The June 29, 2009 issue of Newsweek contained a cover story by Fareed Zakaria titled The Communist Manifesto, which he subtitled Greed is Good (to a point). An excerpt from the article states “What we are experiencing is not a crisis of capitalism, it is a crisis of finance, of democracy, of globalization and ultimately of ethics.” To lump ethics into the same pot as finance, democracy, and globalization indicates that he does not know where ethics come from. Furthermore, for a proponent of “greed is good” to express a concern for a crisis of ethics indicates a lack of understanding of ethics.
A quality that derives from ethics called trust received attention from Burt Ross former mayor of Ft. Lee, NJ. He spoke at the Bernie Madoff sentencing hearing where he pointed out that the major effect of the financial fraud was the destruction of the public “trust.”
On the same weekend that I read Zakaria’s column and saw Burt Ross on a news interview, I also saw on Meet the Press a concern expressed for the “values” of this nation.
These three unseen and conceptual factors: ethics, trust, and values received the attention of the major media within a span of a few days, which indicates the growing concern of the citizenry about non-material matters. Values and trust derive form ethics, a quality not understood by the media, its authors, interviewers, and producers.
That ethics should be brought up in a national news magazine by non-other than Fareed Zakaria, is a travesty. If Fareed writes an article without mentioning GDP it becomes a collectors item; he is so enmeshed in the gross materialistic values of Western thought that he has become blind to the source and meaning of ethics. The making of money as an end in itself can never be ethical because it is an activity based on greed, which is unethical and self-destructive.
Men who devote themselves to the propagation and preservation of the species establish ethics. There is no place else for ethics to come from. Western thought—which worships the material world and developed a genderless society—is devoid of ethics. It has no sense of right and wrong. It attempts to make up for its ignorance of matters spiritual by developing laws for its societal conduct. Legal and illegal have replaced right and wrong leaving society without any meaning on which to base its behavioral conduct. Solomon said a nation without vision shall perish; we are that nation and we are perishing.
A report on the internet also this past weekend indicated that a growing proportion of our youth feel that they will not live long. Research has shown that youth who do not believe they will live long are seven times more prone to contact AIDS and other illnesses, use drugs, and become involved in negative issues than youth who have a longer life expectancy. Our youth have no purpose; they are perishing.
The race is perishing. The source of values, leadership and virility has been removed from society. In its place there is a constant barrage of anti family propaganda being promulgated to the public such as Sandra Tsing Loh’s article appearing in The Atlantic describing the end of her marriage. Titled Is It Time to End Marriage? Sandra not only has no inhibition about sharing her infidelity with the whole world, but also challenges the institution of marriage itself.
No society has ever survived the loss of male authority and its virility. One would think that Western man would have learned from the fall of Greece, Rome, Spain, and France, but he remains as ignorant of the cause as ever. He hopes that somehow the law will set things right even though the laws of Draco, Solon, Justinian, Napoleon, and the Constitution have failed to do so. He so desperately wants to find some legal precedent that if adhered to will make things all right again, or that failing, perhaps an aspect of his religion that if properly implemented will change things for the better. There aren’t any laws or institutions that will make things better. Only men can make things betters
Men make families. They also develop the ethics necessary to hold them together. The law is an ineffective substitute for manhood just as money is an ineffective substitute for fatherhood.
It’s time for men to assert themselves, re-establish the family and reinstitute the ethics necessary to maintain it. There are no other options for positive change.
E.G.
