THE 200 YEAR WAR:

The Long War by the United States Government to Destroy

Christianity
By dawsonrebel@hotmail.com

FROM FREEDOM TO OBEDIENCE: THE FLOW OF AMERICAN

HISTORY.

The myth of the founding of America is in our collective

memory. We came here to establish a new nation in the
wilderness, and display to the whole world how a nation of free
men is to act. Americans are to be a light set upon a hill to shine
forth to illuminate, to the nations of the world the blessings of
freedom. This vision has changed over time. An order based
upon the Bible is evolving into an order based upon equality. Non-
Biblical order requires some type of force. There will eventually
be a new world order established not upon the threat of the gun,
but upon the unseen hand which controls the lives and fortunes of
all. The empires of Babylon, of Rome, and of the Vatican have
come to an end. The new rulers of the world have arrived. The
original myth has been transformed into the world we have today:
An order based upon peace, prosperity, and democracy.1 The
tracing of that transformation is vital to understanding what is
happening today. 2

1 THE CHRISTIAN VISION OF A NEW WORLD ORDER

AND ITS DECLINE

If there is one message that permeates the Christian view of

history it is this: God is the Agod@ of tomorrow. The Christian
does not look back to a golden age. There never was a time, since
1 Michael Mandelbaum, The Ideas That Conquered the World, New York: Public
Affairs, 2002.

2 This section is an overview. It is the painting of a mural, not an attempt to show

many individual snapshots. Generalizations are necessary. In such a survey, the author
understands there are exceptions. To deal with every exception would destroy the purpose of
this narrative.
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the fall in the Garden-of-Eden, that man has been perfect. There
is no Atlantis in the Christian message. Man is not looking for
some lost empire or some secret knowledge that has been
preserved in lost books. God is working in history and in time is
bringing forth His Kingdom and view of reality. There may be
temporary setbacks, but they only serve to purify the message.
The setbacks are not defeats. This means that when the Christian
reads history, he reads it as an insight into tomorrow. By seeing
where man has gone, he can get an idea of what God is doing,
and what He might be doing in the future. The Christian sees not
only his own life but all lives in history as having a beginning and
an ending in the context of God=s historical plan. AFor although
God pronounced his creation good, it was not finished product;
there was to be an evolution and a development abetted by the
cultural activity of man.@3
This being said, when we look back to the beginnings of
American history we are not looking for a Golden age: AParadise
was not a romantic, isolated spot to practice religion as a function
of the soul, but it was the beginning of the inhabited earth, the
beginning of the cultural world.@4 For the Christian, every age is
AGolden@ because God is working out His will through individual
lives and individual nations. Every age has its opportunities and
its temptations that are different from all others. What
determines an age is the reaction of the Christians to that time in
which they are placed to live. There are times that seem to call
for more courage than others. There are times that Christians
seem to show more courage than other times. Because God does
not always move in a straight line, sometimes it appears that He
is not in control of history. We want God to accomplish His will in
our time and in our way. It just does not work that way.
When we look back at the coming of the first settlers to
America, we see people who were very courageous. Whatever
you may want to think of them, most of the early settlers were not
looking for wealth. Many left all they had behind, even family to

3 Henry R. Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, Philadelphia: The Presbyterian
and Reformed Publishing Company, 1972, p. 138.

4 Ibid., p. 139.
2
come to a land where the government did not rule over them in a
tyrannical way. They had a vision of a new order and a new life
that would be different than the one experience in Europe or
England. This new order would not be built on the traditional
power structures and politics of the old world. Just as some would
later come to believe with John Locke that children started out
with blank sheets of paper in their minds: These sheets could be
then filled by the parents and society with all that was good and
helpful. The new continent could be the equivalent of the blank
sheet of paper. The colonists would be free to fill this blank land
just as parents are able to mold their children.
They saw themselves as the Biblical city on a hill. They
would be a light to the whole world and shine forth as an example
of people who had taken the Bible and carved out a land with the
Bible as their guide. The historian Winthrop Hudson adds, AAs
part of God=s program of instruction, they were to provide the
nations with a working model of a godly society and by the
contagion of their example were to be God=s instruments in
effecting the release from bondage of all mankind.@5 It must
have been very exciting. It certainly motivated them to risk life
and wealth to pursue such a dream. These people were not part
of a college bull session but were involved in making history with
their actions. But they harbored within them the very things they
tried to leave behind. Any student who goes off to college
thinking he is leaving small town America behind, soon learns that
small town America is woven into the very fabric of his being. For
many this is a very discouraging thing. As humans, we really are
not capable, no matter how hard we may try, of cutting ourselves
off from our past. It continues on inside of us. This happened to
our early settlers.
They had a dream, a dream like very college freshman. They
wanted to leave the things of the past in England and start a new
world from scratch. In this they shared the vision that fills the
pages of the Bible. Scriptures are the stories of men who left all to
follow God in a new land, and who started a new order. The
Exodus account of Israel leaving Egypt is one of the most oft-
5 Winthrop S. Hudson, Religion in America, New York: Charles Scribner=s Sons,
1965, p. 20.
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repeated stories in history: The Israelites left the tyranny of Egypt
to travel to a new land. In that land, there were pagans already
living, who must be defeated. The last must be cleansed of evil
and then a new order imposed upon the wilderness. This is the
message that was carried with the early settlers. They
incorporated the images of the Bible into their own lives. Today,
living in a secular age, we forget how the Bible was the language
creator of the English. Whether Christian or not, people were
educated in terms of the vocabulary of the Bible. They saw the
world through the definitions created from the Biblical view of
history.
The people of Israel considered themselves in bondage. This
is a new concept in history. Since when do individuals have the
right to tell the pharaoh what to do? He is their god. What gives
people the right to declare themselves independent? In the
history of the world there were rulers and there were servants.
The very concept of a free nation, of free and independent people,
was something unheard of up to this time. There is the tendency
to read back into history our modern concepts. We fail to see the
revolutionary acts in terms of what they really were. The vision of
freedom that Moses tried to impart to the people in bondage
seems so natural to us. The fact that it took forty years for the
people to accept the message of Moses is somehow lost. Even
when he led them out, we forget how they wanted to go back
because freedom was difficult.
The issues back then, have not changed. Freedom means
the loss of security. Freedom means the possibility of failure.
Freedom means adopting whole new patterns of behavior. The
journey from Egypt to the Promised Land was a total revolution in
thought and action. Moses brought a revolution in thought. He
established new laws. The people soon discovered that freedom
was more than they had expected. It meant forming armies and
fighting for land. It meant working new land with the possibility of
failure. The story of the Old Testament is the story of failure and
repeated attempts to achieve the new life. The whole story has
become part of Western Civilization. It is the story of individuals
and nations striving to create the Biblical idea of freedom and the
responsibility that this involves. Every new generation must
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decide again between Biblical progress and a return to the
bondage of Egypt.
As one looks back over history, this story is repeated over
and over again. When people feel oppressed, there is the hope
that there is more to life than slavery. Without the vision of the
Bible, there is little hope that life has more to offer. This vision of
an ordered society, ruled by the Ten Commandments, and people
free to achieve a good life inside those boundaries, is the
backbone of Western Civilization. Take away the hope that the
Bible has to offer an oppressed people and there is only
resignation to the authorities and their experts. When the
founding fathers came to America, they had the visions of the
Bible firmly imprinted into their mind and bodies. The Biblical
message was part of their language. They came here from the
>pharaoh= of England and journeyed across the >desert= of the
Atlantic to enter the Promised Land of America. This faith became
part of America:
This mood of eager expectancy was to continue to be
characteristic
of American religious life. Having escaped in so many
ways the
limitations of a bounded existence, men and women
were easily
persuaded of the reality of unlimited possibilities. The
hope of
all things being made new, in the course of time, was
often subtly
secularized and frequently restated in political terms.6
One of the difficult aspects to understand in our culture is
the idea of pagan opposition to the free life. In an age when all
cultures are treated as equal, we have lost the idea that people
have a vision of what the good life is. We have lost the idea that
people will fight and die for a particular way of life. If all ways of
life are the same, then why fight? We look back and some would
suggest that the Pilgrim fathers and the Indians should have found
some common culture or found out ways to exist side by side. Our

6 Ibid., p. 21.
5
vision today is totally different from the Biblical view and the one
of Western Civilization. Differences have vanished and tolerance
of just about everything except Western Civilization is part of our
new culture. The language of the Bible has disappeared from our
vocabulary.
The Indian wars thus have the appearance of genocide from
the safety of the modern living room. First of all, we cannot
imagine a group of people leaving the safety of England for the
wilds of a continent. The journey in1620 by sailing boat was no
safer than booking passage for the moon today. Also, we have
left the spirit of adventure to the movie screen. To pack up one=s
family for a trip that has a good chance of ending in the deaths of
everyone is something beyond our comprehension. To be willing
to fight for what we might term purely psychic goals seems
impossible to imagine. Youths today might be drafted to fight a
war with great reluctance. But to volunteer one=s family for the
same war that we have volunteered to fight seems impossible to
imagine.
We look at the attempts of the Pilgrims to convert the Indians
to their new way of looking at the world seems to us as an act of
aggression. It is imperialistic. It is genocide in our view. That two
cultures with different views of reality can exist side by side is a
fantasy we all share. We are blind in one area. The only thing
that enables the multitude of cultures to co-exist today is the fact
there is a power that enforces a certain commonality. There is
something greater than any individual culture. There exists a
superior culture of the shepherd which mandates peace or else.
But for those coming to America, there was no super authority to
enforce a common super culture. In fact the visions of both the
Indians and the Pilgrims would not have accepted such a super
power anyway. The reason for coming to America was to escape
the commonality enforcer of England.
The wars between the Indians and the Pilgrims must be
understood as the war for a way of interpreting reality. Imagine
playing a baseball game where each side had a different set of
rules. It would not take long for the game to result in an all-out
brawl. A game cannot be played except a uniform set of rules
applies to all. That is so obvious in such a simple thing as a
6
baseball game. Why then, would two or more sets of rules work
in a complex social structure? Because the situation is so much
more complex, it is easier to hide the facts of what constitutes a
social order. But baseball and society require one set of rules for
all. The wars between the Indians and the founding fathers were
not squabbles over the strike zone, but they disagreed about what
constitutes a social order.
Take such a simple matter of determining ownership of a
piece of property. In Western Civilization property means the
fencing in of a given area and the ability in one way or another of
defending that parcel of land. The rule applies to nations and to
individuals. Spain or Portugal could claim ownership of large
chunks of land but without a navy to enforce such ownership,
there is no real ownership. When the Indian, with his unfenced
view of land and communal ownership, met this new view of
ownership, conflicts were inevitable. Also, the communal nature
of Indian ownership only extended to one=s own tribe. When
tribes moved as the land became exhausted in one area, wars
were fought with other tribes for the new communal lands.
In one sense these were religious wars. The God of a system
is the one who decides what rules apply to each given social
order. The God of the Puritans provided them with the rules of
operating a total world view. The Bible provided for rules that
applied or could be applied to most problems encountered in
running the various governments of a society. When people
change gods, there are a corresponding change in laws and world
views. That is why, at first, there were attempts to win the Indians
over to the God of the Puritans. When these efforts failed for the
most war, wars were the only possible result. We find this hard to
believe today, but we find no problem with our position that the
United States and Nazi Germany could not share the same planet.
It was no different back then. New England could not tolerate two
competing gods or law systems, and today=s world cannot
tolerate two modern competing interpretations of laws.
So far we have the Exodus of the founding fathers from
England to America. We then have the wars to establish the
proper way of governing the new found land. This having been
accomplished, the next step of any social structure is the defense
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of that order. Today, we lack an understanding of how the world
really works. We think that the laws of the universe do not apply
to modern America. No, the same laws apply and we still are
fighting the same wars that every age must fight. Having pushed
back the Indians and made room for their views of the new world,
many more came to join them in their heavenly experiment in
godly rule. While some came to support the new system, others
came to profit from the order already established without
subscribing to the Puritan world view.
Most of these pretended to support the Puritans in order to
be part of the new community. Others felt that they could not
subscribe to the strict rules of the zealous Puritans. They offered
an alternative view of reality. Those in charge saw this attack for
what it was: It was an attempt to change the God of the fathers
into another god. This was a new kind of warfare. While the
Indians were fought as an external enemy, the new enemies were
internal. Again, we are no different today. There are people in
prison whose crime is not against morality, but against the
government=s interpretation of reality. It is illegal to dispense
certain medicines, even if you give them away. It is illegal not to
participate in the Social Security program for self-employed
workers. I could go on and on. These crimes are no different than
the crimes of Anne Hutchinson or Roger Williams, who rebelled
against Puritan leadership. We just have a different law system,
so we judge them but not ourselves for defending the current
gods.
Have you ever asked why the deaths of nineteen people over
several hundred years ago in a little town outside Salem, called
Salem Village, is so important today? More people than that die
every weekend on the United States= highways. This is an
exception to history. Why is this exception repeated to every
school child in America over and over? It is made an example
Christians defending the system they believe in from attack. The
conclusion being, that if Christians have a system of though, they
kill their opponents. That is the message. Christians cannot be
trusted with leadership. When in power, they will do anything to
maintain that power, even to the point of having a real live witch
hunt. Fast forward to Joseph McCarthy and you have the same
8
message applied to conservatives.
Having thus defended the system against its opponents, it is
now necessary to teach the young the rules through a system of
education. Both the church and the government needed to teach
the next generation the beliefs that held their system together.
The school became the building block of the new American way of
living. Private education was the norm for all. Even private
schools were provided for those who had no money. Being able to
read, especially the bible, was vital. Also, the new generation
needed an understanding of what their parents had risked so
much and died, at times, to believe. One of the least understood
aspects of early America, is its foundation upon universal
education. The family, the church, and the school served as the
foundation stones of the new American culture.
As new immigrants arrived, and a new generation was born,
the church developed ways to keep itself pure. Unfortunately, in
their attempt to keep the enthusiasm of the originals, the church
developed unusually high standards. The children could not often
understand what their parents had endured to establish a new
culture. And parents being protective, often kept their children
from experiencing the hardships they had endured. Ways were
sought to keep only those with enthusiasm as church leaders.
Church standards were established. Sadly, these standards were
false and unrealistic. Many good Christians could not meet the
strict standards. The ensuing battle resulted in something called
the halfway covenant: Those who had not received some special
experience were excluded from church membershipBeven though
they accepted the total doctrinal statement of the church.
There was a similar attempt to educate their future leaders
through the establishment of colleges and universities modeled
after their European counterparts. Not having the understanding
of a Marshall McLuhan, they failed to realize that Athe medium is
the message.@
They imported a system that led to the destruction of the very
ideas they were trying to defend. By using the European method
of teaching, they imported the ideas that went with the method.
The centralized, bureaucratic, subject segregated, and elitist
system of the modern university changed the way people looked
9
upon knowledge. Learning became abstracted from the people
who actually do the work of preaching and running a government.
Classroom learning became the substitute for on-the-job training.
The degree became a substitute for the apprenticeship. The new
learning became isolated and impersonal. There was a total lack
of understanding when it came to the consequences of their
actions.
For example, an early doctor might see himself as working
with the total community in his efforts to heal. It was not just a
question of using a technique or dispensing a medicine, but of
working with the total person. A doctor worked with the minister,
or the family, or the community to restore health. In the same
way a teacher was viewed as a extension of the family, and still
under the control of the father of the child. Education was
involved in not just the imparting of facts, but the integration of a
child into the extended family, community, and social structure.
Even the government bureaucrat saw himself as merely one form
of local government, and his actions were only one aspect of a
world order. As a new education became patterned after the
European model, the foundation for a new view about reality was
established.
The founders of New England, successfully crossed the
Atlantic, established a colony against almost impossible odds, but
were unable to develop a system for the continuation of their
beliefs and enthusiasm for showing forth the Kingdom of God on
earth. While we can look back to men who were heroes who
showed courage beyond belief, it was not a golden age. It is not
an age we would wish to return, yet it is an age that we can learn
much. But it is also an example of AThe doctrine of the Golden
Calf.@ In the book of Exodus, the Israelites escaped from Egypt,
only to find that Egypt was still inside them. The beliefs of the old
religion learned in Egypt were still inside them. When times got
tough, the people quickly reverted back to the religion of their
youth.
The Puritan age thus represents the first stage in the
downfall of the Christian vision and the fall of Western Civilization.
The very start of a new life gave the founders a false confidence in
their ability to mold reality. This confidence, to turn the
10
wilderness into a paradise on earth, has been passed on down
from one generation to another. Americans have never lost their
belief that any problem can be conquered with a law and a
bureaucracy to enforce it. This is one of the first tragic ideas
imported from our European heritage. The vision of Hobbes and
his Leviathan have been incorporated into the very fabric of
American belief. The very idea of the Leviathan stills exists today
in our confidence in the new shepherd.

2 THE NON-CHRISTIAN VISION OF A WORLD ORDER

The colonies of North America were not isolated from the

world of thought. There is a tendency to think of the people who
settled here as cut off from the rest of the world. We have this
idea that because things moved slower, they did not move. While
the trans-Atlantic telegraph did not arrive until 1868, the mails did
arrive from Europe and many read books published in England
and elsewhere. Colonists such as Jefferson and Franklin are noted
for their travels to and from Paris and London. The idea of one
world is hardly a new idea. The many Frenchmen who fought
here in the Revolution are testimony of the connection between
the ideas of Europe and the United Colonies. The attitudes that
were sweeping the world during the eighteenth century were also
sweeping the colonies.
I want to present an overview of what might be called the
new secular world-view that was sweeping the globe during the
formation of America. In an age before television, the study of
history was something that formed the part of an educated
person=s consciousness. And with home schooling and church
schools, the Bible and its history were part of everyone=s
education. People were historically conscious. There is a
tendency to read back our own ignorance into the minds before
us. That is wrong. While we live in a media-filled world; theirs
was a Bible-filled world and the history that went along with it. It
was a different world than we realize. While we are aware of the
latest media trends and think in those terms, then people were
aware of historical trends and their place in terms of the Biblical
11
cosmology.
In order to control history, you have to control the terms
people use to discuss the events of the age. The Bible at one time
supplied the terms and the categories in which people used to
think. After the wars of religion, the idea was spread that it was
religious ideas that had caused nations to fight. If religion could
be relegated to a subordinate position, then wars would cease.
The cause would have been eliminated. Something had to be
created which would take the place of the established church and
provide order for society. Also something would have to be found
for the motivations which religion provided. After all, the history
of the world was the history of people seeking a god and
defending that god from foreign interference. The eighteenth
century saw the culmination of such efforts.
The cries went out across the world of liberty, equality and
brotherhood. These cries translated into American terminology
as goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Whatever
they are called, the goal is similar: The separation of a nation from
any form of established religion. The goals were something that
would be considered obvious to all educated people and
something which could not cause division. This would introduce
peace into the new idea of a nation state. Religion was something
a person kept private if one had it at all.
The individual would owe his allegiance to the state which would
include all people, at least in theory. Up until this time, the church
and state and various other associations were constantly fighting
over which values would act as the controlling thoughts of
society. The revolution which would conquer the world would be a
replacement for the Bible.
The new nation state would provide the total environment in
which people lived. All life would be organized around the central
state government. While the Church in the past had struggled to
gain total control, it never did. There were always dissenters.
Under the new system, no dissenters would be allowed. Just as
the Church struggled with heretics throughout the telling of
history, a new form of heresy would be invented. For the first time
in history, treason would be sin of all sins. In times past, armies
switched sides as easy as sports= free agents do today. People
12
might fight for one army or another depending upon various
decisions made by one=s political or church leader. (For example,
both the Southerner Robert E. Lee, and the Italian Giuseppe
Garibaldi were offered the command of the Union army during the
Civil War.) Changing sides was something that was considered
part of what people did. In the new world, to live within a certain
boundary meant one owed total allegiance to the government of
the society.
A good example of the change of status of the people is seen
in the time between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. In
the former, one third of the people fought for the Colonies, one
third were neutral, and one third sided with the British. For the
most part, no one thought it treason to fight for one side or
another. And after the war, there were no reprisals or mass
executions for those who chose the wrong, that is the losing side.
With American Civil War, new categories were enforced. Lincoln
imprisoned forty thousand citizens in the North for not showing
total support for his cause. There were no trials, but choosing the
wrong side was seen as treason against one=s government. One
of the motives of the Civil War was to establish the new idea of the
State. With the conclusion of the War, the central government
had established itself as the new form of church to which all within
its borders belonged.
The Civil War was the secular version of the Reformation.
Before the Reformation the Church was the total organizing
principle of society. All people who lived under the territory
controlled by the Church were expected to obey the Church in all
things. To disobey was a serious matter. A person such as Galileo
is one of the more famous examples of disobedience to the
dictates of the Church. The Inquisition is the attempt by the
Church to protect itself from heretics within her midst. To hold
beliefs which could destroy the Church was considered an act of
war against the glue that held society together. To allow such
beliefs to be held, was to encourage anarchy. When Luther
challenged the Church, he was guilty of declaring war on the
Church. To allow such a thing, not only would destroy society, it
would destroy the very foundations of a peaceful society.
The new state took over the place formerly held by the
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Church. The state was now the agency of total control over all
people who lived within its borders. No deviation could be allowed
from the authority of the state. Heresy and treason are thus two
sides of the same coin. Just as Luther was a threat to the Church,
so the new Confederacy was a threat to the new status the nation
state was seeking. The South worked under the rules of the old
order. Many small governments existed under the same world
view of the Church. The Church provided the total meaning
necessary for social control. The governments were local and
need not agree on anything except what the Church decreed.
Under the new system, with the state taking the place of the
Church, no local forms of state could be permitted. Just as the
Church could permit no local religions, the nation state could
permit no local governments.
We have been told the age of religious wars is over. The
secular nation state reportedly put an end to such wars. That is
the current party line. What ended were not religious wars, but
only ecclesiastical wars. The major Christian faiths no longer
could command an army. The nation with its new theology of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness did command armies. These
armies were used in the new version of what the Church called
the Great Commission. Just as the Church sent missionaries out
into all the world, so the nation sends it envoys and armies out to
control the world. Imperialism is nothing but the work of the
Christian missionary modernized.
The founders have been accused of secretly planning the
destruction of Christianity. This view fails to understand that the
founders were not acting with conscious intent. They formed a
government using the ideas of the age in which they lived. We all
live within the thoughts and categories of our particular age. As
brilliant as the founders were, they were no exception. They lived
in an age that had seen the wars fought after the Reformation.
The great thinkers during this time were all seeking for a solution
to the problem of religious wars. As church fought against church,
wars continued on for decades. A solution was sought. The great
idea then in vogue was to transfer sovereignty from the church to
the state. Because the state ruled supreme over a particular
territory, peace could then reign within its borders.
14
 What many failed to realize is that when sovereignty is
transferred, the other doctrines of a church are transferred also.
In one sense the rise of the state was a religious reformation. As
the churches were made subordinate to the state, the state took
on the form of a church. It was mentioned above that the state
took over the doctrine of the Great Commission from the
churches. The very idea of sovereignty contains within it the idea
of evangelism or imperialism. This cannot be avoided. Merely
denying the idea or doctrine to the church does not destroy the
idea. It is merely moved to another location. Some ideas seem to
have a life of there own. Just as the law that matter cannot be
either created or destroyed, this same principle applies to other
realities.
Other doctrines which we find in the church were not
destroyed either. They found a new existence within the new
state. The Church has a doctrine of progress. It sees a
progressive unfolding of God=s work within history. As men come
to understand God and His revelation more and more within time,
there is a greater understanding of history and its purpose for
man. The state having become now the new church, seeks to
carry out the mission of its founders. We hear Jefferson=s words
about all men being created equal over and over. We are told
that all men were not treated equally when Jefferson wrote these
words. The mission of the new church is to work for the unfolding
of the concept within history. The state sets its goal for the time
when all men can be treated equally just as Thomas Jefferson
wrote.
We all know the doctrine of good works which is taught in the
church. The church promises to change lives and as lives are
changed, there is a manifestation of that process. Good works in
a sense are the products of the church just as cars are the product
of Ford. Wherever the church is allowed to teach, the people are
exhorted to work out their salvation through the showing forth of
the event that has happened within them. Changed people have
changed lives. The new product of the state is the promise of
physical prosperity. Wherever the state is allowed to be
sovereign, consumer prosperity is to follow. In time, more and
more riches are produced. There is a continual progress as one
15
problem after another is solved, and new technologies are
constantly introduced. The state is constantly pointing to those
areas that have weak governments. The land lies in ruin, and the
people live in poverty.
Life in all times tends to be routine and dull. No matter what
an age produces, life still has to be lived out daily. Man not only
needs physical products, he needs to belong to something
greater. He needs to experience the divine. The new state seeks
to create this experience through the elevation of the nation to
the level of worship. Nationalism and the holidays that support
this concept, become the new transcending experience. The flag,
the national anthem, and the pledge of allegiance become the
new church Sunday morning service. As we formerly celebrated
the death and resurrection of Christ, we now celebrate the
founding of the nation and its victories in war. This is the new
church mass. The blood of soldiers who died in battle defending
the flag becomes the new communion of the saints.
While not seeking to carry this argument on indefinitely, the
new state must also promise a new heaven. It must preach a time
when the world will be one. There will be no more war and
everyone will have beat their swords into plowshares. No matter
how much prosperity one experiences, no matter no emotionally
attached one is to the fatherland, one needs to feel that one is
working for a better world. It is innate within us that we want to
pass off to our kids a better world than the one we inherited. This
is done through the message wars to end all wars, or the nations
uniting in peace to solve all of their differences. A new currency is
promised that will be world-wide and there will be an end to
depressions and shortages. The state is surely going to usher in a
new heaven.
Even though the founders may not have been aware of the
consequences, the seeds of all that followed were planted when
the state took upon itself sovereignty. Once sovereignty is
established, something happens. It is similar to the divine right of
kings. Once a king has total power, even if he does not use that
power, there are others who want to be kings. Once the American
government established itself supreme, even if it did not intend to
use that power, it set itself up as a target who lusted after the new
16
divine right. With the philosophy in place in the minds of the
founders, the next stage is the institutionalizing of the thought. A
new religion was in the making. All that was needed were an
excuse or excuses to launch the new faith. The battles and
revolutions of history are not just about money, power, and
freedom, but whole philosophies are involved also.

3 A NEW SECULAR ORDER

Once the ideas were in place for the establishment of a new

church, events had to molded to fit the new order. Sovereignty
requires separation from other powers who claim to be sovereign.
Of course, England claimed unlimited power over America: They
were English Crown colonies. Reasons had to found for the total
separation from England. The reasons had to appeal to the
common folk who would have to carry the brunt of a war against
England. If you want to reach the average man, you reach him
through his pocket book. Work is never fun. The Bible says that
man=s labors have been cursed. This certainly seems true. Work
is one of those things, that men complain about the most. It takes
up most of their time. And when a foreign power takes away part
of that income, it seems like a part of one=s like is being stolen
from him.
The English had fought the French and Indian War. It was
not cheap. It was a war that was of little benefit to England. It did
provide the Colonies with a new security and new land. The
British felt that the Colonies should pay for some of the costs of
staying free and independent peoples. This meant new and
higher taxes. Without going into whether the taxes were just or
administered fairly, the fact is the new taxes were used as one
excuse to form a new and independent nation. Rather than work
within the system, war had to be planned. Such acts of terrorism
as the Boston Tea Party provided the excuse for the British to
increase their presence. Other colonies of the British have shown
that independence came without an armed revolt. But for the
American colonies, the Revolution was a necessary part of the
whole process of being a new force upon the face of the earth.
17
The goal was not just reduced taxes, but sovereignty.
What students have been taught for the past two hundred
years, have been the myths of the American Revolution, and the
founders= philosophy of governmental control. It has provided
our whole history with a starting point for a new beginning and a
grand new experiment. The stories of Lexington and Concord and
the Minutemen are almost like the stories of the Bible. In fact,
that is what the stories of the Revolution are all about. It is about
the founding of a new history, a new people, and the need to have
heroes. America needed a Joshua and Moses. It needed stories
like David and Goliath: We have the story of Washington crossing
the Delaware (Dead Sea); we have the suffering at Valley Forge
(the Wilderness Journey); we have Paul Revere=s ride(similar to
Joshua and Caleb); we have the turning of the harbor into tea (Not
Blood as in the Nile); finally, we have our very own traitor in
Benedict Arnold (Just as Joshua had his traitors).
These stories constitute the new scriptures in the forming of
our new church. The Revolution becomes the starting point that
we can point back to as the true starting point. When institutions
evolve over time little excitement is created. People are drawn to
the instantaneous and the dramatic. The Revolution thus
becomes part of the myth by which we are called upon to live. It
creates the image that we are in charge of our own destiny. We
are the masters of our fate. It gives Americans the psychic energy
to tame a whole new continent. We had defeated the world=s
greatest power, and now were going to defeat the wilderness all
the way to the Pacific Ocean. It didn=t matter that the land was
claimed by others, it was ours just as Israel had claimed all of
Palestine as theirs. It was our Manifest Destiny.
The author is well aware that there were many factors in all
of these events. I am choosing a certain way of seeing these
events as I have learned them from the media and government-
sponsored schooling. A New Order of The Ages had been
established. It had been paid for in the blood of countless heroes.
The Myth of the Revolution provided the foundation for a new
church established under the new constitution. People were ready
to accept changes because they were becoming part of a great
experiment to show the rest of the world that the common people
18
could rule themselves. We were going to be the light on a hill that
showed the whole world that kings were not necessary. From the
idea of the Revolution was to come a spark that would ignite
change for the whole world. It would be a world controlled by the
common man. All of recorded history, we were told, was pointing
to what was happening in America.
The next step was the establishment of a state Church. A
new secular church had to be established. The Constitution
became our charter for the new church. But this church would be
totally secular. This would be something totally untried in history.
Formerly, the state and religion if not united, supported each
other. It was the theology and the church structure that
supported the government. Every government needs a sense of
legitimacy. No one likes following rules and regulations. No one
likes paying taxes. No one likes being forced to go to war. It
takes more than the threat of governmental violence to assure a
devoted class of followers. A government can force compliance
but it cannot force devotion. Governments based on violence do
not last long.
A motivation must be found to assure an enthusiastic
response to governmental requests. Unmotivated citizens make
very poor soldiers. Religion has always been the best motivator
that a nation can have. When the religion and government are
united in the same goals, the people will follow. The government
has only the power to kill people. Religion has the power to kill
the soul. That is substantially more power. It carries a lot more
weight. Religion can motivate people where government can only
threaten. People will do anything to assure their eternal salvation.
This is why for so many governments, the emperor has wanted to
be made a god. If the people think the emperor has the keys to
the kingdom of heaven or hell, they will follow him anywhere.
While people may rebel against their ruler, it is very difficult to
rebel against eternity,
Up until the writing of the Constitution, Christianity was seen
by most as the unofficial state religion. A large number of the
fighting troops came out of the Presbyterian Churches. So many
black-robed Presbyterian ministers led their people into battle,
that the British referred to such troops as the Ablack regiments.@
19
These were the troops they feared the most. Nothing motivates a
soldier like the belief he is fighting for God, country, and family.
The Christian Church provided this continuity. From the very
beginnings, freedom from the Anglican Church had been one of
the motivations for coming to America. The fear that the British
might make that Church the State Church in American was one of
the reasons many fought.
When the Constitution was adopted, it surprised many that
no religious requirements were required of citizenship or of those
who served in government. There was no test of faith to prevent
the take over of the government by those who did not follow the
Christian faith. Many saw this a giant loophole that could lead to
the destruction of the new country. This was not done by
accident. The Constitution was a truly revolutionary document. It
was closer to the French idea of government and the
Enlightenment than people realize. While the French were active
in the destruction of Christianity, the new American plan was the
passive destruction of Christianity. In America, Christianity would
simply be replaced by a secular faith in man=s ability to mold his
future apart from any divine restrictions or sanctions.
The Constitution was the genius behind the new American
idea of government without a theological support. It would not be
based on divine sanctions but on the divinity of man. Man saw
himself liberated from a past that had unduly restricted his
potentialities. The Declaration of Independence, and the
Constitution were co-founders of a whole new concept of
government and man=s relationship to his leaders. It has been
stated that the leaders were good Christian men and would not do
anything so devious. The point is that they were the products of
their time. They lived in what was called Aexciting times@ and all
thinkers were caught up in the excitement. Just as good men
have supported vicious wars because of the excitement of the
times. Our founders were part of the Enlightenment age. The
Constitution and Declaration were products of the age in which
they were written. From a Christian perspective, good men with
good intentions, but bad theology, are the recipe for disaster.
This was the birth of the age in which we still live and are
experiencing the consequences of such documents to this day.
20
This was the start of secularism, and humanism as the new state
religion. To us these are perfectly natural. In that time, they
were revolutionary thoughts. And the implications were
staggering, as we are still finding out. The Constitution became
the Bible of the new government. It is treated with the same
reverence that would be given to the tablets of the Ten
Commandments, if we had them. Walking past the preserved
document, the crowd sees it as one of the shrines of our faith. It is
seen in a similar way the ten commandments are seen by
Christians. The commandments are the foundation of belief. So
are the documents of our founding.
This new secular order had the same hopes one would find in
other millennial beliefs. These are a new salvation and a new
heaven which the new government created by the founders would
bring forth. In similar fashion as ancient Israel after its founding,
fought to control the entire land of Palestine, so our new
government set its sights on conquering the land. This idea of
conquering a land given to them from God laid the groundwork for
so much of what was to follow. There was no idea of keeping the
nation confined to thirteen colonies on the Eastern edge of the
continent. Not only would the new secular faith be the religion of
the government, it would go out into all the world, and proclaim
the message of democracy. The Constitution and Declaration
were the founding of this new faith in man and his destiny.
The transformation of the Constitution to meet the needs of
the founders= vision is the reason for the ensuing struggles.
Some actually thought the founders were merely updating the
Articles of Confederation. When the new government started
flexing its muscle, there were those such as Jefferson who fought
to keep the millennial vision out of politics. The nation moved
from common law to individual rights. While respect for the
traditions of Western Civilization, and the Christianity that
supported it, was maintained by common law, the new rights were
to be maintained by the government. Despite the arguments to
the contrary, the new rights were something dispensed by the
government.
The very nature of society and social relationships were thus
being changed. It is important to remember that the founding
21
documents sowed the seeds of what was to follow later.
Whenever people start out with the best of intentions to create a
new social order, they soon find that the traditions of the elders
and of history are smarter than the new creators. Built into every
man-made social order are unintended consequences. No person,
no matter how well educated or wise, can build a social order. It is
impossible to see ten years into the future to see the
consequences of one=s decisions. It is also impossible to see the
seeds of destruction in the best laid plans: Every law created with
good intentions has a loophole that some will find. Every
revolution is soon caught up just plugging loopholes.
We have been taught to worship our founders. We have
been taught that the new form of government founded in
Philadelphia was the start of a new age upon earth. In time=s
past the government oppressed the masses. The common man
would be free of the archaic institutions of the past. Institutions
built up over the ages were no longer useful in the new industrial
world coming into being. The age of religious wars, that had
occupied mankind for 2000 years, would come to an end. There
would be a new government based upon reason and a
bureaucracy designed to function without prejudices or favor.
This was the world of our founders. There was a great excitement
for what man could now accomplish, with the new powers of
rational government.
Seeds do not always sprout immediately. It would take many
years and many crises to bring about the final conclusions that
had been set in motion. The common people were always told
that the Constitution was a sacred document that would guide
them into the future. But the real constitution would be man=s
faith to mold his fellow men, which was the spirit of the original
Constitution. That is why those who appeal to the words of the
original and original intent are missing the whole point. Our
nation has never been ruled by the original intent of the founders
and the words of some document. It has been ruled by the spirit
of the Enlightenment and man=s belief that the Age of Faith had
been eclipsed. The child of mankind had entered into a new age
and the documents were the demands of Man to be see free from
the chains of the past and from the superstitions of religion.
22
 Once the machinery was in place, the next stage is about to
be entered into. In textbooks there is talk of the dispute between
the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians. Despite the differences
between the schools of thought, one wanting a strong centralized
government and one wanting a decentralized form, the real issue
was over who would control the new powerful machinery that had
been put into place. Each side had a view of the world they
wanted to impose upon the age in which they lived. It is that
vision which both sides inherited that was the real conflict. The
new secular order was in place and all that was required were the
proper individuals to man the machinery. This fight carried on
until the Civil War when the group, though calling itself a different
name, representing the views of Hamilton won the conflict and
imposed their views upon the defeated South.
Thus, we have the birth of the first totally secular society.
The Bible had been replaced by the Constitution. The traditions of
Western Civilization had been replaced by the laws of the new
man. The vision of the Kingdom of God had been replaced by the
millennial views of the industrial revolution. Men were no longer
to work for their families and the gift of inheritance to leave them,
but were to work for the glory of the nation and the development
of a perfect social order. What started out as a revolt against
English rule had turned into a total war against the past. The
future was open to man and closed to God. There was nothing
hindering man=s returning to paradise. There would be resisters
and they must be dealt with accordingly. Part of the story of
America is the elimination of resisters of the new order and the
new vision.
Religion is basically hierarchal. The new society will be
classless. Equality would be the ruling myth. The secular society
must have a catechism. Whenever the controllers of the
machinery needed to make changes, they always referred to the
words of the Declaration of Independence. This was the new gun
to point at the masses to control them. While the masses in the
past would never openly criticize the priest and his teachings, no
one today wants to stand up and declare that democracy and the
founding documents are worse myths than the ones that were
thrown off. The chains that were so mild 200 years ago now bind
23
us to the realities of life. Just as Medieval man understood little of
his church, so the common man today understands very little
about his government and its philosophy. A few catch-phrases are
part of the bureaucratic order which rules them, very similar to
the church and its giant medieval order. The elites have changed,
but the common man remains in bondage to other men=s visions.

