Hopelessness assaults us from all sides. When a culture no longer looks to the eternal God, it starts looking to this passing world—and it passes. So we fret about demographic winter amid the barrenness of a contraceptive culture facing its doom both economically and socially (as the Muslims happily attest). The stock market goes through convulsions, the debt balloons and an expanding bulge of Baby Boomers starts to burden its allowed-to-not-be-aborted children with the enormous task of providing for them in their impending geezerdom. Not a few are starting to get the bright idea that it would be a lot cheaper to just murder those aging Boomers (mercifully, of course). Elsewhere, those who trust in the “spirit of democratic capitalism” rather than the Holy Spirit look blankly at the horrors it produces:
The teens call their public orgies ponceo. On a typical Friday afternoon in the Chilean capital of Santiago, hundreds gather in a leafy urban park for a few hours of sexual experimentation. Surrounded by passing strollers, they trade partners multiple times—mostly engaging in anonymous rounds of oral sex. When the party is over, no contact information is exchanged. Same-gender interactions are commonplace, as the lines between hetero- and homosexuality are blurred, partly by the alcohol and drugs consumed, but also by shifting social mores held by Chilean youth, in contrast to their conservative parents. ‘Ponceo is about having fun,’ says Natalia Fernandez, a 15-year-old with pink hair and a pierced chin. ‘This time I had seven partners.’
Stunning, but not as stunning as this remark:
They are darlings of a booming neoliberal economy, which has provided them with all the material accoutrements necessary to be Pokemones. Yet along with sexual rebellion, these teens are also defined by their consumerism, a characteristic that neatly conforms to Chile’s free-market ideals.
Yet? Yet? As if there was some sort of contradiction between a consumerist culture and the meaningless, brain-dead, moronic appetite worship of these lost kids?
And, as background noise to all this, our entertainment cheerleads for sleaze at every turn, our political candidates offer us a choice between cannibalizing babies when they are big or cannibalizing them when they are small, our educational system is filled with a horror of God but a zeal for sex in various forms, and a growing number of our Chattering Classes think atheist James Watson was the ne plus ultra of sophisticated insight when he gazed out upon this landscape of nihlism and said, “You can say ‘Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don’t think there’s a purpose’ but I’m anticipating a good lunch.”
So what does Benedict have to say to this culture for which all the answers seem to be “Steal whatever pleasure you can without commitment”, “Kill somebody” or “Buy stuff”? He says something simple and yet revolutionary:
“It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love—a Person. And if we know this Person and he knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe and of its laws, we are free” (Spes Salvi 5).
Imagine it! To be really free! Not to be tied down to the lie that life is nothing but work, buy, consume, die! To look out upon a universe that is full, not merely of meaning, not merely of reason or of will, but even a universe that is full of the love of a personal God! Not to be bound to the notion that those lucky enough to be able to afford a sandwich have achieved the summit of all human hopes. To be able to speak to our children and give them a vision of heroic hope and not lose them to the bondage of empty hedonism! To see ourselves, not as unusually clever pieces of meat that happened to bounce out of the cosmic crap shoot, but as beloved sons and daughters of God. To see even our suffering as tragic but united to Christ rather than as an idiotic contortion on the face of time, space, matter and energy! To be free of our own disordered appetites that keep us fat, dumb and unhappy! To be free to have families and friendships of mutual self-giving in the love and fruitfulness of God! To be free of the fear of death!
All this is offered in the gospel of hope Benedict preaches to our post-Christian culture. It’s all available to us: if we will only let go our hopelessness and embrace Christ our Hope.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:30 am
Mr. Shea, will you do me the favor of re-running this article on Wednesday, November 5? No matter who wins our election, we’re going to need to be reminded that God is in control–ultimate control.
