OF PIGPENS AND PARADISE. Rod Dreher on America’s underclass in an era of collapsing social institutions and mores:

Presumably you would say something if you had cause to believe a child was being abused — physically, sexually, or emotionally. But if a child was being neglected in ways that didn’t rise to the level of the criminal, but which nevertheless had a huge effect on the child’s well being, and ability to thrive, would you say anything? Be honest.

Again: what would you say, and to whom would you say it? Over the years, and as recently as this past weekend, I talked to teachers who have told me that they have nobody in their students’ homes to work with as partners in education. They reach out to talk to the caregiver — you can’t even say “parents” anymore — and find at best someone who is overwhelmed or otherwise useless, and at worse somebody who gets resentful, hostile, and even violent.

Here’s the thing: it’s not just the poor and the working class anymore. I’m told by teachers and others that it’s the middle class now too. The attitude that if anything is wrong, it’s Somebody Else’s Fault, is becoming general. Nobody wants to hear criticism of any sort. Nobody wants to recognize authority, or to assert authority in a meaningful way.

This is what it means to live in therapeutic culture, in which maintaining a sense of well being is the absolute telos of our common and individual life. This is what it means when the values of the marketplace (e.g., “The customers is always right”) have infected our normative institutions, and inform the way families and individuals see themselves. This is what it means when our churches (insofar as people still attend them) treat their purpose as offering people comfort and uplift, not solid moral norms and preaching repentance when we fall short. This is what it means when we the people expect our institutions — our schools, our churches, and so forth — to cater to our own felt emotional needs.

The middle class can forestall the reckoning because we have money and resources to avoid the consequences; the poor and the working classes do not. But a reckoning is coming. The Gods of the Copybook Headings are irrepressible:

Read the whole thing.