Lex Anteinternet: A deeply sick society.

Lex Anteinternet: A deeply sick society.: 

A deeply sick society.

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.  We laugh at honor and are shocked find traitors in our midsts.  We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.  

C.S. Lewis.

Let's start with a couple of basics.

You were born a man, or a woman.  We all were, and you can't change that.  If you are a man, no amount of surgery or drugs is going to make you bear life and bear all the consequences of the same, from hormonal storms on a monthly basis, to monthly blood loss, to a massive change of life, mid life.

Thinking that you can, and even wanting to makes you deeply mentally ill.

And a society that tolerates that attempt, is deeply sick.

An account I follow on Twitter notes the following:

22 years old Was 17 years old when Covid hitI wonder when he started going down the trans path

It's worth asking that question, and we'll touch on it in a moment. 

Part I.

Robert Westman,¹ who tried to be Robin Westman, but failed.  The photo alone shows you can't choose to be a woman if you are man, and that he was accordingly deeply mentally ill.  "You don’t need a weatherman. To know which way the wind blows"  Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan.

Robert Westman, mentally ill young man, raged against the reality of life that had tolerated his perverted molestation of himself and lashed out against the existential nature that doomed his molestation to complete failure, and a deeply sick society now will wonder why.  Moreover, even his final act shows how deeply he failed in his effort. Women nearly never resort to mass violence in frustration.

That's a male thing.

And so we start, again by finding myself linking back to some old threads on this blog, unfortunately.  This was the first time I tackled this topic. 

Lex Anteinternet: Peculiarized violence and American society. Looki...: Because of the horrific senseless tragedy in Newton Connecticut, every pundit and commentator in the US is writing on the topic of what cau...

And I did again here:

Lex Anteinternet: You Heard It Here First: Peculiarized violence an...: (Note.  This is a post I thought I'd posted back in November.  Apparently not, I found it in my drafts, incomplete.  So I'm posting...

The first time was intended to be the magnum opus on this, and indeed it likely still is.  It's still worth reading:

Peculiarized violence and American society. Looking at root causes, and not instrumentalities.

And on that, I'm going right to this:

Who does these things?

It's pretty apparent that you could go to the average gun owner, and actually equip him with a machinegun, and he'd never do anything with it.  It's also apparent, from a recent mass killing in Casper Wyoming, that if you arm some people with medieval implements, they'll use them for murder.  That's correct; recently in Casper Wyoming, there was an event that fit this pattern that was committed with a bow and arrow and a large knife. Grisly, to be sure, but telling.  It isn't something new in the arms that's causing this, it's something new in the mind. But what?

I'm not qualified to be a psychologist at all, but I am trained to observe human behavior and to analyze it, and there are certain things that seem quite connected here, but which are ignored.  These are the things that need to be looked at prior to our doing anything, as the solutions are to be found here.

What we're seeing in many of these murders is that the killers are mentally unstable in a truly insane sense. The attempted assassin of a politician in the US seems to fit this category.  Others, and here's where the New York Times article is helpful, are not so much insane, but they fit into a category of people who, by some means, are subject to a personality disorder that renders them socially marooned, and it would seem, it renders them also incapable of empathy, but fully capable of despair.

Some of these individuals are quite smart. The recent killer in Newton Connecticut, apparently afflicted with Aspergers Disease, seems to fit this category.  The killer in the Denver theater shootings also very clearly had some sort of personality disorder and was very well educated and intelligent.  Others are not so smart, but a consistent strain of some sort of very pronounced personality disorder runs through these stories.  The killer in the Casper Wyoming murders was self-diagnosed with Aspergers, and based on his personal history, I suspect his self diagnosis was correct.

Does this mean that everyone who has these conditions is a time bomb waiting to go off?  Absolutely and clearly not.  And, if we assume (perhaps quite incorrectly, however) that incidents of these conditions are not increasing in frequency (which they very well may be), what that tells us is something else.  If we've always had people who have been so afflicted, but haven't had this particular set of problems, something else has changed. What could it be?

First, before moving on in this, however, what is it about these conditions that make them unique. That's important. What we know is that the conditions make these people socially awkward. In some cases, they divorce them of empathy.  That seems to be all the more to the conditions that we can discern, that's relevant here.  But, as the vast, vast, majority of people who have these conditions also have moral standards, and usually go on to live fully productive lives, it tells us something is also wrong at the societal level, and not as much the individual one.

And also this:

Maybe the standard was destroyed

There's been a lot of commentary the last few years about the lack of prayer in school, and as recently noted on the Ramblings of a Teacher blog, there's been an email and Facebook item circulating that promotes the return of daily prayer to public schools.  Like the author of that blog, I think that idea misses the mark.

What I do think, however, is that we've seen an evolution from a loosely recognized general standard, which was frankly religion based, into the concept of "tolerance" for other ideas, which has now slipped into complete moral relativism that lacks any standards at all.

This is, I think, fairly demonstrable by history and the result isn't good.  A brief look at that history is instructive.

This is not to suggest that the country had a uniform Christian history and that this suddenly fell apart recently, that wouldn't be true.  And it wouldn't even be true to maintain that the country has been uniformly religiously observant throughout its history.  What would be true, however, is that a loose set of Christian standards was generally recognized, even by those who were not religious, or even a-religious, and even though the degree to which people closely identified with religion has changed varied enormously over the country's history.

Early in the nation's history the country was almost uniformly Protestant, although there was more than one Protestant church that was present in the country, and the doctrinal differences between them were in some instances quite pronounced.  It would be false to claim that they all had the same theological concepts, and indeed some of them had radically different theologies.  Indeed, even those several Protestant faiths that were present in North America had acted to strongly repress each other here, on occasion, and had been involved in some instances in open warfare in the British Isles..  Catholics, and Jews, were largely absent from the early history of the country, except with Catholics nervously present in some very concentrated regions.  The Catholic presence in the country really became pronounced first in the 1840s, as a result of the revolutions in Europe and the Irish Famine.  This actually created huge concern amongst the Protestant sections of the county, who were often very anti Catholic.  This started to wane during the Civil War, however.  Jewish immigrants came in throughout the 19th Century, some from Europe in chief, but many from Imperial Russia, where they sought to escape Russian programs.

The purpose of this is not to do a treatise on religion in the United States, which would be a massive work and which, at this point, would pretty much cease to be illustrative of anything relevant to this discussion, but rather to note something else.  Even though the degree to which the American population was adherent and observant of their Faiths, and even though the country has had, at various points, very strong doctrinal differences in the population, to the extent that it impacted public policy, the country had a culture that loosely recognized a very loose set of Christian principals as social principals.

