It started with an essay in the (supposedly) high-minded publication for Wall Street Journal subscribers, WSJ Magazine.  This comes out every other month in the print edition, and is a slick magazine designed to appeal to high-income readers.  It is filled with ads for expensive clothing, watches, and jewelry, and features stories about people and trends in fashion, art, travel, and other cultural aspects of life.  Each issue features short paragraphs by a selection of “luminaries” on a selected topic.  The most recent issue’s topic was Success.  Reading from left to right, I read with interest the thoughts on success from a billionaire private-equity investor, a model, etc.  However, I had to stop reading when I came to the column by a woman who I had never heard of, described as the co-founder of a “charity” dedicated to cancer prevention.  The name of this organization contains a word that, simply, is taboo in polite society.  Is there any such thing any more as polite society, I wondered?  Would you donate to a charity named “F**k Cancer”?  Would you tell your spouse or children about that charity?  I certainly would not, and it makes me slightly ill even thinking about it, and I will not spell it out on this blog.  It did get me to thinking about how our culture has been coarsened, and debased, by those in public life who choose to act and speak like they are from the gutter.  Actually, many really are.

I believe that the debasement of our culture probably began with my age cohort, called Baby Boomers, in the late 1960s.  We threw off the shackles of mainstream society, grew our hair long, threw away our bras, stopped shaving our legs and underarms, burned our draft cards, and stopped trusting anyone over 30.  Part of this process involved the constant use of filthy language to go along with our long, filthy hair.  We encouraged sex and drug use for fun, “open” marriages, and defiance of all authority.  Our rock star role models regularly trashed hotel rooms, smashed their expensive electric guitars both on and off stage, and died of drug overdoses in filthy motel rooms.

So, where are we now?  Well, we have a culture that spawns COSMETIC companies named Smashbox,

and Urban Decay.

Do those names suggest beauty to you?  They certainly do not suggest beauty to me.  In fact, if I didn’t know they were names of cosmetic companies, I’d think they were rock bands.

We get “artists” like Lady Gaga.

How anyone can call this sorry excuse for a human being an artist is way beyond me (my nickname for her is Lady Gag-me).  We get “fine art” works like “Piss Christ” by someone who debases the culture by his work.  Is there any way this kind of work elevates anyone’s thinking?  Not in my book, and I hope not in yours.  We get “artists” whose medium is cow dung, and whose work commands huge sums from (not) discerning buyers.  We get wholesome teeny-boppers like Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana, descending into being a disgusting slut on stage and YouTube.  We get the elevation of self-mutilation by tattoos and distasteful facial piercings, on youngsters who serve food to the public.

We get this as a “holiday display” next to a Nativity Scene:

We get Hip-hop “music” with filthy, degrading lyrics that advocate rape and murder.  We get this kind of behavior from gangs of youth.  We get “social media” posts from people advocating the murder of police officers.

We get a society where legitimate businesses are literally run out of town when the Christian proprietors decline to photograph, or bake a cake for, a “wedding” of homosexuals, that conflicts with their deeply-held religious views on the sanctity of marriage.  We get a president who shamelessly admits to smoking marijuana as a college student, and associates with a series of race-baiters and a pastor who advocated for denigrating white people simply for being white; who displaces a couple whose Hawaii wedding has been planned far in advance, because it conflicted with his desire to play golf!

We get a “political correctness” that results in the only groups that can be made fun of in polite society being white, male Christians.  Marriage itself is debased, and traditional families with a mother, father, and their children being increasingly lonely.  Where children as young as first grade are taught about homosexuality, and Planned Parenthood advocates sex and free abortions for teenagers, without the knowledge or permission of their parents.  We get a society where over 50% of black babies are aborted, and over 75% of black babies are born out of wedlock.  We get a society where prostitutes are called “sex workers”, and groups advocate for the reduction of stigma surrounding them.  Truly, nothing is really sacred any more.

I am sorry for the state of our culture, but it does not have to be this way.  In our public, and private lives, we can refuse to use nasty language, and decline to take part in male-bashing when we hear it.  We can dress nicely for church and work, get married and stay married, listen to beautiful music, and visit art museums who display tasteful art.  Sometimes it will take home-schooling our children, or digging deep into our wallets to send them to private schools to avoid the public schools teaching sex in kindergarten and “white privilege” in third grade. If we want to bring our culture back from the abyss, we can do it by behaving better every day, and teaching our children to do the same.