Dinosaurs & Family/G. K. Chesterton

"The place where babies are born, where men die, where the daily drama of mortal life is acted, is not an office or shop or a bureau. It is something much smaller in size, yet much larger in scope...the home...it has a character of unity and universality that is not found in any of the fragmentary experiences of the office or the shop or the bureau." G K Chesterton, All Things Considered.

I was playing "dinosaurs" yesterday with my 2 year old grandson. I watched him as he meticulously gathered up all the dinosaurs, separating them into groups of three, "Da Da, Ma Ma and baby." He had some left over "babies," so, he proceeded to "award" another baby to each group of three until all were distributed. Now, we were ready to play!

Conventional wisdom is slowly coming around to the fact that our social fabric is broken. The issues are endless; the abysmal state of education, the widespread moral lassitude from sexual mores to corporate and politcal corruption, the oppressive tax system, only the tiniest percentage of which is used for national defense, the banishment of religious values, even religious discussion, including the concept of "virtue," from the public square, etc.

However, the assault on the family, the home, is the most egregious and heart rending. Chesterton said, "We shall never return to social sanity till we begin at the beginning. We must start where all history starts, with a man and a woman, and a child, and with the province of liberty and property which these need for their full humanity."

What is required for their "full humanity?"

Here are a few ideas. Eliminate the oppressive taxation on the family by getting rid of payroll taxes, give tax incentives to families where one parent is in the home daily, either not working or working from home. Originate economic policy making the first priority "nuclear family friendly." Encourage the utilization of the extended family for support and instilling values...the "Waltons" had it right! Get rid of "day orphanages." Eliminate the daycare industry along with the abortion industry! Purge the insanity wrought on our culture through modern feminism. Its legacy has been to destroy the family.

Yes, let's send women out of the home to be fulfilled, let's put them in servile jobs answering to the corporate structure, that's the way to make them happy! Let's take them away from their one uniquely feminine need to nourish and facilitate the family. Finally, there's that little thing, God.

In conclusion, overhaul the education system from top to bottom. Until this is well under way, run as fast as possible from the public schools, including and especially, the universities.

We need schools that will teach from day ONE, the history of western civilization, its philosophical tradition, it's emphasis on critical thinking, it's moral dimension, and the Christian theology which has undergirded and nourished our civilization. By the time a child graduates from High School he should know what Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Cicero, Duns Scotus, Sir Thomas More, Descartes, Pascal, Kant, etc., argued, and how each influenced western culture. He should have a firm grasp on what logical thinking entails.

(Recently, as I listened to "focus groups," (a "drive by" media, {Rush's coinage}invention,) I was appalled to hear every person say they liked Obama because he wanted change and was inspiring. Asked for one specific about his past actions or current plan, they were speechless! Thinking? These people were drowning in mob emotion! Where were the classes in critical thinking in their educational experience? Absent!)

A child should know how the concept of "virtue" originated. He should have an understanding of man's spiritual development. I remember how my father used to familiarize us with such classic poems as Rudyard Kipling's, "If." It would be a good class lesson for students to commit those lines to memory. When our children study Shakespeare, assuming they still do, are they given the opportunity to relate his poetry to the virtuous life and what Shakespeare is saying about man's spiritual faculty?

Thomas Jefferson said, in so many words, "virtue" must come first, before education can produce its fruits. I was volunteering last year in a middle school. The school board had recently made a decision that perhaps they should be teaching about "virtue." So, they started calling together the students in assemblies to explain "virtue." WHAT? I guess the word, much less the concept, had never come up before from Kindergarten to the present!

Do schools ever discuss spiritual values, ethics, in terms of the Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition of which we are heirs, rather than the politically correct amoral or immoral jibberish currently so ubiquitous?

We have lost our way, primarily because we have forsaken the family and the values which proceed from it outward to society. Each one of us must help to push the "pendulum" back in the direction of sanity!

Let's put the dinosaurs into their family units, then play.