This was so much the case that everyone, even members of non-Christian faiths, and even those who were members of no faiths at all, recognized what the standards were.  Interestingly, up until quite recently, people who chose to ignore those standards, and in any one era there are plenty of people who do, often recognized that they were breaching the standard and sometimes even that doing so was wrong.  To use a non-violent example, people generally recognized that cheating on a spouse was wrong, even if they did it.  Most people were a little queasy about divorce even if they divorced and remarried.  Nearly everyone regarded cohabitation out of wedlock as morally wrong, even if they did not attend a church.  Sex outside of marriage was generally regarded as wrong, and indeed even the entertainment industry used that fact as part of the risque allure when they depicted that scenario.

The point of this isn't to suggest that various topics regarding marriage and non marriage are somehow related to this topic. Rather, the point is to show that there was more of a concept of such things at work in society, and that's just an easy one to pick up on, as the changes in regards to it have been quite pronounced.  But, if the argument isn't to be extremely strained and fall flat, other examples would have to be given.  So, what we'd generally note is that there were a set of behavior and social standards that existed, and they generally seem to have a root in the "Protestant" ethic.  I'll note here that I'm not claiming this as a personal heritage of mine, as I'm not a Protestant. Simply, rather, it's been widely noted that this ethic has a long running history in the US, and North American in general, and has impacted the nation's view on many things.  These include, I'd note, the need to work and the value of work, and the relationship of the individual to society, all of which have greatly changed in recent decades. Again, I'm not seeking to campaign on this, merely observing that it seems to have happened. This is not a "Tea Party" argument, or direction towards one political thesis or another.

The point of this is that, even though there were multiple Faiths, and people of no faith, there was a general concept of a set of standards that were almost universally accepted and they had roots that went way back into the country's early history..  Included in that set of beliefs was that you didn't harm others.  It isn't that people didn't do it, it's that they knew it was wrong to do it.

Starting in the 1960s, however, American society really began to break a global set of standards down.  The concept of "tolerance" came in. Tolerance means to tolerate, not to accept, but over time the two became confused, and it became the American ideal to accept everything.  Even people with strong moral beliefs were told that they must accept behavior that was previously regarded as morally wrong, or even illegal in some places. There are many present examples of this that a person could point to.  The point here is not that toleration is bad, but rather that confusing tolerance with acceptance, and following that a feeling that acceptance must be mute, probably isn't good.  Toleration sort of presupposes the existence of a general standard, or at least that people can debate it.  If they can't openly debate it, that' probably is not a good thing.  If self declared standards must be accepted, rather than subject to debate, all standards become fairly meaningless as a result.

The overall negative effect this has on a society would also be a major treatise in its own right and I'm not qualified to write it..  Most cultures do not experience this, as most are not as diverse as ours. Whether any society can in fact endure an existence without standards is open to question,  and the very few previous examples that creep up on that topic are not happy ones.  It is clear that most people do in fact continue to retain  bits and pieces of the old standard, and perhaps most people are very highly analogous to our predecessors who lived in eras when standards were very generally held, and there were decades of American history that were just like that.  But for some people, who are otherwise self-focused, and with problems relating to other people, the weak nature of the standard is now potentially a problem.  Unable to relate, and in a society that teaches that there are no standards, they only standards they have are self learned, in a self isolation.

But what are they learning then, and how?

No place to go, and the lessons of the basement and entertainment.

Standards were taught, first in school, and then in the workplace  And, frankly they still are.  That's quite a burden on both, however, as a society that otherwise has such loose standards is asking an awful lot of the school and the workplace.  Truth be known, there was never an era when schools were really expected to impart a standard, it was assumed that kids came into school with one and that some re-enforcment could be done there.  Asking schools to impart a moral code is a pretty tall order,, and pretty darned unreasonable to expect.  It's even more unreasonable for the workplace to do so, so no standards are going to be taught there, save by individuals through their own examples.  But is there even a workplace to go to? 

There is a school to go to, that much we've made clear.  And as evident, I'm not keen on the trend in some quarters to blame schools.  I doubt very much that the average public school of 1912 was teaching a lot more in the way of a set of standards than the school of 2012.  Kids came into school with one, and as noted, it was re-enforced.  And I'm not keen on expecting schools to teach what parents and society simply earlier did.  I don't even know if that's possible, but it doesn't seem really reasonable.   At any rate, what about after school? That is, after graduation?  What do people graduate into?

I've analyzed that here from time to time, and need to do so more as it related to the changes in society topics I've addressed from time to time, but this is a critical aspect, I suspect, of this overall topic that's been missed.

The recent killer in Casper Wyoming was very intelligent and highly educated, but his lack of an ability to interact meant he couldn't find work. School, didn't fail him.  Something else did.  The killer in Newton was an adult, and he seems to have been fairly intelligent but with severe personality problems.  The killer in Colorado was also very intelligent, but was dropping out of school.  All of this is reflective, to a degree, of modern American economics

Since World War Two we've gone from a manufacturing society to a consumption society. And in doing that, we've sent a lot of manufacturing overseas.  What on earth, you'd be justified in asking, does that have to do with this?  Here's what.  It has completely changed the nature of available American jobs.

Prior to World War Two less than 50% of the American population graduated from high school.  This wasn't seen as a  problem really, as at least the males departing from school had jobs they could generally enter, save for period of economic distress.  And many of the jobs provided for life long careers.  Machinist jobs, for example, and heavy manufacturing jobs, did not require a high school education and they did provide a solid middle class career.  There were a lot of analogous employments.  Indeed, it wasn't until after World War Two that anywhere near the current number of Americans, or Canadians, or Europeans, went on to advanced education

Most of the men who entered these careers were average men, the same guys who take up most jobs today in any one field, but a few of them were not.  There were always a certain percentage of highly intelligent people with bad social skills who were not capable of relating to others who could find meaningful productive work where their talents for detail were applied in a meaningful way.  There were also places for individuals like that on farms and fields.  And in retail, indeed in retail shops they owned themselves.  Even as a kid I can remember a few retail shops owned by people who had next to no social skills, but who were talented in detail work.  The Army and Navy also took a percentage of people who otherwise just couldn't get along, often allowing them to have a career path, even if just at the entry level, which allowed them to retire in 20 or 30 years.

