It is hard to escape the conclusion that in today’s world the 12 points of the Boy Scout law do not stand a chance: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
Our president is a felon who cannot be trusted to keep his promise to avoid foreign wars, or to help anyone who does not first help him, or to obey any law that is inconvenient, or to avoid lacing Easter Sunday with obscenity.
But worship of him is but a symptom. It is not the disease. His eventual passing from the scene will not cure it.
Look around. The dominant object of worship in our culture is not found in any religious text or sermon on good character. It is the worship of money, which in the past was called the root of all evil.
Open a magazine, or watch a television commercial. There what used to be called the seven deadly sins are on full display: vanity, envy, lust, avarice, wrath, indolence and gluttony. Advertisements promise the most beautiful face, the longest life, the fanciest watch, enhanced possibilities for sex, or the extravagant vacation trip. All for a price.
Or look at universities. It was once thought that a purpose of university education was to build character. There lived praise of scholarship in the pursuit of useful truth, even if it had no immediate financial purpose. Students read classics and studied history in order to learn not to repeat its mistakes. Some universities maintained honor systems that made even the failure to report someone else’s violation grounds for expulsion.
But today politicians say the object of education is the pursuit of financial gain. Schools are judged by their ability to enhance a paycheck. The big man on campus is no longer a scholar, but an athlete who has to file a lawsuit in order to get to play football so he can make more money in a year than any of his classmates will make in their lifetimes. Or maybe a close second is the social media influencer whose flouting of scout virtues has attracted a profitable number of followers.
Even in the courts, the right to spend money to elect politicians has been elevated to a constitutional status just as protected as the right to worship a religion. The courts have also draped a new-found mantle of constitutional protection around commercial advertising. It is now assumed to have some value even when, in some cases, no one would look at it without being, in effect, paid to do so. The inducement can take the form of a television show or maybe just a news story. And sometimes the advertising is so offensive that it is forced on an unwilling audience that must drive by a highway billboard just to get to work.
Yet another example is the change in our form of government. What the founders called a “republican” form of government contemplated the election of respected members of a community who were to exercise a degree of independent judgment when voting in Congress where they represented different factions who would be forced to compromise.
But today the only vote that seems to really count is the vote of a billionaire willing to spend $1 million to defeat anyone who opposes him. That is why Congressmen often ignore letters from home, hold no town meetings, and confirm ludicrously unqualified cabinet members. Recently the office of a senator who chairs an important committee told a letter writer that the senator had no power to do anything. If that is true, it is because he and others like him are paralyzed by the fear that $1 million will be spent to elect an opponent.
Even churches are not immune. Some preach the “prosperity gospel,” which invites the rich to take their wealth as evidence of God’s favor.
It is difficult to imagine what might change this. Financial collapse? Inequality so great that those who are less well-off revolt? It is said that inequality explains why, despite the financial progress the country as whole has made in recent decades, people still feel worse off. Three men on the stage at the president’s inauguration are together wealthier than half of our entire population.
Maybe the only answer is the one our parents taught: prayer.
Luther Munford is a Northsider.
