“The Way Back” is a movie title based on the memoir, The Long Walk. It is the story of a man who was betrayed and was sentenced to a Soviet labor camp during World War 2. He and a small group escaped and walked over 4,000 miles to get to freedom. We aren’t that far gone as to have gulags in America yet. Long before the Bolsheviks took power in Russia and the Nazis took over in Germany, the average citizen was doing far less than those who seek authoritarian rule.
Twenty-six of the twenty-nine greatest civilizations were brought down from inner conflict rather than being conquered. History is the greatest teacher. We can learn from it or continue to make the same mistakes with consequences that are larger in scope because of greater ability.
We are moving towards authoritarianism. Political beliefs are necessary and just a reflection of culture. Culture is the sum total of ways of living built by a group of human beings, which is transmitted from one generation to another. Those ways are comprised of physical things we make and use, and immaterial things like language, values, attitudes, beliefs, and practices. The majority of the world has access to cars, planes, computers and cell phones. The immaterial things are what truly set us apart. We are in the midst of a culture war. Like the prodigal son, we must turn back from our error.
If we continue going in the wrong direction, then the result will be far worse. Humans disprove the theory of evolution. Evolution implies an upward climb, but the fact remains that we are regressing to lower states.
There is still time to stop the course of this nation and therefore the world. America has her stains and sins, but there is none like her among the world superpowers that will remotely check or balance the greater evil that is growing and consuming our world. We cannot progress on our current track. We must go back. What must we go back to?
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland
We are looking in the wrong direction for our salvation. Life in other countries intertwines religion and daily living, but our society separates the spiritual from the secular. In Judaism, the prophets of old denounced the sins of the nation’s people and promoted a pure inner reality based on transcendent principles. Jesus Christ denounced the most religious sects, calling them “white-washed tombs” (Matthew 23:37), beautiful in appearance but death on the inside. These and many others were on the right track.
In all of nature, will is the greatest force known to man because of its power to create. It all comes down to the choices you make. Nobody makes any other person do anything. Others can and will have an influence on the individual, but that individual still decides for herself or himself. You do not have control over all circumstances, but you do have control over the way you think, act and react. History is littered with single individuals who have impacted the entire world with their choices, good or bad.
Free will is the glory of human nature, it is the capacity to choose-right or wrong, good or bad-that makes us moral creatures. Free will implies responsibility for the choices each of us makes, we make alone, and those choices define our character.
Carey, Art. The United States of Incompetence. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
The problem lies in the way we do things, complex as that might be, and the way people relate. This has been and still is the greatest country the world has ever known. The solution lies in conforming to a higher standard, and disposing of the values that will destroy. Most solutions do not happen over night since they take time. There is a price to be paid to fix something.
Badness you can get easily, in quantity: the road is smooth, and it lies close by. But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it, and rough at first. But when you come to the top, then it is easy, even though it is hard.
Hesiod @700 BC
Our values expressed within our families, language and modes of communication, education, sources of information, entertainment and art need a return to proven, constructive and moral ways. Will you take action and join the fight today?