The full magnitude of our civilizational rot

Following comment threads under articles, columns and blog posts is not generally among the most productive uses of one's time.  That's basically so because, in our very late-in-the-day time, they tend to deteriorate into unenlightening exchanges of snark that afford the reader no insights beyond the original piece.

Just now, though, I found one that was as edifying and clarifying as anything I've read in days.   The column that engendered this particular thread, a piece by David Limbaugh at Townhall on the ruptures and fissures within today's Republican party, is itself a bracing alarm bell.  He covers the establishment-consultant-vs.-principled-firebrand divide that is the main focus of most pundits right now, but also points out the peril in some other fault lines, most notably the scorn with which the "social-issues" pillar of conservatism is dealt by an increasing number of folks who, at the same time, say they vehemently oppose the policies of the MEC and the FHers.  (That's LITD lingo for Most Equal Comrade, that is to say, Barack Obama, and Freedom-Haters, aka Democrats, for anyone new to this blog.)

His piece is thoughtful, indeed, soulful, and, in my opinion, he quite adequately explains why the culture-and-values pillar of our worldview is indispensable.

Not so the snot-nosed venom-slingers who chime in underneath.  Here are a few examples of what such types think passes for carefully reasoned argument:

Boy, talk about an article full of ignorance. Hey, Dave, take your three legged stool and shove it. Wtf is a Regean principle? Nice man worship there you chump. Libertarians laugh at your pitiful hypocritical self.

Dave how bout you cut the craap and call your code phrase "social conservatism" what it is. Using government force to impose your personal beliefs and preferences on others. You're a fake conservative as far as I'm concerned. Individual liberty is conservative. You apparently won't ever get it. Go start some new freak party for you and your ilk.

LOL!!! You can't whine about freedom and liberty and at the same time snivel about how 2 adults exercising their free will to marry each other is a detriment to "society."
You don't give a rat's keester about freedom for everyone - you just want the world to be the way you want it to be so you pull that "what's good for society" crappola. 

And if this the very first time you're wondering about the future of Repubs, then you truly do live the Limby Fantasy Life just like your blubbering Bro' 

You're wrong, David. There is no Conservative "split" between Republicans and Libertarians. It only seems that way because you think Libertarians are just Conservative backsliders. You suffer from the same disease as Dumbocrats -- you think Government should enforce your version of morality.
Libertarians don't "favor" sin. They just want the Government to get the hell out of our lives and quit enforcing ANYBODY'S morality.
It's not a split, its a coalition against the greater Dumbocrat enemy. If it seems like a big deal, its because the Libertarian movement is growing -- the formerly liberal baby boomers are finally growing up.

That's a good thing. 

As is the case in so many situations, I am drawn to some thunderously relevant points made by Diana West in her indispensable 2007 tome Death of the Grown-Up.   A principle that informs the particulars of the arguments she makes throughout the book is Lionel Trilling's notion of shaping a life.  (Her discussion of it appears at about 7 minutes into this interview by Michelle Malkin, although you should watch the whole thing.) What Trilling was talking about was the idea, found in pretty much all Western societies, but really in various forms in societies generally, that an individual ought, at a certain point in his or her development, to start giving thought to how to orchestrate the phases of his or her existence.  That point would be the moment when one begins to consider that earthly existence does indeed come to an end.  IF one has had any kind of moral / philosophical training, one sees that one's life's meaning will largely hinge on having contributed something worthwhile to the world.  The question then becomes, what equips one to so contribute?

Now, go back through the comments I've re-posted above, and see if you can find any understanding of the value of Trilling's idea.  Of course you can't.  The defense of these commenters rests entirely on the value of getting to do whatever you damn well please.

This perhaps gets to the heart of why I find arguments over marijuana policy so tiresome.  The point is not whether weed fans are more mellow than heavy drinkers, nor is it the role weed has played in the development of American music in the last 100 years, something that as a scholar and teacher of that subject I know to be significant.  It's the fact that the basic human urge to get off, while innocuous enough in and of itself, is not among the human being's most ennobling traits.  Is that the highest (excuse the pun) we aspire to?  Is that why the Constitution is worth dying for?

There was one comment under Limbaugh's column that waved an outstretched hand against the onslaught and sent it reeling back on its heels with its bitter truth:

This column is prescient, as David Limbaugh normally is, but its not hard to explain this generational shift in the republican party. Young republicans were not sheltered from Cultural Marxism. They were every bit as indoctrinated into CM over the past 30 Years as their democrat counterparts, and like their democrat friends, they have no personal or emotional attachment to classic western civilization, which is to say Christian culture, which was American culture prior to the cultural/sexual revolution, because its something they have never known. Their only reference to classic western civilization is watching old movies or TV shows on TCM or Nick at Nite, but its something they themselves have never experienced ....

... and the generation that could tell them about it in positive ways, rather than the liberal depiction of a repressive, racist society they get in school, is quickly passing away. 
Its not like when some of us were young, growing up during the height of the counterculture, but our parents and grandparents were children of the 30's, 40's and 50's and they could recall and explain Christian culture to us in a way that made us long for those days, not mock and ridicule it. 

Well todays youth are the children of baby boomers and post boomers, the generation that rejected Christian culture and embraced Cultural Marxism, so no-one was there to recall Christian culture fondly for them, the only narrative they are familiar with ... 

As I say, I am an academically trained cultural historian, and I can attest that my biggest challenge when teaching a subject like rock and roll history is even beginning to convey to people born well after the counterculture emerged victorious over traditional, normal culture what that culture was like.  For my students, it's like studying the ways of some ancient and long-dead society.

Limbaugh is not wrong.  When he says that "the hard truth is that the movement inside the Republican party to abandon social conservatism is nothing short of a political death wish," he's stating plain fact.  This country will realize it is starved for some spiritually substantive guideposts, and when it does, it will be deeply disappointed if the party it assumed would provide it is empty-handed.