Thanks for your sanity amidst the chaos.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:57 am
Thank you Mark, for a powerful and important essay. What I want to know is, when did we stop being “citizens” and start being “consumers”? I think it happened somewhere in the early 1990’s, but I might be off by a decade or so. This fundamental shift is a sign of the self-image that shapes our times. If we’re just consumers, then all we have to do is buy sandwiches, hi-def TV’s, and Nintendo Wii’s. If we’re citizens, we have to wake up and realize it’s time to take responsibility for our actions, become engaged in society, and help stop the downward spiral into oblivion. Is it too late already? I hope not.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Of a wicked pun off this article, these sad folk are really more ‘consumed’ than consumers. Survivors of one evil of social cannibalism – permitted-to-be-born – they have joined in thinking that they are now consumers when they are yet but being ‘consumed’ in other evil.
Capitalism is no ‘free’ market when it settles for the same materialisitic consumption as socialism portends for just-us-material humans. We become as a preternatural livestock to prey on each other, consuming as and how we will.
As one elderly, I know that time is fast approaching when they will discard my remnant from consumption lines. They will call me a ‘useless eater’, or some such, meaning that they no longer find anything about me of of which to consume me.
I am coming to an end akin to the extermination of not-yet-begun babies. I can become refuse of a ‘no-longer-consumable’ just as babies can be discarded as unwanted ‘non-consumables’ conceived (or not) in mutual consumption of ‘casual sex’.
And, frankly, we do not simply choose not to embrace our beloved Jesus Christ – we don’t even embrace each other.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
thank you for reminding me of where our true Hope ought to be and in Whom our True Hope should be in. These are certainly very trying, difficult and frustrating times for many people. We struggle to make ends meet, we wonder how we will ever retire now that our 401k’s have been blown up, how can I send my kids to college. I look at the Presidentail race and also look at local races in my home state of NY and say to myslef is my voice being heard-it seems that everything I believe in and would like to see in this country is not just faiding away but being violently torn asunder. Because of my humaness, this has all pushed hard upon me, but thanks to this article I must continue to lift up my eyes to where His Glory Comes from. Hope- the real Hope is ever present in the Worls and is always avialable to me only if I ask.
Peace to all
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Ponceo is a rather disturbing reality. It is probably happening in the U.S. behind closed doors.
America is quite a phenomenon. Think of the quick history. Settlers came seeking to wrest a life from this rich, untapped wilderness. In the midst of religious and social expansion, there were atrocities brought upon the African tribesman, borne over on European and New England slave ships, and these atrocities were added to by select southern masters who had gotten rich quick on their huge tracts of land and who, without mastery, split up families and denied education or generational progress. Greedy frontiersmen and executive authority drove peaceful Indians off of their lands (I am thinking especially of the Cherokee). This country revolted against England because of unfair taxes; then, it was set upon the course of centralized power after the bloodshed of the War Between the States. The unmeasured aggression of the Union was based upon a pseudo-religious notion of indivisibility. Now, we enjoy more taxes than our ancestors and founding fathers would have dared to dream, and by being tied to the dollar, we are tied to market-tycoons that can manipulate us and our government. We have so many of our civil liberties intact, and yet we feel the shadow of something dreadful (reminding me of middle-earth or Tolkien’s trilogy). Our families have been suffering as we enjoy so many material blessings, albeit upon the string of credit woven tight around the globe. What lies in wait for us? We look to Mary, who is the patron of our land, still rich in its soil. Surely, she will teach us purity, so that we may become a country full of freedom and virtue, a nation of christian values. As catholics, we must walk through the age of doubt and fear without doubt and fear, recognizing the innate dignity of every single person, created in the image of God. We must pass on the legacy of Christ and his Church, and a nation that is just will rise from the ash-heap of our day. I am pessimistic, but full of hope. And I have optimism on one count. There really are a lot of good people in America yet. There is a word present in the American vocabulary – revival. This time, instead of setting up tents or preaching fiery sermons, let us allow the Queen of Heaven to order it aright.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Freedom! True Freedom!
Just like Braveheart but infintely more true and more free!
God is good!!!