Now, this is all gone.  We live in the age of certification, and that promotes college education for some who are not well suited for the careers that they're studying, and it encourages certification of everything, which requires some social skills. Now even a college degree does not guaranty employment, and worse yet some level of social skills are necessary for most people with a college degree.  This means that some of the class of people we've been discussing are dangerously marooned.  They can get an education, but they have a very hard time doing anything with it. And that leaves them at home, bitter, and highly educated.

So what do they do with their time?

As noted, there was once an era when even the severely socially disabled generally worked.  People didn't know not to encourage them to work and having to work was presumed as a given.  Not all work is pleasant by any means, but the irony of this is that many of these people were well suited for fairly meaningful work.  Some men silently operated machine tools day after day in a setting that required a lot of intelligence, but not very much interaction.  Others worked in labs. Some on rail lines, and so on. This isn't to say that everyone who had these jobs fit into this category, which would be absolutely false.  But my guess is that some did.  And some ended up as career privates in the Army, a category that no longer exists, or similar such roles.  They had meaningful work, and that work was a career and a focus.

Now, for some of these individuals, this is all gone. The expectation of work probably isn't, but the ability may very well seem to be. So what do they do?

One thing it seems that they do with their time is to play a lot of video games, or computer games, and a lot of those games are highly male oriented, and highly violence oriented.  Quite frankly, by all appearances, they appear to be highly sexualized as well.

This is one aspect of this situation that is completely new.  Violence isn't new, and the implements aren't new, but this type of cartoon active violent entertainment is.

Violent works of literature have existed forever.  Beowulf, for example, is pretty darned violent.  The Nibelungenlied is awash in blood and gore. The Iceland sagas are pretty darned violent.  But they're all written. And the written word is just a tiny evolution of the spoken word.  Both seem to serve the function of redecoration and entertainment, but neither seem to lodge in the brain in a way that comes out as "I'd like to replicate that".  Indeed, to a degree they seem related to the function of play, in which humans replicate certain scenarios as unconscious rehearsal for what we'd do in similar situations.  In other words, to use the Beowulf example, "if confronted by hideous evil I will. . . ."

Visual images seem to be different to us, as a species.  This seems, therefore, to dull us to what we see, or to actually encourage us to excess.  It's been interesting to note, in this context, how sex and violence have had to be increasingly graphic in their portrayals in order to even get noticed by their viewers.  In terms of films, even violent situations were not very graphically portrayed in film up until the 1960s. The first film to really graphically portray, indeed exaggerate, violence was Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.  Peckinpah used violence in that film to attempt to expose Americans to what he perceived, at that time, as a warped love of criminal violence and criminals, but the nature of our perception largely defeated his intent.  At the time, the film was criticized for being so violent, but now the violence is celebrated.  In that way, Peckinpah ended up becoming the unwitting and unwilling equivalent, in regard to violence, to what Hugh Hefner became intentionally in terms of pornography.  Ever since, violence has become more and more graphic and extreme, just to get our attention.  Likewise, Hefner's entry into glamorizing and mainstreaming pornography starting in the 1950s ended up creating a situation in which what would have been regarded as pornography at that time is now fairly routine in all sorts of common portrayals.

Recently, due to video games and computer games, both of these items, sex and violence, have crossed over from film into a type of hyperactive concentrated sophisticated cartoon portrayal.  Video games have popularized the concept of over muscled, hyperactive, amoral violent men, whose glory is their violence.  Their reward very often is an over endowed cartoonish female.  Neither portrayal is realistic in anything that it seeks to portray.

So, then, certain people are left with no work, and no socialization.  In a prior era, these people fit in, even if they were awkward themselves. Their work was valued and on Friday night, when pay came, they were dragged along to the local bar, the Union Hall, or the Enlisted Man's Club, even if they had little to say and were work oriented.  More than a few probably found a family that way.  Others never did, but their work and workers became a sort of family

Now, they're in the basement watching a make believe world glamorizing violence with M4 carbines which seems to offer them hero status and sex.  

This, I would note, rolls us back around to the analysis that this sort of violence and the Arab suicide bomber are committed by the same type of people.  Youth unemployment in the Middle East is massive.  Those societies have a set of standards, to be sure, but they're under internal attack, with one group arguing for standards that only apply to the group itself.  And violence has been massively glamorized in the region, with the promised reward for it being highly sensual in nature.  In other words, out of a population of unemployed young men, with no prospects, and very little in the way of learned standards, recruiting those with narcissistic violent tendencies should not be very difficult.  The difference between there and here is that there, those with a political agenda can recruit these disaffected misguided youths with promises of the reward of 70 virgins, while here we're recruiting them through bombardment by violent entertainment. 

All of that is still valid, and in particular, I think, we need to consider again:

I've analyzed that here from time to time, and need to do so more as it related to the changes in society topics I've addressed from time to time, but this is a critical aspect, I suspect, of this overall topic that's been missed.

The recent killer in Casper Wyoming was very intelligent and highly educated, but his lack of an ability to interact meant he couldn't find work. School, didn't fail him.  Something else did.  The killer in Newton was an adult, and he seems to have been fairly intelligent but with severe personality problems.  The killer in Colorado was also very intelligent, but was dropping out of school.  All of this is reflective, to a degree, of modern American economics

Since World War Two we've gone from a manufacturing society to a consumption society. And in doing that, we've sent a lot of manufacturing overseas.  What on earth, you'd be justified in asking, does that have to do with this?  Here's what.  It has completely changed the nature of available American jobs.

Prior to World War Two less than 50% of the American population graduated from high school.  This wasn't seen as a  problem really, as at least the males departing from school had jobs they could generally enter, save for period of economic distress.  And many of the jobs provided for life long careers.  Machinist jobs, for example, and heavy manufacturing jobs, did not require a high school education and they did provide a solid middle class career.  There were a lot of analogous employments.  Indeed, it wasn't until after World War Two that anywhere near the current number of Americans, or Canadians, or Europeans, went on to advanced education

Most of the men who entered these careers were average men, the same guys who take up most jobs today in any one field, but a few of them were not.  There were always a certain percentage of highly intelligent people with bad social skills who were not capable of relating to others who could find meaningful productive work where their talents for detail were applied in a meaningful way.  There were also places for individuals like that on farms and fields.  And in retail, indeed in retail shops they owned themselves.  Even as a kid I can remember a few retail shops owned by people who had next to no social skills, but who were talented in detail work.  The Army and Navy also took a percentage of people who otherwise just couldn't get along, often allowing them to have a career path, even if just at the entry level, which allowed them to retire in 20 or 30 years.