4 THE FIGHT FOR ENTITLEMENTS

The machinery and philosophy being in place, the stage was

now set for fight to see who would not only be in control, but for
who would benefit from the power of the new government.
Human nature being what it is, people seem to have an opinion
about how other people should act. The new United States
government may have been founded on idealism and ideas of
individual freedom, but the >freedom experience= was the
freedom to see whose vision of the new America would be
imposed upon the people. The Constitution set up a power
structure for the transforming of society. This opened the door for
two major problems: How does one get in control of the
mechanism, and how does one maintain control? During this
stage of the post-Constitution era, the patterns are being set for
the next two hundred years.
While the idealists of the American Revolution might have
thought they were creating something totally new in history,
events proved to be quite different. While the replacement
Constitution for the Articles of Confederation sought to plug some
of the weaknesses in the latter, the new central government with
its new found powers was a prize worth fighting for control.
George Washington may have wanted a government of elders
who belonged to no political party or beholding to no private
interest, such a dream died very quickly. It did not take long
before political parties and patronage became part of the
American scene that continues to this day. While the Articles had
a weakness in regard to collection of taxes7, the new Constitution
7 As time since then has revealed, the power to tax is also the power to make war. The
weakness of the Articles was revealed as America tried to carry on a war. The Articles were not
24
opened up another set of problems. The new order had both the
power and the money to attract just about anyone with an
visionary opinion, or a financial need.
The differences between the new governmental order of the
Republic and a Monarchy became quickly apparent. For one, a
king might set the goals and priorities for his kingdom. He may
choose good or bad goals depending upon his wisdom and
character. In a republic, the goals are all up for grabs. With every
election, in one sense of the word, there is a revolution. The party
that wins one election may lose the next, and with whole new
priorities imposed by the next party in control. This results in a
society based on a form of constant warfare. There is always a
fight going on for the next election. The war for votes becomes
the new battlefield. The common people become the prize.
Getting votes at any cost becomes the new military-like battle. It
did not take long for many to realize that the government that
had been ratified, brought along with it, a whole new set of
problems.
When the state controlled the churches, there was always a
fight for control of the church structure. England for a time went
back and forth between various forms of Protestant and Catholic
State Churches. Finally, with the Glorious Revolution of 1688,
England settled into a fairly stable form of State Church. The
history leading up to the American Revolution often saw states
fight each other to determine the nature of the state church. Our
founders surely thought by deregulating the church and freeing it
from government control they were solving a problem that had
plagued many generations. The problem was that just as the
church became free to pursue its own destiny in America, the
social and economic spheres took the place of the church. The
government in a sense became the new State Church.
Services that formally had been performed by the Church or
it agencies, were now being transferred to the government. The
separation of church and state was actually a separation of
services and the church. One church merely took the place of the
traditional church. A theology was required for the new religion.

designed to create a warmongering power.

25
This has been in the working over the last two hundred years.
From the earliest days, the lack of a national church resulted in a
certain amount of chaos until at least a minimal theology could be
worked out. The destiny of the United States became the new
nationalism. Citizens owned a loyalty to the newly founded
national government. Heresy became replaced by treason. One
of the first acts of the new government was the Alien and Sedition
Acts. Basically it was the power to launch an inquisition against
those who did not hold the current new theology in proper
respect.
One of the items of the laws allowed jail terms for those who
wrote, printed, or spoke
AFalse, scandalous, and malicious@ statements Aagainst the
government of the United States, or the President of the United
States, with intent to defame . . . or to bring them or either of
them, into contempt or disrepute.@ Fourteen Republicans, mostly
journalists, were prosecuted under the Sedition part of the acts.
Jedediah Peck was arrested for merely petitioning Congress to
repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts. One Republican went to jail for
statements made in a private letter. Matthew Lyon went to jail for
criticizing President Adams and referring to the actions of the
President as Aridiculous pomp.@ Much is made of the Church and
her petty rules, but when the government became a Church, it too
must act to protect its status.
As the new government became established as the new
dispenser of blessings, it attracted the same type of people that
had plagued the Church for centuries. Power and wealth are lures
for those seeking such items. The new government became a
magnet for those wishing to benefit from its decisions and from
those wishing to share in the new wealth. While the process was
being worked out in time, nevertheless, many saw the potential in
having a strong central government. Trying to buy votes in each
county or city was too expensive and there was always the
problem of having one=s desires thwarted by honest and ethical
politicians. With the nationalization of laws, it now became
possible to control the nation with just one law. Because of these
opportunities, from the very beginning there was immense
pressure to strengthen the national government over against the
26
local governments.
Two of the first battles were over federal employment and
internal improvements. While jobs were rather a low level of
graft, the demand for central government projects in one=s local
area became the real road to riches. Rather than build a canal,
have the central government build a canal in your home area with
the money collected from other states. At first, such internal
improvements were defeated because the Constitution only
allowed for projects that helped the nation as a whole and not
local areas. Persistence paid off and pork-barrel projects became
an established tradition. A nation that started out with great
intentions by some, quickly turned into a national battle for
federal money. The original goals were quickly lost to the more
important goals of becoming wealthy and powerful. This process
involved a grand deception: The local authorities thought they
were getting free money, but in fact, they were transferring their
local authority to the national government. Freedom was sold for
the price of a >new road.=
Another important road to wealth became the powers of the
federal government to regulate commerce. One Mississippi boat
operator had bought some new boats only to see one of his
competitors show up with even bigger boats. He quickly went to
Washington and attempted to have such boats outlawed as being
unsafeBa real concerned environmentalist! Rather than let the
market decide, or the local communities, the government now
became the source of laws to protect one=s business from
competition. Later the railroads would refine such influence to an
art. This will be detailed later, but the important thing to
remember is that the central government was almost immediately
perverted away from the idealistic goals which were taught to the
young in schools. One reason for the disorder is that Americans
were now free from the British. Whether for good or bad, British
laws were still laws that kept a certain amount of order.
With the creation of a new government, all traditions, all
British restraint, and all laws were thrown out and the United
States started with a clean slate. Only memories of pre-
Revolutionary times restrained some folk. But these memories
faded quickly. The new nation became a nation of unlimited
27
opportunities as the new freedom was also a new freedom from
laws and traditions. Enormous opportunities were now available.
America became a nation of restless people seeking wealth
without the restraining influences of a powerful church or ancient
traditions. Even the churches became caught up in the chaos.
Whole new theologies were written to attract the masses to the
new churches. Traditions and theologies were seen as restrictions
upon a minister=s rise to the top. The new churches became
patterned after the chaos of the business environment. Church
success became modeled after business: Money and numbers
became the measuring rod of a good church.
One of the most influential powers seeking to fight for control
during these early times was the international banking system.
Economics is not one of those subjects taught much in the United
States, or even thought much about. The fact that the type of
economics a nation practices has any consequences at all is a
surprise to many. I would be surprised if you could even get
many Americans to define what money is, except as something
they purchase something with at a store. But one of the problems
the founders had to struggle with is to decide what kind of money
the new nation would have. One thing they all agreed upon was
that, after their experience with the Continental paper
currency(which became almost worthlessB>not worth a
Continental=), money should be based on silver or gold coins.
Money for them was a piece of metal that had a certain value
whether it was used as exchange or not.
One of the early battles that our nation fought was to decide
on a banking system. There were those who felt that while banks
could be charted by the various governments, banks were still
private and the various market forces should apply to banks as
any other business. There were many types of currency in
circulation and just as international currencies have fluctuating
values today, so the various currencies had various values. A
piece of money in that time was like owning a stock certificate
today. If some entity over printed a particular currency, the value
would go down. A store might list the various values at the
counter. Some >dollars= were better than others and the price of
each was listed. It might sound like a bad system but it did have
28
its advantages. Good money, money that held its value, was
something a person could judge. And the consumer had a choice
of which type of money he would own. Today, money has been
replaced by legal tender. That is paper money that has no value,
but is required by law to be treated as money. A person at least
had a choice back then to refuse paper that was worthless or was
declining in value. No such choice exists today.
Eventually our nation settled on a national banking system
with one currency. One central bank was created off-and-on at
first until one became permanent in 1914 with the passage of the
Federal Reserve Act. After a time under such a system, all money
in circulation became borrowed money: Every paper dollar in
circulation was actually borrowed by the government for which it
owed interest. Gold and silver were driven out of circulation as
they had a real value unrelated to the mandated government set
value. The old law that bad money drives good money out of
circulation certainly applied in this case. When any government
engages in theft, people will hold on to real money and spend the
artificial money. It is amazing how knowledgeable the average
person is when economics is allowed to function in a private
market: They quickly learn what real money is.
What this means for our story is that just as people felt that
government and law were something that can be created by man,
people also came to believe that money is something man can
create. The founders felt that just creating a form on paper can
create a government. What many failed to realize is that it is a
character of a nation that makes any form of government work.
Immoral people lead to immoral government A form of
government is something that grows out of the living situation of
the character of a nation. A system that is imposed upon a nation
that does not reflect their overall character will only result in
problems. That can be seen in our early days as a nation. There
was constantly fighting over how the new system of government
was supposed to work. It is seen today as our government tries to
impose our constitution on foreign governments. It does not work.
The same thing happened with the founders in terms of
money. They sought to create a system that man could create
and control. Just as the constitution was imposed upon the
29
people, so the banking system and the money system were
imposed upon them also. That there was a reality, that somehow
existed apart of man=s ideas of what he wanted, that existed to
which man was accountable was not recognized. This is where
the Enlightenment is shown to have had its greatest impact upon
our founders. Man was confronted with a world that he could
create to his own liking just as God had created the world
originally. The founders, whether they realized it or not, were
taking upon themselves the powers that only belonged to a
Creator. To put god-like powers in man=s hands only results in
disaster.
The people followed in their founders= footsteps. They took
upon themselves the same god-like quest for unlimited power.
This act of creation modeled by the founders became the model
for the people. There developed in Americans a new ego centered
individualism. The continent became clay in everyone=s hands to
mold as they saw fit. Part of the reason for the Indian problems is
this desire to let nothing serve as a restriction upon unlimited
freedom. Rather than working out land sales, or the pursuit of
setting up Indian nations, the Indian was simply pushed out of the
way whenever he got it the way of someone=s plan. The damage
done to the land during these years was the same attitude
expressed toward the land as toward the animals or the Indian.
As everyone knows, a god is free to do as he wishes with no
restrictions. Reality is not something that a god encounters.
Religion and morality followed this same quest for cosmic
individualism. A new form of Christianity developed. The
churches changed to reflect this new-found power that man
claimed. One of the first areas this new found individualism
showed up was in the nature of revivals. The First Great
Awakening was seen for the most part as act of God. It caught
people by surprise and was not seen as an act of man, but as a
gift from God. Lives were changed dramatically and the impact of
people and communities was long lasting. In some cases almost
entire communities were converted. Afterwards, people felt that
there had been a visitation from God upon the community. The
results were lives based upon Biblical law, and a firm belief in the
absolute control of God over His creation.
30
 This all changed with the Second Great Awakening. Just as
the gifts of government became entitlements, so the gifts of God
were so also. Just as man could manipulate the government to
achieve certain goals, so men could now treat God. Just as
government was created by man, so the new church was seen as
a creation of man. The confidence of the founders to mold reality
was carried over into the lives of its citizens in their theology. Man
could now create churches to his own liking. Numerous
denominations sprouted up as every man felt he could create his
own style of church. Small towns seemed to have a church on
every corner and feuds between churches were common. Looking
back from the 21st century, people often make much of the fact
that the Jews, Catholics and Protestants did not speak to each
other. You have to realize the times in which they lived: Often
Baptists did not speak to each other.
It was an individualism that boarded on anarchy in spiritual
matters.
This same theology was carried over into the idea of the
revival. Charles Finney is a good example of the new
understanding of man and his relation to God. Finney felt that
with the proper set of rules, procedures, and psychological
techniques, any person could create a revival of interest in things
spiritual. He produced a handbook which could be used by
anyone to create a revival. Just as man could create a
government and a constitution to revolutionize a nation, so man
could now create the proper conditions for God to act. And results
did seem to happen. There were tremendous spiritual
movements of emotion. The camp meeting revival service was
created. People would ride and walk for miles to be part of a week
long series of messages. There would often be several preachers
all preaching at the same time in large fields. It was an intense
time and many broke down under the pressure and made spiritual
professions.
Those that had experiences were often just that. The new
techniques used enabled preachers to manipulate people into
extreme emotional turmoil. Those that developed certain
psychological symptoms were said to be converted. Many had no
idea of what had happened to them. It was similar to someone
31
putting a drug in their drink and passing out. There was little
Biblical understanding of what conversion was. People left
exhausted, but no different than when they arrived. But it did
create an excitement and churches were built. These churches
were not the ones that had existed during the previous
awakening. The church became a meeting house and the day of
rest became a time of picnicking and games and dancing. The
early American church was a society for individuals to come
together and celebrate the American way of life and a
commitment to the power of men to create a world to their own
liking.
These trends in church and government led to two different
results in the long term. As individualism spread throughout
society, people could no longer depend on each other for help.
There was an intermediary time when volunteer societies tried to
fill the void left by the collapse of the communal caring town. This
was short lived. As social anarchy spread through American
society, the central government became the new source of the
blessings that people formerly found in the local community or
church. The social anarchy did not lead to any centralization of
the church. The church continued to become more fragmented
and eventually became little more than one of those fake radiator
caps cars used to have as a symbol of the day that cars did have
real and fancy radiator caps.
While the seeds of thought were merely being sown in these
early times, they worked themselves out to their logical
conclusions. The power of man to create his own world lead to
radical individualism. This led to man=s independence from each
other. As men became separated, they were no longer their
brother=s keeper. The family stepped in for a short, stop-gap
solution, but in time the individualism had its effect on this
institution also. Eventually, all men were now alone in their claim
to be the sole creators of their own destiny. This belief works for a
few, but for most it is total insecurity. Into this vacuum the central
government gradually moved. The central government began its
political journey to supply the needs of every lonely individual.
What started out as a movement to make all men free to be
themselves and to create a world to their own liking, was now a
32
world where all were free in those areas the central government
did not have restrictions. The new freedom was the property of
the central government who alone could create the new reality
and dispense out restricted freedoms.

5 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF THE NEW AMERICAN

CIVILIZATION

After a revolution, everything is up for grabs. At times, the

effects of the revolution have been down played. There is created
a false continuity in governments. New constitutions were set up,
but there appeared on the surface to be a continuity with the
past. This is seen in the American Revolution. The same people
were in charge after the revolution that were in charge of the local
governments before the revolution. Not only was there a sense of
being set free from England, there was a feeling of being set free
from one=s past. It was like everyone was given a blank sheet of
paper and told to write their life history on it. Everyone could
start over. There was an exhilarating feeling of no longer being
tied to English and European traditions. But a society cannot live
without traditions, so new traditions would have to be created.
Into this vacuum, everyone seemed to have a plan and a
solution. The social agenda that was worked out during the period
from the Revolution to the Civil War is still with us. The problems
that were pushed into social visibility then, are still the most
important problems we are still struggling with today. How can
problems last for two hundred years? Why haven=t the problems
been solved? The reasons will become more clear later, but the
basic reason is that the Revolution planted the seeds for the end
of Western Civilization. With the rejection of our English heritage,
there was a rejection of English civilization: English civilization was
Western Civilization. The fact that a continuity with the past has
been emphasized has hidden from men=s eyes the actual historic
changes the American Revolution caused. It was truly as the
saying goes, a new order of the ages.
Civilizations are not created by a piece of paper. The new
Constitution did not create a civilization. It created the
33
mechanisms for creating a new order but left undefined what that
new order would be. Everyone was now free to impose their views
on the new society. The fight was now on to be the one who could
impose his views on the machinery of government and the new
social order. It is very similar to watching children play a game
of football where no one kid knows the rules. The rules are
worked out as the game is being played. Obviously it will not
always be a reasoned discussion. Power will be more important at
determining the rules than any reasoned discussion. The same
thing happened when the social order was thrown open to all, with
no rules firmly established. The fight was on.
One reason for the confusion is that the fundamentals of a
civilization are never discussed. Popular opinion sees the fight
over the details, but often is unaware of the fundamentals that
must be established before the details are filled in. The unspoken
assumptions are just that, unspoken. This results in a lack of
understanding in what actually the fights are over. Two hundred
years of fights without realizing that without an agreement upon
the fundamentals of a culture, no final conclusions can ever be
agreed upon. One of the facts of life is that contradictory
assumptions cannot be held at the same time. The result will be a
continuous conflict for victory. A society must agree upon its
cultural assumptions before any agreement can be reached upon
the details of everyday life.
Every civilization has an agreed upon hierarchy. If people do
not realize this, they will often talk about equality as if it could be
one of society=s assumptions. Equality is an impossible goal. If
equality is seen as an assumption, then there will be constant
warfare over who is more equal than someone else. By starting
with an impossible assumption, there can never be a solution.
You can argue for two hundred years and never arrive at a
solution, as the history of the United States testifies. Because we
have never settled the first issue of what type of hierarchy to
accept, we continue to struggle. There will always be differences.
There will always be some in leadership positions and some who
follow. There will always be some better off than others. Our
civilization allows this, but does not accept it. There are always
some who complain about the circumstances, and there will
34
always be some who offer a solution.
The issues that were already on the minds of people during
this period were some of the following: Race, charity, federalism,
land use, civil religion, secret associations, cults, sexism,
subsidies, and money. All of these issues and more were
important, but they are the superficial problems that result when
a civilization is under attack or is undergoing change. The real
fight is over fundamentals. The fights that developed in the early
years were really over the fundamentals that are involved in the
making of a civilization. The following areas are where fights
develop when there is uncertainty in a culture:

(1) Who is the king? No society can exist without one.

Someone has to be the one who
makes the final decision. The Constitution actually set up several
kings in its new order. There was a continual struggle between
the various centers of power to see who would be king in the
United States. Not only were there the three branches of the
federal government, the states also claimed sovereignty. Add to
this the people who thought that the Avoice of the people is the
voice of God.@ Thus, there was an internal fight over the source
of authority. In Western Civilization, the God of Christianity was
the true king. The individual kings in each nation were seen as
being sovereign in the nation, but still under the commands of
God and the Bible. The king could be held accountable to a higher
law.
There are some who think that a democracy has no king.
That is why this area has been such a problem. Because the
Constitution acknowledges no final source of sovereignty, the
fights that have resulted have been fought over secondary issues.
A solution has never been found because of the unwillingness to
face the necessity of naming the king of the United States.
The Bible in the book of Genesis states that the very first sin of
mankind was the desire to make himself the king of creation.
Western Civilization realized this temptation and sought to find
ways to keep people from making themselves part of the
godhead. There has been a relationship proclaimed that
separates man from God. God created the world the world out of
35
nothing. He is separate from his creation. There is no continuity
that connects man to God. God is not man taken to perfection.
Man can never escape creation.
The power in this concept has been a great part of Western
Civilization. First of all, there was now no fight to see who will be
God. That issue had been settled. Every other power is in some
way subordinate to the God of Christianity and the Bible. Man is
not free to create his own world and his own power. Power and
authority are limited. When any authority exercises power
beyond its area of authority, the people have been able to hold
such a person accountable. With the development of our
Constitution, the ultimate authority was left open for discussion.
The result was a power struggle with those involved, not always
realizing what the fight was about. The early years thus witness
to this power vacuum. There was a constant battle and no
solution seemed to be possible. To this day, no king has been
declared in the American solution and its attack on Western
Civilization.
(2) How do I stand in relation to my fellow man? One of the
problems of a society that believes in myths is that problems are
created and no one knows why. The myth that creates problems
for the second stage of civilization is the social acceptance of the
total equality of everyone. It does not take much thought to know
that not only are persons not equal, there is just no way to make
people equal. Nevertheless, in our society we have one of our
primary goals is to create the feelings of total equality. Wherever
socially unacceptable inequalities are found, an all out effort is
made to solve this embarrassing problem. But, how do you make
a short man and a tall man equal? That is problem facing a
society that does not acknowledge differences. And it must
acknowledge that for many differences, there is no solution.
Every true system of civilization must acknowledge
differences, and have a philosophy that justifies any inequalities
that arise. Unless this problem is solved, no civilization can arise.
There will be constant strife and resentment, and the society will
experience a loss of creative energy as so much time and effort
are required to hold the society together. There is a natural
hierarchy of individuals depending upon the values and skills a
36
society requires for the preservation of its ideals. Our national
ideals of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence
have been taken to mean that everyone is equal. We have spent
our entire two hundred year plus existence pursuing this goal. It
is still a problem. That should be an obvious tip off that something
is terribly wrong.
Everyone who goes to school, works with a business,
encounters the government, belongs to the military, union, or
family knows that there is a hierarchy. From youth everyone has
been exposed to the goals that the central government proclaims
to achieve equality. It is impossible to hold two contradictory
beliefs at the same time without the loss of psychic energy. It
takes a lot of creative energy out of a person and a society to hold
two opposing views together. A person in our society who is
awake to what is going on is going to ask himself some very
embarrassing questions: Why is this person over me? Why should
I obey his orders? What makes his opinion better than mine?
Whose fault is it that equality does not exist? While most ignore
these questions, for two hundred years people have been asking
these questions.
For those individuals asking these questions, there are two
possibilities. One, that our society is not measuring up to its ideal.
Something has to be done to bring our ideals closer to reality. The
solution offered by this first group is usually a political one.
Government must intervene to bring about the goals of equality
we are all striving for in our lives. Two, that I and others are not
measuring up to the ideal. There is something wrong with me
that has prevented from achieving the positions and status that
others have achieved. Whether it is my own fault or the fault of
those who raised me, the solution must be in some form of
teaching or counseling. The new forms of therapy, counseling,
and new age religions are attempts to answer the second
question.
There is a constant battle between the needs of a society
and a philosophy of a society. Each successful civilization must
come to grips with these conflicts. For those who fall short of the
ideal, the successful civilization will provide a justification for the
separation of the ideals and reality. First, people can be told that
37
while their lives do not reflect the ideal, the new civilization
involves the striving for goals, and that is what the good life is
aboutBthe striving for some ideal. Second, people can be offered
a civil religion which promises them that while the ideals are not
present in this world, there is a new world after death where each
person will attain those ideals. Third, people can be told that all of
their struggles are working toward the founding of a great society
or a war to end all wars. Each person is called upon to struggle to
achieve the society of the future. And fourth, the people can be
offered enough pleasures that the lack of fulfillment does not
really matter. Sensuous pleasures can make up for many lost
ideals.
As American Civilization struggles to replace Western
Civilization, two possible solutions are appearing on the scene to
solve the problem of hierarchy. One, there are new religions
appearing on the scene which talk of a mystical oneness. There is
equality as each person is joined into a cosmic whole. The
differences between people are only superficial. In the really
important areas we are all equal. The differences can be
explained by different effects of some king of karma, or of
different orders of reincarnation. There is a possible return to
some form of a caste system as found in India and other Eastern
religions. There are elite rulers or enlightened ones who have
been ordained by some cosmic force to rule while the crowd works
out their salvation. But the cosmic oneness is greater than any
visual and earthly differences.
Two, there is a new equality of the right of all to enjoy
pleasure. While there are social inequalities, each person in
America has the right to experience just as much pleasure as
anyone else. We are all equal when it comes to bodily pleasures.
Even the poorest person can experience sensual and sexual
pleasures. The new American Civilization is organized around
seeing to it that as many people have as many pleasures as
possible. The government=s job is to free people from struggles
and life=s uncertainties, so that all are free to purse the American
pleasure dream. If a person keeps the above issue in mind, it
serves to explain why the government is striving to achieve a very
expensive and very divisive strategy of providing as much security
38
to as many as possible. If people feel they are experiencing the
gifts of American Civilization they are much less likely to call for
unauthorized change, i.e. revolution.
And third, there is a great portrayal of American Civilization
as the voice of the people.
Pure democracy is the religion of American Civilization. Voting is a
portrayed on a similar level as the Catholic mass. The very
participation in the voting process makes one part of the greatest
social achievement in the history of the world. Every two years
the people of America are made to experience the blessings of
being in charge of their government. Minor differences between
the parties are portrayed as deep differences that involve the fate
of the American Civilization. A false form of group participation is
used to create the illusion of equality through democracy. Each
citizen has only one vote and equality is achieved through
democratic voting. That is why there has been so much effort in
enlarging the electorate over the past two hundred years.
In business, group dynamics are used to make each
employee feel as if he were in charge of his own working life. The
employee is told that he is now empowered over his working life
within the goals of the business. The goal is to create the illusion
in the employee=s mind that he is in charge of his working
destiny. The same process is used in the new democratic order.
The world is pictured as leaderless. Each person is in charge of
his own local sphere, and all of these local spheres working
together create the leadership society needs. Any hierarchy one
experiences, is merely the result of democracy working to achieve
total decentralization. Just as the Communists talked of
eventually ending the dictatorship of the proletariat, so Americans
feel we are eventually working toward status free society. Any
perceived problems are viewed only as transitional pains as a new
civilization is being born.

(3) What are the rules we all must follow? No civilization is

possible without an agreed upon set of rules. These rules must be
so obvious that to disagree with them makes one appear insane.
Also, there must be an agreed upon system of enforcing these
rules. And finally, any minor adjustments must be done according
39
to some pre-established, agreed upon system. Up until the
Renaissance, Western Civilization was based upon the Ten
Commandments. There followed a several hundred-year struggle
between to desire to remake and conquer the world and the Ten
Commandments. No new system was in place. There were many
options. But for three hundred years there were constant
conflicts. There were many options open to the future. Everyone
living at these times was aware that something was happening.
Civilizations do not die all at once. All of those who make a
living or are in some way are supported by the old ways are going
to hold on to the old. This is normal to all functioning systems.
When a civilization fails to adapt to changing conditions, it will be
challenged from the outside. Those who are not involved in the
old, but see opportunities in new ways of doing things will fight for
changes. These changes will often occur randomly as many are
seeking ways to profit from the changing conditions. To an
outsider, it will appear as a time of chaos. To those on the inside,
it will be seen as a challenge to their view of reality. To those on
the outside, the chaos will be a time of opportunity.
During this time of chaos, several law systems were fighting
for the control of a new civilization. The first one was a scientific
view of life. This was the beginning of the view that science could
discover the laws of life. Through trial and error and using the
laws of discovery, man could find the best laws for every situation
in life. The government could then apply these laws and
transform society into the utopia that every man desires. Through
technological development science was showing how, with the
proper techniques, nature could be conquered. Because man was
now considered part of nature, he also could be studied. The laws
of nature could be used to control man and transform him into the
saint that religions had tried but not succeeded into doing.
A second view of law was the new understanding of
government=s power to control all aspects of life. In previous
times, life was decentralized. There were many forms of
government. The family, school, union or guild, business,
community, and church were all considered forms of government.
The problem was that they were often at cross purposes. Through
the study of society and the uses of an efficient bureaucracy, new
40
laws, it was thought, could be discovered and enforced. And bring
an end to conflicting laws and warring factions. It was not
enough to know the laws of society, a system must be available to
carry through the discoveries. The new use of centralized power
to change man could be used to deliver man from his past sins
and lead him into a blissful future.
A third view of law was magical. It sees man as a mystical
creature who has powers to control those around him. There were
seen invisible psychic laws which existed in the spirit world or
were part of man=s brain which could be used to change the
world. Man becomes MAN the god who now can control the
universe through magical powers that were lost in some golden
age in the past. This view in earlier times was confined to the
Eastern world, but it gradually spread throughout the world, and it
was seen as the true religion for the modern world. Ralph Waldo
Emerson believed in a world spirit that gives insight and power to
mankind. He saw a revolution in the making in man=s separation
from Christianity and gaining a new understanding of his long lost
powers.
A fourth view of a law system saw law as gradually evolving.
Law was not absolute. If it was treated as an absolute, it would
soon become obsolete. Such things as the absolutes of the Ten
Commandments, Constitutions, or legislative acts must constantly
change as the earth progresses in time. Just as the dinosaurs
could not adapt to the changing climate, so man will die off if he
cannot adapt to the changing conditions of life. Any human
system such as religion that tries to inhibit change or inhibit
man=s powers must be opposed. Change is the only absolute.
This fourth view sees laws as something man creates, and is good
only until a new law is needed to answer the new conditions of life.
The United States was founded in the midst of a search for a
new civilization to replace Western Civilization. A vacuum was
created with the new Constitution. The new world was opened up
for grabs as different law systems fought for control. Any
governing system to be legitimate must be based upon some law
system, otherwise there will be constant civil war. What ended in
the Civil War was actually one of the final battles in establishing a
new law system in place. With the defeat of the South, the final
41
blow was given to a system based upon the Ten Commandments.
The road was now cleared for what should be called the age of
American Civilization and World Empire. For nearly one hundred
years, the whole world wanted to be part of this new system.
Since September 11, 2001, it appears that the world will accept
the new world system only by force, by a tremendous economic
and military force.

(4) Who is going to make me follow the new rules? Any

system must have a way of enforcing its laws. This must be done
efficiently or the entire strength of the government will be used
just to maintain power and control. If a way cannot be made to
preserve the rules of a civilization, it will die. That is why
civilizations in the past have decayed and died. By the time most
came to an end, nobody really cared about the former rules or the
former civilization. In the transition period, attempts were often
made to enforce the old rules, but no amount of force can keep
alive a system no one believes in anymore. Thus the new
American Civilization must not only make sure all follow the new
rules, they must also make sure that people want to follow the
rules. The state and the civilization that it represents must have
two monopolies in order to survive: It must control the use of
force; and it must control education, and the mediaBwhich is
really nothing but education (propaganda) outside the classroom.
In addition, while the new civilization may not yet have a
monopoly on benefits, it is vital that the new civilization be seen
as a source of wealth and power. While people will tend to avoid
the pain of punishment, nothing motivates a person like a large
reward for obedience. To those who think that civilizations are
about ideas and that people follow nations and civilizations
because of the beauty of its ideals, they are truly misled. Even a
bad civilization such as the Communist Empire can remain in
control as long as it controls the benefits of society. It lost control
of its empire, not because people stopped believing in its ideals,
but because it could no longer deliver the goods to those in power
and their supporters. Civilizations are not about some grand ideas
which inspire people to follow leaders. That maybe sounds nice in
the textbooks. Reality is always different.
42
 Every major civilization up until the start of the American
Civilization has used a religion to back of its power to enforce its
codes. Behind the laws and their enforcement is the ultimate
enforcement, the power to influence where one spends eternity.
This has always been the back up system for control. People may
not like a government, but if God or a god is on the side of the
rulers, then to disobey is to sin against the powers that control
eternity. This is and has always been the biggest crime stopper
possible. The great American experiment is to throw out any
reliance upon a religion or a god. The American Civilization is
going to stand on its ability to deliver on its promises of the
American way of life. The Communists attempted to create a
civilization based on atheism. Its short existence testifies that
maybe that is not possible. The American version of atheism is to
create a secular religion to replace the Christianity of Western
Civilization.
This new civilization is trying to become the first civilization
to succeed without a national faith beyond a civil faith. With its
emphasis on multi-culturalism and multi-faiths there is no one
national church beyond the state and its view of life. Even now
this system appears to be showing signs of weakness. Public
faiths do not motivate people to serve the nation or its attempt to
start a worldwide civilization. One thing we will notice, is that over
the last two hundred years there have been numerous attempts
to fill this vacuum. All have failed. Right now there is concern
that this one major flaw may bring down the American Civilization
and its march to world dominance. The faith of the Arabs in their
religion appears to be a rival that can deliver the goods with its
near monopoly on oil. And while the American Civilization is a
land without a faith, the Catholic Church is a faith without a land.
It too seeks to dominate the world, and it is proving more resilient
than anticipated. This may be one reason the Catholic Church is
now under such intense attacks.
Many of the issues that will be discussed must be seen in this
context. There is an attempt to enforce the new rules on the
people of the United States. There is resistance from those who
have not gotten the message. Many still feel that the Ten
Commandments are still in force and the Christianity is still the
43
religion of America. Because there has been no direct attack on
the forces of Christianity, these illusions have continued. There
has been every attempt to marginalize Christianity and its faithful,
without actually letting them in on the secret: American
civilization wants nothing to do with Christians and their laws. At
this time there is a current malaise in America as it struggles to
find a new faith to inspire its enforcement of its message onto its
citizens. Eventually, there will have to be a showdown between
American Civilization and the remains of Western Civilization, its
laws, and Christian faith.

(5) Why is American Civilization the answer to the world=s

needs? Every civilization needs a message than motivates people
to pass on a better world to their kids. When civilizations decline,
it is because people have lost faith in the system to supply a
future world that they want their kids to live in. The very nature of
the family is that the husband and wife orient a large part of their
efforts to their kids and their lives. Communism tried
unsuccessfully to eliminate the family with its introduction of the
commune system. It was a total failure. The American system
has tried to expand the meaning of the word Afamily@ so that it
includes just about any kind of relationship. If the family cannot
be eliminated, then every thing must be turned into a family. It is
common to hear of a business family, a team of athletes as being
a family, and even a street gang as being a family. The loyalty
formerly shown towards one=s children is being transferred to
society as a whole.
The great new family being promoted is part of American
Civilization and its desire for world wide acceptance, is the idea
that we are all part of the family of mankind. We are all one
despite being different races, nationalities, religions, or sexual
orientation. The world is the new village. We are all connected by
the internet into one small village. In times past it may have been
common not to know people who lived twenty miles away. People
now travel to and from all parts of the globe.8 Our world today is
8 In my childhood during the fifties, a town only seven miles away, was a long distant
telephone call, and it was not cheap. Today, cell phones have no long distant charges across the
lower forty-eight states, and the internet is international in its scope.
44
no bigger than two villages separated by a river or desert were in
times past. The mission of American Civilization is to inspire this
global oneness and the desire for world peace and an economy
that knows no depressions or shortages. The message must go
out that the world is on the verge of destroying itself through
wars, over-population, pollution, sectionalism, and shortages of
life=s necessities. The new international state is the only hope for
the future. One=s desires are fulfilled in the success of the new
worldwide family.
While the concept of utopia seems a bit out of date, this is
what individuals really do want. Any belief that offers less than
that will be a short term fad. The American Civilization has been
called by some the New World Order. Whatever it is called, it talks
about science and psychology and economics all working together
to bring about the hopes of all mankind. Disease and hunger will
be no more. Wars will cease. There will be an integrated earth
with the new science of total quality management. The age of
laissez faire is over. The times when people could go about their
affairs without concern about its impact on others is over. The
time has come when mankind will be one, and no one will be a
slave to another person, to poverty, or to some political system.
Everyone on earth will be free to pursue personal pleasure and
fulfillment inside a system that provides for every need. There will
be no more worry or care, but only the freeing of each person to
do whatever he thinks best and provides personal pleasure.

It will now seem more obvious why the issues being

discussed are so important. From the very start there was a
vision of a new world and a new civilization. The extent of the
revolution was still cloudy in people=s minds, but there was a
sense of the direction that needed to be taken. Western
Civilization looked to the Ten Commandments and the common
law based upon those commandments to settle new issues that
needed solution. The rise of a non-Christian secular civilization
required the re-thinking of all issues. Former solutions were not
solutions in the new world. Every thing was up for a great power
grab. The problem was to find a new basis for solving problems.
There would be no looking back to past solutions as a reference
45
guide.
There were several answers. At this time in America there
were many new religions and utopian movements. There was a
new faith in the power of science. There was a faith in the power
of democracy. And there was a faith in the new constitutional
forms that resulted from the founding of America. But whatever
the faith, there were opportunities for money and adventure. This
became part of the American solution to problems. Many
problems could be solved just by moving a few miles down the
road. While a few sought solutions in the first part of the
nineteenth century, there was no great national need until people
felt that the wilderness was closed. But in the meantime, many
were not only fighting for a solution, but were fighting over which
method to be used in finding a solution.
Looking back from today=s perspective, it is often surprising
to find the same issues being discussed today being discussed
from the founding of America until the start of the civil war. The
race issue was an issue not just of slavery, but also of the Indian
issue. Both problems could not be discussed in terms of how
Western Civilization had solved these issues in the past. New
solutions were being sought in terms of the new American way of
thinking. The start of women=s liberation was during this time.
Prison reform was an issue. The role of the states in the new
federal system had not yet been worked out and still has not. The
immigration problem was huge as cities wondered what to do with
hordes of non-English speaking peoples headed for the new world.
The role of charities and the role of government in helping people
was an issue. The first attempts at regulating industry were
sought. With the recent election of the Presidency decided by the
Supreme Court, it is not surprising to find a fight over the proper
jurisdiction of the court. The role of private and public schools was
being fought.
During these formative years, a new version of Christianity
was also being sought. The old Calvinism that had settled in the
American colonies was no longer seen as fit for the new
progressive era being launched. Mankind needed a new vision to
inspire a new civilization. Calvinism was definitely Western
Civilization. It=s view of society ordered by divine law did not
46
apply to those who sought to shape the New World according to
man=s needs and desires. Law made by God was seen as a
restriction. The new system needed a view of law as made by
man, for man, and under man=s control. There would be no
restrictions in the fight to tame the continent from Sea to Shining
Sea. Calvinism was seen as a restriction. It had to go.
A replacement had to be found. Actually two replacements
were found. One was a halfway theology for those who wanted to
still call themselves evangelical Christians, and one was a new
theology that would serve to found a new civil religion. The
system for the Christians was the Arminian theology associated
with the Second Great Awakening and the work of Charles Finney.
The First Great Awakening was associated with Calvinists Jonathan
Edwards and George Whitefield. The revival was seen as a work
of God and was an act of grace. It was nothing man could create
or use techniques to make happen. Man could only be obedient to
the Word of God and preach it. The results of preaching were
totally in God=s hands.
The Second Great Awakening as exemplified by Finney was a
totally different thing. It was something man could create though
the use of proper techniques. Finney=s theology of revivals was a
tribute to the new power of man and it fit right in with the average
American=s belief about his place in the universe and in the
American wilderness. Essentially, man could create what in the
past had been attributed to the work of God. It was a great
transfer of power. Man was not only now in charge of a new
continent, he was also in charge of the destiny of his own soul.
This created a new enthusiasm for the Christian faith. The
theology of Finney spread across the frontier and virtually
eliminated Calvinism, except in the Old South.
The second new belief was the theology of Ralph Waldo
Emerson. It was a combination of Deism, Transcendentalism,
Unitarianism, and Eastern Mysticism. Depending upon the person
speaking, there were elements of all of these in the new American
Civil Religion. One of the first items to change came with the
Revolutionary War. With the defeat of the King of England,
America could no longer tolerate having a God who called Himself
a King. Deism transferred the Kingdom of God to some far-off
47
domain that was no longer in touch with the average man=s life.
Deism saw man as being basically good, and while imperfect, man
could be perfected, and this perfection could be applied to society.
Basically man could transform himself and world into a heaven on
earth.
The new theology needed a foundation for its new beliefs.
Nature became the source of this new power. Nature became a
god that dwells inside of each man. Man could peer inside
himself, and discover his powers and all that he needed to rule the
world. Truth was something that each man could find within his
inner being. This new theology fit in with the new democratic
voice of the people. After all, if God was within each of us, then
the voice of the people really is the voice of God. For persons like
Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, all of Western Civilization had to
be reinterpreted by using the new tools of Transcendentalism.
One of the odd combinations, that resulted from these beliefs in
the power of man, was the belief also in a strong central
government. Because man was now in charge of the universe, he
could take his new powers and use them in a government to
speed up the natural evolution of mankind. The power of a strong
government to direct men was seen as a new power of man,
elevating the MAN to the divine.
The seeds of attack on the old thoughts about government
were sown in this new theology early on in American history.
Power was to be transferred to the Federal Government from the
states. Property rights were to decline in favor of generic human
rights. Reform became one of the functions of government.
Ruling society to maintain order was no longer the role of
government. It was to be an agent of change. All elites, except
themselves, were seen as enemies of the people and their hope
for a better world. While Western Civilization had power
ultimately in God=s hands, the final authority was now in man=s
hands. A source was eventually found in the Supreme Court as
the final arbitrator of man=s truth. While democracy was the
ruling label, the new powers of man were to be located in
institutions which had taken over powers delegated to them from
man. Of course, once delegated, such powers were never to be
returned.
48
 One of the truly amazing facts about this whole
transformation is how little Christian opposition was encountered.
There were some attempts to take back the control being given
over to the new religion and the new government, but most
Americans went about their lives with very little awareness of
what was actually happening to them. There was a two-hundred
year- long campaign to defeat Christianity and Western
Civilization, and yet very few seemed to sense the great
importance of what was actually happening. Each skirmish was
dealt with as a separate battle with no connection to some greater
battle. A whole new way of thinking was taking over America, and
while this was happening, no consistent opposition was apparent.
Churches fought each other and maybe tried to hold onto political
powers that they once had, but even when they won a battle, the
war continued to go against them. The battles over such things as
alcohol and abortion were fought by churches without
understanding the larger picture and the real war that was taking
place.

