To be wary or skeptical of that which is different is not a matter of close-mindedness, hate, racism, or other such “evil” tendencies. Wariness and skepticism, rather, are deep-seated and salutary survival instincts. They are evolved psychological responses analogous to the physiological phenomenon of foreign-body reaction.

Wariness and skepticism are the basis of conservatism: the preference for ideas, methods, materials, and customs which have been repeatedly tested in the acid of use. Conservatism is the opposite of novelty for novelty’s sake, thrill-seeking, and hope-based change — from which stem many an unwanted consequence.

Society, properly understood, is conservative. A society is an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another. No one who gives it much thought would say that America is or ever was a society. The word is used too loosely. But America was, from the aftermath of the Civil War until the early 1960s, at least, an interlocking set of societies, bound more or less tightly by shared social norms (not the least of them being an unashamed belief in the Judeo-Christian God), a common language (most immigrants sought to assimilate), pride in what “America” stood for (remember the Pledge of Allegiance?), and a willingness to defend a nation under the Constitution and laws of which Americans enjoyed a great deal more freedom and prosperity than the denizens of most other nations.

“Liberalism” of the kind fomented by the Enlightenment, by political philosophers like J.S. Mill, and by today’s leftists (including most so-called libertarians), is insidiously destructive of society. “Liberalism” denigrates and attacks the things that bind people, most notably social norms (which include religious ones) and patriotism. (Leftists, ironically, attack identification with America and its history — much of it proud — while touting the virtues of various and sundry identity groups.)

It is no great exaggeration to say that America is no more. Where once upon a time products could be sold by appealing to “baseball, mom, hot dogs, and apple pie”, the slogan would now invite scorn and ridicule throughout much of the land, and especially on the two Left Coasts.

America (taking it as a collective for the moment) has lost its soul, like continental Europe and the British Isles before it. By soul, I mean the common beliefs and norms that bound most Americans as Americans.

There are still remnants of “Old America” where “baseball, mom, hot dogs, and apple pie” hold appeal — especially when coupled with God. But the left, with the connivance of the internet-media-academic complex, has marginalized “Old America”. Even to speak of traditional marriage, personal responsibility, limited government, color-blind justice, the importance of two-parent families, genetic inheritance, performance-based advancement, religion as a civilizing influence, science as a method (not a producer of “truth” to be worshiped), etc., is to be branded a far-right, fanatic who is unfit to hold public office and who should be publicly and vocally scolded (or worse) as a privileged white racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, hater, and science-denier.

How did it happen? How did “Old America” spawn something that is its opposite, nay, its enemy? How did “Old America” spawn forces of suppression that daily seem to grow more powerful in their ability to ostracize, penalize, and dictate to the rest of us? How did this new dispensation come to dominate the institutions that shape culture: academia, public education, (many) churches, the media (including “news” and “entertainment”), and much of the political machinery of America?

I would say these three things, for a start:

Prosperity has separated most Americans from the “real life” and thus from the need for wariness and caution.

The decades-long dominance of leftist ideas in most public schools has fostered the emergence of the left-biased and vastly influential information-entertainment-media-academic complex.

Politicians, whose power has been elevated to undreamed of heights by the abrogation of the Constitution, have joined the leftward throng, when they haven’t been leading it. In particular, government has subverted conservative ideals (marriage before family, hard work rather than handouts and crime, etc.).

I believe that the situation is irredeemable. Many interconnected trends are at work, and they will not cease their work unless they are interrupted by a cataclysm of some kind that forces most Americans to confront “real life” and cooperate in survival.