Now, this is all gone.  We live in the age of certification, and that promotes college education for some who are not well suited for the careers that they're studying, and it encourages certification of everything, which requires some social skills. Now even a college degree does not guaranty employment, and worse yet some level of social skills are necessary for most people with a college degree.  This means that some of the class of people we've been discussing are dangerously marooned.  They can get an education, but they have a very hard time doing anything with it. And that leaves them at home, bitter, and highly educated.

Over the coming days and weeks pundits will ponder this event, and mostly spout out blather.  The explanation here may have deeply disturbing aspects to it, but the underlying root of it is not that complicated.  Robert Westman fell into the trap that ensnares some of the young in our society and hoped to completely change his nature by changing the outward morphology of his nature.  He was mentally ill.

A just society treats compassionately the mentally ill.

We do not live in a just society.

By and large, we just turn the mentally ill out into the street to allow their afflictions to grow worse until those afflictions kill them. Go to any big city and you'll see the deranged and deeply addicted out in the street.  This is not a kindness.

Gender Dysphoria is a different type of mental illness, but that's what it is.²

And its deeply delusional.

To put it bluntly to the point of being crude, no man, no matter what they attempt to do, is going to bear children and have the risk of bearing children, bleed monthly, and be subject to the hormonal storms that real women are subject to.  And, frankly, men generally become subject to some, if varying, degrees of drives that are constant and relenting, and never abate.³ 

No woman, no matter what she attempts to do, is going to hit a certain age in their teens have their minds turn to women almost constantly, as men do, in a way that women do not understand, and frankly do not experience the opposite of themselves. 

Indeed, no man really wants to be a woman, or vice versa.  What those engaging in an attempt to pass through a gender barrier seek is something else, and what that more often than not in the case of men likely is to drop out of the heavy male burdens in an age in which it increasingly difficult to meet them.  In spite of everything in the modern world, women remain conceived of as more protected, and therefore not as subject to failure for not meeting societal expectations.

Being a man has never been easy.

In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man

And now I've reached that age

I've tried to do all those things the best I can

No matter how I try, I find my way into the same old jam

Good Times, Bad Times, by Led Zeppelin.

I don't think lectures on what it means to be a man occur anymore.  I  know that I've never delivered one, but I didn't need one to be delivered either.  The examples were clearly around me, including all the duties that entailed.  We knew, growing up, that good men didn't abandon their families, and provided for their families, and were expected to protect women to the point of their own deaths.  Women weren't expected to protect men, at all.

Some men have always sought to escape their obligations, of course, and we all know or new those who did.  Most aged into disrepute over time.  Others got their acts together.  

You can’t be a man at night if you are a boy all day long.

Rev. Wellington Boone.

And some have always descended into madness.  But society didn't tolerate it, and it shouldn't have to.

So what do we know about Westman?

Not that much, but what we do know is revealing:

• He killed himself after his cowardly murders.
• He'd developed an inclination towards violence.⁴
• He once attended the Catholic school whose students he attacked,  leaving in 2017 at the end of Middle School.
• He started identifying as a female in 2019, age 17, and his mother signed the petition to change his name.⁵
• After middle school attended a charter school and then the all-boys school, Saint Thomas Academy, which is a Catholic military school. ⁶
• An uncle said he barely knew him.⁷
• His parents were divorced when he was 13.
• He worked at a cannabis dispensary, but was a poor employee.⁸

What can we tell from this?

Maybe nothing at all, but the keys are that in spite of they're being Catholic, his parents divorced, and his mother thereafter tolerated to some degree his drift into delusion, while at the same time there's evidence they were trying to correct it.  After school, he drifted into drugs, which is what marijuana is.

Blame the parents?  Well, that would be too simple.  But societal tolerance of divorce and transgender delusion is fostering all sorts of societal ills.

It's notable that he struck out at a childhood school.  That may be all the more his violence relates, but probably not.  His mother had worked there.  He was likely striking out at her too.  And he was striking out an institution that doesn't accept that you can change your existential nature, because you cannot.  He likely was fully aware of that, which is why he acted out with rage at it, and then killed himself.

There may, frankly, be an added element to this, although only recently have people in the secular world, such as Ezra Klein, began to discuss it.  Westman may have been possessed.

Members of the American Civil Religion don't like to discuss this at all, and frankly many conventional Christians do not either.  Atheist and near atheist won't acknowledge it all, of course.  But Westman's flirting with perverting nature may have frankly lead him into a really dark place, and not just in the conventional sense.

Part 2. What should we do?

Well, what will be done is nothing.  Something should, however, be done.

The topic of gun control will come up, which brings us back to this:

You Heard It Here First: Peculiarized violence and American society. It Wasn't The Guns That Changed, We Changed (a post that does and doesn't go where you think it is)

We're going to hear, from more educated quarters defending the Second Amendment, that firearms have not really changed all that much over the years, society has. This is completely true.

But we're at the point now that we need to acknowledge that society has changed.  And that means a real effort to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill needs to be undertaken.

When the Constitution was written, Americans were overwhelmingly rural.  Agrarianism was the norm everywhere.  People generally lived in a family dwelling that included everyone from infants to the elderly.  Normally the entire community in which a person lived was of one religion, and everyone participated in religious life to some degree.  Even communities that had more than one religion represented, still had everyone being members of a faith.  Divorce was not at all common, and in certain communities not tolerated whatsoever.⁹ 

Westman was mentally ill.  Transgenderism is a mental illness. He was a drug user.  Cannabis is a drug.

In 1789 the mentally ill, if incapable of functioning, would have been taken care of at home by their families.  Transgenderism would not have been conceived of and not tolerated.  Alcohol was in heavy use.  Marijuana was not.  The plethora of narcotics now in circulation were not conceived of.

Yes, this will sound extreme. Am I saying that because a tiny number of transgendered might resort to violence they shouldn't own guns?  Yes, maybe in a society that simply chooses to tolerate mental illness, that's what I'm saying, although it also strikes me that the people who have gone down this deluded path might be amongst those most needing firearms for self protection. So, not really.  I am saying that attention needs to be focused on their mental state.

Am I saying that marijuana users shouldn't own guns?  Yes, that is also what I'm saying, along with other chronic users of drugs, legal and illegal.

And as we choose to simply ignore mental illness, perhaps the time has come to see if a would be gun owners is mentally stable and societally responsible before allowing them to own guns.  People in chronic debt, with violent behavior, with unacknowledged children in need shouldn't be owning firearms.

Of note, at the time the Second Amendment was written, none of these things was easily tolerated.

