The fact is, however, that as a society, just as we have undermined the authority of the police and just as we have undermined the authority of the teaching profession by not backing them (often deliberately, in the name of “children’s rights”) when they attempt to establish firm discipline in the classroom, so even more calamitously has our society undermined the traditional family.
[...]
What’s known as “materialism” is an important part of what’s wrong; though let’s understand what that means. Matter is a good thing in itself: God created matter. Christianity is in a sense a materialistic religion, since in the sacraments spiritual realities are conveyed by and contained in matter: bread, wine, water. The Incarnation is in the same sense a materialistic doctrine: God becomes flesh.
The “stuff”, the material objects these young people were looting, isn’t in itself necessarily bad. We’re all fond of the “stuff” we own...
What is truly terrible is the notion that without them you are nothing; that their possession is itself most of the meaning of life. That’s what the looters think or thought. And that’s what we have to address now. The more one thinks about the meaning of these riots, the deeper we have to dig.
 |
| Photo: Press Association |
No comments:
Post a Comment