Thanks for this essay.
What will our future hold? To understand the situation, assuming the standard clear reasoning of classical science, we’d have to answer a lot of questions and make no presumptions.
What is the ‘West’? Do you include Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America? If so, what about Chile and Colombia’s emergence as free-market democracies after centuries of dictatorship and poverty? How do you factor in the Eastern European bloc having emerged from the totalitarian rule of the USSR 20 years ago? Have we Americans ever really shared the European structured society?
Who are ‘we’? The internet and global communications are products of American creative genius, and the less-than-20-year-old internet is transforming every institution, world-wide. Will Americans continue to innovate, based on the new age? Already online education is common; hard times will increase its use as the high cost of brick and mortar schools become increasingly impractical. Will Americans realize the old city-based culture is no longer required due to modern transportation and communication? Are we declining or just coming to grips with the new technologies and innovations of the past half-century?
What is moral decline? How does one judge the common beliefs of so many millions of individuals? Does one assume the media represent the people’s values? Does one look to independent polls such as Rasmussen to judge percentages of Americans with certain values? If Rasmussen’s stats are in the ballpark, the majority want less government and believe the movies are a bad influence. The far-left, anti-free-market adherents are a small percentage of the people, despite their loud media voices.
Media beat the drum of Chinese power, but what does anyone know about the real state of the average Chinese? Why did the post-Mao Chinese rulers emulate the market-based and private ownership model of the West?
As a student of English history and literature, I’ve often wondered at the immorality of the Elizabethan age which then eventually swung to the Victorian age of high morals. Perhaps what we are seeing is an end to the long-term swing toward licentious living and irresponsible spending? Perhaps in any age of plenty, moral corruption follows? Since the economic indications strongly point to hard times ahead for Americans, might that be a net positive as everyone is forced to work harder to survive and to value having a family?