Part 3. Getting more extreme.

Knowing that none of this will occur, I'll go there anyhow.

Societal tolerance of some species of mental illness should just end. There shouldn't be homeless drug addicts on the street and gender reassignment surgery and drugs should be flat out illegal.

For that matter, in the nature of extreme, plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons should be banned.  Your nose and boobs are fine the way they are, leave them alone.

No fault divorce should end, and for that matter people who have children should be deemed married by the state, with all the duties that implies.  Multiple children by multiple partners should be regarded as engaging in polygamy, which should still be regarded as illegal.

Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial. It is the duty of every man to uphold the dignity of every woman.

St. John Paul II.

Yes, that's rough.

Life is tough for all of us.  Ignoring that fact makes it harder on all of  us.

Part 4. Doesn't this all play into Dementia Don and his Sycophantic Twatwaffles?

Unfortunately, it does.  I fear that this may prove to be the Trump Administration's Reichstag moment.

Indeed, this event is like a gift to people like Stephen Miller who will now assert that this came about due to the liberal policies of Minneapolis, and moreover, as proof that outright attacks on transgendered are needed, the same way the Nazis asserted that dictatorship was necessary in Germany after the Reichstag fire.

Isn't that what' I'm stating?

I am not.

I think we need to address mental illness as a mental illness, and do what we can to treat it.  And rather obviously, what I've stated above doesn't square with Second Amendment hardcore advocates.

And as part of that, we need to get back to acknowledging that the mentally ill are mentally ill, rather than "tolerating" it.  

And we need to quite tolerating "personal freedom" over societal protection, right down to the relationship level.  A married couple produced this kid.  Once they did that, they were in it, and the marriage, for life.  That included the duty not to make dumb ass decisions for their child, like changing Robert's name to Robin.

Part 5.  What will happen?

Absolutely nothing.

People on the right will argue its not the guns, it's the sick society.  People on the left will argue that the society isn't sick, except for the guns, and the guns are all of the problem.

Nothing, therefore, will occur.

Well, maybe.

If anything occurs, it'll be that Dementia Don will use it as an excuse to send the National Guard into Minneapolis.

Footnotes

1.  His name was Robert, not "Robin". The free use of female names for men afflicted by this condition and the press use of "she" for what is properly he, is part of the problem.

2  By gender confusion, I"m referring to Gender Dysphoria, or whatever people are calling it, not homosexuality.  Homosexuals don't fit into this discussion at all.  For one thing, homosexuals are not confused about what gender they are.

3.  This does not advocate for license, although some men argue that it does.  Inclinations are not a pass for immorality.

Anyhow, I'd note that even honest men in cebate professions acknowledge this.  Fr. Joseph Krupp, the podcaster, frequently notes having a crush, for example, on Rachel Weisz.

4.  Again, some women grow violent, but its a minority and, when it occurs, tends to be accompanied by something else.  There are exceptions.

5. I don't know all of the details of his personal life, of course, but that was inexcusable on his mother's part.  I'll note, however, that by this time his parents were divorced and no woman is capable of raising children completely on her own.  Again, I don't know what was going on, but this screams either extreme "progressive" views, or a mostly absent father, or extreme fatigue.

6.  I didn't even know that there were Catholic military schools.  

Military schools have always been institutions for troubled boys, and this suggests that there was an attempt to put him in a masculine atmosphere and hopefully straighten him out. The school had both a religious base and a military nature.  Both of his parents must have participated in this.

7. The modern world fully at work.  People move for work, careers, etc., with the result that nuclear families basically explode, nuclear bomb style.  People more and more are raised in families that are the immediate parental unit, or just one parent, that start to disintegrate the moment children turn 18.  This is not natural, and is part of the problem.

8.  I don't know of course, but I'd guess that in order to be a poor employee at a cannabis dispensary, you have to be a really poor employee. There are bars with bartenders who don't drink, but I bet there aren't any dispensaries with employees that aren't using.

The impacts of marijuana use are very poorly understood, but as it becomes more and more legal, that there are negative psychological impacts for long term and chronic use is pretty clear.

9.  Contrary to widespread belief, not only Catholicism prohibits divorce.  The Anglican Communion does not either, and at that time particularly did not tolerate it.  Divorce occurred, but it was not common.

Also, and we've touched on it before, the United States at the time of its founding was a Christian nation.  It was a Protestant Christian nation, but a Christian nation.  Protestants of the 19th Century would not recognize many Protestant denominations today at all, even if they are theoretically the same.  A 1790s Episcopalian, for example, would be horrified by many Episcopalian congregations today.  In contrast, a Catholic or Orthodox person would find the churches pretty recognizable, save for the languages used for services.

Lex Anteinternet: Stores limit egg purchases.

Lex Anteinternet: Stores limit egg purchases.:   

Stores limit egg purchases.

 

Yep, that's right. In central Wyoming you are limited to one carton as people are trying to stock up to avoid coming price increases.

Yessir, Trump was really successful on that price lowering thing.

Lex Anteinternet: Harrison Butker telling us what we don't want to h...

Lex Anteinternet: Harrison Butker telling us what we don't want to h...: 

Harrison Butker telling us what we don't want to hear.

I'd never heard of Harrison Butker before this past week.

That should be no surprise.  I'm a lot more likely to know the name of a football player of the 1970s, when I was growing up and football was background audio and visual in my household, than I am to know of anyone now.  From high school graduation until early in my marriage, I didn't see a single football game from stem to stern in any fashion, as I don't like football.

I first heard of Butker when he was mentioned on Twitter, where I disregarded the entry. But then my daughter mentioned this speech, in a horrified fashion, and a quite liberal female friend of mine posted about it in hostile terms on Instagram.

So I looked it up, and I've repeated it, for purposes of commentary, below.

Let me start off with something controversial.

I don't think it's a bad speech.

What I think it does is tell us a bunch of things we know, but in our modern world, flat out don't want to hear.

I'll also note that Mr. Butker didn't intend for us to hear this, really, in the first place. This was a graduation speech to Benedictine College, which most people have never heard of.  I may have heard of it, but I didn't really know anything about it. As the name would indicate, it's a Catholic institution, and the fact that so few of us have heard of it would note that it's not very large.

I'll break the speech down in chunks, when I feel like commenting on it.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2024, I would like to start off by congratulating all of you for successfully making it to this achievement today. I'm sure your high school graduation was not what you had imagined and most likely neither was your first couple years of college.