One of the first signs that the government was a lot different
than the one adopted by the people was displayed during the
Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. While many thought they were
fighting, during the Revolution, for local control over their affairs,
many in Pennsylvania were soon to discover that the new central
government had no qualms about sending a huge force of men
against its own people. While during the Revolution, George
Washington commanded a force of about seven to nine thousand,
he used between fourteen and seventeen thousand troops to send
a message to those who opposed the whiskey tax on the frontier.
While the war was largely symbolic with very few casualties, the
message was given about the new powers in the central
government. Force would be used to subdue the citizens of this
new nation founded on the principle that people had a right to
rebel against tyranny. It did not take long for some to think that
the people had rebelled against one tyranny only to be subjected
to another one closer to home.
This is a rather minor event but almost every American
history book includes the event. I have two multi-volume U.S.
49
History sets, and both include three pages on this event. I think
the reason it is repeated over and over is that this event
symbolizes more than the actual event itself.
Just as certain movies are watched over and over because they
strike a chord within ourselves, so this event strikes a chord in the
history of our government. Just as the five laws of civilization
confirm a new civilization, these same five laws apply to the
founding of a new government. The five laws were used in
ancient times to denote a peace treaty or a new covenant
relationship. It is interesting that one can find the five laws in the
suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion.
After the Constitution there was a time when people
disagreed as to its real meaning. There was immense
disagreement as to the original intent even from these early
times. The new government was able to use the Whiskey
Rebellion to establish a new covenant relationship between the
central government and its people. When the farmers on the
frontier rebelled against the new tax, this was a question of AWho
is the new King? The local versus national relationship had not yet
been established. Immediately, the new government established
the answer to the question. The central government is the new
king. The second question is one of establishing the proper
relationships. Are the local and central governments equal or is
there a hierarchy? Washington wanted everyone to know that the
central government rules over any local governments.
The third question is one of law. Who establishes the rules?
It is interesting that this issue is a tax on whisky as opposed to
tea. Very similar to the Boston Tea Party rebellion. The colonists
rebelled against the right of Parliament to tax the colonies
directly. The new rebellion was also about a direct tax on the
people, excluding intermediary powers of government. The new
government declared the right to set the laws and establish the
order of society. The fourth question asks, Who is going to make
me do it? This was quickly answered with an immense show of
force. A force commanded by the President, himself, George
Washington. And the final question asks, AWhy is this relationship
being established?@ It appears that George Washington is
claiming a continuity with the former powers shown by the British
50
and their rule over America. The new Constitution did not really
establish some new form of government, it merely transferred the
power from London to the Capitol of the United States. Blessings
that used to flow from England, now flowed from the government
of George Washington.
Was this a conscious act? That is hard to say. But it shows
how every government must answer the five questions. Into the
power vacuum of the post-revolutionary era, there was the
necessity to answer these questions. It took very little time for
the answers to be forthcoming. As we study government, it is
vital to remember these five questions and to see how each
government and each generation seeks to answer those
questions. These questions are rarely explicitly confronted, but
these are the questions the talking-heads of television should be
openly debating. When these questions are answered honestly,
then the people of a nation will understand what form of
government they really have. Throw out the labels of democracy
or dictatorship, and just answer these five questions.

6 THE FIGHT FOR THE CONTROL OF THE SOCIAL

AGENDA

Changes are best brought about through an indirect method.

Frontal attacks wake up opposition and alert people that their
world is under attack. The best way to change the foundations of
a society is to first change the agenda that the foundations imply.
From the very first, after the Revolution, a new order of events
was subjected to the old America. Americans saw themselves
fighting over issues that were never issues until the Constitution
had opened the doors to a new world view. The old order had
passed away and everything was opened up to the possibility of
change. America was a new land with no visible aristocracy, so
anyone could work for change. In a sense, all in the new nation
were part of the new aristocracy of being free and equal. All could
appeal for changes and for special privileges from the
government.
This is one of the areas that made the new nation exciting.
51
In old Europe one might have to appeal to the king or one of his
civil servants or some aristocrat to obtain a favor. Now in
America, one could go directly to the governor, himself. It is very
similar to the difference between the theologies of Protestantism
and Catholicism. In Catholicism one must go through a hierarchy
to obtain something from the Church. In Protestantism one could
go directly to God. This influence of the early Calvinism was still
alive in America. Their theology had changed from Calvinism, but
some of the political implications of Calvinism were still alive in
the minds of the people. In the similar way, in the Catholic
Church, one served the Church. In Protestantism, the Church
served the member. So in America, the government was
expected to be a servant of the people.
The consequence of such a Protestant political philosophy led
to individuals who looked upon the new government as something
they could manipulate to do their work for them. The early
Americans treated their rulers and their governors similarly as
people who were servants of their constituency. And any servant
who did not do a proper job doing the bidding of his people was
quickly voted out of his church or his office. Theology and politics
were purely democratic. It is interesting to note, that as famous
Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan minister is in our day, he was voted
out of his local church. If he were an Anglican or a Catholic priest,
that action would have been an impossibility.
As a consequence of all of this, the new American system of
government became centered on issues. Every shortcoming or
fault in society was seen as a problem for some level of
government to solve. America was caught up in a slew of issues
and groups organized to spur the new government into taking
appropriate action. In one sense, America had been transformed
into a society on the move. There was the potential for
continuous revolution. Every election a whole new agenda could
be imposed upon the ruling bodies. In one way this made the
government fairly unstable. One administration could approve a
national banking system and a later one could destroy it. This
made the government highly adaptive to change, but it also made
it difficult for people to plan years ahead for business or in any
activity, for that matter, connected with the government.
52
 As our government and its people became a nation of issue
framers, there were consequences. One of the biggest is that
people lost an interest in debating the philosophical issues of
government and the nature of having a religious theology. Now
no one acts without a theology or philosophy. But if one is not
aware of this, one merely acts out an invisible theology. Thus the
new America worked out its destiny with what can only be called a
mixture of Enlightenment and Catholic Theology. This may
surprise some because of our heritage from England. First of all,
many Frenchmen served in the Continental Army. Such men as
the devout Catholic Carrol family of Maryland had more influence
than given credit, and Lafayette and other Frenchmen brought
with them their French philosophies. Thomas Paine=s books
served to spread enlightenment ideas, and were best sellers. As
Americans had left Calvinism behind after the war, they were
open to new views. The Enlightenment views seemed to catch a
real following while the Catholic views about mankind touched a
cord with men. Men adopted ideas without realizing the theology
upon which it was based.
The adoption of more Catholic views was actually indirect.
As Calvinism faded, the views of Protestants such as Wesley,
Arminius, and Finney permeated into the vacuum. There was a
close connection between such views and traditional Catholics,
although not as seen by the common man. Americans could
never have adopted Catholic views, but they did adopt them
through men who mimicked Catholic Theology. Also, those who
came from France were also largely Catholic of a sort, so there
was a double establishment of a permeation of Catholic Theology.
A quick comparison of Roman Catholic and Protestant theologies
will illustrate this point for now. The Catholic has a favorable view
of man and sees sin=s affects on him as minimal and correctable.
Men are more capable in themselves of understanding the world
on their own. Man can rely on a natural law to bring about
positive results. Happiness, not duty, is stressed as the goal of
life. The general society can be more easily manipulated by the
Church or government to achieve a common good. It is seen as
perfectly normal to pursue one=s private self-interest. Caring for
the poor is also part of a society=s obligation. And society is best
53
served through a this-worldly, practical view of solutions to life=s
problems.9
Something happens when a society becomes preoccupied
with issues. A change takes place without anyone even realizing
it. A society that no longer discusses its philosophical or
theological foundations tends to lose direction. Every issue
becomes a crisis, but no long term plan is ever discussed. Also,
the consequences of any action are rarely thought out. Often one
solution leads to another crisis which leads to another solution.
There is no sense of historical consciousness or continuity. One
tradition after another is thrown out without considering why that
tradition was honored for centuries in the first place. A society,
like America, that is on the move does not slow down to talk much
about what kind of society people actually want. While the
various levels of government kept a lid on chaos, there was social
anarchy in America.
Such social anarchy can be good if there is some agreed
upon general foundation of society. American had no such
foundation. Between the Revolution and the Civil War, was a
state of constant change without anyone having any long term
goals. It seemed like every four years a new vision was installed
over the old one, or the old one was thrown out completely.
People tended to group themselves in small groups such as farm
groups, churches, clubs, and fraternal organizations during this
period. Americans became a nation of joiners as everyone was
looking for a place to find stability and traditions. There was a
strong sense of progress, but that vision tended to be solely in the
area of industry and technology. These were exciting times as
changes were coming about dramatically, and there was hope
that the world was becoming somehow better because it had
more and better products. Technological progress blinded the
nation=s people from the social decay in their midst.
Into every age of social upheaval there will develop various
people offering new religions and new cults that offer answers to
the chaos at hand. In America, William Miller offered hope by
telling people not to worry about the problems of society because
9 Robert H. Nelson: Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of
Economics, p. 31. Rowman & Littefield Publishers, 1991.
54
the world was coming to an end. He even offered a date, between
March of 1843 and March of 1844. His followers, the Millerites,
prepared all during that year for the end of the world. Even when
the year ended with no destruction, thousands still believed.
Eventually these people organized their own religion and called
themselves the Seventh-Day Adventists. This same type of
behavior is exhibited during all times of social crisis. (During the
1960's, and 1970's, Hal Lindsey popularized the Fundamentalist
version calling Christians to prepare for the end of the world by
1988.)
During this same period, Horace Mann called upon
government to take on the job of educating the children of
America. The answer to the social crisis would be an all-out effort
to prepare children for the rough times in America. Education was
being accomplished in America with no common purpose or
controlling agency. No one can deny that the educational needs of
America were being met, but the problem was that there were no
common goals or purposes in the curriculum. Each one-room
school and each family was teaching what they thought best for
the particular needs of that community. One reason for the chaos
in the United States was the fact that everyone was being
educated without a general purpose of goals that would combine
people into one national unit. If people could be taught from the
childhood on up the proper behavior for all citizens, then America
could become united in one society. There was a common culture
in one sense as the King James Bible was a major part of all private
education. But this one not an acceptable common culture to the
new leaders of America.
One of the founding myths of America was the belief in
something called freedom. The word was used as a catchall
phrase during the Revolution. Like a political campaign that
promises to cut expenses, it is best not to spell out in advance just
what projects are going to get cut before the election. Likewise,
freedom became one of those words that meant something
different to each person. To the farmer it might be freedom from
foreign competition. To the woman it might mean freedom from a
marriage contract. To the black it might mean freedom from
plantation work. To the emigrant it might mean freedom to move
55
to free lands in the West. To the businessman it might mean
freedom to pursue government support for his business. The list
could go on and on. Freedom sounds good until everyone wants it.
That is what happened in the early days of America. Freedom
became a word that meant something for everyone. The abolition
movement became enormously popular during this time. All types
of groups arose with various plans to end slavery. The chaos in
America was attributed to the people=s failure to end slavery.
Slavery was seen as a curse upon the land. Until the government
stepped in to end slavery, there would be problems of all sorts
throughout this cursed land. As this movement progressed, the
rhetoric grew louder and louder until ending slavery was not
enough. People had to be punished for this evil. The South was
chosen as the people who needed to pay the price in blood to heal
the land. Now the abolitionists could just as easily have attacked
the New Englanders, who built the boats, manned the crews, and
produced the rum which was used in trade for slaves. Or they
could have attacked the banks that financed the whole operation.
But enemies are more evil if they are people who are a little bit
different. The Southerners became the target for social
atonement. And with the destruction of the South, the price would
be paid in order for America to become united in a common cause
finally and united under a national faith.
The other great area of freedom had to do with sex and the
liberation of women. Often the nature of sex being what it is,
religion is associated with sex and its rules of conduct. To a
certain extent this is true. A religion that does not have rules
about sex is a rarity. Other areas of human life can be ignored, but
not this one. And every revolution has a different vision of the
proper role of sex. It would be difficult to talk about the French or
Russian Revolutions without also talking about a different view of
sex. The same thing happened with the American Revolution. For
some reason you will not find books titled ASex and the American
Revolution,@ although you will find similar titles about other
revolutions and even about the minor revolutions of Hitler and
Mussolini. This says something in itself. Why the silence?
The total nature of the American Revolution has sometimes
been, if not understated, at least downplayed. We had a
56
revolution that was just as much a revolution as any other you
would want to compare it in history. Yet, we have constantly been
told that it was just a question of taxes, or minor jurisdictional
disputes over some land, or maybe not liking King George. That is
the American party line. Nothing really happened like we see in
other nations. Ours was a good revolution. This line has taken our
minds off the fact that in the seventy-five years after the
Revolution there was a total make over of American Society.
Something sure happened to make everyone think and act
differently.
Certainly the topic of the idea of the Puritan, Calvinistic idea
of the family was rejected. A whole new set of ideas replaced the
ones Americans had inherited from Pre-Revolutionary times. A lot
is made of the fact that women did not vote or were regarded as
the guardians of the family. Men were expected to work away
from the family and women were expected to work within the
family. One reason the division became more apparent was the
industrial revolution which transformed jobs from the family farm
or family business to some separated and often distant workplace.
This made the division of labor much more apparent.
It is essential to realize that before the Revolution, the family
and other social units were regarded as real entities. People
became real people as they belonged to various groups. The idea
of the solitary individual was not something thought of as normal.
Everyone joined a family, plus a union, a lodge, a business guild, or
any number of other voluntary associations. That is what made a
person a whole being. The worst thing that could happen to a
person in those times was to be banished from the community for
some offense. It was understood that people only could exist as
humans in the midst of some society that had both privileges and
obligations. With the Revolution that all came to an end.
With the movement of people because of immigration,
settling new lands, or just moving onto greener pastures, the
American people were people on the move. While Abraham in the
Bible may have moved with all of his relatives in some large herd,
Americans moved about by themselves or with just their wife and
kids. Moving became easier the fewer people that it involved. This
gave people the impression that others really were not that
57
necessary to one=s physical and psychological health. The pursuit
of personal dreams and pleasures in a land of anonymity became a
new source of meaning. Just as many left their families and friends
behind in the old country as they traveled to America, this pattern
became acceptable in the new land. Others were expendable as
one pursued some personal dream.
In Calvinism, marriage and family are ends in themselves.
They are seen as a gift from God. They are also a duty. The family
brought much pleasure but it also brought much responsibility. In
time, the family came to be seen more and more of a burden as
people who did not have families were much more mobile and able
to make use of the many new opportunities in America. As the
family came to be seen as a hindrance to the good things in life,
more and more people wanted out of such an arrangement. The
start of women=s liberation during this time reflected the goals
that all Americans seemed to have at the time. Anything that
acted as a permanent limiting of life=s options had to change its
structure.
The individual was now seen as a single atom. Before the
vote had been a family affair. The man voted as a representative
of his whole family. It was not that the male had the right to vote
and the woman did not, it was that each family was represented by
its head. The idea of representative government was seen as
reflected in this idea of the family. With a changing idea of the
family as not longer a sacred unit, the demands for separate votes
for each adult became a major concern to many. The new social
unit of the American Revolution was to be each individual person
as a solitary atom. The solitary atom could then choose to unite to
form molecules with other atoms, but the bonding was always
voluntary and temporary. The traditional marriage vow reflected
more than just an idea about marriage. Men felt such a vow
bonded them to other associations with permanency such as their
local state or church.
There was another issue born during this period that became
typical of America. It started about 1826 and became known as
the American Temperance Society. In a nation in turmoil, alcohol
became the method of choice to meet life=s uncertainties. While
the excitement of living in a world without boundaries was exciting
58
for most, some found that the new world exhibited a little bit too
much freedom. Drunkenness became a national problem. Here is
where the solution became the rule that would follow for the next
two hundred years. Rather than consider why so many had chosen
alcohol, maybe the first >Just Say No= campaign was launched.
Was it the new freedom from responsibility? Was it the break
down of family relationships? Or was it about the loss of continuity
with some historical tradition? Whatever caused many Americans
to choose alcohol, the solution was a society that would ban all
alcoholic drinks.
Christianity had never taught abstinence, yet the new
American Christians such as Charles Finney made abstinence part
of the package when one became a Christian. This was also
symbolic in another way: It was a clear sign that Christians had
departed from the Bible and the traditions of Christianity:
Abolitionism was also a sign of the new extra Biblical theologies.
While keeping some of the labels, it became obvious that
Americans were not only leaving Christianity behind, and they
were inventing an all new form a faithBbut keeping the names of
the old faith. This new faith also had a new form of evangelism
and conversion. It forced merchants to quit selling alcohol and
soon felt that even more coercive measures were needed.
Legislation was needed to control the use and abuse of all alcohol.
Politics became divided over the issue of water versus alcohol.
Americans have always had this desire to control the behavior
of their neighbors. To outsiders it remains a mystery. It is almost
as if because of our Calvinistic heritage, there is some semblance
of guilt over the rebellion from our traditional moorings. America
was a great experiment in the liberation of the individual from
social, religious, and political obligations. In this vacuum caused
by such a massive revolution many fell by the wayside. In very
winner-take-all society, there were more losers than winners. It
has never been the American=s nature to discuss their new
philosophy as maybe being evil. All losers suffered because of
their own moral lapses. While many were quick to blame
Calvinism for a whole host of problems in the new America,
scapegoats had to be found for all of the problems that surfaced
after the revolution.
59
 While there have been refinements in our laissez-faire
capitalism, there has been little effort to refine the American
philosophy of individual laissez-faire. This is maybe the one
defining element that makes America different. It is the one
fundamental idea that cannot be challenged. The myth of the
cowboy out on the open range, free from every obligation was a
myth that had little connection to reality. There may have been a
short period between 1865 and 1885 when reality became close to
the myth, but for most of our history we have hung onto this idea
of the cowboy as our hero. Over the years, any movement that
sought to infringe upon this myth has been compared with the
opposite myth of the Hitler Revolution. Thousands of men are
seen marching in step to the tune of a German military march.
The choice was being a cowboy or becoming a mindless, Nazi
follower of some charismatic leader.
There is another issue that became a pattern for the years to
follow: What relationship does a business have with its
government? The answer to this question became the norm for
the next two hundred years. The first really national business was
the railroad. They were the first ones to seek massive subsidies
and other help from the federal government. While the canals that
connected various rivers were subsidized, most of these canals
were short lived. The famous Erie Canal was really only important
for ten years. It quickly became replaced by the railroad. Just as
individuals sought entitlements from the powerful central
government, so businesses now saw themselves as in need of
subsidies. While various businesses often sought help indirectly
through import restrictions on competition, the new railroads were
granted lands worth millions.
You can tell a lot about the values of a government by what it
subsidizes. Very quickly under the new constitution there
developed a wall of separation between the church and the state.
Such protection was not only to keep the churches independent, it
was a way to protect the government from undue pressures.
There was a fear of what would happen if religion was allowed to
dominate the halls of Congress. Apparently there was no such fear
when it came to government and business. While preaching the
gospel of laissez-faire, businesses not only sought protection and
60
favorable laws, but sought direct government subsidies.
The railroads became typical of what would come to personify
our nation. The Union Pacific was granted land and help by the
central government. Burlington Northern was built at private
expense. The Union Pacific cost ten times as much to build. There
is nothing like a subsidy to keep costs high. But it is more than
costs. The term Abeing railroaded@ joined the English language
as railroads were allowed to corrupt their way across America.
With the support of the national government, there was little local
communities could do to keep themselves free from the corruption
of the railroads.
Very similar to the railroads, the banking industry sought
protection from competition. It also sought to be exempt from
local controls. Just as in the railroads, it is easier to bribe one
government in Washington than to try and bribe every town and
county. From the very first days after the adoption of the
Constitution, there was pressure to establish a national banking
system, controlled privately, and most likely, controlled from
England. Just as the railroads had used various corrupt practices
to get their way, so too the banks. The easiest way was just to
flood and contract the money supply. Through this simple method,
the economy could go through various times of trial when
businesses and farms could be purchased very cheaply by those
who had access to money, i.e. the banks.
While there were other issues, the main point about all of
these was the desire to nationalize everything. Every issue had to
be treated as a national crisis calling for a national solution. As
mentioned, bribes were very common in our early government.
There was no attempt for the most part to even conceal bribes.
They were considered a natural part of doing business in any form
of government. As issues were nationalized, there was pressure to
move all power and all decisions to the central government in
Washington, D.C. While there were Socialists in early America, the
main force for a central government in total control was from every
person who wanted to see something changed. They best way to
change America for what was seen to be a better way would be for
the passage of just one law. The new law would force the whole
nation to behave appropriately.
61
 Thus while our nation preached a doctrine of laissez-faire, the
only place where that doctrine was really enforced was in the area
of religion. Every other area of life gravitated toward the central
government. One important thing was lost in our new nation.
Each local community lost its ability to run each county or city
according to the voice of the people in that area. The children
were taught how great Athens was because the people were able
to determine their own destiny. They could come together and
pass laws that applied to their very own lives. It was made to
sound exciting in the books, and that is how many Americans
thought the system was supposed to run. It was supposed to be a
diverse nation because every little area would have their own
distinctive form of government and laws. And with a nation
without passports, anyone was free to move to another area that
they liked better. It was to be a nation of tiny AAthens.@
That is not how things worked out in practice. There is always
one town that does not like the way another town is doing
something. Just as Sparta sought to change the ways of Athens, so
each area sought to change the way another area lived. People
may say they want freedom, but that does not extend to one=s
neighbor. It never has since the Constitution was established. By
basing our system of government on vague ideals, everyone
thought that the central government should be on some or another
moral crusade. Ours became a nation of being our brother=s
keeper. And we would use the power of the central government to
enforce one particular view of life on each other American. This all
leads up to the next stage in our nation=s history. There were
those who thought that the government was becoming corrupt,
controlled by special interests, and was building itself up into a
new dictatorship: A dictatorship based on one or some other view
of virtue. In many eyes, the new America would become a
dictatorship based on virtue.

7 THE FIGHT TO DETERMINE THE NATURE OF THE

NEW DICTATORSHIP

After the first seventy years of government, it was becoming

obvious that the government was taking on a whole new direction.
62
The idea of local freedom, local control, with a group of small
independent states belonging to a confederation was coming to an
end. Several things contributed to this attitude. One was the War
of 1812. America came out of the war with the world=s
superpower with their head held high. Also, they came out with a
new national hero in the person of Andrew Jackson with the Battle
of New Orleans. The Mexican War wetted America=s appetite for
war and for more land. More and more there was the idea of a
Manifest Destiny to control the whole continent from Maine and
Florida all the way to the Pacific. Slavery was just one of those
excuses to keep the Destiny intact.
It is a little noted item in history but Andrew Jackson had
negotiated with five tribes of the plains to form their own nation in
what today would be parts of Oklahoma and areas of several
surrounding states. It was not a reservation, but a separate
nation. It became obvious a few years later that the route of the
new transcontinental railroad needed to go through the Indian=s
nation. A solution was needed for the Union Pacific to head west.
With the start of the Civil War, an Albert Pike from the North was
sent to the Indian nation. He got them to side with the
Confederacy. They even had the same crossed flag, except they
had five stars on theirs: One star for each of the Indian nations.
After the war, the Indian nation was dissolved: The
reservation system was born. It is interesting that the war to free
the slaves was also used to enslave the Indians. It becomes
obvious that the true nature of the war was not to free the slaves,
but to preserve America= quest for its Manifest Destiny. Wars
have to fought with some ennobling purpose. The average man
does not go to war and die so others can have cheap western lands
and to preserve some national ideal about the government in
Washington, D.C. owning the entire land to the Pacific. If the South
had maintained its independence, and if the Indian nation had not
been eliminated, the dream of being an empire would have come
to an end. The Civil War supplied the excuse to preserve this
dream. It also revealed the nature of our true government: Lying
to achieve its goals is part of the standard government policy.
Into this mix, a great change occurred. Up until this time
one=s loyalties were to one=s state or region of the country. For
63
example, Robert E. Lee was offered the generalship of the
Northern Army. Even though he was against slavery, he felt his
first loyalty was to his homeland, Virginia. Others in the nation
made similar decisions. Their loyalties were determined by the
state where their citizenship was located. Something like a
national loyalty did not exist. This all changed with the Civil War
and the post war amendments. Citizenship no longer resided in
the local states, but was now national. This changed the whole
nature of each person=s relationship with his government. For the
United States, Nationalism was born.
During this time, a new goal of America became attached to
our national identity. The nation under Lincoln became a moral
crusader. The Second Great Awakening turned Americans into a
nation of moral busy bodies. That role was now transferred to the
national government. It became the crusader for justice and the
entire strength of the government was now available to force
people to behave in some morally prescribed manner. While the
war may have started over tariffs, or state=s rights, or manifest
destiny, as the war grew on it became a moral crusade to rid the
nation of the evil that was seen to reside in the South. The nation
developed a task for being the world=s moral example. America
became the shining light in a darkened world. The bad thing about
wartime propaganda is that people start believing their own
stories. America now saw itself in a new way.
In 1859, Darwinism was introduced to the world. It took over
like a plague. As people lost their faith in the Kingdom of God and
the growth of the reign of Jesus Christ in the world, a substitute
was needed. The world was looking for something to believe in as
a new religious faith. Darwin=s book sold out the first day. A new
faith had been discovered. The new American faith in a moral
destiny now had a scientific justification of its national philosophy.
The strong of this world were the ones who could change the world
for the better. The weak deserved to be pushed aside as the
stronger view prevailed. In times past, there were some in
Calvinism felt that financially poor individuals deserved their own
fate. It was seen as the consequence of moral decisions. The new
religious faith felt that the losers of wars and other battles
deserved their fate also. The fittest were destined to impose their
64
views upon the world. This is how nature works, and it is how man
must accomplish his purposes in his lifetime.
The Civil War was also the beginning of the destruction of a
laissez-faire view of social life. With the instituting of a national
citizenship, local ties were to be down graded. A new nation of
individuals was formed in the process. Social revolutions take time
to be worked out, but this was the start of a total change in the
way people related. The common bond that held the nation
together was a common religious faith. With the passing of this
bond, a new national faith was created in the developing of a
system of national rights to be given and ensured by the central
government. Christianity bonded people to local groups and
churches. People developed into mature beings as they grew up
within these local fellowships. The new common bond was the
central government and each person was free to pursue individual
rights regardless of any local community or restrictions.
This whole scenario of the Civil War was the total destruction
of the old way. A revolution occurred during the war. Sometimes
it takes time for the consequences of a new idea system to be
worked out. In the years following the war it became obvious that
this was not the America of the founding fathers. A giant leap had
taken place. The United States really became part of the world of
nations at this time. Before this, the original Constitution while
flawed, had managed to preserve some of the Calvinistic roots
from America=s past. These roots were destroyed during the war.
While few may have noticed it at the time, the nation of Lincoln
had been launched into a new world order. The problems of the
United States were now the same facing those of the rest of the
world.
The new world governments would all tend toward some form
of dictatorship. The battles fought over the next hundred years
after the Civil War would be what type of dictatorship would prove
to have survived and been the fittest. There would be the
traditional monarchies, there would be the aristocracies of Europe,
there would be the new ideas of Fabianism, Communism,
Socialism, Nazism, Fascism, and Democracy. There would be one
hundred years of conflict to determine the next stage in the world.
Behind the scenes all agreed that some type of intellectual
65
leadership and control was necessary. A new age was dawning
and there must be some form of government to tie the world
together.
The Civil War was America=s first awareness that the world
was changing, and America needed to change in order to survive.
The industrial revolution was changing the way people behaved
and the nature of the government needed in a world being remade
by world trade. Lincoln is not often being credited with being the
father of a new type of government. He pulled off his AColumbo@
routine very well. The man who came across as a country hick was
a world class politician and political philosopher. The world was
becoming a community of trading states. The days of a bunch of
Jeffersonian farmers were over. The people had to be made to
realize that a nation that falls behind in the industrial race,
somewhat like the moon race of the 1960's, would not survive in
the new world. A nation of farmers with independent thoughts had
to be changed into a nation of factory workers who found
satisfaction in a new way.
The new governments of the world had to find new solutions
to age-old problems. Before the Civil War, law was seen as either
coming from God through the Bible, or was derived from the
Common Law of the people. This had to go. A new basis had to be
found for creating laws and enforcing them. Ways had to found to
change the people from having local ties to having national ties.
There had to be ways developed to keep people from having the
ability to escape the control of the central government. It is
interesting that the first mailing addresses were developed during
the Civil War. Up until this time one merely picked his mail up at
the local post office. With home delivery also came the
government=s knowledge of where people lived. Also, there had
to be a system developed for controlling those who sought to
escape the new system. Each system in the world was searching
for a way to change people to serve the government in a way that
would not bring on rebellion.
During the Civil War the first experiments in a total
centralized nation were instituted. There was the new religious
faith in the office and the idol of the Presidency. There was the
creation of a government that was the source of all blessings. War
66
brought about the necessity of mass production of the supplies of
war. Companies were changed into national giants. Remington,
U.S. Steal, National Biscuit Company, Armour Meats, and a whole
host of other business were thrust onto the national scene. Also, a
national banking system, and a national currency, were developed.
Direct national taxes were passed into laws. Also, out of the war
there developed new national myths, heroes, and sources of
identity.
The victory served to enforce the idea in the identity of
America as having a mission to save the world from all forms of
government that afflicted mankind. The new American religion
was on a missionary crusade, very similar to the Christianity which
it replaced. The national faith was victorious on the battlefield as
the power of blood to sanctify the faith further entrenched in
people=s minds the goals of America. Also, Abraham Lincoln
provided the new faith with a martyr. The American faith retained
the support of various Christian and similar religious faiths, but the
faith had acquired a meaning beyond the Biblical foundations upon
which many believed the American colonies had been founded.
That Christianity had been supplanted by a new faith was not
openly acknowledged as the nation needed, at least for the time
being, the support of the various sects composing America. But
the new forms of a democratic dictatorship were in place.

8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN AMERICAN CATECHISM

AND ITS IMPOSITION UPON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Every religious faith has doctrines. These doctrines must be

communicated in order to assure the survival of the faith. The
new faith had not only to develop systematic doctrines, it also
needs to develop institutions and techniques for the permanent
establishment of the faith. If one looks to the establishment of the
Roman Catholic faith, one can find many parallels with the
foundation of the new catholic faith. The needs of the Church are
very similar to the needs of the new American nation formed after
the Civil War. The Church needed a supreme ruler, it needed a
bureaucracy to carry out its mission, it needed a means to raise
67
the money needed to finance its operation, it needed a form to
establish discipline to the unruly, and it needed the means to
teach a body of doctrines to the people.
After the Civil War, the new nation founded by the war set out
establish its own form of church government. Up until the War,
there was the semblance of Christianity left over from the
nation=s Calvinistic roots. The South was the last hold out from a
new developing faith. It clung to the old Calvinism. The new
America would have no room for regions who opposed what the
majority thought would be progress. There was nothing but
conflicts between the North and the South leading all the way up
to the war. This war came as no surprise. Two whole cultures and
visions of the world were at conflict. This is why Lincoln demanded
unconditional surrender. There can be no compromise between
two totally different views of life. Halfway measures never work in
such situations. As General William T. Sherman concluded, AWe
are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people.@ He
stated further in his demand for total defeat of the South, AWe
cannot change the hearts of those people of the South, but we can
make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that
generations would pass away before they would again appeal to
it.@
After the war was over and the South was totally devastated,
what General Sherman stated was instituted. The effort was
launched to Achange the hearts of those people of the South. . . .@
The total defeat and unconditional surrender of the South created
the atmosphere that made the people in a stage of shock. People
in such a condition are open to suggestion. The central
government launched a massive campaign not only to break the
will of the South, but to totally destroy the culture and its beliefs as
they existed before the war. The nation, that proclaimed itself an
example of freedom, had to discover ways to force a region of its
people to be free. In times past, defeated regions were often
evacuated of its people and new people moved in. There was no
need for mass evacuations as the male population and the male
leaders were all dead or rendered powerless through various
physical and psychological disorders.
It cannot be emphasized enough to say that the new
68
American faith was an evangelistic faith and it was imperialistic.
While the first goal would be to persuade people to join the new
faith, but if lacking submission, then force must be used. Just as
the founding of the nation was a great experiment, so the
propagation of that faith was also a great experiment. How does a
government go about forcing people to be free? That question had
never been asked before. In previous ages, defeated nations were
merely decimated or turned into slaves. The land of the South was
not plowed with salt, but the ownership of the land was
transferred. Northerners were encouraged to settle in the South.
Through high land taxes, the forced sale of land to outsiders was
accomplished.
The nationalization of education which was still in its infancy,
was one of the first methods imposed upon the South. Their
education system had to be totally remade. The methods used
would help set the trends for the next 150 years as the
government forced more and more of its people to be free. The
techniques would improve, but the desire to unify the nation at all
costs started with the Civil War. It continued on in a heavy-handed
way with Southern Reconstruction. When the Southern States
were re-admitted back into the Union they were not technically
states at all but still under the control of the Federal military. The
re-admitted South was under martial law. Under this military
occupation it was decided that all Rebels must be re-educated and
a system developed to educate the former slaves.
A Radical Republican, J.P. Wickersham, said this about the
new education in the South and the education of freedmen (former
slaves): AWhen our youth learn to read similar books, similar
lessons, we shall become one people, possessing one organic
nationality, and the Republic will be safe for all time. Is it not the
condition of things such that we may begin to speak of a national
system of education?@10 Congress created, in 1865, the
Freedmen=s Bureau to accomplish this task. It was placed under
the War Department. But the Bureau became more than an
educational agency. It turned the entire South into a colony of the
central government. The head of the agency, General Oliver Otis
10 John Chodes, The Paradox of Jabez L. M Curry: State Sovereignty to Federalized
Schools, p. 29. League of the South Papers, No. 6.
69
Howard, bragged of his despotic power when he stated:
ALegislative, judicial and executive powers were combined in my
commission.@ 11
The Freedmen=s Bureau had it own system of military courts
which replaced all civilian courts. There was no writ of habeas
corpus and no jury trials. It also stole millions of acres of land and
handed it over to blacks. He forced some Southerners to move to
the North so that they would no longer be Rebels. Property and
crops were sold to secure financing for the new schools. The
equivalent of almost 2 billion was raised this way. The long term
goal was to turn the South into a Republican Party stronghold
which would insure its continued control of the Congress. Not only
was education used to pacify the South but religion also.
Education and religion are closely connected. In order to control
one you must control the other. The occupational army thus
worked for the control of the churches in the South also.
All societies are based on a perceived order. This order forms
the environment in which we live and see they people and
institutions around us. This order is the social glasses that we all
wear. The imposition and maintaining of this order are
accomplished through education and religion. A state education
requires some form of state religion. The occupational forces of
the South realized this and sought to subdue the churches of the
South. The churches of many Southern cities were confiscated and
Northern ministers were installed. The Federal government paid
the salaries and even built new churches in the South. The
churches became institutions to promote the Radical Republican
agenda. As one stated who studied this period, AEvery innovation
of the Executive was adopted as an article of religious faith.@ 12
These churches even resorted to the courts to collect offerings
from the reluctant parishioners. Obviously, the separation of
church and state does not apply in these conditions.
This imperialism of education and religion was a new step in
the formation of the new Constitution following the Civil War. The
churches must become an arm of the central government. These
11 Ibid. p. 31.

