A Most Unsettling Realization

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprized, but it is so easy to forget about such things living on a small farm in what commentators call "the fly-over country."  Recently, I had occasion to attend a series of arraignments in the metropolitan court of a large American city.  Considering the nature of their charges, the dress, demeanor, and deportment of the eighty or so people who were arraigned that afternoon, I think it is safe to say that a good ninety percent of them showed serious disregard for the court, her officers, and the law she represented.  I did not witness seething anger or revolutionary contempt.  But I did see a practiced unconcern for legality and those basic considerations of good citizenship to which I have dedicated my life.

The day was troubling to me.  The officers of the court took it all in stride as if it were what they saw every day of their working lives.  They processed cases with an almost emotionless consideration for the realities that seemed to fill the room.  Theirs was the practiced professionalism of the assembly line mechanic from beginning to end.  It occurred to me that the vast majority of the people they saw that day had no stake in the republic.  Pundits may argue the reason for this marginalization and virtual ennui, but whatever its root causes, it was palpable. 

Last week, son Tristan, who has certainly paid his dues to this Republic, attended the new Batman movie with some European friends.  Apparently, there is one scene where the mob goes berserk and chaos reigns in Gotham City.  Tristan turned to one of his friends and said, this looks like a page out of a history of the French Revolution.  She solemnly nodded in agreement.  As we were discussing that night, he told me of a very disconcerting event he witnessed at the fireworks which celebrated American Independence here in Lancaster.  The man sitting in front of us became very boisterous for some reason, and in the midst of his diatribe, he said that he could deal with things, and that he had been to jail once and would probably be there again.  The display unnerved my decorated Marine combat veteran son in the same way that the arraignment hearings unnerved me.  When large numbers of citizens (or residents) demonstrate such unfeeling disregard for those institutions and basic responsibilities which govern and define civilized behaviour in any nation, there will ultimately be the Devil to pay.  It is from such disconnected marginalization that violent revolution is born...and violent revolution has a tendency to set neighbors against each other and destroy all that is good, and beautiful, and true.

In their commentary on the Fifth Commandment (that we honour our fathers and mothers), the old English and American catechisms counsel deference to all lawful authority and solemn attention to personal and corporate responsibility.  Somewhere along the way, our families, churches, and schools have failed to instill those lessons in many people.  Perhaps our economic and social institutions have failed them.  Perhaps our society has embraced new values which defy and reject older ways.  Perhaps the traditional means of transmitting values received have become ineffective.  The fact remains that for many people in America today, a new set of values is being transmitted which bode ill for our future as a people.  Without doubt, some believe that to a greater or lesser degree they are pushed aside.  Others may be so preoccupied with pleasure, or self, or survival that they consider the law to be a minor inconvenience and an occupational hazard.  Whatever the motivation may be in the hearts and actions of so many, the spread of such attitudes threatens order, good order as well as tyrannical order.

I have no answers about the best way to change the situation, but it troubles me deeply.  Might God who is the granter of our life and our liberty show us a way forward, that all the peoples of this fair land might find good reason to participate in pacific and supportive ways in this civilization which has been so painstakingly built over so many centuries.