By making it to this moment through all the adversity thrown your way from COVID, I hope you learned the important lessons that suffering in this life is only temporary. As a group you witnessed firsthand how bad leaders who don't stay in their lane can have a negative impact on society. It is through this lens that I want to take stock of how we got to where we are and where we want to go as citizens, and yes, as Catholics.

The "bad leaders" is an interesting comment.  A lot of people will instantly think Biden, although he wasn't in office for the thick of the pandemic, Trump was. Trump doesn't get high marks for the pandemic.

Maybe he means state officials.  I know that here a lot of people were apoplectic when Gov. Gordon imposed quarantines and still think that COVID was a fib. 

The pandemic oddly remains a right wing dog whisle.

One last thing before I begin I want to be sure to thank president Minns and the board for their invitation to speak. When President Minnis first reached out a couple of months ago I had originally said no. You see, last year I gave the commencement address at my Alma moer Georgia Tech and I felt that one graduation speech was more than enough, especially for someone who isn't a professional speaker. But of course president Minnis used his gift of persuasion and spoke to the many challenges you all faced throughout the COVID fiasco and how you missed out on so many milestones the rest of us older people have taken for granted.

Again, "COVID fiasco"? 

While COVID might have played a large role throughout your formative years it is not unique. Bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues. Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values and media all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder. Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith but at the same time is delusional enough to make the sign of the cross during a pro-abortion rally. He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I'm sure to many people it appears that you can be both Catholic and pro-choice. He is not alone. From the man behind the COVID lockdowns to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common: They are Catholic. This is an important reminder that being Catholic alone doesn't cut it.

Again, "bad policies and poor leadership".  Trump or somebody else?  But here's where he really starts getting in trouble.  He calls  abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia and unnamed, degenerate cultural values and media disordered.

And he's correct. Those things are in fact disordered.

These are the sorts of things we are told in polite society to not bring up. You know, the difficult and unpleasant things. But if we are going to be men and women for this time in history we need to stop pretending that the “Church of nice” is a winning proposition. We must always speak and act in charity but never mistake charity for cowardice. It is safe to say that over the past few years I've gained quite the reputation for speaking my mind. I never envisioned myself nor wanted to have this sort of a platform but God has given it to me so I have no other choice but to embrace it and preach more hard truths about accepting your lane and staying in it.

Here again, even if we are told not to bring these topics he's raising up by the "polite", people who do bring them up will be shouted down, including Butker himself.  He's also correct that being the "Church of nice" is a losing proposition. 

As members of the church founded by Jesus Christ, it is our duty and ultimately privilege to be authentically and unapologetically Catholic. Don't be mistaken: even within the church, people in polite Catholic circles will try to persuade you to remain silent. There even was an award-winning film called “Silence” made by a fellow Catholic wherein one of the main characters, a Jesuit priest, abandoned the church, and as an apostate, when he died is seen grasping a crucifix quiet and unknown to anyone but God. As a friend of Benedictine College, his Excellency Bishop Robert Barron said in his review of the film it was exactly what the cultural elite want to see in Christianity: Private, hidden away and harmless.

I haven't seen Silence, but so I won't comment on it, but here Butker has a point, although its a fading one.  It's not so much, really, that Trad Catholics, or the highly orthodox, will be told to be kept quiet, but in really open declarations, outright attacked.  Butker is experiencing that right now.

As an odd example, Catholics in general are not howling with outrage at Joe Biden's actions which are clearly offensive to the faith, while some who wish to be as American as possible are shouting down Butker. 

Our Catholic faith has always been countercultural. Our Lord along with countless followers were all put to death for their adherence to her teachings. The world around us says that we should keep our beliefs to ourselves whenever they go against the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion. We fear speaking truth because now unfortunately truth is in the minority. Congress just passed a bill where stating something as basic as the Biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.

Here Butker strays off into populist conspiracy territory. The bill he noted that was designed to protect Jewish Americans doesn't require any modification of beliefs or statements at all. And for that matter, the conventional Catholic view in that humanity, i.e., we, or us, were Christ's killers.   The unique attribution of that action to the Jews misunderstands the Gospels, with that misunderstanding having formed an excuse for antisemitism for centuries.

He is correct, however, that standing against certain widely advanced cultural trends will get a person attacked in public.

But make no mistake, before we even attempt to fix any of the issues plaguing society we must first get our own house in order, and it starts with our leaders. The bishops and priests appointed by God as our spiritual fathers must be rightly ordered. There is not enough time today for me to list all the stories of priests and bishops misleading their flocks, but none of us can blame ignorance anymore and just blindly proclaim that that's what father said. Because sadly many priests we are looking to for leadership are the same ones who prioritize their hobbies or even photos with their dogs in matching outfits for the parish directory. It’s easy for us lay men and women to think that in order for us to be holy, that we must be active in our parish and try to fix it. Yes, we absolutely should be involved in supporting our parishes, but we cannot be the source for our parish priests to lean on to help with their problems just as we look at the relationship between a father and his son, so too should we look at the relationship between a priest and his people. It would not be appropriate for me to always be looking to my son for help when it is my job as his father to lead him.

St Josemaria Escriva states that priests are ordained to serve and should not yield to temptation to imitate lay people but to be priests, through and through. Tragically, so many priests revolve much of their happiness from the adulation they receive from their parishioners, and in searching for this, they let their guard down and become overly familiar. This undue familiarity will prove to be problematic every time, because as my teammate’s girlfriend says “familiarity breeds contempt.” St Josemaria continues that some want to see the priest as just another man. That is not so they want to find in the priests those virtues proper to every Christian and indeed every honorable man: understanding, justice, a life of work, priestly work in this instance, and good manners. It is not prudent as the laity for us to consume ourselves in becoming amateur theologians so that we can decipher this or that theological teaching unless of course you are a theology major. We must be intentional with our focus on our state in life and our own vocation, and for most of us, that's as married men and women.

There's something to this, but this really seems over played, particularly in the case of parish priests, but also in the case of a lot of bishops as well. 

Still we have so many great resources at our fingertips that it doesn't take long to find traditional and timeless teachings that haven't been ambiguously rewarded for our times. Plus, there are still many good and holy priests and it's up to us to seek them out. The chaos of the world is unfortunately reflected in the chaos in our parishes and sadly in our cathedrals, too. As we saw during the pandemic, too many Bishops were not leaders at all. They were motivated by fear: fear of being sued, fear of being removed, fear of being disliked. They showed by their actions, intentional or unintentional, that the sacraments don't actually matter. Because of this countless people died alone, without access to the sacraments, and it's a tragedy we must never forget.