12 Ibid. p. 33.
70
first attempts at both a centralized education and religion were
very crude and caused the expected opposition, but it was a start.
While the dominant churches in the North had either become
Unitarian or Methodist, the South had resisted these trends until
reconstruction. The Unitarian and Methodist Churches both had
adopted theologies more fitting for the new America being built.
The Unitarians were the intellectual ruling class. The Methodists
appealed to the uneducated, working class. The Methodist
services also provided an emotional escape from the rigors of
living in the new nation after the War.
The story of the occupation of the South often gets told with
all kinds of stories of political wrangling in Washington and passive
resistance from the South. It is treated as one great failure. The
Southerners, we are told, were not made into the image that the
North had sought. Their goal was the making of a new nation all
with the identical people as occupied the Northeast. The fact that
they failed to make the South into another New York or Boston
does not tell the whole story. The people had been broken by war.
The South which had contained the wealth of the nation had been
reduced to rubble. The leadership had been killed in war. An
angry army of blacks had been unleashed to carry out a fierce
revenge on the people. Farms and industry had been destroyed.
Money was not to be found in circulation. Many Northerners
moved South to buy up cheap lands and occupy the South.
Northern ministers and school teachers were imported. The white
southerner was reduced to a new under class. Even after the
armies withdrew, the South remained an occupied land.
The man chosen to head the South=s educational
rehabilitation was J .L. M. Curry. He has been called the Horace
Mann of the South. He was born and raised in the South, but sided
with the North in his belief that the South had to become a
different nation than it had been before the war. He believed that
A. . . the function of education was to enable its recipient to
develop his full powers and live abundantly.@ He believed
education could solve racial tensions, solve the friction between
management and labor, and it could rehabilitate the South and A. .
. to adjust it to the new civilization with which it must integrate

71
itself,@13 and further, AEvery individual . . . had a right to the most
complete education a state could give.@ 14
The revolution of the mind of the Southern got unexpected
help from the Department of Agriculture which was established in
1862. After the war the department tried to find new crops to
grow in the South as it thought the growing of cotton was part of
the Southern Culture. It had to be replaced with other crops. The
new Agricultural Department combined its energies with the
Bureau of Education founded in 1867. John Eaton who was the
head of Education used the Agricultural Department to do
experiments on animals to develop a new way of education. This
was a product of the new Darwinian view of life that determined
man was a higher form of animal life. Much could be gained by
studying animals to determine the nature and abilities of man
himself.
Animals were studied to determine what caused increased
brain activity. Materials for students were designed which
produced a higher heart rate or increased electrical activity in the
brain. Thus, a good book or lesson could be measured by the
increased rate of internal activity.
Previously, education might be based upon purpose, beliefs, or
training. But the North felt that one of the problems of the South
was their value-laden education. Therefore, a new form of
education was sought. This resulted in a changed way of teaching
students. Education that taught spiritual values or respect for
traditions was replaced by a curriculum that catered to the
interests of the students. Education became training. Teachers
became trained to be the scientists who run the new scientific
laboratories called schools. Again, while this whole philosophy
took time to permeate the entire nation, the seeds were planted in
the Reconstruction of the Southern Nation.

9 THE REVOLUTION IN THE NORTH AS A RESULT OF

13 Merle Curti, The Social Ideas of American Educators, p. 267. Littlefield, Adams,
and Co. 1959.

14 Ibid. p. 268.
72
THE CIVIL WAR

Wars never leave things the way they found them. The
changes brought on during a war to defeat an enemy become the
new traditions of the nation after the war. Another thing about
wars is that it is harder to start one than most people realize.
From the reading of history it would seem that there are wars
every few years. Most are minor or of very short duration. What is
referred to as the Gulf War in previous times probably would not be
called a war. It would probably fall under the category of Aborder
dispute@ or Aconflict.@ The Civil War was a war in every sense of
the word. The question arises as why the war was started at all.
Would a tiny island off the coast of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
really be worth the starting of a war?
Wars are a revolution. Wars are fought because not only the
leaders want a war, but the common people doing the fighting see
some reason for giving their lives to a cause. Even if a leadership
instigates a war to their own liking, a reason has to be given that
will satisfy the volunteer. A contented citizen does not make very
good soldier. During times of stress and change, there arises inside
the ordinary citizen a call for change. A person may feel
something is wrong and not know just exactly what. They look to
their leadership to provide them with relief from their anxiety or
malaise. A good leader is one who knows where the people are
going so he can lead them there, is an old joke, but there is some
truth to that. Lincoln came into a situation where he knew that the
people were restless. They needed solutions to the problems they
were encountering in their everyday lives.
One of the myths that the American Revolution spawned is
that freedom from England would solve our problems. After the
war there was a sense of failure. The nation was free and there
were just as many problems as ever. In fact maybe more
problems, as the people could no longer blame something exterior
to themselves for their problems. This provided a shock. The
Constitution provided the framework for a government, but
provided no purposes. It was like a snapshot. It was frozen in
time. It had no vision of the future. It provided a system of
governing, but really did not establish any purpose. Our
73
relationship for good or bad with England and the problems that
this involved had provided the framework of everyday life. Freed
from the restraints of a foreign power, Americans were now able to
chart their own course.
With Christianity in decline, and at the time of the Revolution
only about eight per cent of the population attended some kind of
church, there was a void in most people=s lives. Something had to
move in to occupy the place left in the absence of some religious
direction. For some, the Declaration of Independence provided a
few phrases which implied a direction for America and its people to
take. During the years after the war, there were many attempts to
instill a new faith that would fill the void and unite Americans in
some common cause. Many new faiths arose during this period.
Secret societies and fraternal orders became an option for some.
There was a secular attempt to repeat the First Great Awakening,
but the results were at times comical. When man attempts to
imitate the acts that God does and only God can do, it is comical.
People laying on the ground jerking in a form of spiritual orgasm,
or others barking like dogs as the spirit moved them, were called
spiritual acts.
During difficult times many look for ways to escape from the
times of trouble. The particular form this escape takes will vary
with the culture that one lives. In our age drugs are a popular way
of escaping reality. During the post Revolutionary era, Whiskey
and a religious experience topped the things that soothed the
troubled heart. An intense religious experience was sought at
during the revivals, or an escape was sought in the belief that the
end of the world was to happen at any moment. Every age that is
going through trials can be gauged by the intensity of its millennial
longings. Starting in England in about 1830 and moving to
America quickly, the desire for some cataclysmic end to the world
was longed for by fundamentalist Christians.
The whiskey problem was countered by many temperance
societies and demands for prohibition of alcohol. The frustration of
dates being set for the end of the world and no end in sight but
only more problems, led to the further erosion of Christianity. In
this age of false Christianity, false solutions were sought. As
German scholarship starting leaving its mark on American thought,
74
a genuine Biblical solution to the nation=s problems seemed
remote. Christianity became modified over and over as people
tried to deal with life=s problems. Abstinence is not a Biblical
solution to alcoholic consumption. Setting dates for some end of
time is not a Biblical solution to the frustration with everyday life.
Emotional revivals are not substitutes for the ordering of one=s
life around the principles of the Bible. And even abolition is not a
Biblical solution to the problem of slavery.
The Bible was no longer seen as the guidebook that it had
been during the pre-Revolutionary days. Calvinism sought
solutions to everyday and national problems through a study of the
Word of God. This was seen as no longer possible. Popularized
with Thomas Paine and continuing on with others, the Bible was
increasingly seen as a Book that no longer belonged in an
enlightened age and with the problems of the Industrial
Revolution. Christianity, particularly in the Northern states,
underwent a transformation. Calvinism was replaced by
Unitarianism or Deism, and this evolved into something called
Transcendentalism. While Transcendentalism is an American
movement associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson, it has its roots in
Europe. Here again it is important to remember that the events in
America did not happen in isolation. One of the myths of the
Revolution is that America was now separated from Europe and we
were now on our own trail of destiny. Ideas and people flowed
freely across the Atlantic. While our movies pictured the
uneducated Irishman coming to America, many others came who
knew of Europe and many Americans traveled to Europe to study
the latest trends. America was still and always has been part of
the rest of the world.
There was a religious revival in America that preceded the
Civil War. This revival occurred in the Northern states, but left the
South largely untouched. Transcendentalists saw a god-like spirit
in every man. It was well suited to the new democracy growing
out of the Jacksonian era. The objective truths of Calvinism were
eliminated, and these were replaced by the natural intuition of the
divine which resided within each man. The moral man was good
and noble. He was also perfectible. There was also the belief that
man by himself was free. He needed none of the various social
75
institutions that had so occupied early America. Organizations
merely restricted the freedom of man. The only legitimate
organization was the state. All other aspects of life were to be
under the directing authority of mankind and through the ruling
agency of the state.
All religious faiths are evangelistic and imperialistic.
Transcendentalism was no exception. The South needed
conversion to the new faith. This system believed in a strong state
to solve problems and it is very conscious of the many needs for
which society must seek a solution. The South must be converted.
In one sense the Civil War could be called the Third Great
Awakening. The First was Calvinistic, the second Arminian or
humanistic, and the third was Transcendental. Darwinism and
Transcendentalism combined in their view that history is the story
of progress and it is man=s destiny now to direct evolution. Man
was not the sinner who needed regeneration, but man was the
peak of the evolutionary pyramid who could direct the goals of
history to the improvement of mankind.
This new faith created a new environment of meaning.
Societies are created by the men and their beliefs. When men
create the world, they become molded by the society which they
have created. In a way it is a circular process. Historical
circumstances are constantly changing. Men react to those
changes. If the changes are drastic enough, a new way of thinking
becomes necessary. As men adapt to the new thoughts, those
thoughts change the way they act or think. And the whole
process starts over again. It is not a gradual process. Men hold
onto an old belief until it does not work in the changed
circumstances. Then they begin a search, not always consciously,
for a new philosophy. A good leader recognizes the frustrations in
people first and is the first to offer a new way of thinking.
The Civil War was one of those moments in history similar to
the French and Russian Revolutions, or the Reformation in the
sixteenth century. The eighty-four years between 1776 and 1860
were transition years from America=s Calvinistic Colonial past to
the new secular age of industry and government. So many of the
uncertainties and conflicts during this period were the result of
new people living in an old period. The Bible would call it trying to
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put new wine into old wineskins. It cannot be done. The new
society directs, controls, sanctions, and punishes those who live
within the order. This order is accepted by people as reality.15
Since the Civil War there has been an emerging order that was
created during this time, and has ruled our views of reality since
that age. People have accepted it as the only possible order.
(Although right now it is showing signs of age.)
Therefore, after the Civil War a new world was in existence
from the one that people had lived in prior to the war. There was a
freedom from the old restrictions. Wars are often the final straw
that breaks the old order. Also, the South was fighting in the name
of the old order and it had lost the war. This created a post war
world where no one would even think about saying something
good about the old order which the South represented. The efforts
to reconstruct the South into the new world views of the North also
tended to establish in people=s minds the victorious nature of the
new revolution. Transcendentalism emerged victorious also from
the War. Its philosophy of social change, reform, and the power of
a central government to change society for the better, became
firmly established in American politics.
It was during this time, with the passing to the thirteenth,
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, that human rights became
the object of society. The old order being founded upon property
rights had passed away with the defeat of the property oriented
Southerners. With transcendentalists the age of sin was
destroyed. People were regarded as good in themselves, with only
the environment to corrupt them. This led the transcendentalists
to trust the common man and democracy. The Aristocracy was
seen as representing the old order and Southerners were
contaminated by their association with that order. The age after
the Civil War, became the age of the common man and his power
to change to the world. There were all kinds of communal groups
formed as a totally new environment was sought to display the
perfectibility of man.
In this revolutionary environment, the Industrial Revolution
was able to prosper during the War and to mold the nation in the
15 Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of
Religion, p. 11. A Doubleday Anchor Book. New York, 1969.
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direction needed for industrial expansion. The emergency of the
war created new attitudes. A rural nation entered the war, an
urban nation resulted from the need for the centralized
manufacture of war materials. The age after the war has been
called A. . . the most rapid and striking transformation of a major
social order in the history of mankind.@16 By the 1870's non-farm
employment exceeded farm employment for the first time.
Between 1850 and 1871 more than 130 million acres of land was
given to the railroads. From 1860 to 1890 the miles of track went
form 30,000 miles to about 170,000 miles. The nation became
tied together as one nation and one market. The telegraph also
united the nation. The nation became one in terms of
communication and transportation.
This created a new business environment. Markets became
national. A national business was needed to replace the local,
limited economies. Those who could see the trends saw great
opportunities. The war had created huge businesses.
Transcendentalism had displaced Christianity as the glue that held
society together. The individual became detached from his local
community and its restrictions. He was also freed from religious
restrictions. What people saw was that America had become the
Garden of Eden, except that now man was in charge and not some
mythical god. America was free to design a world from the chaos
that followed the war. This was very liberating and very exciting.
Government, education, business, philosophy, and finance all
combined to create a vision for the new future that was being
birthed during this time.
This was the world of the North at the close of the war: There
were conflicts in every area of society. The central government
was in chaos as the government fought over the reunification of
the nation. The treatment of the former citizens of the
confederacy required a policy to satisfy those who wanted
revenge, those who wanted immediate freedom of the former
slaves, and a policy had to be developed to satisfy those who
wanted access to cheap Southern land. The railroads were
expanding their influence in government as they sought to gain
16 E. Barry Asmus and Donald B. Billings, Crossroads: The Great American
Experiment, p. 54. University Press of America, New York. 1984.
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access to the best routes and markets in the nation. An army of
returning soldiers had to be cared for and a new system of finance
was needed to restore some order to financial markets. During
this time universities were in the midst of transforming
themselves from theological schools designed for the preparation
of ministers to great schools of learning to serve the interests of
the new society being born. A new religion of national philosophy
was needed to justify the changes in a coherent manner.
And each area of society wanted to be the leader of the other
areas of society. Even if there were agreed upon goals, each area
wanted to be the new institutional church of the new world order
being developed. Power, money, prestige and leadership were all
up for grabs. You can imagine the impact upon the common
citizen. They were left out of the loop and were left to their own to
fill the void left by the chaos of the war. Many formed communes,
but most went to the revival services of D. L. Moody. He provided
the common man with some sense of divine control and order in
the confusion that permeated every area of life during the post
war period. And while the common man huddled in his local
church and went to conferences on the end of the world, the world
was changed into something he would no longer be able to call his
own. It was during this age that society became conscious of
mental conflicts that seemed to be inflicting mankind as never
before. Minds seemed to snap as there was no haven in a
heartless world.

10 THE FIGHT TO CREATE A NEW WORLD ORDER AND

VISION

This age was named by Mark Twain as the AGilded Age.@

Historians have called it the AAge of Excess.@ Out of the disorder
in the North and the devastation of the South the world was ready
to be remade. A whole variety of secular messiahs arrived to
proclaim the coming of the age of man. Great changes occur after
most wars. This war not only cleared the ground for great
changes, but the new business climate was anxious to take
advantage of the new opportunities. Also the new factories
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required people who could move to wherever the factories were
located. Wars create a mobile population left rootless and
homeless by the devastation to both property and families. This
double combination made the United States ready for a totally new
way of government and living.
Part of the groundwork for a revolution had already been
accomplished before the war. The people had become spiritually
set loose from their Calvinism and their Biblical roots. A nation so
set free is open to something new to take its place. While
Transcendentalism provided the intellectuals with a new faith, the
common people required something a little more substantial. The
revivalistic fundamentalists could be discounted and left outside
the loop. They were content with their pot luck dinners, revival
services, and second-coming conferences. These conferences
combined often with camping and singing gave the religious
people a feeling that their Christian faith was still intact. They
lived in this false world that had little connection to America=s
Biblical heritage, and this made little difference to most. The new
faith made them feel good about themselves and gave some a
vague connection to God. Raised hormone levels were substituted
for a genuine work of God.
Much was lost during and after the war. A new society had to
be developed almost from scratch. It also had to fit in with the
new beliefs of progress, Darwinism, industry, prosperity, mobility,
and individualism. The rootlessness of this era created social and
mental problems in persons who found that the new freedom from
all social commitments and responsibilities left them with a sense
of restlessness and depression. The new sciences of sociology and
psychology developed during this time as men looked to science to
provide them with the answers to the problems created by the new
society. As the university became the new monastery and the
professors, the new monks of the new religion, many looked to the
academic specialists to find solutions that formerly would have
been looked for within the Bible.
One source of direction and comfort for the common person
was the newly developed art form of the novel. It talked about
people=s personal problems and how they learned to handle the
pressures of change. With the liberation of the woman and the
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decline of the family, a great vacuum was created for women.
Emotional and romantic novels were used by many to fill this void.
While these provided an escape similar to the emotion revivals of
the Bible folk, this was not a permanent solution for the new
ordering of society taking place. People need to feel a place in the
world. Darwinism had liberated man from his connection to
eternity and had linked him to the animal world. While man had
been set free, a certain nobility and direction were lost.
Every society needs means of escape for those who are
feeling the pressures of living-- some grand design is needed to
make people part of the working world. Novels become a means
to understanding the new order besides from providing an escape
from the tedium of working in a factory or living in a crowded city.
One popular novel in the world that appealed to all at this time
(and in all ages of social change) was Robinson Crusoe. It was a
story of a man who had been separated from family, friends, and
traditions and had to remake his new world all by himself into a
world that would satisfy his needs. Crusoe had been stripped of
everything that he had formerly held dear. Life was separated
from the meaningful structures that had ordered his life. But he
was also set free. Free to build a new order without the
interference from others. He had some provisions from the old
world, but often he had to make them work in new ways. This
struck a cord with the liberated individual who must take the ruins
of the war and build a new society to his liking.
It is impossible to have a revolution in just one section of a
society. The various parts of a society are like pieces of a puzzle.
A revolution cannot just change one piece of the puzzle. It is a
means of throwing out the whole puzzle. After the success of such
an enterprise, new pieces must be created. Society is not a one
piece puzzle or even one or two. It is made up of many parts. To
be a successful revolution, the new pieces must be made to fit
together. The creation of social parts that fit together to form a
whole is what happened in the years after the Civil War. Some
pieces were tried and did not fit and were discarded. The social
stresses on the people were great, even greater because there
was no awareness that a new age was being formed. It is very
similar to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Great
81
changes are happening but no one knows what the new world
order will look like. If we knew, the transition would not be so
painful. For example, in the post 9/11 pursuit of a security state,
can historic ideas of freedom survive?
Just some of the pieces of the puzzle involve the coordination
of religion, government, science, business, education,
entertainment, history, psychology, economics, and politics. All of
the above must be pulling in the same direction and support each
other if a given culture is going to function efficiently. If one gets
out of alignment with another piece, the others will exert pressure
to bring it back in line. This is why during the cold war the former
Soviet Union tried to resist American clothing and entertainment.
They were often laughed at because it seemed so ridiculous from
the American point of view. But the Soviets understood the nature
of society better than many of us. They knew that all of the parts
of their culture had to be held in proper alignment so they could
support each other. This is why cultures often collapse all at once.
The various parts will keep each other in line until there is some
breakthrough. At that point there is no more resisting the forces of
change. For example, those wishing to destroy Christianity now
understand that by just destroying the family, all other aspects of
Christianity will become irrelevant. A full fledge attack is not
necessary.
A short example of each level of order would find each piece
fitting together in the following fashion to form a new order. The
government must pass laws that support the type of order that it
desires. Who controls the government, is not the issue at this
time. The important thing is that the government pass consistent
laws with the type of order it wants to achieve. One of the
functions is to achieve an integrated puzzle where each piece fits.
This prevents conflicts in the social order. Conflicting laws will
empower groups that will form rivalries in their desire to be the
ones who determine the new order. For example, conflicting laws
about the role of freedom in government education has resulted in
many groups seeking to control education for their own ends.
In creating a social order, a giant picture must be painted
that establishes a ruling myth. If the picture is painted correctly,
those seeking to reform a society, will design their pieces of the
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puzzle to fit into the overall picture, or ruling myth. The ruling
party will seek to demonstrate that the current situation is the
result of historical process and options only exist within this
historical process. Alternative social pictures are not to be
debated. The state-supported historical view does not offer
contradictory versions of history. Every society has people who do
not fit in with things as they are. A system must be devised to
explain deviant behavior or social sickness. Psychology in today=s
world provides such a service. Thus, reality is the great myth or
picture painted by the ruling class. Those who oppose this myth
must be seen as deviant and in need of some type of therapy to
bring them back into line. Reality is one.
The business piece of the puzzle must determine the nature
of production. As there are various types of business culture, one
must be chosen to be the dominant form. A society based on
barter will not work in a business world that operates upon a cash
basis. The young must be trained to be the type of person who will
see the total culture as the best of all possible worlds. He must be
trained so that he will not see alternatives to the piece of the
puzzle he is being made into for the general good. Science in a
society not only provides the technology for progress, but it also
offers a secular support to the social order. The order will be
scientific and thus not open to change. All orders involve some
form of elite and the mass of people must follow their lead. This
does not come naturally to most people. An outlet for the
frustrations of being a social or wage slave must be provided. This
is what the Roman Circus or the modern entertainment cultures
provide.
Finally, the religion of a society must be a servant to the
state. While the state would prefer a totally secular people, this is
not possible. There may come an age when the last of religious
superstition, as viewed by the state, will be driven from the order.
But as long as there are sickness, death, and uncertainty in life
there will be some form of religious faith. The state must seek a
faith that either supports its order intellectually, or supports a
form of religious entertainment. The various emotional,
charismatic, and revivalistic cults provide a way of escape from the
rigors and contradictions of society. Those who are involved in
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such activities will not usually oppose the state=s order. As with
those who are emotionally content, they also provide good workers
in the service of the state. A popular intellectual faith will work
with science and psychology to form a belief system that
integrates the parts into the whole. Up until the abortion crisis, the
evangelicals and fundamentalists often provided excellent
foundations for the establishment order. And that issue is now,
after years of being an active issue, declining in importance.
As we have been discussing, there are five questions that
every viable social order must answer: One, who makes the final
decision or who is the ultimate referee? What is the social
pyramid that every society must establish? What type of law
system will be instituted? What are the rewards and punishments
for not following the laws and social system? What type of future
can be anticipated for the society that follows the whole system?
With the coming of the Civil War a new system was inaugurated.
The first thing to be established was a new answer to the first
question. Sovereignty had been divided and ultimately rested with
the states. While there had been jurisdictional disputes, it took a
two-thirds vote of the states to overcome a state=s opposition to
some law.
President Lincoln established a new nation. The central
government now was the final source of law. The individual states
no longer had the power to declare any law of the federal
government unconstitutional. While Lincoln may have declared he
was preserving a nation brought forth four score and seven years
ago, that was a lie, or as is said, it was a Apolitician=s@ truth. He
had formed a new nation and any state that opposed his rule
would be met with military force. This was not the nation that the
states thought they were forming with their idea of a covenant of
nations forming a confederacy. The new form of government,
hinted at during the Whiskey rebellion and the military solution of
George Washington, had arrived. The states had now become
mere departments of the central government.
New laws during the Civil War had created a new pyramid.
There was a new governmental pyramid, but also a new social
pyramid was created. The corporation became a new reality
during the war and a new form of society was formed in the
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process. A totally new form of organization had arrived on the
American scene. The corporation became a protected form of
business government operated under the authority given it by the
central power. People in the new America now had another form
of government to which they would owe their lives and well being.
The Supreme court used the new Civil War amendments to give to
the new corporation the status of legal persons. Almost all of the
decisions during the first fifty years of the new amendments had
more to due with the new business relationship which citizens were
now under than with personal rights.
It was during this period that business law became the real
laws of the nation. The Gospel of Wealth became the new way to
view society and its goals. The laws that bound a citizen to his
family, local organization, school, or government, were
transformed into a new form of loyalty. The new laws made the
business corporation a new power that sooner or later every
individual had to submit to or else. While it took time for the full
consequences to kick in, each person was now basically alone in
the universe. Man had become separated from family and
community. New ties had to be formed. Men were now free to
make themselves over into the image of the new man needed to
survive in the new corporate world. A new psychology was needed
as men needed to mold their lives to fit into the routines and time
tables of the corporation.
The rewards for obedience were offered to everyone that
bought into the new system. Wealth was promised to even the
person of the most humble origin. There would be no class system
in this new American except the one built upon hard work and
initiative. The stories of Horatio Alger became the new hope for all
to emulate. Those who did not obey the new laws of wealth were
consigned to the new laws of poverty. For those who did not work
in the factory, neither shall they eat. While a few were able to hold
out, in time the numbers became fewer and fewer. The individual
in the midst of this system felt all alone, but they were declared to
be free at last from all restraints. No more responsibilities to
family, friends, community, church, or fraternal organization.
Man=s new responsibility was only to the new corporation.
A good example social reorganization can be seen in the
85
changes to the American school system. The new school was to be
patterned after the corporation and its requirements. The child
must be trained from early on to be part of a group and to be
confined for long hours. The child must learn to see the school as
reality. It should never dawn on a child that learning could occur
outside the system that is provided for him. The child must learn
to submit to even the boring tasks that the factory requires. The
child must learn to respond to the bells that control the movement
of the students. He must learn to see that his future happiness will
be determined by how well he conforms to the learning factory.
He must look upon the school as what being a child in America is
all about. The small school also must be abolished to form schools
that have thousands of students, just like his parents= factory.
The future promised to those who obeyed was a glorious time
when there would be riches untold. Poverty would come to an end.
The world ruled by corporations would become a world of peace.
The new technologies would enable mankind to push back the
frontiers. Science would cure diseases and produce a utopia upon
the earth that the religions only promised after death. The new
heaven would be upon the earth as man organized around the
structures of corporations and gave man the power to be a god on
this earth. The myth of the horn of plenty had arrived upon the
American shores. Each year seemed to be getting better and
better. The myth did indeed appear to be true. All areas outside
of the social structure of the corporation were diminishing in
importance. The new life of the promised land was in making the
whole world into a business corporation ruled by laws made by a
benevolent government.

11 A NEW MAN FOR A NEW AGE

Prior to the Revolution America believed in the Calvinistic

view of man. There was a view of man that could only be called
Biblical. After the Revolutionary War there was a period of
transition. Christianity, in the Biblical sense, had died. There were
only temporary replacements, but nothing of any lasting nature.
The time between the Civil and Revolutionary Wars was a time of
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transition. In a sense, one king was dead, but no new king had yet
been crowned. There were many pretenders to the throne. But no
one replacement for Christianity was able to push the others aside.
During the war the coffin nails were finally pushed into the coffin of
Christianity. Calvinistic Christianity had been limited to the South.
Defeated nations are not good at promoting their religious views.
Losers to not make good examples of what happens to those who
believe their faith. After the war, the South was not only destroyed
but the faith that had sustained the Southerners during the war.
Abraham Lincoln was partly responsible for one part of the
new faith to become victorious during this time. He was not a
Christian. One of his antics was to make fun of preachers by
mimicking their sermons and preaching style. Yet he portrayed
himself before the nation as a man who was very religious. While
he could be charged with hypocrisy or insincerity at best, he was in
fact giving the nation a new faith to believe in. It was not a faith
that involved any creed, or any church, but was a faith in America,
its mission in the world, and a secularized divine mission to the
world. His idea of a god was close to that of Hegel who viewed the
new modern central state as embodying the idea of the divine as it
represents the ideal of humanity. The masses need a god and the
state can fulfill that need better than any other entity for it is most
closely in contact with the trends of the age. It also has the power
to impose its views on its people.
If there was one thing true about Lincoln, he was a man of his
age. He understood the times and the seasons in which he lived.
He was great in the sense that he had a vision of the future that
reflected the times and he acted on that vision. His vision of the
new faith, a faith in man and the state, was declared victorious as
it defeated the last remnant of Christianity on earth. To the victor
go the spoils, and the spoils here was the right to declare a new
faith for mankind. A new king had been crowned. It was fitting
that the person who more than any other who ushered in the new
faith should also die for his faith. He had become the faith=s first
martyr. And he was resurrected to become the leader of this new
nation-faith. While George Washington may have been the father
of our country, Abraham Lincoln was the father of our nation and
the faith for which it stands.
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 While old America was made up as a nation of local loyalties,
with each individual dependent upon many sources, the new
America was a nation of individuals dependent upon the central
government. Many of the former functions of churches and their
charities were gradually taken over by the central government.
The citizen=s loyalty was now to the state, and not to his church or
county. The reason that America could be seen as the melting pot
was that there was a faith that stood above every previous faith to
unite all people that came to this nation. The hope of the world
now rested in the experiment that was to be launched after the
Civil War in America. How would the new world of science and
man look? And how would citizens adjust their loyalties to the new
nation?
These questions had to be answered in the years ahead.
While most Americans lived outside of the reach of the new central
power, there was still the belief that the changes that took place
after the war would be the new America. There was the occasional
riot or protest against this or that particular law of the new order,
but the new order marched on regardless. The leaders and
thinkers of this age were all united on the overall philosophy.
Anyone who sought to oppose the new order was seen as some
ignorant person seeking to return to some fantasy of a golden age
in the past or who merely wanted a world with no change. But
change was something that can never be opposed. History is
change. The world was changing and everyone saw the future as
one where the governments of man would lead to a new paradise
on earth. By opposing the new national order against rigid
resistance, the view that looked to the future would prevail. When
the masses are given only two choices, the one where the state
controls the order of change appears to be the best.
I do not think this whole event in history could not have
happened without the intellectual support of Darwinism. The
social philosophy that evolves from Darwinism was preached by
such as William Graham Sumner and Lester Frank Ward. Ward=s
Dynamic Sociology reveals the nature of the new society and the
new man required to live in the future industrial order. Ward
believed that Christianity made people mentally ill and leads them
to lead lives that have no social usefulness. Religious people are
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just wasting their time. Those who have no religious faith are the
true leaders of society. Those with faith are preoccupied with
unimportant things, while the secular man is involved in life and
able to make intelligent decisions. The future lies with those who
have the intellectual tools to operate the powers of government.
Ward was a firm believer in evolution. He thought that while
in the past, evolution had been controlled by natural selection,
there was a better way than the one nature had used. The new
liberated man was to take control of evolution and direct mankind
to proper ends without the trial or error method of nature. While
others looked to nature for the proper ordering of life, Ward
believed that man need not be limited by nature=s laws. Man was
free not only to direct evolution but to establish his own laws of the
universe. The only institution capable of accomplishing such an
enormous task was the central state. The state, he felt, could
accomplish purposes without having to show a profit or to be
dependent upon market forces. It thus could do what is right
without having to make money in the process.
In times past, a historical aristocracy had ruled mankind. In
the new order, a scientific elite could manage society. The
intellectual elite would know through science how to focus society
and produce the new order. The masses must be trained to
understand that it is to their best interest to allow those who are
most capable to be in charge of the government and the planning
of their lives. The state must have a monopoly on education so
that all students receive the proper training in how the best
decisions are to be made. If private education is allowed to exist,
then there could be opposition to the ruling elite. In time, a new
form of government also would evolve. Democracy must change
into a form a scientific management of all men for the best
interests of everyone. In the past, men fought each other over
scarce resources and the resulting chaos created a society with no
purpose, just each individual trying to accomplish some private
satisfaction to the detriment of all others.
This philosophy works itself out into a whole new view of what
constitutes a social order. Men have operated under false
assumptions about themselves: They have assumed that evil
exists and the goals of life are established by individuals
89
themselves. The first results in various religions and the second
results in a laissez-faire society. Both have resulted in assorted
forms of warfare. Sin and individual goals must be abolished.
Rather than sin, defects must be seen as the result of improper
training or the result of a defective social order. Responsibility
must be transferred from the individual to the state or some
controlling agency. The social experts can establish proper
education and transform society into one of support. An efficient
society would not require men to make moral decisions at all. The
proper behavior would be built into the social order. There would
be no bad or immoral individuals, just people that need advice or
training. In such a society the very idea of good and evil can be
banished. Every problem will be something that can be treated as
diseases are currently treated. It is impossible to be bad, just
someone who has not adjusted to the elite, who have organized
the best system for all. Also, in this new order, failure would be
impossible. Those individuals that fall short would be supported as
much as necessary by the various government agencies.
Ward wrote his book in 1883, but you can see the type of man
pictured in his work is very close to the type of man needed in
today=s world. The world had been a place where everyone has
their own goals and purposes. These goals have produced
conflicts and kept man in bondage to shortages and mental
conflicts. Both national wars and social disorder have resulted as
individuals have adopted competing goals and sought to form
societies or governments to achieve conflicting purposes.
Religions have been created to support the views and to give a
cosmic foundation to the conflict. These revelations have given a
feeling of legitimacy to the various cross purposes that people
have invented. By removing children from their parents at a
young age, a child can be educated for social goals, not the
private, divisive goals, that their parents have been teaching to
the young.
Mankind had now evolved to the point where the type of
person needed to live happily in the new order could be educated
into being. Men must realize that their children belong to society.
Men must be educated to accept the substitution of social goals for
private goals. Religion has forced many to feel guilty for their
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choices and brought unnecessary pain and conflict into the social
order. A scientific society will not have a need for morals, guilt,
religion, and thus people can be freed from the chains that have
held them into a false world. The new order will thus liberate
people to develop their feelings or sensations within guidelines
that produce the most good feelings for the greatest number. The
planners will be able to create an individual that strives for the
pleasures that society says are good. Anything that promotes and
helps the new order is moral, and men are allowed to feel good in
any way that does not conflict with the overall operation of society.

