Rule Smashers

Rule Smashers

People were horrified at the pictures of ISIS destroying ancient architecture at Palmyra. But the much more thorough and catastrophic smashing of ancient rules of conduct in our Western societies has gone largely unnoticed.

Even as I look now and see them crumbling all around I wonder “How come I never saw this coming?” It is as though our social system has been for years infected by woodworm and we are only realising it now as the chairs and tables start breaking apart.

We may not remember the date but we all remember the event. In April 1986 engineers at a power plant decided to test new voltage regulators that had been installed. To do this test they dis-connected some safety devices. What they didn't know was that their boiler had a rare design fault – well a lethal combination of several actually – which meant it was unstable. A bit like standing a pencil on end: it can balance there but it is just waiting to fall over. Grandma's rocking chair is the opposite; you can rock it but it always wants to return to the upright. So when they dis-connected the safety devices disaster was inevitable. The name? Chernobyl.

We suffer from a societal arrogance far bigger than those Chernobyl engineers.

We think “we” are so smart we can pull apart and re-build wholesale the moral and ethical rules that our societies have been running on. We are even now blind to the warning signs of “unintended consequences” that should be alerting us to our mistake. We are so insulated by rigid adherence to politically correct dogma – to an extent that would make the most rabid fundamentalist blush – that we cannot see that reality is about to bite.

Take an example: Divorce

Now don't get me wrong: I reckon that in Mark 10:2-12 Jesus is saying two things: 1) divorce was not part of God's plan but human sinfulness made it in some cases “the lesser of two evils” 2) He was addressing the legal scheming of the Pharisees: divorcing your wife on a trumped up charge so you can legally marry the “new woman” is still adultery in God's eyes.

So I think the “no divorce ever” camp are wrong: biblically wrong, and in every-day experience wrong. We all know cases where divorce is the only humane option. Funnily enough at present I have two acquaintances, one male and one female going through the traumas of the family law courts. Both seem to have spouses (one female one male!) who have and are behaving extremely badly.

On the other hand divorce rates have soared over past decades. Partly because women can more easily find work and so can now afford to leave an abusive marriage. Partly because of legislative changes – in Australia “no fault” came in in the '70's. But I think largely because the social mores have changed – and that change was the result of a tearing down of the old rules.

When I was a parish priest I had couples come to me for re-marriage after one of them had been divorced. This required the bishop's permission, and so required going through the circumstances of the marriage breakdown – which in itself was a beneficial exercise for the person involved. There were of course cases where one wondered why the person had stuck with their spouse as long as they did! But these were rare. In the most common case no one was “bad”. They just drifted apart, or were stupid, selfish or other traits which with early intervention by friends or family might have been corrected. I found myself on many occasions wondering “why didn't someone grab these pair and bang their heads together and tell them to wake up to themselves and make this marriage work”

Of course by the time they had been through the divorce court and were sitting in my office hand-in-hand with their new prospective mate that possibility was long, long gone! Probably even by the time they had started to build separate social lives or started a destructive downward spiral of bickering it was to late. But at some time the marriage could have been saved.

“Why bother?” you ask? Precisely! That is precisely the problem, we have made young people think that marriage is an “easy come easy go” arrangement. We have thrown out the old rule “and forsaking all others … as long as you both shall live”. Sure as I said exceptional cases had to be excepted – but we didn't have to throw out the whole rule!

What has resulted: Misery on a large scale. Divorce hurts those who go through it big time. It hurts their friends and families. It separated grandparents from grandchildren. But there is an even bigger toll. Child abuse.

Rates of child abuse are frightening. The most frequent offender is the step parent. These days sexual and physical abuse is nearly always by the step-father, but remember all those fairy tales involving the wicked step-mother!) So just in one important area of societal functionality we have the tangible result of tearing down of the old social rules causing major harm.

Every individual matters, so harm to all these individuals matters in itself, but the harm goes farther. In looking at the possible decline of Western civilisation functionality of society matters.

In the animal world species which don't adapt as well as others lose out to them and become extinct – ask the Dodo. Civilisations which become less functional lose out to more vigorous ones and disappear from the world's stage.