As Catholics, we can look to so many examples of heroic shepherds who gave their lives for their people, and ultimately, the church. We cannot buy into the lie that the things we experienced during COVID were appropriate. Over the centuries there have been great wars, great famines, and yes, even great diseases, all that came with a level of lethality and danger. But in each of those examples, church leaders leaned into their vocations, and ensured that their people received the sacraments. Great saints like St. Damien of Molokai, who knew the dangers of his ministry, stayed for 11 years as a spiritual leader to the leper colonies of Hawaii. His heroism is looked at today as something set apart and unique, when ideally, it should not be unique at all. For as a father loves his child, so a shepherd should love his spiritual children, too.

That goes even more so for our bishops. These men who are present day apostles, our bishops once had adoring crowds of people kissing their rings and taking in their every word, but now relegate themselves to a position of inconsequential existence. Now, when a bishop of a diocese or the Bishops Conference as a whole puts out an important document on this matter, nobody even takes a moment to read it, let alone follow it. No. Today, our shepherds are far more concerned with keeping the doors open to the Chancery than they are saying that difficult stuff out loud. It seems that the only time you hear from your bishops is when it’s time for the annual appeal. Whereas we need our bishops to be vocal about the teachings of the Church, setting aside their own personal comfort and embracing their cross. Our bishops are not politicians, but shepherds. So instead of fitting in the world by going along to get along, they too need to stay in their lane and lead.

Again, something to this, but much overplayed. 

I say all of this not from a place of anger as we get the leaders we deserve. But this does make me reflect on staying in my lane and focusing on my own vocation, and how I can be a better father and husband and live in the world, but not be of it. Focusing on my vocation while praying and fasting for these men will do more for the church than me complaining about our leaders. Because there seems to be so much confusion coming from our leaders. There needs to be concrete examples for people to look to, and places like Benedictine, a little Kansas college built high on a bluff above the Missouri River, are showing the world how an ordered Christ-centered existence is the recipe for success. You need to look no further than the examples all around this campus, where over the past 20 years enrollment has doubled, and construction and revitalization are a constant part of life and people, the students, the faculty and staff are thriving. This didn’t happen by chance. In a deliberate movement to embrace traditional Catholic values, Benedictine has gone from just another liberal arts school with nothing to set it apart to a thriving beacon of light and a reminder to us all that when you embrace tradition, success, worldly and spiritual will follow. I am certain the reporters at the AP could not have imagined that their attempt to rebuke and embarrass places and people like those here at Benedictine wouldn’t be met with anger, but instead with excitement and pride. Not the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it. But the true God-centered pride that is cooperating with the Holy Ghost to glorify Him.

This is the point at which Butker begins to make some interesting observations, and where he also begins to take sniping from the progressive gallery.  Let's break some of this down.  First, this;  "I say all of this not from a place of anger as we get the leaders we deserve. But this does make me reflect on staying in my lane and focusing on my own vocation, and how I can be a better father and husband and live in the world, but not be of it. Focusing on my vocation while praying and fasting for these men will do more for the church than me complaining about our leaders."

That' is the classic Catholic view, and he really can't be faulted for much of what he says here.  He's not calling for marching in the streets, at least not here.

He goes on to note how conservative Catholic institutions are on the rise, and he is correct.

The he stated; "Not the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it. But the true God-centered pride that is cooperating with the Holy Ghost to glorify Him."

The off handed reference to "Pride Month" drew criticism.  But frankly, anyway you look at it, we now have so many months that they become pointless unless backed up by compulsion. We've written on this before:

On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compelling opinions.

Additionally, as we've also noted before, being "proud" of your sexual orientation is an extremely odd concept.  Pride?  If, as homosexuals insist, although its not really solidly backed up by the science, sexual orientation is programmed in, then a person could not really bear any pride for it as it wouldn't be an achievement of any type. 

Reading that article now shared all over the world, we see that in the complete surrender of self and a turning towards Christ, you will find happiness. Right here in a little town in Kansas, we find many inspiring lay people using their talents. President Minnis, Dr. Swofford and Dr. Zimmer are a few great examples right here on this very campus that will keep the light of Christ burning bright for generations to come. Being locked in with your vocation and staying in your lane is going to be the surest way for you to find true happiness and peace in this life. It is essential that we focus on our own state in life, whether that be as a layperson or priests, or religious.

Oh my, he makes a radical suggestion, that being;  "Being locked in with your vocation and staying in your lane is going to be the surest way for you to find true happiness and peace in this life. It is essential that we focus on our own state in life, whether that be as a layperson or priests, or religious."

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2024, you are sitting at the edge of the rest of your lives. Each of you has the potential to leave a legacy that transcends yourselves and this era of human existence. In the small ways by living out your vocation, you will ensure that God’s Church continues and the world is enlightened by your example. For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you, how many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you’re going to get in your career. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.

Butker might be guessing too much, but he raises a real point.  Whether the women at Benedictine University are looking forward to marriage and children consciously is one thing.  The fact is that the majority of people who are not called to celibacy in fact do have it deeply ingrained in them. And the suppression of it is one of the major causes of discontent in the world.  But the concept that this would be true flies in the face of the joint Capitalist/Communist prevailing belief that humans exist for work (careers) and find all fulfillment in it.

The massive great lie of the modern world is just that.  You will be happy in your career and you must have one, and that must dictate your life above all else, at all times.  It was forced upon men first, and then upon women with the feminist revolution of the second half of the 20th Century.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong, of course, with women having careers.  But the truth of the matter is that once the industrial revolution industrialized the work place, it dehumanized it and made it deeply unnatural.  At the end of the day, careers are just work, some of the jobs better than others, and some better suited for their occupants than others. They aren't life.

I’m on this stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I’m beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me. But it cannot be overstated, that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker. She’s a primary educator to our children. She’s the one who ensures I never let football or my business become a distraction from that of a husband and father. She is the person that knows me best at my core. And it is through our marriage that Lord willing, we will both attain salvation. I say all of this to you because I’ve seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God’s will in their life. Isabelle’s dream of having a career might not have come true. But if you ask her today, if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud without hesitation and say, “heck no.”