12 A NEW NATION REFLECTS THE NEW PHILOSOPHY

There persists in society the idea that every area of society

operates independently of every other area of society. Colleges
are for education and are not influenced by what other areas of
society might do or believe. Businesses make products or provide
services, and what other areas of society might do, are unrelated
to the business. The same applies to scientists, philosophers,
theologians, and economists. Each person has a job to do in their
area of expertise, and each person does not have to consider what
others might be doing in their fields. School subjects are taught in
a similar fashion. Each teacher instructs the students in their
specialty, and then the student moves onto another teacher. The
student learns subjects as if they had no connection. He also
comes to understand that there is no connection.
This American philosophy has prevented students and others
from understanding the world in which they live. The student
learns facts, figures, dates, and unrelated data, and never comes
to a total understanding of the world. The world is seen as
something that is out there. It is something that is entirely
different from the world of the student. Making a living is what the
real world is about, and passing tests is what a student=s life is
about. This creates a fragmented view of reality and keeps those
in American society from any ability to see some big picture, or
what could be described as the ruling myths by which a nation
lives. Even in the absence of awareness of such a big picture, does
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not mean it does not exist. It not only exists but controls the
reality in which everyone lives.
The new beliefs which permeated American society during
the middle of the nineteenth century worked themselves out into
the overall way the government and people lived. America
became a different nation in the post Civil War era. The Mexican-
American War and the Civil War provide the beginnings of the
change in the social order. Americans and their government
thought that they could rule Texas a lot better than the Mexicans
were doing. It was the duty of America to intervene to liberate the
people of Texas from the abuses of Mexican rule. (The
independent nation of Texas was just a transition stage.) While in
the past there were conflicts with Indians over land or border
disputes with Canada, this war represented a change in attitude.
The people of America had a mission to reform the world according
to American ideals. This was only the beginning of what was to be
the rule of America to replace the rule of Britannia.
The Civil War represented a similar kind of intervention. It
was basically a war over whether one part of the nation had a right
to tell the other part on how to live. The abolitionists of the North
felt a moral obligation to change the world according to the
Unitarian vision of a righteous society. The abolitionists also felt
that the central government was the best means to carry out their
mission. It was to be a righteousness at the point of a gun if
necessary, but the South would have to be taught how to live.
Here again, once the seed is sown, it brings forth the fruit of its
own implications. Americans became a nation of reformers. The
government was seen as the great enforcer of the morality of the
most powerful interest groups. With so much at stake, in time, the
control of the central government would become the most
important aspect of American life.
With these thoughts in mind, it brings us to the new
government that was in the process of being formed between the
Civil War and the First World War. The two views of intervention,
the desire to preach and to enforce the new morality, would
become the basis of American society. Such views do not grow in
isolation. If one part of society resists change, it is very difficult to
change the ruling myths that order people=s lives. Nothing short
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of a total transformation of society is to be tolerated. That is why
in this area we see dramatic ideas taking shape that influenced
every part of American culture. The new philosophies influenced
the role of government and its relation with local governments,
with charities, with education, with families, with the environment,
and with just about every other aspect of life. If the ruling myth of
America could be narrowed down to one word, it would be this:
Intervention. There was no area of life that was seen beyond the
help of the new role government took upon itself. Government
intervention could finally produce the utopia, that many people
had been dreaming about for ages.
One of the primary areas of intervention would be the
government overhaul of the way children are educated. Many of
the problems had been blamed on the system of Western
education that had been used in America. The one room school
with the older students helping to tutor the younger ones had to be
replaced. The emphasis on rote learning was considered
destruction of the child=s personality. The use of Latin and other
classics was considered laying a foundation of respect for ancient
institutions. The parental control of the school curriculum was
seen as the continuing of a parental dictatorship over the child=s
mind. The local school board was run in accordance with local
desires was seen as preventing the children from rising above their
town and local interests.
The educational system that needed to produce more farmers
was over. The age of the small town was over. America was
starting to take its place in the world community. Farms were no
longer going to be the future of American production. The factory
was quickly replacing the farm as the basic unit of production. The
type of person needed to live in the city and work in the factory
was a different kind of person than America had produced in the
past. Many educational leaders in State-sponsored universities
started publishing plans for a new educational system. The
foundations plush with factory money, also worked to establish a
new school system. It was considered an investment in the future
of their factories. The government, the business community, and
the leading educators came together to plan a new future for
American youth.
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 The philosophy supporting this new educational movement
was based on a Darwinian view of the universe. While the other
animals had never risen above evolution, man had managed to
develop a mind. This mind, although the product of evolution, was
something that had been liberated from the evolutionary process.
The mind of man was no longer subject to the Darwinian laws of
survival. This liberated mind could actually turn back on the
evolution that produced it and take charge of the processes. Man
would no longer be subject to the laws of survival. The mind that
man had developed could now make its own laws. In the past, the
laws of the universe and the developing social institutions had
been seen as unchangeable. That view had kept man locked into
laws and institutions that kept him in chains.
Man=s mind had set man on a new level. He was not only
free from the past, he was free from evolution. Man could take
control of every aspect of his life and environment. In the past
people lived under laws and institutions that people thought were
inspired, divine, or an integral part of the universe. Evolution
taught man that laws were only the current manifestation of
processes of time. Laws and institutions could be changed. The
end of superstitions singled the end of a closed universe. Man was
freed from his past and his very human nature was nothing but
what the past had said man was supposed to be. Anything
unchangeable, no longer placed any limits over man=s desires.
During this period, many felt that laissez-faire capitalism was
something from the past that was destroying society. The
competitive school system was needed for such a winner-take-all
view of economics. The new society needed a new economics and
a school system that no longer produced entrepreneurs. While a
ruling class profited from maintaining the past, the school could be
the agent to liberate children from the medieval institution of
class. America did not need an aristocracy. This was the age of
democracy and equality. The goal of the school was to teach the
new person how to live in such a liberated society. The aristocracy
had created a whole system of people to support their exalted
status. The churches, the hired historians, the social scientists had
helped Americans view the world they lived in as the only possible
world.
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 The new unit in a nation of equals was the absolute individual.
The individual in the past depended upon others for survival. The
family was needed as a welfare system. The local community was
needed for support of the individual=s social world. This world was
an artificial one. Man was kept in chains to support others and the
systems that were needed to maintain it. One of the new primary
organizations developing during this time was the large scale
factory. The new principles of interaction and organization were
reflected in the factory system. The new school was based on how
a factory operated. Children were to be trained to live in an
impersonal world where schedules ruled the day. Factories had no
family or community. They were organized individuals united in
common cause for money and production. The school was to be a
reflection of this world.
The student need not master content of past events and
traditions. What use would needless facts of history do to help the
student become the future worker? The child needed to be
liberated from such a fact-oriented world. The student needed to
learn to live in a fluid world where change ruled the day. Evolution
had been changed from the animal world to the world controlled
by man. The social world had gone form something static to
something becoming a better world continuously. The student
should learn how to change and adapt and not to depend on false
traditions and superstitions for support. The centralized school
would combine everyone into a world ruled by change and
adaptation. No sense of bonds or permanency should be allowed
to invade the school. It is just a phase that the student passes
through each day.
Along with local intrusions, the evolving view of intervention
led to America=s launching itself into a global power. The excuse
was the Spanish treatment of prisoners in their handling of a revolt
on the island of Cuba. With some prodding the Spanish agreed to
change prison conditions. Normally that would have been enough.
But a new age was dawning. William Randolph Hearst and his New
York Journal declared war upon Spain in its pages. The newspaper
began the launching of what was then called Ayellow journalism.@
The treatment of prisoners by the Spanish was exploited to the
utmost. War is never pretty. War does not play well in people=s
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homes. By applying the standards of American justice to the
conditions in a foreign country, war stories made for good reading
and created an infuriated public atmosphere.
The blowing up of the battleship Maine served as an excuse
which leads nations to war. Whether it is Ft. Sumter or the Alamo
makes little difference. The cry of ARemember The Maine,@
roused similar emotions to the other cry of ARemember the
Alamo.@ Throughout the conflict Spain showed little interest in
engaging America. The actual fighting lasted about two months.
It is more than likely that either the ship sank because of some
internal explosion or because the Cuban rebels did it to bring
America into the war. With any act it is always best to ask: Who is
going to profit most from this event? The starting of a war that
Spain did not want and did not fight with any enthusiasm was
hardly something the Spanish themselves would instigate.
The result of this quick war is that the United States became
a world power with the responsibilities that followed from that
status. The United States in one way or another became involved
with Hawaii, Midway, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Wake Island,
Cuba, and several other islands in the Pacific. Also, after the war,
troops were sent to China to help other nations suppress the Boxer
Rebellion. To get the idea of the size of the operation, there were
70,000 United States= troops in the Philippines. The bottom line
was that two important principles became apparent. With the
telegraph, the nation for the first time was responding as one
nation. The use of information could create a national view of any
subject. The control of this information became all important.
Information and its control became the center of power in the new
America.
Not only could Americans be brought to a condition of caring
for foreigners, they could be motivated to sacrifice their sons to
help foreigners. This was something totally new in our history.
The condition that George Washington had warned Americans
about, the entanglement of the nation in foreign affairs, had come
about. No one seemed to notice. The idea that America was now
a great nation with a mission not only to save the Indian from
himself and to save the Blackman from the Southerner, but was to
save many others in the world from oppression. Overnight, the list
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of potential enemies grew as Americans now had a mission to
export democracy and their view of life to the whole world. The
seeds planted during this time were small, but the seeds once
planted grew into a concern for the whole world. The harvesting of
this crop would involve America in one global conflict after
another.
While America was just getting used to the idea of intervening
in the affairs of the whole world, something happened after the
war which changed forever the role of America in domestic affairs.
The belief in Darwinism led to the idea of progress, a progress
which men and government could control. The new attitude was
that wherever there was a problem, the government was to step in
and help evolve a better world. After the Spanish-American War, a
series of books was published by a group of authors that came to
be called AThe Muckrakers.@
This intervention was preceded by a Christian theology which
supported the idea of intervention. It was seen as the new
Christian=s duty to support social reform whenever possible. A
new idea entered the American vocabulary. Americans were
introduced to the concept that not only individuals could be sinful
but American social orders could be sinful also.
The Civil War was directed against just a section of America.
The famous American revivals only led to the conversion of
individuals. The problem was seen that these individuals had to
return to their old lives with the old social structures. These
structures made it impossible for them to live a Christian life. The
conditions in these sub cultures had help create the sin in these
lives. If the social conditions could be changed, then the thievery
and drunkenness that resulted could be eliminated. It was felt that
the conditions were greater than an individual, or group of
individuals could reform. Something greater than religious revivals
or sectional reform was needed. The answer was that only the
central government could change the entire nation. Religion could
change individuals, but only government could change large
numbers of individuals and the entire social reality.
A series of novels was published which were reported to be
based on fact. Frank Norris revealed Atruths@ about the Southern
Pacific Railroad in The Octopus. He also talked about wheat
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speculators in The Pit. David Graham Phillips did his part exposing
the power of the new wealth to corrupt society in The Great God
Success. Other books exposed child labor, the conditions of the
inner city, or corporations such as The Standard Oil Company. The
total impression created, was of a society dominated by evil and
corruption. The power of man in the new evolutionary order gave
him the power to end not only evil, but all degrading and corrupt
conditions in society. America was launched on a great crusade to
create a new world order within its own borders. There was the
new evangelism of the Social Gospel that would lead to the
creation of a best of all possible worlds. Everyone turned to
government to bring in this new order.

13 THE NATION BECOMES THE NEW SAVIOR

The success of the Spanish-American War and the limited

success in breaking up or cleaning up various businesses created a
new spirit in America. Americans, if they put their mind to it, could
do anything. The old frontier had been declared officially closed.
There would be no more lands to escape to from city life. The next
frontier would be the changing of America into a new nation. The
men who thought that it was within his power to accomplish this
task were Woodrow Wilson with his right-hand man, E. Mandel
House. Wilson talked about the new freedom that was to come
from his efforts to change America. Wilson expanded the tradition
of overt Presidential leadership. He came to Washington with a
personal agenda of laws that the Congress needed to pass. His
idea freedom consisted in a series of new programs that would
transform the nation forever.
Under the cover of more freedom, four new amendments
were added to the Constitution. The sixteenth amendment added
to the federal government=s power, the power to levee an income
tax. This was more than a tax on income, but gave the government
the right to look into everyone=s personal life. The seventeenth
provided for the direct election of senators, eliminating the states
as a legitimate power in America. The eighteenth amendment
banned the sale of alcoholic beverages. The Progressives thought
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that a law such as this could change America into a better nation.
The nineteenth amendment gave women the right to vote. This
was done in the name of democracy but altered the way America
thought of the family.
These acts were a revolution both in their consequences, plus
the apparently unintended consequences. The income tax moved
beyond supplying a small amount of money that was lost because
of tariff reductions. It became a way for the government to
redistribute money and to not only change society, but to use the
federal budget to enlarge the role of government in people=s
lives. One amendment gave the central government the right to
know everything about every business and about every dollar
earned and nearly every dollar spent by the average American.
This was the beginning of the loss of privacy. The vast welfare
system could not have happened without the power to increase
taxes at any time. Equally important, the fighting of World War I
would have been much more difficult without the power to tax
incomes in an almost unrestricted way.
That states had always fought for the powers which the
Constitution gave them. The Civil War was fought over the
definition of exactly how many rights the local states had. Even
with the elimination of certain rights because of the war, the power
to elect Senators gave the states an amount of power to veto any
federal grab for additional powers. This conserving action was
painted as a way the rich could keep the poor in subjection. How
could the central government carry out its new reforming function
if the states would not let it? Thus, through the use of envy and
resentment, the Wilson administration was to get this amendment
passed. This cleared the way for the government to appeal
directly to the people in their claim for more power to change the
nation into a better place.
The ban on the sale of alcohol was more symbolic than
anything. It may have been passed with good intentions, but it led
to the creation of immense profits in the illegal sale of alcohol. It
also eventually made necessary the creation of a centralized police
force to enforce the Volstead Act. The law also led to the creation
of organized crime. It provided the initial funding to ensure that
long after the legalization of alcohol the crime families would
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survive. The crime lords just moved their activities into other
illegal activities. Certainly America would be a different place
today if the nation had refused to pass a law which was virtually
impossible to enforce. Also, the imposition of this act took away
the property rights of individuals with no compensation. Those
who owned breweries and bars were put out of business with no
compensation. One day they were operating a legal business and
even Biblical, and the next day their business was worth next to
nothing. This created the seed in American thought that people
could have their businesses and property values destroyed if done
with good intentions.
The giving of the vote to women was more subtle in its
changes than the other laws. Previously, the family was seen as a
covenant. The family was seen as a miniature form of
representative government. The man of the house was given a
right to vote because he was the head of the family. He cast his
vote as the head of a unit. It was not his vote because he was an
individual, but because the man was seen as the head of a
household. The elimination of this vote and the giving of women
the right to vote changed the way the family would be thought of
in the future. With both the men and women now having the right
to vote as individuals, the family was increasingly seen as the unit
of separate individuals. Most changes start out often with good
intentions, but the consequences of those good intentions work out
in time. Also, psychologically women tend to be more concerned
with security then men. Since the time of this amendment,
government and it policies have reflected a concern for security.
Another great change by Wilson and his friend was the
passage of the Federal Reserve Act. The act was not as innocent
as it has been made to sound. The nation had been involved from
its very beginning over the nature of the nation=s banking system.
It, among other things provided for the independent control of the
national currency. The reason that the central government
apparently stepped back and gave this power over to private
bankers is a mystery to most people. Much has been made that
political appointments are involved in the Reserve, but the
independence of the Federal Reserve is notorious. It is a private
business with the power to control the currency and the economy
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of the nation.
Other acts in this same vein were the Federal Trade
Commission Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. The Trade
Commission was given the power to enforce Afair trade
practices.@ The definition of what constituted fair trade was not
defined in law. Companies were to provide annual reports of their
practices and the commission would decide whether they were
doing things correctly. It was the kind of open-ended law that a
government can use for many purposes. It is like having no traffic
laws and allowing the policeman to issue tickets to motorists for
unsafe driving practices. What the driver asks is an unsafe driving
practice? It is when you are given a ticket. Huh? That sounds
crazy in our lives, but somehow makes sense when it comes to
business. But the pattern had been set which would be followed
many times over in our history. The laws of the Internal Revenue
Service, also, are so at times without definition.
Under the guise of the ANew Freedom,@ many laws were
passed to regulate farms, businesses, railroads in particular, and
labor unions. Somehow, the idea was that if the government
controlled everything, then no one would be able to do anything
that would injure another party. We would all be free because no
one would be able to do anything which the central government
prohibited. These early efforts were small by today=s standards,
but the attitude is what we are looking at. The belief entered
American society that a law, a commission acting wisely, or
economic regulations would ensure that everything was done
fairly. The new freedom would be the freedom to do what the
central government saw as the wisest choice. This age of Wilson
totally changed America. While Abraham Lincoln may have
destroyed the old Constitution, it was not until Woodrow Wilson
that the new one was written.

14 THE GOVERNMENT OF WILSON BECOMES A NEW

CHURCH

Voltaire, an atheist, declared that he believed in a god and

morals because he did not want his servants stealing the
silverware. He may not have said it, but most people believe that
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statement. A society, in order to exist, must have a social glue
that keeps people honest and law abiding. It has been shown over
and over that merely the threat of punishment is not enough to
create a stable and moral social order. The chances of getting
caught are never great enough to keep the evil doer in line. You
cannot have a policeman in every house and place of business to
ensure that the laws of the central government are obeyed by
everyone. There must be a belief that an invisible god exists in all
places to see who is being good or not. Religion has always
served this function for every government. While the government
leaders do not believe in a god, it is essential to their rule that the
people do believe in a god that wants them to obey their leaders.
The government must have a religious faith that supports the
rulers and the laws of the land. There are two aspects of this faith:
A civil religion and a patriotic faith. The need for both was brought
out during the First World War or The Great War as it was called
before the Second World War made it the First. Before the war,
America had welcomed many millions of German immigrants. The
population at this time had a very large percentage of Germans
living in America. At the start of the war there was a great cry for
America to remain neutral from the struggle of the European
states. It was the George Washington thing to do. The nation had
to be changed from isolationism into a nation that had grown into
a full world power. The nation had to be rallied into a collective
cause. The Spanish American War was the beginning, but this war
had to change once and for all how Americans thought about their
nation and their role in it.
Just like the Alamo, and the battleship Maine, the sinking of
the Lusitania provided the spark to ignite American indignation.
Actually, up until this time America was the supply house to the
allied cause. America was supplying the Allies with their needs
and acquiring the supply of gold in the world. While at the start of
the war America could think of being neutral, the growing trade
relationship with one side in the war forced Americans to take
sides. It may have been a business decision as much as anything.
But business and their interests do not sell well to the masses. The
war had to become an American crusade Ato make the world safe
for democracy.@ This war, if Americans would do their fighting
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share, would be Aa war to end all wars.@
In the progression toward mass obedience the First World War
was a major stepping stone to this goal. When the war first started
there was little national opinion in terms of which side America
should be on in Europe. Most just wanted to stay out of the war.
While our trade relationship with England was a factor in favoring
one side, the many German Americans made a war with Germany
seem unlikely. Transforming Germans into deadly Huns was not
just politics, it was an experiment in mass obedience. The Spanish
American War required very little effort and thus a national
mobilization was not needed. To send tens of thousands of
American youth to fight in a foreign war would take a unique effort.
Looking back, it was a major accomplishment. While the Civil War
literally took forty or fifty years of agitation to get America to the
point of war, the enthusiasm for the Great War was generated in
just a couple of years.
The extent of this change was brought home to me when I
visited Abbeville, South Carolina. The town has a traditional war
memorial plaza. On one monument are the names of those who
died in the First World War from Abbeville County. It is a small,
rural country. I counted the names of 33 men who died in that
war. Abbeville was the site of first declaration of secession to start
off the Civil War. In just a short time later, the sons and grandsons
of the men of who fought the North were now sending their youth
off to fight a war in Europe to support a nation that South Carolina
had wanted no part. In the space of just fifty years, the United
States was transformed into something totally different, from the
nation that fought the Civil War. And when you consider that the
occupation of the South ended in 1877, the time until America=s
involvement was just forty years.
The next astounding transformation was to the extent that
the central government was allowed to go in the mobilization of
the American people. First of all, the war was not just a war of
American involvement in a European conflict. War is the means to
achieve domestic goals that would otherwise be opposed. One
reason Wilson was so effective in achieving the total remaking of
American government was that this was a time of crisis. War gives
the excuse for change and once those changes are instilled, even
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if only temporary, the nature of the system has been altered. War
also creates a national unity. War brings out what some refer to as
the best in people: They are caring, self-sacrificing, and willing to
endure many hardships and losses of freedom. John Dewey
thought of that the >social possibilities of war= created all kinds of
opportunities for changing American society for the better.
The central government of any nation acquires tremendous
powers during a crisis. The longer the crisis, the greater the power
attained, and the less likely those powers will be rescinded after
the war. Wilson created all-powerful boards to run the nation.
There was The War Labor Board, The Food Services Administration,
The War Industries Board, but the most unusual was the
Committee on Public Information. The director, George Creel, was
in charge of an effort to sell the war to the American people. When
you consider the time, the Committee was on the cutting edge of a
new technology: This was the age of Information. He gathered
under his umbrella organization, journalists, artists, academics,
and the men in the new field of psychology and advertising. Every
aspect of the media was used to generate a national public
opinion: There were movies, posters, and war advertisements.
He also trained 75,000 AFour Minute Men@ in the art of
infiltrating public places and giving four minute memorized
speeches supporting the central government and the war. Every
where people went, they would run into one of these public
speakers. It generated the image of one=s neighbors being in
support of the war. Every citizen was urged to buy Liberty Bonds.
Refusing to buy them was seen as not supporting one=s patriotic
duty. It was the moral obligation of all Americans to support
freedom-loving people throughout the world. Just as nineteenth-
century Americans had bonded together to end slavery in America,
so the twentieth-century Americans would rise to do their duty in
bringing freedom to the entire world.
To ensure that everyone arrived at the correct opinion, The
Espionage Act of 1917 was passed. Among other things made
illegal, it was made a crime to do anything that might make
winning the war more difficult. Eugene V. Debs was given a ten-
year prison sentence for giving a speech against the war.
Publications that did not meet government approval were denied
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the use of the mails. A farmer in Iowa was also sentenced to prison
for criticizing the war. All over America various labor activists found
themselves doing jail time for their unionizing efforts. Even for
Germans to sing the songs of their home country was forbidden.
What would have caused a revolution from the American people a
hundred years earlier was accepted. This war was also before a
revealing income tax form, and the Social Security numbering
system. Monitoring the individual American was difficult during this
time, and yet the level of compliance was amazing.
This was a different America. The youth had been trained in
government schools. The media had become largely centrally
owned or influenced. The days of the open frontier were over.
There was finally one nation, and citizens started thinking of
themselves as united into a national purpose. Just a few years
earlier, no war could have been fought to make the world safe for
democracy. During the nineteenth century, American Churches
sent thousands of missionaries throughout the world. World War I
brought a different kind of missionary: A soldier with a gun armed
with the purpose of destroying governments that did not have
democracy. Wilson made famous his fourteen points and the
purpose of the war. It called for free trade, freedom of the seas, no
secret treaties, and the reduction of armaments. Other points dealt
with new boundaries and new understandings of colonialism.
While the war was fought for many reasons, the ideals of
Wilson sounded his goal for a new world order. The ultimate result
of the war was the punishment of Germany beyond anything
thought possible. The people of Germany were transformed into a
nation with permanent hate for the rest of the world. Many have
claimed the biggest result of the War was the unintended
consequence. This War set the stage for the Second World War.
Regardless, Americans arrived home from the war different people.
Morals had been lost during the war as young men were sent to
Europe, away from their families, and with the thought of dying
having never known life. After the war, there was a feeling that
time was short and life needed a new purpose. The false purposes
of the War never achieved anything in the world and the nation was
looking for something to fill the vacuum left by the disillusionment
that seems to follow all wars.
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 15 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR ON MAN

The Civil War is remembered for realizing the potential of the

economics of large scale production. The mass production required
by the war, killed once and for all, the era of American cottage
industries. World War Two is the war that was won through science
and its application to innovative products. The atom bomb, the
missile, radar and sonar, synthetic products, plus the advances in
medical science produced last lasting results that carried on
beyond the war. The First World War also produced something new
in the propagation of warfare. The new science of psychology came
into its own during this time. Because this was not a natural war
where the people called upon the government to take action, but it
was purely political war, new methods were needed. The
government had to design ways to create a desire in the citizens to
fight a war and to risk their lives and the lives of their children.
The nation was not being invaded. The interests of the people
were not being threatened. The war was real only in the sense that
the newspapers could carry pictures and reports about the fighting.
Despite the Spanish-American War, the United States had an
isolationist tradition. The warnings of George Washington against
foreign alliances were still part of popular culture. A new kind of
incentive was needed to fight this war. It was desired by the
government to motivate its people into an angry mob. How could
this be done? There was a new class of intellectual willing to sell
their services to the government. The new science of psychology
was in its infancy. It needed something besides hysterical women
to sell itself to the world as a true science. Psychology needed
something to separate itself from the world of parlor games. In one
sense, if not for World War One, the science of psychology would
have had to wait for some future event to makes its mark in the
world.
Stuart Ewen sums up the situation thus:
For some time, Progressives had articulated a vision of the
future in which intellectuals and social technicians would come
to lead a new and rational world order. In 1917, with one of
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 their ownBWoodrow WilsonBat the helm of government, many
saw the war as an opportunity for America and American
liberal values to frame the world=s future.
Moreover, fears of revolt from below had haunted the
Progressive imagination for some years. The desire to govern
and guide public perceptionBin order to effect the social
orderBwas hardly alien to the philosophy of progressivism.
When the moment to lead the public mind into war arrived,
the disorder threatened by antiwar sentimentsBparticularly
among the lower classesBwas seen as an occasion that
demanded what Lippman would call the Amanufacture of
consent.@17
The success of this process of changing America into a fighting
and angry nation was immensely successful. Volunteers lined up to
serve in the war and the nation rallied around their troops. The
exceptions were dealt with, oftentimes quite harshly, but the nation
as a whole felt as if the war time propaganda was the full truth.
The result was that a new type of nation and a new type society
emerged after the war. The national culture was changed
permanently. It is difficult at this time to understand the total
change that occurred in the mental state during this short period.
The people emerged from the war with a new mentality. The
modern age had arrived: The Western Man was dead. Man was
now, first of all, a tool of the state and its plans for the people. The
purposes of the state now took precedence over the individual.
When called upon to serve his nation, there was a new willingness
to sacrifice for the national goals. In other wars, there may have
been a return to normalcy, this was not possible after this war. The
basic understanding of reality had changed.
While the new governing elite may have had fears about their
ability to institute their plans for America, the success of the
wartime propaganda resulted in the new confidence of the elites to
create a false unity among the masses. The people, indeed, could
be led to do things which go contrary to nature, even to the point of
sending their sons off to die in a foreign dispute. If they would give
of their own sons, there was no limit to what propaganda could do.
17 Stuart Ewen, PR!: A Social History of Spin, p. 110. Basic Books, New York.
1996.
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The elites could >manufacture consent= and this new ability could
be applied to every area of society. The chosen leaders could
decide what the social purposes and agenda should be, and the
masses could be led into doing what was thought to be for their
own good. The leaders of government had the power to direct
society for particular goals.
The result of this was the feeling that central government had
now arrived. While in times past, the government might fear
overstepping its limits, it was now seen that there were no limits.
The only limits were in the government=s ability to lead. As long
as the leaders applied what they had learned from the war, they
need not fear a popular uprising or some form of mass resistance.
The important thing to remember is that now it was obvious that in
the new world, government action was the starting point of all
reality. Reality trickled down from above. Once the leaders had
defined reality, the masses could be brought into line. Often phony
debates are manufactured to give the appearance of freedom,
open discussion, and public choice.
The other area of revolution was in the area of what was once
called >truth.= It became obvious that the new leaders no longer
had to be limited by truth or facts. Facts could be manufactured.
The masses had no way of knowing what truth was because the
only source of information was the government and its media
helpers. As I write this, the television in the background is debating
whether to inoculate Americans against small pox. They are asking
viewers to vote on what should be the government=s policy and if
they would accept the idea of a mass inoculation. In the parlance
of the computer, >garbage in, garbage out.= A person is only able
to decide upon the information that he is provided. If he is
provided with false information, his conclusions will be false.
Of course, no propaganda is false. Truth is the result desired
by the leaders. Whatever information that leads people to make
correct decisions, has to be considered true in terms of what is best
for the masses. If incorrect information allows the leaders to
accomplish their social goals, then how can the information be
called incorrect? In the world of propaganda, the ends do justify
the means. The masses are considered incapable of making proper
decisions if left on their own. And if they were provided the Apro=s
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and con=s@ of every decision, the results might not always be in
line with desired policy. And it would involve a lot of unnecessary
debate. There would be a terrible loss of time and important
decisions would be delayed.
Another result of the war involved the developed of total mass
production. The entire nation was organized around the production
of war materials. The planning of the nation=s production was
impressive. Once a decision was made to product tanks, or bombs,
the entire system was able to turn out these products with fantastic
quality and efficiency. It seemed like the only way to run a giant
society. Once the elites determined that a certain product or
service was needed, then everything could be organized for the
production of that product. One giant corporation could turn out as
many as was determined beneficial to society. Planning did seem
to work well, in fact, very well.
The view of man=s nature also changed dramatically. The
very same techniques which had been developed to train animals
were applied to the masses. And, to the surprise of many, the new
techniques worked. The masses could be trained to follow a maze.
The use of rewards and punishments combined with the control of
mental input produced the desired behavior in humans just as it
had in animals. When working with the masses, it was vital to think
of them as animals. Any importation of Western Civilization=s
ideas about men being free and rational creatures would only
frustrate the propagandist. While it might still be possible to think
of individuals as being free, when dealing with large groups, that
freedom seemed to disappear. And whoever heard of a mob acting
rationally? Darwinism and propaganda are allies in their view of
human nature.
This led to the change in the way products were sold to the
public. Before the war, an advertisement might be all about the
good things the product did. Toothpaste cleaned your teeth, and
soaps removed stains from your clothes. With the new view of
man, products were sold with the idea of man being an animal. The
ads were designed to appeal to man=s animal nature, not his
rational nature. Toothpaste would improve your sex life and soap
would make you appear like a rainbow in a dark world. The best-
selling products would be the ones that could appeal to inner needs
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in the animal. Just as the government sought to lead people to
make certain decisions, so the consumer could be led to make
similar decisions. Governmental and corporate elites could use the
same wartime techniques to achieve the proper behavior in the
masses during peacetime.
Finally, after a war, the economy had to switch from making
guns to making butter again. One of the problems created by the
war was that now the new giant corporations could produce more
butter than ever before. There was a real problem with over
production. Something had to be done to solve this problem.
There could be no return to the pre-war methods of manufacture.
Here again, the new knowledge was put to good use. The masses
could be trained to desire products that they did not need. The
techniques of propaganda could create a society where the new
products would be indispensable. It was not a question of just
appealing to some irrational need, it was necessary to create a
culture than needed the product that was produced. Advertising
does not try to sell something a person does not need, it works to
create a culture where a person needs the product. Ads are not
just designed to sell, but to destroy other alternative to their
products. For example, as small town culture is destroyed, people
looked for ways to fill their time. The new modern individual must
be taught that going to a concert replaces the needs he formally
had met in church or in back porch sing-a-longs. Propaganda could
be used to change to whole cultures to serve the interests of the
new mass production and mass consuming society.

16 MATERIALISM AND PLEASURE FILL THE VOID LEFT

BY THE WAR

The 1920's saw Americans become addicted to the pleasures

of a hedonistic lifestyle. The frustration of seeing so many die in a
war that ultimately achieved so little made any purpose of life
seem empty. Wars have always had a bad effect on morals. Youth
are removed from their parents and their communities and placed
in a situation where there are no rules. A soldier is to follow orders
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during the battle. His free time between battles, often weeks or
months, is often occupied with trying to escape from the horrors of
war. The easiest way to escape has always been some form of
intense pleasure. Traditionally alcohol and sex have provided the
easiest ways to relax from the fears of death and the terrors of
battle. When soldiers return home, they are different people. They
have killed and watched their friends die. They survived in such
conditions by breaking the rules of society and church.
There is both something terrible and something liberating
when a person breaks a rule and there are no consequences. A kid
grows up in a community and is taught that right and wrong are
laws written into the fabric of the universe and are from God. He is
warned of the dire consequences of doing evil. Many kids have
gone through stages of panic after their first rebellious act. They
commit their act and wait for something to happen. They wait and
wait. Nothing happens. The boy who believes in the laws of the
universe evolves into a man who believes that a real man makes
his own laws. Thousands of soldiers returned home to America with
a message, AThe emperor (God) has no clothes.@ All those things
learned in school and in Sunday school were not true. Both the
good and bad died in war. Being moral seemed to have no special
privileges. The 1920's saw the birth of the new liberated American.
If pre-war America was a farm, the post-war America was a
city. The wartime propaganda had made a nation out of multitude
of rural communities. After the war the nation was further unified
by the mass production of the automobile and the radio. The car
set people free from their local area, and the radio gave people the
views of those outside of their community. By 1927, there were
over 700 radio stations in America. By 1929, there were over 26
million registered autos. The 20's also saw the proliferation of such
conveniences as the electric refrigerator, the vacuum cleaner,
washing machines, efficient stoves and a whole host of national
brands of consumer goods. These were exciting times. For ten
years the new life produced by technology seemed to be like
heaven on earth. Over 100 million attended the movies each week.
There was another contributor to the decline in morality
besides the returning soldier. By making alcohol illegal, most
Americans became law breakers. Consumption continued despite
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the best efforts of the central government to curtail production.
There is something psychological about breaking the law. Just as
the soldier broke God=s laws and found liberation, so the average
American broke the law of the land and what was taught as God=s
law and suffered no consequences. Once a person breaks one law,
it becomes much easier to break other laws that restrict one=s
freedom or pleasure. By making it impossible to be a law-abiding
citizen, it makes everyone equally a criminal. It is just human
nature that once a person knowingly violates the law, it is so much
easier to break many other laws. Any system that in one way or
anther that forces people to become lawbreakers ends up in a state
of anarchy, especially if consequences are lacking.
The Roaring Twenties was certainly that. I don=t know why
but this decade is never given the historical coverage that it
deserves. The twenties were a revolutionary time. The changes
made by Wilson were starting to have their effect. Add to this the
end of the war and the terrible flu epidemic of 1918. Those who
went through the twin terrors felt lucky to be alive and had a
renewed sense of the shortness of life. This often leads to an age of
pleasure seeking. Combine this with the great technological
revolution that occurred during this time. In really ten short years,
America went from a lifestyle not much different than the Roman
Empire to a modern industrialized empire. In 1920, travel by horse
was still common for many, and by 1927 the nation was celebrating
Lindbergh=s flight across the Atlantic. This was a time when it
seemed that the Utopian dreams of the ages were about to come
true.
If the new technology was a celebration of the triumph of man
and his greatness, then the Scopes Trial signaled the defeat of God
in America. He would no longer be able to have a voice in
American education and public life. That is why this trial took on a
life way beyond the importance of what happened in some small
Tennessee town. It is significant that in 1924 there were significant
immigration restrictions. During the 1920's the United States
practiced sterilization on those who were not fit to reproduce. In
this atmosphere it is clear that man was in charge of his own
evolution. The giant strides in technology and the goal of selective
breeding would show forth the Kingdom of Man. The trial was the
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announcement that God could now be kicked off his throne. Any
event that is of minor importance that has great implications takes
on the nature of an epic play. This is what happened Dayton,
Tennessee.
The perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan
took on the famous attorney Clarence Darrow. It is an event that
has been written about many times and made into several movies.
In fact the trial takes on the importance of a grand myth. Even
though Bryan won the trial, Darrow won the debate and captured
the national press. The fundamentalists retreated from public life
and accepted rule by the intellectual elite. Basically those who
held the Bible to be true stayed in the shadows until the Supreme
Court=s abortion ruling temporarily aroused their passion for a few
years. This generation can be summarized as the one that
defeated Germany, defeated morality, defeated fundamentalists,
and conquered nature. Despite some bumps along the way,
America would never be the same after this age. And there was no
turning back from the new enlightenment philosophy proven
victorious against all its enemies.
The twenties also saw the introduction, or at least the
proliferation, of important trends and technology. The installment
plan became an accepted part of America. The telephone became
part of the American family. Sports, especially baseball and college
football, also were now part of the escape from the daily routine.
Jazz and the separation of a youth culture became established
during this age. This new youth culture was part of the alienation
of the intellectuals after the World War. The mixing of European
and American cultures during the Great War created an inferiority
complex among American intellectuals. The start of the twenties
made the intellectual class ashamed of their American heritage.
The rural atmosphere seemed so out of touch with the culture
of Europe. The new rebels were enemies of conventional middle
class order which they associated with a carry over from the days
of America=s Puritan past. The frontier always had anti-
intellectual, anti-art attitudes that made the lifestyle of Europe
appear sophisticated compared to the rural, frontier values. Such
works as Sherwood Anderson=s Winesburg, Ohio, or Sinclair Lewis=
Main Street portrayed life in America as dreary, ugly, with small
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town pettiness and crudeness. The way the Old South was pictured
in movies was the way intellectuals saw the entire American nation
and its ties to its religious past. Having given up Christianity, the
intellectual class went about the land looking for a substitute.
Into this rejection of traditional American values from their
Puritan past, many looked about for answers to the problems facing
the modern world. The new intellectual class thought they were
superior to the rest of life in America. The thought the way the
typical person lived his life in the small, rural town as leading to the
ultimate of despair. They were dismayed at the lack of government
planning. Roads and towns were built without some sort of plan.
The countryside looked like a tornado had done the organizing of
the countryside. The solution seemed simple. The new class
needed to plan and organize the culture for the masses. The mass
of Americans did not welcome such meddling. The planning class
looked abroad for an example of their dreams. They found one in
the Soviet Union.
The planners and liberals made repeated trips to the Soviet
Union to inspect the nature of the revolution in Russia. Lenin and
Stalin put on a good show for these visitors. They were given
guided tours of places designed to impress the foreign visitors. It
was a case of persons wanting so badly to believe in the future of
planning that they were totally gullible. They returned to America
and wrote about their experiences with glowing reports. In their
rejection of the common American and his religious heritage, the
planners thought that government could be remade to become the
center of people=s lives. Money that was wasted by individual
persons could be gathered together by a central government and
spent on great projects. Cities and their monuments could be built
to resemble Rome or Athens of their empire days. The ugliness of
the large American cities contrasted with the idealism of a planned
city, funded by taxes.
The whole Soviet system offered hope to this disillusioned
class. The nation was built on the hope of science, atheism, and a
rejection of Western Civilization. The Soviet system promised plans
for the total rebuilding of life based upon rational principles. The
family system was replaced by a communal one. The intellectuals
were appreciated as a class and rose to the top of the Soviet
114
system as bureaucrats and planners. America had little use for
such a class. The individual did his own planning and desired to
spend his own money. The farm and family system were firmly
entrenched in America. The Soviets had shown the possibility of
throwing out everything and starting over with a plan, a plan not
based on the Bible but on mankind=s ability to organize life. Also,
the soviet system liberated man from sin and the American
excessive concern with sexual sins. All these factors combined to
create a desire to build a new America. But as long as religion had
a hold on the common person and as long as prosperity continued
any hope for drastic change in America was precluded.

