The fifty-plus-year rise of a counterculture impetus in our society just switched to being a fall

Way back in 2007, Diana West, in her still-relevant book Death of the Grown-up, cited a then-recent Grammy awards ceremony in which Bono, lead singer of the rock group U2, upon receiving his award, told those gathered to "keep f------ up the system." West pointed out the irony of the fact that Bono and the counterculture he was embodying with such a statement had become "the system."

If one argues that, since the enshrouded-in-myth 1960s, we have had some Republican administrations and Congresses and that a number of right-leaning opinion outlets, think tanks and activist groups have sprung up and thrived, the counterargument is amazingly easily put forth. Yes, it's true that a viable, robust Right has inserted itself onto the landscape. Still, the past fifty years have seen most  - make that all - major institutions that shape our cultural direction - schools (from pre-K to post-graduate programs), news media, popular music, cinema, stage drama, literature, visual art, and even much of institutional Christianity, impose a cultural rot on our society that has now reached the point of insanity.

For LITD's money, the very notion of transgender bathrooms, let alone the fierce dust storms arising from states' attempts to keep such insanity out of their schools, is Exhibit A.

There is a plethora of others.

Take opposition to the Dakota access pipeline discussed in the post below. Self-congraluatory opponents have the temerity to present themselves as peace-and-nature-loving agents of justice while engaging in, or expressing solidarity with, modes of dissent such as these:

They’ve wiped out forage that ranchers were depending on to feed their cattle and bison during fall and winter months. They blockade roads and rail lines, set fires to make passage impossible, and harass reporterswho question their actions. One tried to shoot a deputy. They have burned bridges, destroyed millions of dollars of construction equipment, chased livestock until they lose their calves or die of exhaustion – and killed, maimed or eaten cattle, horses and domesticated buffalo. They’ve promised far more destructive actions, and even issued death threats against their critics.

A favorite tactic employs “peaceful dissidents” and “prayer groups” to block and distract ranchers and sheriff’s deputies from an area, while others destroy nearby fence wire and posts. Ernie and Beverly Fischer told me repairing just the fence on the ranch where they graze buffalo will cost at least $300,000 and weeks of work. The anarchists don’t care that Beverly is a full-blooded Standing Rock member. 

Other ranchers’ lost forage and animals, time and fuel spent on repairs, and other expenses will cost well over $500,000. No one has offered any compensation, even though the militants have millions of dollars.

The stunt of taking a knee during the singing the national anthem before sports events started in the NFL and quickly spread to the WNBA, other professional leagues, and down to high-school athletics.

America's largest cities proudly insist on being "sanctuary cities," thereby flaunting not only specific federal laws but the notion that federal law is sacrosanct, and, indeed, the notion of national sovereignty.

Last night, Mike Pence and his wife attended the musical Hamilton in New York.  As you know, the show is a truly great celebration of the life and legacy of one of the truly great figures in American history. But the cast took the opportunity of the final bow after the performance to indulge in a snide speech directed at the vice-president-elect.

As I've said many times before on this blog - indeed, it is the overall thrust here - our cultural ills must be addressed for any meaningful public-policy initiatives to take root.

Such an opportunity may be here.

The common thread running through the examples I cite above is a central message of confrontation. All the protests, all the indoctrination, all the in-your-face ugliness in the various realms of artistic expression, are still predicated on Bono's notion that the counterculture still stands outside some kind of "establishment."

And it's laughably mistaken.

But there's something else that is noteworthy about the counterculture that is now our societal mainstream: It is militantly secular, and therefore brittle as hell. It is founded on a spiritually false premise.

Therefore it is inherently destined to expire at some point, in one way or another.

And that is what we may be seeing. It may be why the "counterculture's" tactics get ever more shrill and ridiculous.

The "counterculture's" leaders became our overlords for a time - we even had one as our president for the last eight years - but what it assumed to be the zeitgeist of the overall populace was an illusion. Indeed, most Americans are repulsed and alarmed by what this societal force has wrought.

These people know it, and now they are reacting like cornered animals.

There are other layers of potential confusion for us to make our way through, to be sure, the pollution of conservatism with this "populist / nationalist" phenomenon perhaps the most prominent among them.

But with regard to the revolutionary dream that has fired the hearts of the New Left, the hippies, the feminists, the environmentalists, the punks, the Occupy people and the contemporary social justice warrior over the last half-century, the jig is up. It's apparent to a critical mass of Americans that theirs is a bankrupt worldview.

Dealing with them will still require resolve, but it looks like we are no longer dealing with a force with ever-increasing power.