As a man who gets a lot of praise and has been given a platform to speak to audiences like this one today, I pray that I always use my voice for God and not for myself. Everything I am saying to you is not from a place of wisdom, but rather a place of experience. I am hopeful that these words will be seen as those from a man not much older than you who feels it is imperative that this class, this generation, and this time in our society must stop pretending that the things we see around us are normal. Heterodox ideas abound, even within Catholic circles. Let’s be honest, there is nothing good about playing God with having children, whether that be your ideal number or the perfect time to conceive. No matter how you spin it, there is nothing natural about Catholic birth control. It is only in the past few years that I have grown encouraged to speak more boldly and directly, because as I mentioned earlier, I have leaned into my vocation as a husband and father and as a man.

This was bound to raise complaints.  We'll note, once again, what we said earlier:

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

To the gentleman here today, part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities. As men, we set the tone of the culture. And when that is absent disorder, dysfunction and chaos set in this absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation. Other countries do not have nearly the same absentee father rates as we find here in the US. And a correlation can be made in their drastically lower violence rates as well. Be unapologetic in your masculinity. Fight against the cultural emasculation of men. Do hard things. Never settle for what is easy. You might have a talent that you don’t necessarily enjoy. But if it glorifies God, maybe you should lean into that over something that you might think suits you better. I speak from experience as an introvert who now finds myself as an amateur public speaker, and an entrepreneur, something I never thought I’d be when I received my industrial engineering degree.

Here he states another truism; "Other countries do not have nearly the same absentee father rates as we find here in the US. And a correlation can be made in their drastically lower violence rates as well."

Living in a town that has had two (reported) teenage murders in recent weeks where you can read the articles and tell, without being told, that this is almost certainly a factor in what occured, well. . .

This is interesting; "You might have a talent that you don’t necessarily enjoy. But if it glorifies God, maybe you should lean into that over something that you might think suits you better. I speak from experience as an introvert who now finds myself as an amateur public speaker, and an entrepreneur, something I never thought I’d be when I received my industrial engineering degree."

The road ahead is bright, things are changing, society is shifting, and people young and old are embracing tradition. Not only has it been my vocation that has helped me and those closest to me, but not surprising to many of you should be my outspoken embrace of the traditional Latin Mass. I’ve been very vocal in my love and devotion to the TLM and its necessity for our lives. But what I think gets misunderstood is that people who attend the TLM do so out of pride or preference. I can speak to my own experience. But for most people I have come across within these communities. This simply is not true. I do not attend the TLM because I think I’m better than others, or for the smells and bells, or even for the love of Latin. I attend TLM because I believe just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular and how he wanted to be worshiped, the same holds true for us today. It is through the TLM that I encountered order and began to pursue it in my own life. Aside from the TLM itself, too many of our sacred traditions have been relegated to things of the past. When in my parish, things such as Ember Days — days when we fast and pray for vocations and for our priests — are still adhered to. The TLM is so essential that I would challenge each of you to pick a place to move where it is readily available. A lot of people have complaints about the parish or the community, but we should not sacrifice the mass for community. I prioritize the TLM even if the parish isn’t beautiful, the priest isn’t great, or the community isn’t amazing. I still go to the TLM because I believe the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is more important than anything else. I say this knowing full well that when each of you rekindle your knowledge and adherence to many of the church’s greatest traditions, you will see how much more colorful and alive your life can and should be. As you move on from this place and enter into the world, know that you will face many challenges.

We've made the same observation here on this site; "The road ahead is bright, things are changing, society is shifting, and people young and old are embracing tradition."

Sadly, I’m sure many of you know of the countless stories of good and active members of this community who after graduation and moving away from the Benedictine Bubble have ended up moving in with their boyfriend or girlfriend prior to marriage. Some even leave the church and abandon God. It is always heartbreaking to hear these stories, and there’s a desire to know what happened and what went wrong. What you must remember is that life is about doing the small things well. So setting yourself up for success and surrounding yourself with people who continually push you to be the best version of you. I say this all the time, that iron sharpens iron. It’s a great reminder that those closest to us should be making us better. If you’re dating someone who doesn’t even share your faith, how do you expect that person to help you become a saint? If your friend group is filled with people who only think about what you’re doing next weekend, and are not willing to have those difficult conversations, how can they help sharpen you? As you prepare to enter into the workforce, it is extremely important that you actually think about the places you are moving to. Who is the bishop? What kind of parishes are there? Do they offer the TLM and have priests who embrace their priestly vocation? Cost of living must not be the only arbiter of your choices. For a life without God is not a life at all. And the cost of salvation is worth more than any career.

I’m excited for the future. And I pray that something I’ve said will resonate as you move on to the next chapter of your life. Never be afraid to profess the one holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. For this is the Church that Jesus Christ established, through which we receive sanctifying grace. I know that my message today had a little less fluff than is expected for these speeches. But I believe that this audience and this venue is the best place to speak openly and honestly, about who we are and where we all want to go, which is heaven. I thank God for Benedictine College, and for the example it provides to the world. I thank God for men like President Minnis who are doing their part for the Kingdom. Come to find out you can have an authentically Catholic College and a thriving football program. Make no mistake, you’re entering into mission territory in a post-God world. But you were made for this and with God by your side and a constant striving for virtue within your vocation, you too can be a saint. Christ is King to the heights.

All in all?

The speech started off badly, but frankly it concluded well, and over half of it is receiving criticism in larger society as it tells people what they don't want to hear. Careerism is crap. Having a career central to your being is a mistake.  Being unnatural is unnatural.

It answers Berry's question; "What are people for", but if he's right, our days are spent in the larger society doing things that are meaningless and counterproductive, if we misunderstand their existential nature.

People who tell you what you don't want to hear, aren't well received, particularly if it's true.¹

 Footnotes:

1.  Predictably, and indeed as Butker's speech even anticipated, he's received criticism from inside the church, including, from a group of the Kanasas Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica. Their reply is below.

This response is interesting in and of itself, starting off with the comment of "Instead of promising unity. . . ".

Christ didn't promise unity.

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three;

a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Luke 12:53. 

Reading the Sister's reply, it's actually a bit difficult to determine what they are actually upset about, as they don't make it very specific and to some degree support what Butker stated.  The "unity" item is interesting however, as noted.

Beyond that, however, their complaint against what Butker stated doesn't actually counter what he stated.  He didn't say women can't have careers, what he essentially challenged is the secular assurance that women are fulfilled, like men, through careers.  Neither is anywhere close to being true.

Criticism that this group of nuns are flaming radical liberals, which was also made, is also unwarranted.

Related threads:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 62nd Edition. The trowel and musket edition.

On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compelling opinions.

Women at work. "Whoever fought, for women to get jobs. . . . why?. . . . why did you do that?" Looking at women (and men) in the workplace, and modern work itself, with a long lens.