17 THE NECESSARY CRISIS FINALLY ARRIVES TO

ALLOW FOR REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE

Change and progress were not happening nearly fast enough

in the opinions of many. Too many Americans held onto traditional
beliefs in an age that was destroying everything traditional. Over
the previous seventy-five years power had been gradually
transferred to the central government in Washington. The religion
of Calvinism had been successfully confined to the fringes of the
Deep South. The new American faith was combined with the beliefs
of science and in the power of government to bring about positive
changes. The three pillars of the new society were the following:
One, a contemporary interpretation of the Bible which allowed man
to interpret the Bible according to his own needs; Two, a faith in
Darwinism and progress and that with the tools of science, man
could take over evolution and direct it toward rational ends; and
Three, an understanding that the new science of organization and
government could rationally direct every aspect of life to bring
about a heaven on earth.
The Depression of 1929, became the necessary reason for
men to unite together with their three pillars of faith to bring about
a new world. America was not alone in this effort. Stalin, Hitler,
and Mussolini were all united in the belief that great changes could
be brought about through the power of one individual leading his
people into the necessary changes that would bring about a new
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order. With the election of Roosevelt in 1932, America had its
charismatic leader to usher in the changes that so many saw as
necessary. The personality of Franklin Roosevelt and his ability to
talk on the radio and assure everyone that he and his advisors
understood the new realities, led many to believe he could bring
about the formation of a new America.
The people in America had been psychologically prepared for
the necessary changes to bring about the goal so many leaders
wanted to achieve. The daily life of the typical American of 1930
was totally different from the days of 1860. One was local, the
other thought nationally. One was independent, the other was
dependent. One saw life in terms of work, the other saw life in
terms of pleasure. One saw life as offering no this-worldly security,
the other sought security in this life. One had a faith in a Biblical
God, the other had faith in the power of men working together.
One saw himself as part of a group, the other saw himself as an
individual apart from any connections. All in all, the people who
faced the crisis of the Depression were not the same people who
had conquered the frontier.
The changes to the character of the average American were
brought about through a combination of many factors. The state
control of education was a primary factor. The student could be
taught from childhood, a new view of reality. Those not interested
in schooling, before the universal control of education, were
allowed to pursue other avenues. Some started working, others
took jobs of apprenticeships, and others sought ways to educate
themselves. Those routes had been eliminated through child labor
laws and laws of universal, mandatory state education. The
education of America=s youth became one on preparing them to
take their place in the new factory system and its organizational
structure. The student graduated from the school with a different
mental attitude than the one educated in the private school system
before the Civil War.
The type of person, that would be content to live his life in a
factory doing the same task every day, was not the type of person
that conquered the frontier. Thinking, independent, resourceful,
and self-starting people did not do well in factories and its boring
routine. The men who saw the future realized that a giant
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workforce was needed to supply the new social organizations. The
railroads and the factories of the Civil War had proved that great
wealth could be achieved through the proper use of people to
produce products for a national market. The private schools were
preparing people to be entrepreneurs. Giant corporations only
need one leader, but they need a lot of followers. A school system
was designed to produce the type of person needed for the factory.
The reason the new system became accepted was that the new
science of organization promised to produce untold wealth. A giant
corporation could bring the resources to bear to create tremendous
wealth. And there were plenty of examples everywhere of the
products of the new factory-produced wealth. The victory of the
North inspired the nation to the blessings of giant factories and
centralized production.
The great depression was seen as a holdover from the
previous ages. The age of agriculture and its institutions had finally
collided with the new modern age. Americans were asked to finally
let go of their past, their superstitions, and the colonial system of
government. When it was put in terms of the poverty of the
Depression versus the answers that a new system of mass society,
the people chose to go along. The past had to be discarded to
restore prosperity, bring security, and allow people to flourish in the
new individualism of twentieth-century cultural structures. A few
individuals cried out against the reforms of the 1930's but more
and more they were portrayed as eccentrics. The ridicule that had
destroyed William Jennings Bryan was now used to destroy all those
who sought to oppose the cures being imposed upon the people.
A social insecurity was also introduced into the American
mental makeup. Mass society was seen as something so big and
unruly only the most powerful individuals or organizations were
capable of understanding it. The picture of the former millionaire
selling apples for a nickel became the poster child for changes in
the way people saw themselves. If even the most talented
individuals could not take care of themselves, what could be said
for the average person? A sense of hopelessness pervaded
everyone=s mental outlook. In the large cities one no longer had
neighbors to call upon in times of trouble. The churches no longer
had any sense of fraternity for their members. One reason for this
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was the penchant for Americans to change their church
membership constantly. Americans may no longer have been on
the move physically, but socially individuals wandered about
forming diverse, temporary connections.
In one way, the new American became a modern nomad,
wandering through the social landscape. He became totally
dependent upon his new tribal leader. Franklin Roosevelt
understood his new role as the tribal chieftain. He hired a gang of
modern witch doctors who conjured up cures for what ailed society.
He went on radio and assured everyone that not only was he in
control, but he had around him the world=s finest people who could
handle any problem. In the midst of a cultural despair of the future,
he held Americans on the course that he thought best for the
country. The fact that the whole role of the central government
was changing before their eyes worried barely a few. The nation as
a whole united behind the changes to bring America and its people
into the conditions of the modern industrial empire.
Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 talked about establishing the three
securities: One, the Asecurity of a livelihood,@ Two, the Asecurity
against major hazards,@ and Three, the Asecurity of decent
homes.@ Even though only fifteen per cent of the workforce was
unemployed, [In 1935, the official unemployment rate was listed as
30 per cent, but only non-farm workers were counted.] the national
priorities of the American society changed dramatically. While the
employed eighty-five per cent in times past would have cared for
their neighbors, no one any longer had neighbors to care for in
times of stress. But in a reverse sense, now everyone was a
person=s neighbor and needed caring for during unemployment.
While a person could care for one neighbor, only the central
government was big enough and had the resources to care for
everyone. Retirement used to mean being cared for by one=s kids.
Now the government replaced one=s family as the major care
giver.
Security in the historical sense was based upon mutual
obligations among citizens bonded together by blood, race, religion,
or location. This was no longer the case. In the name of freedom,
everyone was freed of all obligations which might interfere with
one=s new found lifestyle experience during the 1920's. This is
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one of the reasons the central government was able to sell the
people on this new socialism for America. For nearly ten years
many in America had experienced the liberation that comes from
having no responsibilities. Each person was able to pursue self
interest and pleasure without obligation or ties that bound one to
some tradition. The feeling was exhilarating. While in the tradition
of the founding Fathers, freedom may have meant such things as
the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to own guns,
or freedom to keep what one has earned, this view of freedom was
changing.
Trends work themselves out historically in a very slow and
gradual process. When one is experiencing a trend, it does not
appear to be a trend at all. Looking back, it then becomes
apparent that something indeed did happen. The 1920's tied in
with the 1930's, and trends were changing the way people
perceived life. What it meant to be a human being was no longer a
religious issue. This was, at first, not apparent. But in time, the
little trickles of the new freedom became a river that changed
America forever. Freedom became something totally personal.
Freedom became the freedom to be liberated from everything that
bound one. In time, this worked itself out as people even wanted to
be liberated from their own kids and kids wanted to be liberated
from their parents. Wives wanted to be liberated from their
husbands, and everyone wanted to be liberated from any sense of
guilt.
It is best at this time to discuss how these changes were
brought about. Cultural changes start in the midst of the cultural
leaders. The majority have little awareness of the deeper trends.
They experience the consequences of the decisions made in the
cultural centers without realizing that what they believe will be
influenced by these centers. Only a minority experienced the
1920's through the eyes of total liberation. During the 1930's, only
a few had to go through the consequences of the depression. Life
went on for most as if there were no crisis. The golden age of radio
was during this time. This was also the age of the big bands.
Movies were as popular as ever. Automobiles came out with new
models every year to sustain car sales. This age is also noted for
the predominance of the nickel weekly magazine such as Saturday
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Evening Post, Collier=s, or monthly issues such as Ladies= Home
Journal, or McCall=s. While wages stayed low during this period,
prices stayed low also.
In the midst of these ordinary times, great changes were
taking place at the same time. How can this be? The way this age
was perceived by the cultural leaders was the way we remember
this age. Our perceptions of Communism have been colored by the
Cold War. Prior to those days, Communism was not quite the dirty
word it became in the post World War II days. The intellectual elite,
during the 1930's, were inspired by Communism, the remaking of
society in the Soviet Union, and the hope of producing a Socialistic
society in American. The welfare programs of this decade were
designed by those who hoped to imitate the Soviet program. The
alienated intellectual elite of the 1920's had become the activists of
the 30's. This elite saw in centralized government the hope of the
future.
To Have and Have Not, a 1937 book by Ernest Hemingway,
had a character utter this line: AA man ain=t got no . . . chance by
himself.@ This represented the feeling of those who felt that
America needed changing. The picture painted in one book after
another was of social breakdown, and the lonely American having
no where to turn but to his central government: His only friend in a
heartless world. People with Socialistic or Communistic leanings
were prominent in the labor movement. They had a strong hold in
the movie industry. The publishing and media also supported the
new culture of a national reformation of society. The overall result
was to paint a national picture totally different than the one
actually lived by the majority of Americans. It is very similar to the
college youth of the 1960's. Many thousands did their jobs, went to
war, while the intellectual elite of the college campuses was
perceived as being the real America.
A different America emerged in this decade. Minority groups
that had been excluded from many activities used the new powers
of the central government to form a new basis of society. Up until
this time, a society or culture was perceived by many as an
extended family. One took care of one=s own. Looking back, the
perception is that whites excluded others from American culture.
There is another way to perceive this. Many thought of America as
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multi-cultural in the true sense. For example, there were Negro
and White baseball leagues. Today that smacks of racism in a
unified culture. To those who believed in a multi-cultural society,
the separate leagues seemed perfectly natural. One watched
one=s clan in the same way one might go to a family picnic. In the
1930's, government was not the only thing that became
nationalized. Culture became nationalized. This made those on the
outside feel as if separation was more than a separation based on
separate clans or races.
Catholics and Jews acquired prominent positions in the
Roosevelt administration. They used this influence to help bring
about the different America that we have today. All sub-groups
would eventually fall under the control of the central government.
Separate cultures would be suppressed as bigoted, racist, or anti-
Semitic. Eventually, this would result in the breaking up of
separate neighborhoods, and separate schools. Today, this is
perceived as something that should have happened two hundred
years ago, but the implications of this revolution are lost upon the
modern mind. One of the reasons for the forced changing of
America was not just that some felt left out of certain activities. It
was that a giant industry required a national market. Businesses
did not want to make or market different products for each
community or sub- cultural. A pair of jeans should be the same
whether you buy them in Georgia or California. The box of pancake
mix should sell both in Oregon or in South Carolina.
Those who opposed the programs of the immigrants and the
outsiders are pictured today as ignorant red necks. The story of
this age is never pictured as an attack on a whole way of life. And
those who defended the old way were pictured by the controlled
media as evil men. These men were religious fundamentalists
whose minds were guided by bigoted emotions but not truth or
reason. This decade was actually a war between two different
world views. The winning side wrote the history books, which is the
prerogative of the winning side: We are the good guys and the
losers are the scum of the earth. The rural nation perceived of by
Thomas Jefferson was actually being overthrown. Those who
perceived life as local and based on personal relationships lost the
war. Those who thought that prosperity was not a primary function
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of living, lost the war.
Looking back over seventy years, it is difficult for any to think
that there was a fork in the road, and a choice was made. America
has been going down the path chosen those many years ago.
Institutions have been built upon the assumptions granted during
the 1930's. To those who have been raised during this time, it is
inconceivable that life could be any other way than the way we live
it today. Every time a problem reveals itself, the system we live
under is adjusted, a little here or a little there. It never enters into
anyone=s consciousness that the system itself may be at fault.
According to the modern mind, there is only one way to live.
Modern America may not be the best of all possible worlds, but it is
the only world we know.
During this decade of decision, an alternative path was
suggested by some. These people offered a new agrarian
alternative. In 1930, twelve Southerners published a book titled,
I=ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition. The
book sought to make known that there was more than one way to
live. It presented a choice to the American people and offered an
alternative vision of the future. They saw the increased
centralization as destructive of the Southern way of living. In 1936,
these writers, known as the Southern Agrarians published a book
titled, Who owns America? They saw that modern industrial
capitalism and the centralism that resulted from monopoly
capitalism was destroying the foundations of American society. The
independent farm was seen as the backbone of a free and
independent nation.
During this decade a new foundation was laid for all future
generations to build upon. This new system was based on an
entirely new view of man. Early America had been founded upon a
Calvinistic and Puritan view of man. Man was seen as born a
sinner. The society that man built was also imperfect because of
man=s basic flaw. Reality was seen as basically personal. God was
a person, and the world that He created was personal at its most
basic foundation. Thus institutions that operated on a personal
basis such as the family and church became the building blocks of
society. Each child had to be taught how to be a real person. It
was not something that just happened with age. The purpose of
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the local school, controlled by the family and often run by the
church, was to cultivate into the child the qualities that made a
body a human, personable being.
The life that was taught to the young was one of conflict.
Difficult choices were part of life. The choices were not to be based
upon what the ego might want, but upon a moral code. The child
was not only instructed in Areading, writing, and >rithmatic@ but
also in the moral code of the Bible. The easy way was pictured as
often the most destructive to what was necessary to the good life.
Growing up meant a child learned the discipline of moral effort to
achieve difficult ends. Because this world was seen as in rebellion
against God, affliction was seen as part of life. Difficult times were
to be expected. Life could be good and it could be bad at times,
but we were to endure both the good and the bad as necessary to
the moral life. Perfection was not to be expected. Maturity could
be the goal of individuals and society, but never perfection.
The Bible was seen as the guide to life, and the goals set by
this book were used to understand man=s purpose in this world.
While man lived in local and personal organizations, he was also to
reach out to conquer the world. This conquering was not to be
done by armies or industrial corporations, but by the teaching to
the whole world the necessary foundations of a good society. The
world would be conquered by using the Bible as a guide to
construct personal institutions which would reconstruct the whole
world into the personal image that God had created in each person.
While economics was part of life, it was not by imperialism or giant
corporations that the world would be changed. It would be by
developing societies based upon the vision of the family and church
as found in the Bible.
During the Great Depression, many men came to see the
number one problem in the world as an economic one. A different
view of man and his purpose on this earth was presented to
America. Poverty was the basic problem with man and the world.
If the means could be developed to produce economic security in
America and then in the whole world, then the utopia that
generations had dreamed about could be accomplished. Mankind
was seen as solitary man. Each person was an individual unit that
sought its own pleasure. All other institutions flowed from this
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basic starting point. To increase security and pleasure, the solitary
man banded together with others into other social units to achieve
these goals. The traditional institutions such as family,
government, and corporation were man=s attempts to ensure a
better life. The supreme goals of man were to extend these man-
made institutions across the whole earth to ensure the most
prosperity and most security for all.
This economic view of man was the path taken after the Great
Depression. The government initiated programs to ensure the
security of man and the support of financial and business
institutions which would bring about a new world. The agrarian
vision of man was repudiated. The idea of local traditions and
culture was seen as detrimental to the formation of a world culture.
Traditional and religious views of man were seen as outdated and
the new psychological views of mankind were adopted. The
transfer of local and personal loyalties to the central state was part
of the new world view. Eventually, this would result in a global view
of mankind. The age of science, technology, psychology and
economics was the future for mankind.
The decisions that have been made since the Great Depression
were based upon this foundation. A choice was made and we live
today experiencing the consequences of these decisions.

18 WORLD GOVERNMENT IS SOLD TO THE AMERICAN

PEOPLE

In 1860, Americans fought a war to determine once and for all

whether the local communities had control over their own affairs. It
took four long years and 600,000 deaths for the decision to be
finalized. The centralizing forces won. There was now only one
government in America, not many governments confederating
together for certain common causes. Roughly eighty years later
America entered into another war to determine whether each
nation had control over its own destiny or whether the nations
would join together to control a united destiny. While President
Wilson had hoped to create a world organization of governments
from his efforts in that war, his objectives were not achieved.
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President Roosevelt sought to achieve the same purposes as
Wilson. He had learned from the failure of his predecessor. The
foundation had to be laid for a world government and it was not
something the American people could be allowed to reject.
The decade of the between 1939, with Germany=s attack on
Poland, and 1948, with the founding of the nation of Israel was the
decade of world government. Like every big change, a foundation
had to be laid. President Wilson tried to move toward his goals
without laying the necessary foundational work. All during the war,
President Roosevelt was doing the proper foundational work to
ensure the success of the United Nations. Also, it was more than
the founding of a world governmental organization. It was to create
an attitude in the American people which made them feel
connected to the events of the whole world. During the thirties,
Americans still had the old-fashioned nationalism and isolationism.
America was first among a world of lesser nations. As Roosevelt
tried to enter the war, he was opposed by an >America First=
movement. One of the leaders of this force was Charles Lindbergh.
He was a national hero and many people believed him to be
trustworthy. Part of the war effort was the discrediting of Lindbergh
and those of similar beliefs.
The Mexican-American war produced one important piece of
intellectual knowledge that all future governments chose to imitate.
About 180 Americans were left to take on a several- thousand-man
army. Wonder of wonders, the 160 men in the Alamo lost. They
were all killed. From then on, ARemember the Alamo@ became
part of American folklore. Wars need an event to motivate people
to fight. Americans tend to fight for symbols. Every president who
wants to accomplish a particular goal, needs a symbol for the
achievement of that goal. Americans learned about the firing on
the Fort Sumter, and the sinking of the Maine and the Lusitania.
And the cry, ARemember Pearl Harbor@ became the rallying cry of
our intervention into World War II.
As I write, the >Twin Towers= is the battle cry to get Americans to
surrender their privacy in exchange for a new all-powerful security
agency. Remembering 9/11 has become a national shrine and
battle cry.
Those who opposed Roosevelt=s entry into the war were
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branded as cowards and Nazi sympathizers. The opposition was
broken completely with this one act by the Japanese. Japan could
not have planned a better act to ensure their defeat. While Hitler
went out of his way to prevent the provoking of the American
people, Japan was able to get America provoked. The first thing
America did after this event was to declare war on Germany. Go
figure. The very thing that Hitler was trying to avoid, and that
Roosevelt wanted was accomplished by the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor. Looking back into the past, it is almost impossible to
determine intent. It is possible to determine the results from
particular acts. The destruction of the Alamo, the sinking of the
Main and Lusitania, and Pearl Harbor all accomplished what the
American presidents had for goals.
The entry of America into World War II marked the end of
those who sought to put America first among the family of nations.
The day of sitting by during wars was over. Allowing other nations
to settle their disputes on their own was over. All wars were now
America= concern.
It took a dramatic event to awaken Americans from their local
slumber. Whether this even was planned or just used is not
important here. The vital thing is that the event changed the world
forever. If not for this event, America may have stayed out of
World War II and the resulting world may have been designed along
different premises. But the resulting World War in which literally
the whole world was involved, created a feeling for world control so
that such a war would never happen again.
Most people have a natural tie to their local community, their
family, friends, and neighbors. Their little community makes up
their world. For most people throughout most of history, this is
enough. A few adventurers might travel forth to the big city, but
most stayed in the place where they were born. Of course, history
has never been made by those who were content to raise a family
and engage in fellowship with their neighbors. History is the story
of the struggles of some men to conquer the unknown. It is also
the story of men who seek power over others. Science and
government are two of the most powerful forces in the history of
mankind. Religion could be added but it is usually only adds
support to the above to forces. The common man must be made to
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believe that the world created by the adventurers who use science
and government to conquer is the real world.
Thus there must be a world view that supports the sacrifice
that the common everyday people are called upon to endure. Why
should the folks of Paducah, Illinois, send their sons to die on the
fields of France? These same folks would rebel if a business asked
to send their kids off to some foreign country to possibly die, so that
the world could be made safe for oil, or some other product. Is oil,
diamonds, or tea worth dying for? Very few would offer their kids
for such mundane ends. Yet, they readily allow the government to
require their kids to die for some idealistic purpose. The purpose
whose goals are so vague and unreal that it is a wonder anyone
even believes them. Can we really fight to end all wars? Can we
really make the world safe for democracy? And yet the kids of
Paducah fight and die for such goals.
Every civilization must have a belief system that supports the
policies of the government under which they live. There must be
something that gives people a reason to believe that the sacrifice
of their children for a noble cause was indeed the right thing to do.
The system if taught correctly will become an integral part of
everyone=s perception of reality. World War II provided one of the
final building blocks in the foundation of the new Western
Civilization. The changes that occurred between 1860 and 1945
were the most immense in history. From the single-shot rifle to the
atom bomb in just eighty-five years. From the horse-drawn cannon
to the modern Sherman tank is an impressive leap in technology.
And there was a similar change in the accepted world philosophy.
From a philosophy that emphasized the carrying for one=s
neighbors, to a philosophy that emphasized one=s obligation to
care for the whole world.
To look upon World War II as just a battle against Hitler or a
war to make the world free from dictators, is to miss the revolution
that occurred in the thinking of the average person during the war.
War brings about changes. In fact, it brings changes that people
would not normally accept. And, the changes that occur because of
the emergency happen very quickly. War is the secular version of a
religious revival. There is a sense of excitement, a period of
tension, and finally, a resolution. The result makes a person feel
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born again. That is why after wars there are often periods of
intense personal pleasure. People feel a new excitement in living.
Without realizing it, there is a sense that life has a new meaning. A
conversion has taken place and life is experienced as having a
whole new purpose which makes every day exciting. It is not just
the release from tension, it is a feeling that the sacrifices helped
produce a new world order. This order makes one feel that life has
finally taken on a whole new understanding.
Before the war, there was the depression. There was a
national malaise. No one seemed to understand the world
anymore. Every measure to solve the crisis only seemed like a
temporary fix. Finally, a new solution had arrived to explain the
totality of life. The United States was to be the police force to
ensure the world behaved itself. First, the world had to be cleared
of the evil leaders. There were the hope and the promise, that with
the defeat of Japan, Germany, and Italy, that a new world order
could be established. A new world organization, based in New York
and basically financed by the United States, could be established
which would ensure that no more Hitler=s would arise in the world.
It was said that with an international forum, reason would prevail.
If perchance any mad man arose in some nation, then the nations
would unite to defeat him quickly before any damage could be
done. This was the hope and the mission which brought America
out of their despair and isolation of the 1930's.
In the 19th century, the Christians of Western Civilization felt a
mission to conquer the world for Christianity. Missionaries were
sent out to the unexplored areas all over the globe. The early
missionaries to Africa had a life expectancy of three to four months.
That did not deter them. They had a vision of a new order for the
world established on the Bible and God=s purpose for mankind. It
was not a question of survival. It was not something for financial
reward. It was not done for family or neighbors. It was done
because of a world view that encompassed the whole world. People
left the safety of home for a world conquest that at the very best
promised only few rewards and a short life. Yet, by the thousands,
these missionaries spread out across the world to preach what they
believed was the good news of Jesus Christ.
There were unintended consequences of these world wide
128
conquerors. They wrote home of their adventures. They translated
the Bible into hundreds of languages, often having to invent a
written alphabet for tribes that only had verbal communication.
They blazed trails into the wilderness. They became messengers of
good will. The produced schools and local histories. They
published maps and opened up interiors that had been closed to
the white man. On the coattails of these messengers of the Gospel
came the traders and investors who sought to use the tools that
had been established by the forerunners of Western Civilization.
There were exceptions, but one of the most underplayed aspects of
Western Civilization has been the role of the Christian missionary in
conquering the world for others to follow.
It did not take long for the free gift of salvation that
missionaries offered was followed by fleets of trading ships. The
early days of trading were based on high value items. Tea, opium,
slaves, silk, gold, and spices turned the world into a giant
storehouse of wealth ready to be exploited. There was great
wealth for those willing to risk their ships and crew for a boatload of
riches. In time, a whole industry grew up around trade. There were
giant insurance companies and underwriters. Shares were sold to
Western ships in the hope that, the safely return of the ships, would
net great wealth. Because of the giant difference between the
price paid for a cargo and the price that could be gained at the
home port, thousands risked everything to be part of the growth in
world wide trade.
With governments getting their share of the profits through
tariffs, a vested interest was created between the government and
the people who owned the fleet of merchant ships. Giant navies
were created to patrol the seas of the world. The British navy
became famous throughout the world. Any attack on a ship that
flew a British flag would bring a total, powerful and deadly
response. Word got around that no matter how tempting, it was
not safe to try to seize the cargo of a merchant ship flying the
Union Jack. England became the rulers of the sea and their
merchant fleet made London the financial capital of the world. If
missionaries are the great unnoticed world conquerors, the
merchant fleets of the world are the source of untold wealth. A
nation without the ability to trade and to tax that trade would never
129
become a great nation.
With the inauguration of the United Nations, the people of the
world were promised a world without world-conquering dictators. It
did not take long for this promise to frustrated. The world entered
into a new kind of war. One kind of war had been defeated, only to
have a new kind of war arise. It was now a war of propaganda. It
was a missionary effort to convert the world to one side or the other
in this ideological war. The war was made to appear as a battle
between two philosophical beliefs. It was often confusing to the
common man. The so-called man in the street could see the
propaganda daily on his television screen, but he had trouble really
understanding why the two governments were so bent on
destroying each other. The world seemed big enough for both
empires, but war continued.
Here again, the real battle is often the one not talked about.
There is great wealth in world-wide trade. There are literally
billions of people and many assorted natural resources there for the
exploiting. Even the drug trade, which is pictured as evil, is an
important part of the struggle for the world powers to control.
There is also great and untold wealth in controlling the world=s
banking system. With the modern dependence on unbacked paper
money, the right to print money is worth fighting a war for those
rights. Banks literally have the right to print pieces of paper,
declare them money, and charge people for them. It sounds silly,
but when the government is brought in as a partner, it becomes a
very profitable business. There is such great wealth in the control
of world money and world trade that nations and leaders are willing
to allow their people die in order to control the banks and the
merchant fleets.
In order to pull this great robbery upon the people of this
world, the masses must be convinced that the world they live in is
the only possible world. Those who control the wealth must create
a reality that looks as if it came from God, if they believed in a god.
There are a variety of systems that are used. These systems
become mutually supporting. One declares that the present age is
the result of millions of years of evolution. What we see today is
the culmination of nature=s attempts to bring forth a creature,
man, that can take over the control of the evolutionary process.
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Mankind is evolving into a new world unity. These efforts to control
the world=s wealth, are pictured as the result of nature and natural
selection.
In the past everything was left to chance, or the free market,
which to many is a sophisticated word for chance. Man through his
powers in government should take over the control of the whole
social framework. To allow men to make their own choices is to
revert back to the chance process. People do not plan for the
common good. They do not plan with any thought for the future of
mankind. When man behaves this way, he acts no differently than
the animals that have not changed their behavior for millions of
years. Ours, however, is the first age that can actually rise above
such animal behavior. This cannot be done by allowing the masses
to have control over the direction that society must take. Only
wise men who have power invested in a controlling government can
make decisions for the good of evolution, for the good of mankind
in general, and with a view for the best of all possible worlds.
Therefore, with the creation of the United Nations, we have
the next step in man=s evolutionary leap into controlling the
environment of the whole world. This represents the final step that
has taken us millions and millions of year to achieve. To those
involved in the creation of such a world government, this is very
exciting. The new leaders are standing on the shoulders of those
who first organized a family with its male family head. Then, we
have the tribe with its male chieftain. Eventually, in times of war,
we arrive at a confederation of tribes. After many centuries, these
confederations that were sporadic alliances for mutual aid during
an emergency, become permanent nations. Finally, in World War I
we have the nations joining together to form a temporary
association to deal with a temporary problem.
Now the pinnacle of this process has arrived. The nations
have come together to launch the foundation of a future world
government. With worldwide government, man will be able to plan
and control every aspect of the environment. In the same way the
first family heads prevented problems inside the family by taking
control, making decisions, and determining the plans for the future,
the new family of man is finally able to do the same thing. Just as
the first father figure brought stability to a chaotic social
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atmosphere, so the new leader of the United Nations can become
the new father of the whole earth. It will take time to achieve the
goals of the UN, but the present global power struggle between the
forces of the old age, and the new leaders coming onto the world
scene, will eventually results in the utopia that men have been
dreaming about since the very first war.
This is one of the plausibility structures that came as the
result of the Second World War. This picture has been taught to
school children now for over fifty years and it has become part of
everyone=s consciousness. Only a person living outside of the
information social structure that permeates every aspect of modern
man=s life is able to escape this world picture. Because the
common man only gets his information from one source, this world
vision appears as the only possible world. Because this world view
comes to man in a multitude of forms, it appears that man is
getting information from many sources. The common man watches
television, listens to radio, reads his paper, subscribes to a weekly
news magazine, goes to a movie, and attends public schools. The
picture that is presented is the same. It only makes sense that all
of these divergent sources agree because they all describe the
same world. This multiple reinforcement of one world view results
in a man who will follow to the death anyone who asks him to
defend this order.
Another of the trends that reinforce the allegiance to a world
government is that breakdown of the local community and local
interactions. It is quite common for a man to know more about
what is going on in Egypt than what is happening to his neighbor.
The satellite has brought images to life that were before just
stories often weeks old. We watch live action of disasters and wars
around the world. We hear the voices of terror from every corner of
the world. We meet locals through various associations for specific
purposes. We meet some at dinner, some are met on the golf
range, some at church, or some we meet just shopping. The result
is the same, regardless of where people are met: We meet at
various localities for a specific purpose. There is no binding or
obligation beyond the purpose.
The social environment of America creates a vacuum. The
totally independent American is free from all social and familial
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infractions on his freedom. Relatives no longer have to raise
money for some distant uncle=s surgery: The government will take
care of him. Unhappy marriages are easily dissolved thanks to the
new easy divorce laws. (I saw in a bookstore the computer
software for a do-it-yourself divorce kit.) Children are no longer
required to care for their parents in old age: The government will
take care of them. Parents no longer have to school their own
children and teach them the ways of the world: Of course, the
government is taking care of them. The list goes on and on. Until
the modern government intervention in the everyday affairs of life,
one=s daily life often revolved around issues that did not contribute
to one=s own personal happiness. Life was oriented toward social
obligations that one had no choice over. Government may take
over half of one=s wages but it does not seem to matter beyond a
little grumbling. In times past one may have used extra funds to
hire a maid or servant. Now pays half of one=s wages to hire the
government to relieve one of all obligation.
Why is such an arrangement so popular? Certainly a servant
would be cheaper and more accountable. Basically, it is a question
of freedom from obligation and freedom from guilt. Once
government enters into the services formerly performed by local
communities and families, one=s time becomes totally one=s own.
For half one=s wages a person is buying freedom. Instead of
spending a Saturday helping a neighbor build a garage, one can
now play golf or pursue other personal pleasures. Also, because
everything that a person needs, is now provided for by the
government, each individual is now absolved of all personal
responsibility. If one=s parents are not getting along on Social
Security, then one must lobby for more programs for the elderly. At
the time of this writing, the government will probably now be
providing free drugs for those on Social Security. There is no more
guilt for an unmet need or social responsibility. It is the
government=s fault, not the individual=s fault.
How does this tie in with the United Nations? It has a vital
connection in two ways. Each individual desires to belong to a
primary reference group: One that accomplishes something
important, and one that expects a personal commitment beyond
everyday life. With the passing of local obligations and
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responsibilities, a life cannot be lived for pleasure and selfish
interests. A substitute obligation is thus needed. With all of the
avenues blocked preventing any return to the previous way of doing
things, some outlet must be found. The bonding together of all of
the peoples in the world to produce a new utopian order offers to fill
the vacuum created by the death of community. A new, greater
community is needed. The United Nations is thus the first step in
creating that new commitment to something greater than oneself.
In parallel with the decline of community is the decline of the
local church. It has become little more than a meeting house to
celebrate the death of nineteenth century culture. The forms
developed in early America continue on in modern structures, but
the real purpose of meeting has long since been lost. Man has not
only been freed of any obligation to his neighbor, but he has been
freed from the restrictions of the Ten Commandments. He has been
freed of the obligation to join with others in preaching the Gospel
unto the entire world. The army of the Lord is no more. This leaves
a vacuum. Illegitimate institutions and customs can be destroyed
without any consequence. However, when legitimate institutions
and customs are destroyed, new ones must be formed to take their
place. Man needs a higher obligation, a higher ethic, and a
belonging to a giant army of men.
While these needs were met by the local community and
church in the past, their elimination does not quiet the need for
such institutions. Thus, the need for social purpose, and the need to
be part of a giant army must be supplied from some other source.
The new world has become a village and the institutions of the
village must be adapted to fit this new one world community that
we now live in today. In our attempts to free ourselves of one
neighbor, has only involved us in a world where everyone is now our
neighbor. In our attempts to free ourselves from family obligations,
one is now part of the family of man. Again, because of the nature
of the information networks in which we live, we see no alternative
to the new one world social community administered by a one world
government. The only question to be answered is how much more
of one=s salary will go toward this new government.
The new world government is coming. Some think because it
is such a slow process, that the chances of some form of world
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government are small. Historical trends, baring some technological
or historical irregularity, are very difficult to reverse. For example,
the personal automobile is both inefficient and expensive. Had
Henry Ford hit upon some breakthrough in public transportation, the
world today would look quite different. However, we now have a
total infrastructure that supports the Ford machine. As much as
many would like to be liberated from the expense of owning a car,
the fact is, for the foreseeable future, the car is here to stay. Could
something happen to destroy the car? Yes, but no one now knows
what it would be. There are events in history that few predict, but
most events follow trends.
The trends of today all point toward the world coming under
the control of one organization. If the past is any help, the first
world government will be a loose confederation that unites against
some common enemy. (Since the first draft of this book, world-wide
terrorism has been taught as the new enemy of the whole world.)
Most will enter into a temporary alliance. The bonds built during
this alliance will grow as other minor threats arise. Because the
world has already adopted a worldwide system of trade,
communication, travel, and finance, there is no escaping from this
system. Before the elevation of consumption to the status of a
primary goal, it would have been possible to have a world of many
separate, independent, and isolated nations. The wealth of each
nation would be dependent upon its own resources, or its ability to
carry on limited trade.
The modern world has adopted >progress= as the goal of
civilization. The type of progress chosen has been material. Social
progress, or moral progress, have not been heavily considered.
In medieval times, religious progress was seen as the primary goal
of society. Those who engaged in trade were often the outcasts of
society. A person who was part of his local community would not
engage in practices that in time would destroy the foundations of
that society. Thus outcast groups, such as the Jews, or gypsies were
the early traders of Europe. Even the early banking system was
invented by those who were not part of the establishment. The
kings or queens in times of financial crisis (and fearful of taxing their
subjects to an even greater extent) had to go to these outcasts to
get additional funds. Therefore, the bankers were able to gain
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concessions in exchange for loans. These concessions laid the
foundational trends for the modern form of capitalism that marries
corporations and governments into a common network.
As has been obvious in this book so far, many of the systems
that we live under were the result of unintended consequences.
There is no one designer who publishes blueprints of the way
society is going to function. People make choices. The choices they
make are the result of tunnel vision. They want to achieve a certain
goal, and the make the necessary decisions to arrive at that goal.
The result is that social traditions are formed by the decisions they
make to achieve that goal. When people decide that the freedom of
the personal automobile is what they want, a whole social structure
is built upon that decision. There are no blueprints at the start on
all of the necessary support mechanisms. In time they just
>happen= as the need arises to keep the initial choice on the road.
Today the number of businesses and jobs, that are dependent upon
this form of transportation, are a major part of the American
economy.
The same is true of the decision to base the world economy on
trade, communication, travel, and international finance. Once a
goal to increase the supply of goods at ever cheaper prices was
made, thousands of unintended consequences were about to be
born. It is not unlike the girl who says: AYes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
NO.@ And then cries date rape. By the time the final >no= has
been uttered, the trends had already pointed to their logical
conclusion. Our social foundations are already international. The
people have said >yes= to the products of that social structure.
Other structures will follow in time and each will further unite the
world. International corporations create problems with national
borders and local governments. The choice has already been made
to do whatever it takes to sustain international business structures.
Thus, the only alternative is to find ways to fix the problem without
harming these multi-nationals. This leads to further international
cooperation. And while international trade without tariffs can have
great benefits, it is tied to a system of international governmental
and corporate controls.
We have in the United Nations the foundation for world
government. A real world government has yet to show its final
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structure. In the meantime, hundreds of other types of
arrangements are being formed. Defense agreements, health
cooperation, financial supports, and many more forms up
government are already in existence. Right now, they all function
separately. In time, the need will arise to get all of these
international agencies to be brought together under one
organization. Because of overlapping jurisdictions, or lack of
communication between various groups, a need will arise to create
a government to promote the efficient operation of an already
established world government. This is going to happen. It has
already happened informally, it is just a question of time until some
crisis arises, which forces the final solution: Either give up world-
wide corporations, or give up local governments. If the past is any
indication, which it is, the decision will be to give up local
government.

