombing of a city, licking their lips with desire, before they tolerate the sight of a healthily sexualized child (because to be human is to be sexual).

Simply put, to love a child, to strip away what is pasted on them by a paranoid society with grace and dignity and bare their true spirits, is to be participating in the downfall of western civilization as it has worked centuries being established. To do it is to be driving the final nail in the coffin of established morality.