19 A NEW DEFINITION OF NORMAL LIVING

Two world wars, a depression, and a new worldwide philosophy

of American involvement resulted in a totally new way of living. The
days of the Depression were over. Americans had won two world
wars. The technology that had won the war was now becoming part
of everyone=s life.
It was a new world. The promise of the future was great. It seemed
like nothing remained for man to worry about in this new world of
scientific invention. Polio had finally been defeated. The shortages
of wartime were over. Life had never been so good. If the average
person had a vision of utopia, it would be in the new small towns
and suburbia of the 1950's America. Television had invaded the
home but it only seemed to bring people closer together. Neighbors
would gather to watch their favorite programs together.
Into this perfect world, the new kind of war, a cold war,
reminded people of their fears of the previous war. It brought a
sense of helplessness. This perfect world was not perfect after all.
The older generation tried to live as if the cold war did not exist.
The young, through the new prominence of the government school,
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were confronted with the contradictions of their age. The young felt
the terrors of nuclear war through repeated air raid drills at school.
The schools taught a world view that the parents never taught their
children. At home, the young felt the security of the prosperous
fifties. At school, they studied the wars, and the threat of a total
annihilation of all life on earth through nuclear war. A real gap
developed between the lives of the young and their parents.
Culture represents the beliefs of their adherents. As parents
and their children develop separate beliefs, they started living in
separate worlds. The parents gravitated to the peaceful world of
the suburb and the safe, home entertainment of the television. The
youth congregated together with their school mates to enjoy a
totally separate lifestyle. As the youth culture became a staple of
the American school system, the gap between the young and their
parents widened. Children were taught that their parents were
living a world that no longer existed. It was a carry over from the
days of the depression. The perils of life experienced during the
depression and then the war had left them scarred. They were not
able to fully enter into the excitement of the new scientific world
that the world was holding out before the young. In the midst of
nuclear fears, the young were offered visions of a scientific utopia.
The schools were taught that the young could not trust the
wisdom of their elders. Their parent=s direction was designed for
another generation and another time. It was outmoded. Parents
were pictured by the public school teachers as pre-scientific. They
did not understand the world that was being taught to the young.
There were constant and subtle jokes about how the children in
elementary school were so much smarter than their parents. After
all, the parents could not even name one song that Elvis Presley
sang. The parents did not understand the importance of the
government school, the young were told. Any parental criticism of
education was just a sign that the parents lived in a world that no
longer existed and did not understand the future.
The young entered a culture of their own. Rather than seek
the approval of their parents, who could not be trusted, they were to
seek to live in the world of their peers. It was a world of the new
teen culture. A world which had its own kind of music. It had its own
language. Teens looked to each other for guidance. The school and
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its new youth culture, was the world of the young. Parents were not
welcomed. In fact, they would not understand. The future was not
with their parents, but in a career: A career that could only be
entered through the support of the school system. Only through
success in school would the young realize the riches of the new
world being made by mankind. The aptitude test became the new
standard of success.
Isolated into their own world, many of the young felt a new
helplessness and frustration. There was something missing from
this glorious new teen culture. A psychic darkness fell upon many.
Some resorted to a new form of protest: Juvenile delinquency was
the name given for it. Others sought refuge in fads that seemed to
support their belonging to a new group and their solidarity with that
group. High school sports became a refuge for many. A whole
culture developed around pep rallies, cheer leaders, home comings
and Friday night games. This world had a meaning all to its own.
Life seemed to make sense to many as long they focused on the
short term goals that the school social life provided.
This in many ways was a golden age. Science and technology
offered so much promise. Suburbs seemed like an oasis from the
troubles of decaying cities. Prosperity seemed to have returned on
a permanent basis. Each week Life Magazine or The Saturday
Evening Post had issues celebrating the greatness of the times. The
pictures in these and other magazines showed people having fun for
the first time in several decades. And yet, something under the
surface was terribly wrong. Oh, the churches had never been so
popular or well attended. When Billy Graham came to town, it was
like heaven on earth. Underneath the surface was a feeling that
everything was an illusion. Life was good but it was not satisfying.
Americans finally had achieved what they had been working to
accomplish for over two hundred years, and the achievement did
not match the effort used to reach it.
The first cracks in the American utopia were the Communist
Awitch hunts@ as they were called. Putting aside the politics of the
situation, the deeper meaning was that many Americans were
working to change this land of utopia into something entirely
different from what the majority seemed so happy to have achieved.
Because of the images of the cold war, no one wanted to be
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classified as a Communist anymore. In the 1920's, and 1930's, it
had been popular among the intellectual class to be in favor of the
Communist philosophy. While the association of Communism with
the Russian threat made a Communist unpopular, the fact
remained, many were looking to build a very different kind of
America.
This is what provided the spark of that lit the light of despair.
The average American felt that, no matter what its faults, the
1950's were the best that mankind could expect to achieve on this
earth. The question loudly being asked, why are they trying to
change the best thing that has ever happened? The question
silently being asked, why does not this utopia satisfy me the way it
should? The first crack, as mentioned above, was the problem of
juvenile delinquency. Commissions and studies were done over and
over to analyze the problem. The weekly magazines made it into a
barometer of the level of satisfaction. A good society would not
produce so many children who were trying to escape from such a
life. Sermon after sermon was preached on the need for more
punishment or work camps for kids. Many longed for the days of the
depression when the kids were too busy working to stay alive to
think about rebellion. Many longer for the days of World War II when
young and old joined hands to support the war effort.
Several other issues appeared on the scene after the
delinquent problem to announce that the glory days of the fifties
were not the ultimate expression of civilization. The Beatniks tried
to live a symbolic life of rebellion. Everything that stood for the new
utopia they tried to ridicule. It was not always clear what these self-
styled prophets were trying to achieve, but everyone knew that they
were unhappy with life in America and its new found achievements.
All of the things that people held dear were pictured as being
Aplastic.@ That is, all of the great new experiences that people
were so caught up in were hollow. Life had become a manufactured
commodity. People had traded their souls for the right to drive a car
across the country on a freeway in a giant piece of steel. Just as the
delinquents rebelled against the life of their parents, although they
did not really know what they wanted: They just knew what they
did not want. So it was of the beatniks. They had no social goals
beyond the momentary pleasures that they worked so hard to
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enjoy.
Other cracks in this utopia appeared as more and more
families headed for divorce court. The golden age with the perfect
family did not bring happiness. Men were confined to the role of the
commuter. They traveled to some distant job only to return home
each evening seeking a little bit of meaning to their lives. The
family hearth was supposed to assure them meaning to life, that the
long hours on the road and the new corporate work world did not
provide. The wives were supposed to be the captains of the man=s
castle while he was away. She was to see to at that every thing ran
smoothly in this miniature corporate world of the home. More and
more, everyone wanted release from this situation. Kids ran away
from home, fathers stayed away as much as possible, and the
women wanted a divorce.
This all comes down to that old saying: ABe careful what you
wish for, you might just get it.@ That saying was fulfilled in the
1950's. If the people who came to America in the first place plus all
of the immigrants that followed, this decade seemed to represent
the culmination of their dreams. Up until 1950, there was probably
never in our history when the majority got to live the good life as
they had hoped to achieve. This all changed. This decade had
prosperity, freedom from most of the restrictions of life, and
religious freedom was being practiced as never before in our
history. Anyone living during this time certainly sensed this was the
best of all possible worlds. It was like the roaring 20's all over again,
except this time a majority were able to participate in the whole
celebration.
There used to be nursery rhymes that all young children
learned. One of them was AHumpty Dumpty.@ In one sense that
rhyme had its teaching brought home at the end of the fifties.
Children learned growing up that when Humpty Dumpty had his
great fall, AAll of the king=s horses, and all of the king=s men,
could not put Humpty together again.@ That is the story to
remember as this decade came to a close. All of the dreams for
America came tumbling down. It was certainly one great fall.
People looked everywhere for answers. The psychological and
theological experts were in great demand. Everyone wanted to
know why the best of times had turned into the worst of times.
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Nothing makes more noise than when dreams crash and die. This
was certainly true of Americans as they closed out the decade.
They had struggled through the Depression. They had
defeated Nazism. They had taken on the role of world leader.
America had come out of the War largely untouched. Great wealth
had flowed into this country during the war. While there were
threats to America, they did seem small. The Cold War seemed for
the most part as very remote. America was on top of the world and
everywhere there was great confidence in our future. There were
glitches: The launch of Sputnik gave us a temporary scare. But the
response was typically AmericanBwe mobilized our resources and
declared we were going to the moon. No one should be allowed to
show up American greatness. And yet, just as in 1929, a crash
occurred.
There was one final holiday before the crash actually occurred.
With the election of John F. Kennedy, Americans felt that they had
found one of the king=s men who could put Humpty back together
again. We named these three years of grace, ACamelot.@ There
was in a sense a second honeymoon for the 1950's. Forgotten were
the beatniks and the problem of juvenile delinquency. The
confidence of Kennedy inspired many to join the Peace Corps, to
show the world how great our nation was, and our vision of utopia .
The world seemed all right again. Then came the day that Humpty
fell again for one last time. The day: November 22, 1963. This day
belongs next to such dates as December 7, 1941, and October 29,
1929. The days of utopian living were over. The American dream
which for over 200 years had inspired so many, was dead.
One rule of historical truth is this: Defeat the straw man and
you defeat the man. It is much easier to defeat the caricature of an
idea than it is to defeat the idea itself. For those who have opposed
the dream of religious and financial freedom that brought so many
to this land, you do not attack these ideas with a direct assault.
First you create the caricature of these ideas and you then proceed
to make them look ridiculous. The fifties in America would be a
prime example of this strategy. The daily life that resulted from the
depression and the war was more of an escape from reality than the
fulfillment of any American dream. People were tired of conflicts
and battles. They were tired of bad news and troubles. The fifties, if
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they were anything, they were a time of relaxation between
conflicts.
That is not, however, how they are pictured. The critics of
these times often point to the Ozzie and Harriet show as typifying
this age. The father goes off to work and no one seems to know
exactly what he does. The kids have a life that is separate from the
family. The housewife is kind of a liaison between these two worlds.
Minor conflicts arise but the family is always reunited to form some
easy solution and then life returns to the usual routine. Ozzie might
talk across the fence to Thorny, but that seems to be their only
relationship. Basically, the home is the bus stop for each individual
and it provides a home base for achieving personal goals. All in all,
it is a ridiculous world. It is boring. And it is a total caricature of
what others had in mind when they thought of family. Yet this
show, maybe without knowing it, satirized the whole idea of
belonging to a close family. This family was no family at all. It was
just four individuals sharing a theme in their lives.
The next area of freedom was the idea that religious freedom
would be a great blessing to both individuals and a nation. To a
generation of wounded individuals, church took on an image of day
care for adults. The great truths of western civilization and the
religious establishments that propagated these truths were not part
of the 1950's church. (As the fifties were the age of the White
Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment, that is the type of church we
will be talking about here.) The church was there to support
individuals who had been separated from their families and
separated from themselves. There was a feeling of isolation during
these times. The family described above only led to loneliness.
The new assembly line jobs or highly specialized white collar jobs
offered no psychic satisfaction. These jobs were just a way to earn a
living, and after the two previous decades, any kind of job was all
that people wanted.
The church provided a place to have potluck dinners. It
provided assurance that there was more to life than that which
people were experiencing in their daily lives. It provided a ray of
hope. The church held regular revival services, to which the local
community was encouraged to attend. The hope was that if the
whole nation could undergo the >born again= experience, then life
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could be elevated beyond the frustration with living that existed.
While only the regulars attended these emotional meetings, and the
result was often just a few children walking to the altar rail, it
provided a salve to the wounded dreams. This was a coming-of-age
thing that all children were expected to do when they became
aware of their lost spiritual condition. These children would then
repeat a simple prayer at the altar rail and they were then told that
they had become Christians and were destined for eternal life.
Those who sought to preach a new doctrine for mankind looked
to the above caricatures. These images were held up as the result
of two hundred years of striving for the American dream. It was
made to look ridiculous. The children in school were subtlety
imbued with the idea that the caricatures were real and that the
frustrations they felt living in the 1950's were a result of the above
two institutions in particular. The traditional church and family were
seen as part of a carry over from the nineteenth century. The
reason these institutions did not work was that times had changed
and they had not been able to change. The 1950's became the
picture of what happens to people when they become frozen in time
and try to live in the future with part oriented institutions. It
becomes comic.
In any caricature, there is some truth. For whatever reason,
most people would have thought that what they experienced in
home and church was the historical ideal. This was what many
throughout history meant when they talked about these two
timeless forms of life. The result was to further the separation of
the youth from their parents. The parents would not let go of either
the home or the church. This for them was reality. It may not be
perfect, but it is all they had. The adults were told to just hold on,
and in heaven all would be made perfect. The result was that the
older generation developed a fortress frame of mind. They were
disappointed, but they were going to hold onto these truths. These
were the only truths on which they could stand. After all of the
difficult times in their lives, there was not much left. They were not
about to surrender home and church. The alternatives would be like
going through the depression and the war all over again.
The youth did not see it this way at all. Their whole lives were
before them. They did not want to end up like their parents. They
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could not understand their parent=s fear of the unknown.
A great gulf appeared. The parents, and the obvious defeat of their
way of life, were on the defensive. There was a vacuum. The young
did not know what life was about, they just were sure that the
American dream was a dead vision. This vacuum created a
turbulent decade in which the young were looking for something to
fill the void left in their lives from the death of the family and the
church. In times of social stress, rebellion and pleasure will become
the goals in life. Rebellion is basically negation. Whatever the
parents believe, the young will believe the opposite. The sixties are
actually a decade of expressing the opposite values of the fifties.
But rebellion does not provide meaning. Life without meaning is
empty. Lacking some long term goal, immediate goals become
primary. The most immediate goal in life is pleasure, and the
easiest of all pleasures is sex. We thus turn to the decade of
rebellion and sex. Obviously, drugs and rock-and-roll were part of
this decade, but it was the new liberated sex that provided the
motivation for the majority of the young during this time.

20 FROM A FALSE VIEW OF FAMILY TO A FALSE VIEW

OF SELF

The sixties as we stated earlier actually started on November

22, 1963. The decade ended on May 4, 1970. The decade of
despair started with the death of John Kennedy, and it ended with
the shooting deaths of students at Kent State University. In these
six and one-half years America became a different country. There
are different kinds of revolutions. The sixties represent the
revolution exhibited in the French Revolution of 1887. This type of
revolution does not seek an improvement of what has gone before.
The American Revolution can be classified of this type. The French
type seeks the destruction of everything that has gone on before
the act of rebellion. The behavior of the true revolutionist is one of
negation. The long term goals of the revolution are uncertain.
Some have no goals at all, and some seek just a release from the
past. If any goals exist at all there are nebulous and mystic. The
vision of the future could best be described as a sexless orgasm.
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But it is not this vision which unites the revolutionaries.
It is the thrill of destruction. While the story of George
Washington chopping down his father=s cherry tree is said to be
apocryphal, it does hold elements of truth. The boy chopping down
the tree that his father has planted is what revolution is all about.
And as George is reputed to have said, AI did it, father, I cannot tell
a lie.@ The act of negation is done openly. It is not a secret to be
kept. The object of this story is not so much the honesty of
apocryphal George, as the fact that he wanted his father to know
that he had chopped down the tree. Revolutionaries want everyone
to know that it is I who have destroyed the past. The acts of
violence and protest of the sixties were public acts of defiance.
Youths have at times been defiant in private, but that is
disobedience, it is not revolution.
The 1960's was a series of public acts which sought to put an
ax to everything that represented the utopia of the 1950's. If
cleanliness and soap were part of the super clean 50's, then dirt and
odor would mark the revolutionaries. If holding a steady job marked
the man of the 50's, then living off of food stamps or working at
odds jobs would be an act of rebellion. If the >Greatest
Generation= had gone off to fight a war, then the revolutionaries
would refuse to be a part of any war. If duty became a watchword
of the fifties, then a person could show his rebellion by just >doing
mine own thing.= As always, the ultimate revolutionary age uses
sex to represent liberation from the restrictions of the previous
order. Nothing seems to shock the old order as the public display of
rebellious sex.
Every social order must work out a system to control the sex
drive. It goes against the animal nature in most people to have any
limitation placed upon their hormonal urges. One of the frustrations
of being human is that what we want to do does not always align
itself with what society wants us to do. There is a constant conflict.
For the human, potty training is something that goes on throughout
one=s life. From the first time we are asked to >hold it= until our
body can come in contact with an approved receptacle, there is
something inside of us that does not like being told to control our
normal and natural desires. And yet, a social order is impossible
without a vast majority being >potty trained.= Of course, the
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ultimate in potty training comes during adolescence.
With the onset of puberty, the youth is told he must >hold it=
until he comes into contact with a socially approved receptacle.
There is something in us all, maybe still angry over >potty
training,= that finds this the last straw when it comes to social
conventions. Up until this time, we have worn the clothes we have
been asked to wear. We have submitted to the humiliation of
attending a government approved school. Every time we break
some rule, we have been punished for all our years up until
adolescence. With the arrival of our hormones, there is not only a
sexual urge that grows within it, there is a sense that we are now
strong and independent. Being able to have an orgasm somehow
makes us into a superman. No man feels more like a >god= than
when he is having an orgasm. There is no problem too great that he
cannot conquer, with the right stimulation.
Therefore, every revolution is, first of all, a sexual revolution.
Other items may provoke the initial acts of rebellion, but it does not
take long for the revolutionary to realize that he is not only freeing
himself from his past, he is freeing himself from social conventions.
If there is one thing that seems perfectly natural to a youth
achieving puberty, it is that the sex urge is the greatest thing that
has ever happened to mankind. There is nothing in the whole life of
the youth up until this time that can compare with this outstanding
discovery of being able to have his own personal orgasm. It is not
under the control of anyone. Potty training is difficult to liberate
oneself from, but sexual liberation holds out the promises of
ecstasy. And it can be done in private, all by oneself if necessary.
And clean up is easy when compared to potty liberation.
Destruction and sexual liberation became the twin engines
that drove the youth of the sixties. Some clothe the rebellion of the
60's in the idealism of the youth. That the youth have not had their
vision impaired by social conventions. That somehow being young
gives one a wisdom that is denied to the old. It all sounds good, but
revolutions of the French kind are public acts of selfishness.
Freedom is envisioned as the tearing down of every social restriction
that hampers my own personal development. People do not rebel
so they can raise a family and give of their life to their wife and kids.
The act of social destruction becomes a weapon to be used to
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liberate the animal inside of a person that cries out to be in total
control of my own little world.
There is a corollary to sexual liberation: The alleviation of guilt.
Any transgression of an ethical code produces guilt. It does not
matter whether the ethical code comes from God or from social
conventions. Any transgression of the accepted ethical code of a
church or society will produce guilt in the law breaker. Churches
have rituals for the forgiveness of absolution of guilt. Societies will
offer or demand forms of penance: This often takes the form of a
penitentiary. When there is a mass breaking of an accepted ethical
code the penitentiary is not an option. This presents a problem.
Guilt cannot be ignored. It will not go away on its own. If there are
not ways to cancel out the sense of guilt, ways will be found to
deaden the inward pain. This will often result in a culture becoming
preoccupied with alcohol or drugs to anesthetize the inward sense
of violation.
For the leaders of a nation going through a revolution such as
the sixties, there are both dangers and opportunities. One danger is
that a nation will degenerate into a permanent state of social
anarchy. Another danger is that the various forms of anaesthetizing
the guilt will become a normal way of dealing with guilt. No society
can exist where breaking the moral and social codes are an
everyday part of living. No society can exist where many seek a
drug-induced memory loss.
Two things must be done to save to social order. One, ways must
be found for the population to find some sort of absolution. Two, a
new moral code must be instituted which is acceptable to the
majority. It is important that both of these be under the control of
the central government. The free market of ideas and social
inventions must not be allowed to operate. If new solutions are
formed by the people, they will in all likelihood, not be acceptable to
the government.
Forming new ways to deal with the guilt is the most difficult for
the central government to improvise. Not only is it not a normal
function of government, it is not something most bureaucrats are
trained to administer. The problem is that if the government uses
the churches, there is always a chance that the churches created by
the government might get out of their control. It is best for the
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government to use what is called Apara-church ministries.@ These
ministries are of a specialized form of service, and do not last for a
long time. Such ministries can help a population understand its
guilt and receive some form of forgiveness. Because such ministries
do not have many doctrines, their influence is very narrow. During
the 1960's many youth sought forgiveness in groups such as the
Jesus People. This loose confederation of wandering youth allowed
many to remain rebels and yet gain a feeling of forgiveness and
acceptance.
For those not religiously inclined, the self-help groups and
various therapy groups can provide a renewed sense of social
wholeness without inferring with a person=s everyday life. Such
group therapies are also excellent in that there are no beliefs that
would interfere with a government=s plans for its people. They
provide short-term psychological relief and offer no long term
opposition to governmental policies. What must be sought by the
government is a form of intense emotional release without too much
intellectual content. The perfect solution would be a rock concert
with some form of absolution. Rock concerts that raise money for
the poor farmers or the starving in Africa approach the solution that
every government needs: Emotional release, absolution, and no
ethical norms that challenge the ruling power=s right to rule.
During times of unrest such as found in the sixties, besides
providing for absolution, it is vital that the ruling powers use this
time to introduce a new social consensus and ethic. Traditional
social and religious ethics often stand in opposition to the
government. The ability of a government to carry out its long term
plans are often opposed by religious leaders and various churches.
The destruction of such religious ethics opens the door to a new
ethic. The ruling elite must see to it that a revival of religious codes
does not happen during the crisis. A new ethic must be instituted
that conform with the long term goals of the government. It is no
coincidence that during the turmoil of the 1960's the youth adopted
a new social code.
It is rather ironic that the rebellious youth who filled their
bodies with drugs would become concerned whether their lettuce
was organically grown. It is also ironic that the same youth whose
goal was >to do your own thing= should become advocates of new
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laws to regulate the environment. When such behavior is occurring,
it is a sure sign that a new ethic is being introduced into the
culture. In times of transition, contradictory behaviors will often
occur. Such contradictory behaviors are a sign that a revolution is
occurring. The contradictions of the 1950's resulted in the end of
one social ethic and the turbulence of the 1960's. The
contradictions of the 1960's resulted in the introduction of the new
environmental ethic. Saving the environment from mankind
became the new goal of the youth.
The great thing about this new ethic is that no church,
individual, or business could control the values that were being
introduced. The only authority big enough to enforce the new laws
associated with the new values was the central government. Also,
the source of the laws was the government itself. This was the
perfect solution that every government had been seeking for
centuries. The morality of the age was grounded in the laws that
the central government passed. The opposition to a strong central
government would find itself with no ground for opposition. The
ruling ethic only supports the government in its efforts to rule the
nation. The >people= became united with the government in its
opposition to businesses, exploiting individuals, or churches that
oppose strong regulations.
One of the benefits of the new social consensus is that the
government can use any disgruntled minority to oppose any group
that opposes governmental policies. The playing off of one group
against another is one of the best ways to achieve a ruling mandate.
Each group looks to the central government to insure its place in the
present order of things. The fact that the very policies of the
government often creates the tensions in the first place seems
somehow lost in the emotion of the situation. As more and more
wealth and its distribution are centered in the government, every
group wants to make sure it receives its >fair= share of the pie.
There is only one pie and so many pieces to divide. It is what they
call a zero sum situation. Whatever one group does not get goes to
someone else, and in one possibility, one=s enemy. Governments
maintain their power through the creation of class envy and political
class warfare.
This brings us to the dawn of the 1970's. In order to
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understand the decade ahead it is necessary to understand the last
legacy of the 1960's. The seven years= war of the youth against
the American culture was a very destructive one. In other wars, one
would gage the destructive effects of war by the physical damage
left behind after the armies had left. The sixties were a different
kind of war. It was a cultural war. There was little physical damage.
The armies had no guns and the pipe bombs used were mostly for
psychological purposes. After the smoke had cleared, so to speak,
there was a different kind of battlefield damage. The buildings were
left standing, but the heritage of two hundred years was in a
shamble. Because the damage was something that you could only
see by looking inside yourself, the battlefield damage was often
down played.
Non-physical damage does not make for great photo
journalism. The destruction of one building makes a better picture
for a weekly magazine than the destruction of a million souls. But
that is what happened in the 1960's. After the revolution, there
were no pictures to show of the damage. Just think where the moon
shot of Apollo 11 would have been without pictures. The oral
account of the astronauts would have been pretty boring stuff, if
believable at all. The damage in the sixties was not visible to the
naked eye and therefore, it went unreported. To paraphrase an old
saying, AIf a tree falls in the forest and there is no reporter there to
write about it, did the tree really fall down.@ The biggest story of
the sixties is that, for the most part, the biggest destruction of the
decade went unreported. Nevertheless, the destruction did happen,
and the tree really does fall down without a reporter being there to
document its falling.
So what were the giant trees that fell during the seven-year
revolution? The biggest tree to fall was the traditional view of the
church. The church fell. The buildings remained, but the idea of
what it had stood for in our nation=s history had fallen. The
Christian church represented God=s presence in this land. It was
like an embassy in a foreign land. God had his embassies in this
land. There is no doubt that the effect of the church had declined,
but it still represented something important. During the revolution
it became just another decadent social structure. The church
services became occupied by mainly old people with memories, but
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for the young, the church was dead. The fact that theologians
chose the 1960's to say that AGod was Dead,@ is to miss to point
that what they were really saying was that the church was dead.
There were several replacements for the traditional church.
Para-church ministries became a vogue thing. Individuals would
often get a hundred or so people to each give five to ten dollars a
month to support their ministry, whatever it might be. Usually, it
was some form of evangelism. These ministries were temporary,
and seemed to have no lasting affects. The other replacement for
the church was the new full-service health club type church. It
offered services of all kinds for every different type of individual.
The services on Sunday were often of a free wheeling nature with
plenty of emotional singing. During the week, the church offered
everything from child care to dating services to weight loss clinics.
While these churches filled needs in society, they were often
unrelated to the great historical vision of the traditional church that
had grown up around the teachings of Augustine, Luther, and
Calvin.
The other fallen tree was the local neighborhood. The new
view of man and his relationship to others precluded the exclusive
neighborhood. The new view of man was inclusive in which anyone
could move to any neighborhood he wanted to move without
restrictions. This was seen as a victory for freedom and equality.
The idea of restricting anyone in their choices of where to live
seemed un-American. It went against the new ideal of total
freedom of movement. What was lost was the support of people
one had chosen because they were of like nature to oneself. The
idea that neighbors could choose who their new neighbors were,
made it possible for people to live in local support groups. After the
sixties, people lived in neighborhoods where the association was
strictly random. There was no bonding of neighbors, or people
united together for their mutual support and caring. What was left
was an anonymous collection of homeowners.
This left a large vacuum in people=s lives. Inclusiveness
became the standard of all relationships. There were some who
even went to the point of saying that even the traditional family was
too inclusive. Any social grouping that excludes some and includes
others became labeled as undemocratic. Children born in a wealthy
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home have an advantage over children born in a poorer home. The
accident of birth was seen as being exclusive. The earliest that the
government could move in and gain control over the children the
more equality could be achieved for all. The result was that only
success in life, and what single individuals achieved was recognized
as a basis of determining differences. The long term result was that
each individual was all alone in this world and the main purpose of
living was to gain some form of achievement that society valued.
That is why teenagers today have two main goals--to be athletes or
rock stars. These are to two most visible avenues of gaining public
recognition, that is, achievement.
The other victim of the sixties revolution was the destruction of
community standards. Only national standards and ethics were
acceptable no matter where the community. The people in the
Appalachian Mountains were to have the same community and
ethical standards as the people in New York. Of course, the people
in New York were the ones setting the standards, so the individual
localities outside of urban areas were expected to change their
living arrangements to match the new urban and national standard.
Wherever the central government penetrated with its influence,
local standards fell to a >one size fits all= world. The abolition of
differences in culture again left many adrift in a world in which they
did not fit and had no desire to fit. In any contact with the world
outside of their family, they were expected to behave by the urban
social ethic.
With the destruction of families, churches, neighborhoods, and
local ethical standards, there was a sense that the world was
indifferent to human life. Two of the prime motives in human
behavior traditionally have been a sense of duty to one=s neighbor,
and the motivation of passing on to one=s children one=s
psychological and financial inheritance. Life requires some purpose
beyond individual achievement and personal pleasure. With the
destruction of local traditions that guide one through life=s events
and the distancing of parents from their children, many found the
new age after the sixties to be an empty world. That is what
revolutions do. The past is destroyed. Instead of the physical
boundaries of a land being destroyed, the seven-year revolution left
the psychological boundaries in a state of destruction.
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 21 THE SEARCH FOR A NEW MODE OF LIVING IS
LAUNCHED

The old ways had been destroyed. The gates to the Eden of
the 1950's idea of life had been blocked by government edict. Just
as God had bared Adam and Eve from returning to the promised
land of Eden after their revolution against Godly standards, so the
people of the seventies were bared from trying to return to any
memories they might have of the fifties. With the central
government gaining control of just about every aspect of life, there
was no way a person could legally try to restore any semblance of
the utopian memories still locked inside of one=s mental
upbringing. New values had been imported into everyone=s life.
The seventies became the age of democratic principles being
applied to every area of life. Family life and the inheritance that
families pass onto their children became socially unacceptable.
Patriotism, that brought of memories of the nation bonding together
to fight Hitler, was dead.
The liberation of the individual from all restraints had been
achieved. Many of these restraints in the past were seen as the
duty of every community to establish. The individual was freed not
only from these restraints but from just about every other
restraining influence except the central government. The goal that
had seemed so important in the sixties resulted in many individuals
feeling totally alone. If one did not live for one=s neighbor or one=s
family, then what did one live for in this life? If one did not work to
pass on the physical and financial achievements that one had
worked so hard for, then what did one work for? The individual was
now seen as something that was formed at birth with all the
necessary traits already inside the person. Traditionally, families
and communities had seen it as their duty to build the personality of
the child into the form that the local community would applaud. The
personality was not something born into a person, but something
that everyone that came in contact with the child helped build.
With the traditional approach restricted, people started looking
inward for the personality with which they were born. Problems
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arose. Those who had been raised without the traditional network
of supports felt empty inside. The personality that was supposed to
reside within each individual was either hiding or non existent. The
seventies became a decade of wanderings. People were on the
move both physically and spiritually. It was a decade with no place
to call home. The decade ended with the election of Ronald
Reagan. Between the Kent State shootings and Reagan=s election
was a decade of best symbolized by Nixon, Ford, and Carter: Three
Presidents who are best remembered for their failures, not their
successes.
Several aspects of the seventies have become permanent
parts of our culture. While the hippies of the sixties participated in
various psychological therapies, it was somewhat of a joke in the
general culture. By the seventies many were attending various
seminars and therapy sessions designed to replace the family,
church, and community. It is particularly American to believe that
something that has existed for thousands of years as part of
people=s makeup can be replaced by going through some therapy.
Partly, it is that American belief that resulted from our being people
on the move. Many left Europe and their heritage to start over in
America. Many left the security of the eastern seaboard to settle in
the West. Those who traveled then had to travel light.
Somehow, the exception of moving once in a lifetime, moving
became part of the Americans way of living. The idea that people
could travel light not only physically, but socially and
psychologically, became accepted fare. The individual became
associated with the individual atom that wanders about until it
comes into contact with a compatible atom and a molecule is
formed. That is how persons viewed themselves in the new scheme
of things. The individual may have been born into a family, but that
was just the accident of birth. And besides, that is just how nature
produces individuals. Other associations were just ways individuals
sought to get their way in this life. I join groups because I need
something and that group does supply that need. Each association
in life is just a way for the individual to get something and then
move onto other groups.
It is not only true on an individual basis, but seen for society as
a whole. The central government looks upon society as so many
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individuals and the object of government is to keep order so that
the government can achieve its objectives. It looks upon society as
something that can be manipulated at will. One institution, such as
the family, can be eliminated, and replaced with another oneBa
mutual temporary association--with no loss. Whatever lawmakers
decide can be molded into the social fabric without causing any
damage. All pieces to the social puzzle are interchangeable. As
long as the individual atom is not damaged, everything else can be
designed for the best social efficiency. The individual has rights, but
not the family, church, or community. Those are merely pieces to
the puzzle that have been used in the past, but other pieces can be
designed to better fit into the world of today=s technological
society.
In the search for a reconstructed individual, Americans also
faced a nation that needed to be reconstructed. Despite the spin
that might be put on the Vietnam War, it was a war America lost.
The Seven-Year Revolution was also marked by a seven-year losing
war: 1965-1972. The United State, a nation that had served to be a
light to the nations of the world was no more. Of course, this was
not talked about in those terms, but the nation now entered the
decade of one crisis after another. There were the gasoline crisis,
the environmental crisis, and the famous hostage crisis to end the
decade. Each crisis was a molehill made into a mountainBthe
elephants were stampeding to escape the mouse. This nation that
had totally lost confidence in itself. The people were no longer the
strong individual atoms that they had set out to become. Tiny third-
world nations such as North Vietnam and Iran were able to bring us
to our knees.
Into this vacuum of the seventies, a new religion was needed
to replace the old. A new family was needed to replace the old, and
some kind of community was needed. The decade of the >Me
Generation= was a total failure. Group therapy does not provide for
family and friends. The seventies were also the decade that
brought television evangelists to center of national attention. They
quickly became a national joke similar to the jokes about all of the
crazy therapies developed for lonely people looking for some
connection to the living. A carry over from the sixties was a total
distrust of institutions, and their ability to solve problems or provide
156
any kind of meaningful solution to the problems plaguing people.
This was a decade described as a malaise. The past had been
destroyed. Individuals were all alone. No personal solutions to any
problem seemed possible. Our nation was caught up in a world that
no longer was afraid of American power. The best that can be said
is that these were sad times.
This age was marked by both a personal loss of confidence and
a national sense of impotence. Little third rate nations could bring
our economy to a halt. And a little island in the Pacific that we
totally destroyed during World War II was out producing us and
building better products. The power of Iran to frustrate our vast
military was compounded by the nation of Japan making cars better
than those of Ford or General Motors. These two corporations
symbolized American greatness and our right to hold power over the
world. When Japan entered the car market with better cars that
even looked better than their American counterparts, it was a
devastating blow. Many blamed the auto giants for just about
everything wrong in America. As other Japanese products such as
stereos, televisions, and cameras replaced American-made products
the nation lost all of its national confidence.
This loss of confidence in our national ability was combined
with our loss of historical roots. Each individual felt empty inside.
Something was wrong. The sixties were said to be an age that set
us free of the past and its restrictions. Yet, somehow, no one felt
better after being liberated. Few wanted to go back to the fifties,
but there was some longing for the America of twenty years earlier.
The movie, American Graffiti, with its recreation of the teenager in
the fifties was a great success and fostered a top-rated television
series. The youth of the seventies, who wanted to be modern, were
singing the songs their parents sang. A nation without a future
often seeks solace and answers in the past. But nostalgia is an
escape, not a way of living. Mankind cannot live without hope, and
hope, by its very nature, is about tomorrow.
The destruction of class consciousness during the sixties had
freed Americans from the idea that their past controlled their future.
Everyone was said to have an open future. Just because a child had
a blue collar father, did not mean he could not aspire to greatness in
some field such as medicine. This new freedom created two more
157
problems. Children no longer were proud of fathers who were less
than successful. They were told in schools that they could be better
than their father. Of course, by better it was always inferred that if
you had a job that commanded the most respect, you had a better
job. Or if you made more money, then you were more successful.
Children were cut off from their family traditions. It was no longer
acceptable to follow in one=s father=s footsteps. Fathers felt
ashamed of their once decent jobs, and children were ashamed of
their lower or middle class family positions.
Another result of the new freedom, was a new sense of failure.
Many children liberated from the traditions of their fathers, found
the world of opportunity promised to them was a lie. No one
bothered to tell them that maybe their father had certain talents
that fit in with his current position. No one bothered to tell him that
many talents are passed on to the children. A father who repairs
cars may not have the genetic material to produce a surgeon, he
may in fact produce a child that is good at fixing cars. This created
a generation who felt guilty and inadequate. In times past there
was no sense of guilt in following in one=s father=s footsteps. That
is what children did. Now children were told they could do anything
with their lives. But a society will always need a few surgeons and a
whole lot of mechanics and repairmen. The result will be that most
will feel like their lives were a failure. Something had gone terribly
wrong.
Who was to blame for one=s failure? Most tended to blame
themselves for what in the past had been considered just a natural
process. They were taught to be great and they ended up as just
average. What could they have done so wrong? Books on self-help
started to become best sellers. The teaching audio cassette tapes
became a fad. One could listen while driving to work and learn the
proper techniques of achieving one=s dream. This renewed sense
of guilt also open the door to a new religious movement called AThe
Charismatic.@ This movement promised a new sense of personal
power. If a person failed in his career, he could still be a success as
a spiritual success. All one had to do to achieve a renewed sense of
importance was to seek a new spiritual experience and learn to pray
in a new language.
The new inadequate American produced other results also.
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Advertisers more and more aligned their products with personal and
sexual power. The famous exercise machine of the seventies, The
Soloflex, through its advertising promised not only a new powerful
body, but implied a vastly improved sexual power. Their ads would
air brush onto their models men who possessed what looked like
two-foot long erections. That was the kind of power that men were
looking for, when they felt so inadequate on the inside. This
became the new American standard of promotion. Weak individuals
are susceptible to being manipulated. People without a personal
heritage, can be sold one through a >Victorian Christmas=
experience, or an >Exotic Caribbean Cruise.= Incomplete persons
became good for business. The weaker the person the less sales
resistance he possessed.
It did not take long for the government to jump onto the band
wagon. While welfare in the sixties was to be a war on poverty, the
new welfare that the government offered would be for every
individual who felt powerless. This included just about everyone.
There were programs for families, for students, the temporarily
unemployed, businesses, schools, and just about every group in
society. All became dependent and thus subject to the central
government in many ways. There were paper trails left by everyone
as the application forms and compliance forms became part of
everyone=s life. Privacy was something for another generation.
The more control by the central government, the more information
was needed to exert that control. No part of life became private.
Students in government schools were even encouraged to fill out
reports on the lives of their parents and family.
By the end of the seventies, a new person had been born into
what had been called at one time, >the land of the free.= Freedom
was confined to those areas that were outside the control of the
government. This became more and more a narrow area. Even the
so-called privacy of the bedroom fell under various laws and
regulations. It became perfectly natural for everyone to organize
their lives around the regulations that had become part of American
life. The steadily rising crime rate of the seventies made everyone
feel insecure. There were no safe places. More and more
governmental controls were called for to stem the rising tide of
crime. The various crises of the seventies made everyone feel
159
totally helpless. Even the new epidemic of mental illness made
everyone feel threatened by the stress of daily living. Holding a job
became something that depended upon government policies
designed for full employment. The rugged individual of American
mythology gave way to the ant who lived in the government-
controlled ant hill.

22 THE NEW AMERICAN RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT

The election of Ronald Reagan in November,1980, marked the

turning point in the new American view of life. Reagan called this
new age, AThe New Morning in American.@ The individual, who had
his confidence broken during the previous decade, had their
confidence reborn, not by some individual effort, but by the election
of a Hollywood actor. Except for a few exceptions, such as
Reagan=s AStar Wars@ system, little is remembered of his years as
President. The biggest impact is the new focus on the presidency as
the center of American life. President Reagan played the new role
of president as leading man. The people of the United States felt a
new confidence in themselves, not for anything they had done, but
because they felt identified with the new powers of the President.
This would be the foundation for the reconstruction for the American
sense of self.
If there is one theme of the eighties, it is the modernization of
the 1950's. The fifties had been a last celebration of the old view of
the American view of life. That life had been destroyed during the
sixties. The seventies had been a wandering in a desert. Everyone
was looking for something, but there was no consensus on what it
was that needed finding. All of the different and absurd solutions
that were offered during the seventies were systematic of the
lostness. And after a decade nothing had been accomplished.
Many joked about their insane wanderings as if it here a badge of
courage to face the meaninglessness of modern life. That was all
past now. The ability of a leader to restore hope and meaning to
many lives is what the new America is all about. The leader is
supreme. Without a competent leader of the new American, the
people are but wandering fools looking for another television
160
evangelist or psychological guru.
Reagan was patterned after Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and
Franklin Roosevelt. While he was not perfect, he was a master at
appearing to be a leader. He understood the media of television.
He knew that a funny story would win against any rational
argument. This made his enemies hate him, but it did not matter.
He was by profession an actor, and he knew how to play a role.
While no one seemed to know who the real President Reagan was,
or if there even was one, he did well in public. It has been said of
some actors, that without a script, they have nothing to say: Every
one of their public utterances has been scripted. The same could be
said for Reagan. He was able to play the role of leader. He was
confident. He had a vision which inspired people. In bad times he
could tell an inspiring story and quote Knute Rockne. He could be
tough when called upon, such as his dealings with the Air Controller
strikers. The fact that he almost died from an assassin=s bullet also
added to his image as someone bigger than life.
The next leader of America will draw upon what was
demonstrated by Reagan and those who practiced the art of
national leadership. The mistakes that Lincoln, the two
Roosevelt=s, and Reagan made will not be repeated. The next
great American president will not only combine the qualities of the
above, he will possess the fatherly qualities and the inspiration of a
self-help guru. The leader that was talked about so much in the first
section of this book will have learned by studying the styles of great
leaders. What will be different in the next leader is that the
audience will have been conditioned to accept the total care and
support of their new god-like leader. The office of the American
presidency is slowly being transformed into the office of Messiah.
And the people of the United States are being transformed into
those who are looking for and expecting a messiah to come upon
the national scene to make their lives complete.
The decade of the 1980's, lasted twelve years. The eight years
of Reagan and the four years of President Bush. This decade did
much to transform the American people into a different kind of
person. After having their past destroyed, and then their confidence
destroyed, the eighties were a time of rebuilding. The person being
rebuilt was a totally new person. Americans were being
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transformed into followers and hedonists. There are many other
qualities, but these two summarize what the decade was all about.
Through President Reagan=s leadership a new kind of war was
declared. He decided to engage in an all-out spending war with
Russia. It was brilliant. In the space of about nine years, Russia was
brought into a condition of financial collapse. The spending war
resulted in a prosperity that restored people=s confidence in their
abilities again.
This new prosperity came with a price. These were busy times.
Everyone was working hard and long hours to purchase the new
technologies appearing on the market. The eighties, among other
things, will be remembered for such products as the VCR, the home
video camera, the introduction of quality cable programming, big-
screen televisions, and the microwave. These products changed the
home life of the new American. Less time could be spent on cooking
and more time for home entertainment. Cable allowed the viewing
of x-rated movies at home, and the video camera allowed the
making of one=s own x-rated videos. What had been confined to
the seedier districts was now through the miracle of technology
brought into everyone=s home. One no longer had to feel dirty for
viewing x-rated fare.
The new American home had been transformed into an
entertainment palace. People could commute to their jobs and all of
the frustrations of work, then return home to relax in an
environment of total pleasure and escape from life=s realities. Life
became centered around two foci: Obedience on the job, and
hedonism in one=s home. With the proliferation of channels, there
was enough pleasure to absorb every age level. Even the youngest
could have their own cartoon channel to watch away the hours, and
also to learn about what products to ask for from their parents. The
obedience of the very young was of learning how to ask their
parents for the products that had been produced for them. They
would be learning at a very young age, the ideals of taking one=s
cues from the media and the ideal of personal pleasure in front of
the home media center.
The MTV generation would be a further step down the road
from the Cartoon Network. The new morality, and the music that
accompanied it, had a non-stop commercial for the beliefs of a
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generation raised apart from their parents. As never before,
commercialism, music, philosophy, and a never-ending supply of
youth who would do anything for fifteen minutes of fame. The fact
that a network designed to sell a lifestyle was so readily accepted
by so many so quickly demonstrates the vacuum that existed in
American society. The videos with a mixture of sex and psychic
frustration offered a virtual image of a fantasy world. The videos
often portrayed a dream-like world that the youth enjoyed while
being awake. The phantasies of a generation, for a life beyond the
one they were living in presently, were awakened while they
seemed to immerse themselves in this dream world.
While the youth were captured into a world without meaning
but only stimulation, the adult
world was being captured by a new development that unfolded
during the eighties. Until this time, a person had a job. Except for a
few exceptions, the job did not have him. With the destruction of
the more traditional corporation in the seventies, a new form of
business enterprise emerged. This was the total control, and
transnational corporation. In a reaction to the defeat of American
corporations in field after field during the seventies by the Japanese,
a totally new approach in business was introduced. In the absence
of families and neighborhoods, the business offered substitutes. In
the absence of religion, the business offered a philosophy of life for
its employees. In the absence of any kind of personal life, the
corporation offered to help in that area also.
Any attempt before the eighties to transform the American
business corporation into something resembling its Japanese
counterpart would have been met with stiff resistance and possibly
many long work stoppages. This did not happen in the eighties
because of the groundwork that had been laid in the previous
decade. The failure of American products, the introduction of a
balance-of-trade deficit, the high inflation, the disintegration of
families and any sense of personal history, this all left everyone
vulnerable and open to change. The new corporation became a
substitute for just about everything that had been left behind in a
pile of social rubble. The new focus of the American worker was no
longer his family, but his business associates. These were the
people he would spend long hours with over many years. These
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people would become a part of his new social fabric.
The corporation moved in with educational seminars, not only
for the executives, but for every worker. All were expected to learn
about the place where they worked, and its place in the world. The
new history that the workers learned was corporate history and
corporate pride. Some businesses even started company museums
to build pride in the history of the business. In place of a personal
vision or a national goal, the new corporation instructed their
workers in the future of the world and the part they would all play in
that place. Workers were made Apartners@ with the corporation
through profit sharing plans, although nothing to match the
Japanese extensive sharingBwhich might be as much as two months
pay per year.
As multinational corporations moved into areas that other
agencies had occupied in the past, there seemed to be no part of
life untouched by one=s work place. The bigger corporations
instituted day care centers for their workers. They started health
>clubs= for off hour recreation. They subsidized educational
training so that workers could work toward various job promotions.
Various company-sponsored community service organizations were
offered the facilities of the business to meet and organize activities
for the workers. The vacuum left by the collapse of the fifties was
more and more filled up by the new corporation which offered its
workers a job and so much more. More and more of people=s lives
became oriented around the friends and co-workers that they
worked with every day. The separation of life into home and job had
disappeared.
As the corporation expanded to become an extended family, it
also took to the preaching of a new ethical code. In fact, the
extended corporation took on many of the characteristics of a new
religion. It not only had its commandments, but it had a clergy
class, the executives who served as its leaders. In former times a
business executive might have no contact with the workers in a
large corporation. He has been transformed into a cheerleader, and
visionary to guide his people into a confusing world. The new leader
can be seen on shop floors, bestowing the blessings, upon the
employee, of close contact with the spiritual royalty of the
corporate elite. The worker sees himself as more than an employee,
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but also as a spiritual part of the corporation.
Just as the church used to preach a world wide mission, so the
new corporate environment talks about the global mission of the
business. The worker is involved in more than making a product, he
feels part of an organization that is competing against the evil
competitors. Through mandatory classes and the company
newsletter, the employee is given the facts about the world in which
the business is competing. In one sense, the corporate elite
provides a way to look at the world and to understand its confusing
nature. While in the past the church would have provided
information to help a person understand his world, the business now
supplies that need. The employee is even informed on how to vote
for candidates that would help the business succeed. He is also
informed about issues before Congress that would be helped by the
employee writing his Congressman.
The new ethics that the corporation applies to the world
involve several areas. The employee is informed about federal
regulations that need formal compliance. The other areas of morals
involve proper conduct with the outside world. The employees are
expected to keep company secrets inside the company, and it is
implied that the release of damaging information to the public
would be harmful to both the employee and the business. The third
area of ethics is the most revolutionary. The employee is expected
to behave in the new world wide perspective that the corporation
operates under. The corporation must be inclusive. It cannot refuse
to sell to anyone because of politics, race, or religion. It cannot
refuse to buy from suppliers who are of a different religion,
nationality, or race. Corporations have their own foreign policy.
The people who work for such a world wide corporation must
adopt the values of the corporation. They are expected to relate to
the whole world just as the corporation relates with a blind eye
toward all differences. Inside the work place there is a new unity.
Just as everyone that is part of the church is considered one, so
everyone who works for the corporation is considered one. There is
unity in employment. As long as each employee contributes his
share to the overall scheme of things, they are considered to be in
full communion with the corporation. Each employee is to forget
any thing that divides himself from his co-workers and to look upon
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all within the company as part of his extended family. Any
employee that breaks this code of inclusive conduct can expect the
severest of consequences.
Just as the church in medieval times would excommunicate
those who stepped outside the bounds of proper behavior, so does
the modern corporation. For the medieval Christian to be
excommunicated was the worst of all possible worlds. It meant one
was outside of the world of social fellowship. It would be like having
a contagious disease for which there is no cure. The corporation has
its form excommunication: It is called >getting laid off.= If done
because the employee has disobeyed the new corporation=s ethics,
then any chance of getting back into fellowship is nearly impossible.
To be outside the corporate umbrella is to lose not only a job, and
the money that was earned with it, but it also means the loss of
medical benefits, the loss of retirement benefits, and the loss of a
good resume.
A person convicted of a crime may hire a lawyer and defend
himself. A person who is does not get along with others may choose
to just live by himself. A person whose personal ethical code is very
exclusive is tolerated in our society. But in the corporate world a
person can be fired for a number of offenses that are not a crime.
There is no trial. The person fired from a corporate job today for
violating the new international conglomerate morality is a branded
person. Getting any kind of respectable work becomes very difficult
at the best. Once the corporate structure punishes an employee
that person has been convicted and sentenced in one
administrative act. The person affected is not protected by a Bill of
Rights written over two hundred years ago. The writers of that
document had no idea the new form of government that would
come to compete with the powers of a centralized political
government.
Thus the new employee lives for the benefits of the corporation
but also lives in fear of violating the new ethical codes of the
corporation=s government. The reason there is so little resistance
to the new corporate order is that the consequences for the
individual employee are so great. Before Social Security Numbers
and driver=s licenses a person was fairly free to move from job to
job with little consequence. Even if the employee had a problem in
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his previous job, there was nothing to keep him from moving to
another city and getting another job with a new name. Now an
employee would have to commit criminal acts of falsification in
order to hide his past. For most, the penalties are just too great to
risk changing one=s name and starting over again.
We have thus developed a worker who is in, one sense of the
word, a prisoner to the corporate-governmental tracking system.
Without a trial or any evidence, a person can become a victim in the
new system. A conflict with the boss or various corporate
procedures can turn into a lifelong black mark that follows the
employee around. With the end of the frontier in America, there
was the closing of one great window of opportunity for many. With
the closing of the new identity frontier, the last great window of
freedom was closed. A person would now have a record of his entire
life from which there would be no escape. Most would say this is
just the way the modern world has to work. It is certainly the way
the modern world we have invented is supposed to work.
This is one reason the role of freedom in the average person=s
life has been such a important theme in today=s corporate world.
Freedom has been redefined, and without most being aware of it,
the new freedom is totally different than the freedom which people
fought and died for in the past. Historically, freedom meant the
right to form and live in a community of one=s own choosing. The
control of the local community was in the hands of the people who
lived there. Any person, who did not like living in that community,
was free to leave for another one somewhere. He could even form
a new one that better corresponds to his own ideal of freedom, if he
so chose. The new freedom has been made into a way of life that
fits in with the needs of the international corporation. The new
person in the new corporate world is free to have personal pleasures
of his own choosing and he is free to shop with the money he has
earned wherever he so pleases. The freedom to spend one=s
money and the freedom to enjoy one=s own bodily sensations,
make up the new world. There are new religions that have been
developed that fit in with these new freedoms. The old Calvinistic
Protestant faith would not work in the world that has been invented
for the average person to live in today. There is much evidence that
corporate leaders such as John D. Rockefeller spent much money to
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invent a new Christian faith that would fit in better with the needs of
the new world order he envisioned. Rockefeller=s charities A. . .
expressed the conviction that the world needed a common religious
devotion to the well-being of humankind, expressed in the modern
idiom and served by modern science.@18
The old faith supported individual corporate freedom of the
Christian man and downplayed his freedom of personal pleasures.
The individuals in this world saw themselves are in charge of their
own destiny. This destiny was proscribed by the Bible and the goal
of living was to work out the implications of one=s faith in a living
community of other like-minded individuals. The goal of living was
to improve the quality of life in the corporate community and to
pass onto one=s children an inheritance of both spiritual and
physical wealth. Work was important because it led to the
betterment of the community but it also increased the value of
one=s estate to pass onto to one=s children. Personal pleasures
were enjoyed, but they were not the goal of living. They were
something that resulted from living a righteous life.
This type of faith would not work in a world that needed an
employee who would be tied to one corporation and who would work
for money alone. While some may take pride in the business in
which they worked, that was not an important factor. The important
thing was that the employee was dependent upon the business
corporation for his well being. To try and live outside such an
arrangement would only result in poverty. The new religious faiths
being developed, exalt the individual person and his ego. Individual
wealth, and personal well being are the goals of the new faiths.
While each individual may get together for some form of worship
service, that service was seen as a religious act which was an end in
itself. It is not a community bonding together for both faith and
community action.
Many of the new Protestant cults are based upon a faith that
will tie in with what the individual needs in order to function in the
new world order created to exalt the business corporation and the
needs of the international workforce. Local communities with local
traditions and local physical needs do not get along with a global
18 The Rich Man and the Kingdom, Albert F. Schenkel. Fortress Press, Minneapolis,
MN. p. 4.
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marketplace. In order for a global hamburger chain to thrive,
everyone in the world must learn to desire and enjoy the food
prepared by the menu makers at corporate headquarters. The
global clothing shoe maker can make much more money if every
person in the world wants to wear the shoes that it designs. A new
global faith is being promoted based upon the personal pleasures
enjoyed during the music-oriented worship service. Doctrines are
down played in the name of a common experience. A faith without
content will not hinder the new global corporation with its dreams
for mankind.
Local corporate communities of persons might have different
laws and even their own money system. This would be impossible in
order for a global economy to function. What if each local
community had its own style of health care. That would create
confusion. And what would happen if some locally controlled
hospital found a cure for which a global corporation already had a
cure. What would happen to the global community if some small
area thrived without the need of lawyers and developed some
system of settling matters which worked much better and cheaper.
This could not be allowed to happen. In order for the global
corporation to thrive, it not only needs a global market, it must be
protected from either cheaper products, or a system that does not
need its product at all. A multi-billion-dollar soft drink business
cannot have people discover some cheap alternative to its product.
Thus as we leave the eighties, we had the Gulf War which is
tied into the needs of the new world order. Over and over it is
stated that in the new world order, no maverick states must be
allowed to exist. The war appeared to be a contrived war, to
announce to the nations of the world a new message: Get out of line
and the world will beat a path to your capital with bombs and
armies. The new world global marketplace demands a world
government. You cannot have one without the other. With the end
of the Soviet Union, the ideological separation, that prevented the
uniting of the world, was over. The Gulf War came shortly after the
downfall of the Soviet Union to announce to the world that there was
now a new order in place. All nations would be expected to conform
to the laws of business and finance as laid down by the needs of the
global corporation. There would be no exceptions to world rule. The
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Arab and Jewish problem seems to be the last wall of separation
preventing the new global government.

23 SEVEN FAT YEARS AS A REWARD FOR WORLDWIDE

COMPLIANCE

From the end of the Gulf War to the Y2K panic marked seven
years of plenty. There was prosperity of such that many became
rich and an age of permanent wealth seemed to be within
everyone=s reach. From the inauguration of Bill Clinton to the start
of the fear of the next apocalypse because of massive computer
failures, marked an age of seven years of peace and prosperity.
Ages of prosperity are not marked by great changes. Everybody is
holding on to their new found wealth and any change is resisted.
These seven years of plenty were, in fact, a time of consolidation.
Because culture had been totally remade from the last stable era of
the 1950's, there needed to be a time of consolidation. The nineties
were such a time. All of the changes that had occurred became
locked into people=s thinking.
The limits of the changes were also tested during these times.
There needs to be information about what the people will now
accept and what they will still resist. President Clinton and his wife,
Hilary, were appointed for a purpose. They were not quite the
buffoons that they appeared at times. Bill Clinton tested the new
morality in action. He seemed to totally disregard accepted
morality. As long as prosperity continued, the nation seemed
unconcerned with his lack of personal ethics. His wife acted as a
political lightening rod to check out the limits of new social
programs. Her national health program with its national
identification card showed that people were not ready for the total
takeover of American medicine. It also showed the people=s
resistance to having their medical history and identity contained on
card which contained their medical histories.
The program was not abandoned. It only showed how far the
government had come to total control over everyone=s life. The
program will return after another national crisis in which the nation
will accept a national health card along with a national identification
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system. Other areas in which the limits would be tested were in the
closer step toward some form of union with both Canada and
Mexico. While the American people would have little resistance in
uniting with Canada, the unification with Mexico would at this time
meet with stiff resistance. The opposition to increased trade with
Mexico and the calls for the reduction of illegal immigration across
the U.S.-Mexican border, displayed increased work was needed in
this area. There will eventually be some sort of North America
Union. It will start out as an economic union and evolve into a
political union. It will be patterned after the European Union. The
global corporation requires such a union.
As stated above, the nineties were a different kind of decade.
Not much happened in people=s minds because there were no
dramatic changes. It is like trying to remember the great events of
the 1950's. The first thing that comes to people=s memories when
they think of the fifties is probably the invasion of the television into
the American home. The biggest event of the nineties marked a
similar invasion. The internet became part of many homes. Each
home became linked in new ways to the entire world. And the
information that invaded the home was unlimited. While parents
sought some control over the content, it was pointless. Kids could
figure our ways to circumvent the system installed by wary parents.
On-line sex became a substitute for actual sex for many, not just
teenagers. With video cameras, both movies and still photos could
be shared with just about anyone in the world. It all could be done
under the cover of encryption and the anonymity of internet.
The internet was more than just a way to have cheap,
anonymous sex. It was a cheap link to the entire world. The
nineties became the age of the global link up. People became
accustomed to world trade, a world stock market, and worldwide
personal communication. The world was becoming one. Those who
have tried to resist this movement are only like those in the past
who have sought to resist the steam engine, or the steam-powered
spinning wheel. A new generation is being born that, through the
internet, now has friends and contacts all over the world. English is
becoming the one world language of the internet as people in every
nation want to talk to those who reside in English-speaking nations.
Tiny villages in Africa can find out the latest information from others
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around the world. We have one world, it is only a question of time
before the world becomes united. The only question is, what form
will this world uniting take? That is the question that should be
debated. Those who resist world order are already on the losing
side.
The path taken toward world government has been a simple
step by step operation. Basically, early government in America was
county government. Problems were handled locally. Each county
even had their own gallows. In time some problem would be too big
for one county to deal with on its own. Either it was too expensive
or the problem might involve another county. The solution to each
successive problem was a loss of control. Two or three counties
might unite to solve a problem, but in time another bigger problem
would arise which required a solution than the counties together
could solve. Each problem over time represented a loss of control to
each local unit. In time, the nation was confronted with problems
for which it could not solve alone. It needed to surrender some of its
sovereignty to some other group in order to solve the problem. As
the world has progressed under free trade and multi-national
corporations, each problem has become bigger and bigger.
What may have started out over a hundred years ago to solve
small problems, has become the trend that has been repeated over
and over again. The person and local governing body have always
been pictured as powerless unless they surrender power to another
body. The image presented to the average person is that
everything is out of control and you are helpless to do anything
about it. The questions are presented in such a way that there
really is only one solution. The cliché used over and over is this: You
cannot turn back the clock. The analogy being that progress is
always toward a more complex world that requires more and more
surrendered sovereignty in order for the problem to be solved.
There are no alternative solutions. The biggest reason is that the
global economy, as it is structured today, needs a world wide
uniformity of laws and practices in order to be most efficient. No
single problem can go against this trend. It would be like trying to
change just one piece of a puzzle with a piece from another puzzle.
The parts are now interchangeable. The global economy is one
puzzle. This means that those who oppose this solution here or this
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solution there, will always be pictured as someone who is opposing
progress.
One of the beliefs that attained a status of becoming totally
accepted during this decade was a new view of man. Man has
finally been totally separated from his Biblical image and from the
philosophy of those who came to America. The new man was the
product of millions of years of evolution. This meant, first of all, that
man had no permanent human nature. Not only was man evolving,
but his mind and beliefs were evolving with him. Any views which
sought to return to a view of man as created by God with a stable
nature was viewed as authoritarian, and of course, trying to turn the
clock backwards. The image of the clock is used over and over as a
symbol of the progress that evolution is making. Time marches in
only one direction and so it is with evolution. Neither can be
resisted.
The media and educational institutions work together to
picture man as an animal with a basic nature that is irrational. If
reasoning is merely a facade, then basic appeals to man must be
based upon his emotions, feelings, and desires. This is the man who
must be appealed to during elections. This is also the man who
must be motivated to vote for a particular candidate. When man
lacks reason, there is also no final authority in regards to truth,
wisdom, or ethics. If a certain goal has been decided upon, then
any technique that influences man in the direction of the goal can
be seen as good and profitable. If man has the nature that the Bible
describes, then goals that are contrary to that goal would be wrong.
If man is the rational person the Bible pictures, then the use of
emotion to stir him to desired ends would also be wrong.
We have the picture, then, of basically a material being who
has certain psychological, physical, and social needs. The goals of
government then are to the fulfilling of these needs to the
maximum possible. Democracy is a way to balance the needs of
one person against the needs of another. The voters are seen as
the arbitrators of whose needs should be met and to what extent.
The best possible way to achieve this balance is the democratic
nation-state. As voters may do things that are not in the long term
good or healthy for everyone, some thing or power must be there to
move the people in the proper direction. The state intervenes when
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the people show too much irrationality in their voting. The state is
seen as the only rational arbitrator. The myth, that the central state
can achieve something that no one individual can do, or small
community can do, is the foundation block of the modern world
order.
The new purpose of the school is to teach the young the world
into which they will be entering. It is not the world of the Biblical
rational being who must serve God and relate to others through the
means of covenants. It is not the world of some revealed authority
which demands obedience in ethical matters. This life is all that
there is. There is no judgment after this life. All decisions are
decisions which must please the animal nature of man. The only
limits on these decisions are the restrictions placed on one by the
government, other persons, and the laws of nature. Within each
person=s personal power sphere he is the new god on the planet.
Each animal is to seek to maximize its animal pleasures. One of the
purposes of the new education is to prepare the young for a lifetime
of maximum enjoyment of this life.
The national school system is a giant corporation. The student
learns to reside and prosper within this giant bureaucracy. The laws
that apply to the school system prepare the student to move onto
other bureaucracies. A student that adjusts to the system can move
onto the corporate world of the modern university. The student is to
be passive in this system. He is not there just to learn a vocation,
but to absorb a world view of man and his roll in this universe. This
system is designed to supply future leaders for the system. Those
who do not adjust and believe in the world- wide corporate
establishment are weeded out. The method that is used is an
indirect one. A student, that finds the system intolerable, will for
the most part not achieve the necessary grades and support to
move up to higher level of responsibility. Because the blame for the
failure falls upon the student, he is not aware of the larger sorting
process that is going on behind his back.
We now come to the final goal for mankind. What is the
purpose of the whole world order that has been established upon
this world? This is the one fact that is not taught or discussed in the
bureaucratic school system. There must be world trade. There
must be multi-national corporations to supply the products we all
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desire. There must be armies to defend this system. Taxes must
be paid to support the whole structure. Within this system
individuals are allowed to maximize their personal pleasures. But
no pleasure is to interfere with the overall corporate world. Some
may wonder about the so-called rat race, but this is to be dismissed
as the grumbling of a loser in the quest for more and more pleasure.
He is the drop out from the living quest which is part of life. To
question the quest is seen again as someone who desires >to turn
the clock back= to rural life and rural values.
The world order is constantly pictured as having the best
interests of everyone in mind. The quest for one world will bring an
end to national armies. The quest for one spiritual understanding of
man will mean the end of religious conflicts and religious wars. The
idea of the brotherhood of mankind will result in everyone in the
whole world being treated equally. No one nation or individual
within that nation must be allowed to monopolize the pleasures of
this life. The world has a limited supply of pleasures. For someone
to have too many means that he is stealing pleasures from others
on the planet. This is the vision which controls the people who live
in the closing decade of the twentieth century. The Victorians
claimed that they lived in the best of all possible worlds. The
modern claims he lives in the only possible world. Evolution has
resulted in this world, and Mother-nature did not make mistakes.

The nineties could be called the age of a new human maze.

Any society needs a system to occupy its people. The maze
provides a proper challenge and it diverts human activity along
certain lines. The important thing about having a social maze is
that it diverts human energies into proper channels. If people are
allowed to choose their own goals and challenges, there is no telling
where that will lead them. The maze is one of the easiest ways to
control a nation. As people cannot live without a lifelong challenge
that is bigger than everyday life, one must be provided for them.
Also, the goal that is established by the maze must be made into
something that the society values. This is the corollary of
establishing a maze: Establish goals that the government desires
and make sure society finds these values worth striving for to the
end of their days.
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 Thus we have a maze which directs our energies toward an
acceptable goal. There must be a firm social approval of this goal.
The media is used to show people who have attained the goal in
question and found it worth the trouble. There must be a uniform
maze also. A society with a multitude of mazes will be free of
government control. Thus, as much as possible everyone in the
society must be striving for the same or similar goals. With this
goes the corollary of this: With a uniformity of goals comes the
fellowship of the suffering that results from striving for such a goal.
Every person grows weary in striving for goals that seem either out
of touch or out of reach. He must be able to look around and see
everyone is feeling equally frustrated and equally disillusioned at
times.
There is a final element of the maze. There must be short term
goals and rewards along the way. People will not submit to
strenuous work their whole lives for some reward, even if the reward
is something highly valued. There must be intermediate steps
along the way which assure one that the maze does reward those
who submit to its power of directing their lives. For example, a
society with a fantastic retirement program will not motivate people
to work hard all their lives so they can start living at age 65. The
human attention span is not that great. So in order to control
people there must be both long term goals to keep them on track
and short term goals to keep them motivated.
This brings us to the legitimacy of any maze. Someone has
chosen the maze. Those in power are the ones who choose the
maze. Every society has two levels of control. There are the
obvious governmental business and governmental leaders that are
seen in public. But there are others who are behind the scenes.
These are the ones who choose which maze individuals must
navigate during their lifetimes. This is one of the best kept secrets
of any society. Society is not a given or it is not something that
comes down in some form of revelation. Man creates his own
reality. Better said, some men create reality that the rest of the
men must live in as the real world. The mass of men, however, is
not taught that there might be other ways to live, or that he can
participate in the forming of reality. Schools never teach that to
students. There are secrets that are not taught to the masses in a
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democratic society.
Every maze works to someone=s profit. Every maze has
someone who must spend his life working his way through the
maze. The two groups do not usually know each other. In any
maze, in order to identify the sources of the social construction, it is
vital to identify who is profiting from the current situation and its
view of reality. Someone is in the background controlling the reality
for everyone else. Their situation mandates that they not appear to
be in control. Thus, every society appears on the surface to a maze
built by random acts. No one appears in charge. As time
progresses, social constructs are formed. No one seems to know
how or why it happens. This is the myth that is provided for the
masses to believe. Thus, it is necessary to see what group profits
from the social reality, and who has the most status to lose, if the
social myths were to change.
Those that construct reality also provide false myths in order to
divert attention from themselves. The competitors are pictured as
enemies of reality. For example, in the 1990's, in America, religious
fundamentalists and Southern patriots are seen as enemies of
reality. This is an important principle: The enemies of the social
construction are the ones who are trying to provide an alternative
view of reality. Fundamentalists are seen as narrow minded bigots
who are trying to keep the world from progressing into the twenty-
first century. In the media, they are pictured as ignorant and out of
touch with reality. They are usually fat and balding and past their
prime both physically and mentally. In fact, every social
construction needs enemies. Enemies help keep people within the
maze.
The creation of ridiculous alternatives to the maze, is an
important part of keeping people motivated in their everyday living.
In our society, the world of the Fundamentalist or Southern patriot is
pictured in movies and other media sources as being extreme in
their suppression of all who do not disagree. The fact that the
current maze forces people to obey if they want to live above the
minimum wage level is a suppressed fact. Any social construct
must force the masses to obey and must have penalties for not
obeying. This fact is suppressed. Only the opposition is pictured of
having social constructs that punish people for not obeying the rules
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of the maze. The events of the Salem witch trials are told over and
over again to every generation. Every grade school youth is taught
that this is what happens if the Fundamentalist was every allowed
to influence the rules of the maze.
In the medieval age, the Vatican constructed a view of reality
and this view was imposed upon the entire world. This view was
enforced upon the peasants by everyone who profited from the
maze as it existed in that time. Everyone from the local ruling
prince to the local priest participated in this reality. Because the
whole world obeyed the dictates of the Vatican, it took a real
revolution for the people to believe that there might be other ways
to run the universe and other ways to organize the social maze. In
our age there appears to be an international finance group that has
control over the reality as we experience. They use the bureaucrats
of the business and government world to enforce this view upon the
world states and their peoples. Just as the Church used the Bible
and its interpretations to enforce their power structure, so the new
elite use the philosophy of the scientific world view to enforce their
views on the whole world.

24 THE YEAR 2000 AND THE AGE OF TERROR

The final consolidation of the whole world into one world view
started with the initial threat of total terror with the fear generated
by the panic surrounding the Y2K crisis. For motivation there is
nothing quite like fear. You can bribe the elite into doing the proper
thing. The masses must be scared into submission. The final stage
in obtaining the new world order will be an age of terror and fear.
This stage could be like nothing the modern world has ever seen.
The ground floor of the new order has been formed. Christianity has
been eliminated as factor in the world order. It might appear that
the Muslims are a religion of resistance, but they are more of a tool
in the formation of the world order than they are an area of
resistance. Only Christianity has an organized and philosophical
theology of opposition to the modern Tower of Babel.
The twenty-first century will be known in time as the final
battle between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Babel. This
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battle has been the driving engine of history. It has been fought
behind the scenes. Often the battles we see on the surface are
nothing but the current manifestations of this battle that has been
raging for over six thousand years. The failure to understand the
nature of this battle has blinded many to the meanings of the
events that they experience in their daily lives. Every utopian
dream has been an expression of the Babel dream of founding a
permanent city who builder and maker are men. Is man capable of
founding a civilization without relying upon the revealed laws of
God? The Bible says Ano.@ Mankind says that he can build a
civilization based upon his own ideas of right and wrong that are not
founded on the Biblical revelation of God.
If man were to choose to walk through one of two doors,
marked Apleasure@ or Aabsence of fear,@ which door would he
pick? Political psychology says that man desires to avoid fear more
than he desires pleasure. After all, if pleasure is surrounded in fear,
what good is it? But if man can live in a state of fearlessness, then
everything else would take care of itself. Thus, this age of the battle
of the Kingdoms will be an age of fear. The door to the new world
order will have over it the sign that reads, Aabsence of fear.@ In
order to get the masses to enter into this door, tremendous
amounts of fear must be generated and inflicted upon mankind.
That is why the Bible talks about the end of the age being marked
by many whom hearts would fail them because of the fear that
surrounds every aspect of lifeBto the point of desiring death as an
alternative to fear.
Any political leader who intends to lead a nation must
understand fear. It is not a topic taught in the textbooks, but it is
the foundational stone of all leadership. Take fear away from a
leader=s tools and he will lose his ability to lead. It is not one of
those topics you will hear discussed on the political talk shows. Yet,
it is the foundation upon which almost every newscast is structured.
If you analyze a typical news show and classify the stories on their
level of fear, you will find a pattern. After watching thirty minutes of
news, the average person should have an unconscious sense of fear.
There will be a sense of dread whose source is quite unknown. A
quick survey of recent events will show a trend toward increasing
amounts of fear. The trend is toward a fear that cannot be escaped.
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 In the past, fear could be escaped in some fairly easy manner.
There were zones where one could feel safe. The escalation of fear
over the past thirty years has eliminated zones of comfort and
safety. The trend has been to elevate fear to something that
surrounds everyone in a total atmosphere of fear. Behind every
good moment there is an underlying sense that the current
happiness has been built on a foundation of fear. Behind every
good moment is the realization that it is temporary. There are no
more Afairy tales@ where it can be said, and Athey all lived happily
ever after.@ The inability to totally escape except in some mindless
activity or stimulant induced coma, has resulted in a world where
the pursuit of acceptable forms of escape has become a national
pastime.
There have been several progressions of the level of fear over
the pass several decades. In the seventies there was the Swine Flu
scare. That scare was a total bust. Masses lined up at the malls to
get inoculations. More died from the injections than got sick from
the flu. During the eighties, AIDS became part of America=s
everyday life and the hot topic of discussion. There were minor
fears during this decade such as the mass outbreak of Herpes, but
the masses were still left untouched. With the age of panic, the fear
of Anthrax or small pox now progressed to a fear that occupied
everyone=s life. With the fear of infected mail, every home became
a possible target. Because no home is without some mail, there was
no place, no matter how far out in the country, that was safe from
possible infection.
The level of bombs also escalated over the past several
decades. In the sixties, students used pipe bombs to protest their
hatred of the Vietnam War. In time, car bombs were used against
American citizens. The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma
City escalated the fear level to a new height. Finally, with the
destruction of the World Trade Centers, anyone that lived or worked
in a large building could become a possible target. Everyone was a
target. When you add the various work place shootings, there
seemed to be the possible threat of death no matter where one
lived or worked. While the forty to sixty thousand deaths each year
in automobiles has been going on for decades, the random deaths
by attack seemed to elevate terror and fear to new levels in
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America in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
In connection with the escalation of fear, has been a de-
escalation of possible alternatives to fear. In times past, heaven
became the hope of all, especially those who have lost hope of any
rewards in this life. Fear became manageable because there was
more to life than just the present age. In time, with the Gospel of
Prosperity, heavenly rewards came down to earth. Christians
expected to be rewarded in this life. In time, the rewards became
more immanent. Not only was one expected to find rewards in this
life, although it might involve much tribulation, it was now expected
that rewards would become an everyday part of life. As the pursuit
daily pleasures became the norm, there developed the fear of losing
one=s daily pleasures.
Christians now became motivated to achieve a life of continual
pleasure. The avoidance of all pain was the corollary of this. The
life of the Christian went from seeking Christ in all tribulations to the
avoidance of trials and tribulations. This now was the goal. As
heaven became part of the earthly expectation, hell now became an
earthly reality also. The whole world was becoming one city. But it
was not the city of the utopian dream, but the city dominated by the
ghetto. The whole world was seemingly engaged in a new kind of
war. The global village had been turned into the global ghetto.
Every business and every community seemed to be a continual
competition. The competition was cut-throat. There are no safe
suburbs in this new reality as symbolized in the school shootings in
prosperous enclaves.
The whole world was struggling for a new unity to restore the
metropolis of utopian dreams. With increased interaction between
peoples of all faiths and political beliefs, life seemed to be now lived
in a state of continuous conflict. With fear and terror invading every
area of life, even the popular escape into the local church seemed
pointless. The church was no longer a place to enter into the
presence of God, but was a place to escape from the conflicts of the
global community. The church went from being a worship center to
an entertainment center. The church went from emphasizing
eternal pleasures to a place that promised to deliver immediate
pleasures. As the world became a world of terror, the church could
no longer deliver on its promises. The age of terror had finally
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 exposed the nakedness of the church. The last safe refuge had
died.
The marks a new stage in history. The transition has been slow
and the direction has appeared to be irreversible. Various authors
have described this age as the end of history. In one sense it is. It
is the end of Western Civilization. In fact, its passing has, for the
most part, gone unnoticed. The major reason being that with the
defeat of the South during the Civil War, the last defender of
Western Civilization was defeated. There have been isolated
stragglers, but no nation has wanted to defend the traditions that
produced the modern nation-state. Even with the defeat of the
South, traditions die slowly. It has taken one hundred and fifty
years to finally declare that Western Civilization is dead. There was
no funeral because no one cared. If there was a funeral no one
attended and Western Civilization=s final fall was like the tree that
falls in the forest with no one to witness it. Is there a noise? That
silence was the end of a great empire.
The terror that opened this age did not kill the old age. It was
already teetering into a pre-dug grave. What terror has done, is to
point in the direction that the new Whole World Civilization will take.
There is no doubt that democracy is the reigning form of
government approved by the masses. It does give them a
semblance of the choices that once loomed important in civilizations
past. The new choices more resemble the choice of deodorant
brands. There are choices, and the fact that people show loyalty to
their brand should tell you something, but how important is that
choice in the overall frame of life? It is important to many and that
is the amazing fact. Consumer-freedom is the new democracy. Our
choices at the polls are no longer the choices of free people, but of
people who are allowed to choose politicians, who resemble
different cans of deodorant.
Western civilization required choices be made that reflected the
great needs of people who are freely pursuing their God-given rights
to have dominion over the face of the earth. The choices were
mostly made on local levels. The main purpose of a democracy was
to keep the powers of government from interfering with the local
freedoms that each community treasured. Emergencies did arise
when more power could be granted for a temporary period of time.
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At the end of the emergency the power was restored to the local
communities and organizations that treasured their independence
from governments. The new freedom is the right of each individual
to vote on what particular service he wants the central government
to perform. The citizens of Western Civilization would be totally
dumb founded over such choices.
Thus, the end of history is really the beginning of a new form of
history. The age of terror has resulted in the citizens of the world
voting for more and more security. Freedom has been redefined to
mean the freedom to be safe from the terrors of life. Every terror
that has entered into public consciousness over the last hundred
years has now become the new >freedom from.= Men want to be
free from crime, free from disease, free from terror, and free from
fear. That is a tall order for even a church to fulfill, yet alone a
government bureaucracy. While the church in the past may have
tried to fulfill some of these needs, there was the realization that
most of one=s needs would only be fulfilled in heaven.
As religion has faded away, government has moved into the
vacuum. The needs addressed by Christianity have now been put on
the auction block of a democratic election. The new politician is the
new priest of the New World Civilization. The big difference between
the old faith and the new faith is this: The old faith taught the
limitations of earthly existence. The new faith sees no limitations.
For every need there must be some bureaucratic solution. Every
failing in life means that someone has failed to recognize a need and
provide for its fulfillment. The general prosperity and the
technological innovations over the last hundred years, has created
the illusion that government has brought all of this about. It has
taken credit for the past, and now offers equally grandiose plans for
the future.
The past is pictured as one of scarcity. The new age will be one
of abundance. It will be a different kind of prosperity. It will not be
anything like the different ages in the past that considered them
prosperous. The new age will have prosperity in a very narrow band.
Prosperity now means having things and having sensual pleasures.
That is why many have talked about the end of history. The idea of
continual progress which so many lived and died for is no longer a
reality. Men sought enjoyment in pitting themselves against an
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earth that only gave up its riches through much hard work and
mental ingenuity. From the highest in society to the lowest, there
was this common purpose that served as a common bond. All were
working together, though in different roles, to hold back the chaos
that was only one generation away.
The New World Civilization sees a world bonded together in a
different kind of purpose. It is the common desire to be a consumer
of the plethora of gadgets that technology has produced. It is to be
able to travel to one of the many centers of pleasure designed for
people of all ages: The centers range from ball parks to amusement
parks. It even includes the new phantasy theme parks to create an
experience of living in some totally different world or lifestyle. The
New World Civilization offers a world without war as everyone will be
satisfied with their level of pleasure. Even the poorer persons in
society will be able to enjoy the riches of sensual pleasure and be
able to enjoy the world that in time=s past only the very rich could
afford to experience.
The utopian dream of the New World Civilization is based on the
idea that man is basically an animal. To keep the animal content is
the object of life. The new view of man differs little from the old
Carnation Milk slogan that their milk came from contented cows.
The New World Civilization promises that its product will come from
contented workers. The workplace will be free of conflict. It will
provide a financial living sufficient that all will be able to own
gadgets and experience sensual pleasures. The workplace will offer
every other service to keep the worker contented and able to enjoy
his time away from work. With medical and child care covered, the
worker will be free to pursue pleasure just like everyone else in
society.
The civilization envisioned will be one in which the whole
world will be managed in a similar way that businesses have been
run in the past. All of the workers and their families will be
regulated. The family will be licensed and the number of children
will be limited. In order to maintain a semblance of freedom, a
couple will be able to sell all or par of their licensed quota to
someone else who desires a larger family. Wages will be regulated
to ensure that every job that society deems proper will proper a
minimal opportunity for personal enjoyment. With population growth
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stabilized, the stress on the planet will be eliminated and the New
World Civilization will offer all men the promise of longer and longer
life on this planet as resources can be switched from making war
materials to making improvements in health care.

The Age of Reason, and the Age of Enlightenment have ended.

We now have the Age of Consumption. The perils of unlimited
economic growth will have finally been ended. Zero growth will
result in a stable culture with a stable environment. Mankind will be
able to focus on problems rather than always trying to stay one step
ahead of rapid growth. With zero growth the stress of the
infrastructures of the cities. Instead of building one new freeway
after another, the cities can concentrate on improving the lifestyle of
its inhabitants. Wasted resources can now be used to create green
belts or new systems of transportation. The quest for utopia now
offers the promise of actually coming to fruition. No more dreams of
the land of nowhere. The future has finally arrived through the new
forms of government and the ability to manage the people who live
within its borders.

The questions we have to ask, is this new age the final result of
the evolution of mankind into something entirely new and exciting,
or is it the rebellion of mankind against the image of God that was
created into our species? And if we destroy that image, what are we
to become?

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