Does it ever seem if the cultural left’s calls to action are often aimed at problems that seem—at least somewhat—manufactured? Does it seem almost as if, in a world that isn’t run their way, we wouldn’t have to face the kinds of issues that they’re trying to fix?

Here’s an example of what I mean.

The sexual revolution left us with a new cultural norm—sex is a fundamentally sterile pastime, to be engaged in by whomever with whomever. And, unsurprisingly, it has spawned a number of problems.

Here’s one: what about sexually transmitted diseases?

“Well, here’s a solution: abstinence.”

“No, no, we can never mention that old-fashioned and oppressive notion; we’ll just make sure everyone has access to condoms.”

“But what about babies conceived out of wedlock? Can we mention abstinence now?”

“No, we’ll just make sure everyone has access to contraceptives.”

“But what about the babies who will still be conceived—can we mention abstinence now?”

“No, abortion is a fundamental right (and it conveniently keeps sex consequence-free), so we’ll devalue the unborn in order to keep it that way.

Do you get the picture? By the last step of the process, we end up justifying murder to fix the problem we manufactured for ourselves—while ignoring the simple solution: stop sinning.

I know this is purely a hypothetical interchange, but I hope it resonates with a lot of us as we think about this aspect of the cultural debate.

Seriously, why does no one talk about the choice for abstinence? Why is extramarital sex always the given, and childbearing always the “choice?”

If we decided to cultivate a culture that prizes family as it ought, wouldn’t a lot of these secondary problem-solution-problem cycles begin to disappear? Instead, we find ourselves making the world worse and worse as we attempt to patch over the hole we’ve blown in God’s created design.

Here’s the pattern I think we can begin to notice after watching culture long enough.

First, we decide to sin. Because sin destroys some aspect of God’s world, this logically leads to a series of problems. But the proposed solution to the problem is never to “stop doing what caused it in the first place.”

Instead, we race along a pathway of invented solutions which make the world worse and don’t address the root issue.

Just to clarify: this piece isn’t meant to be an empirically-validated explanation of societal decline. I’m mostly just positing a general theory of how we end up getting into the sticky situations we do nowadays.

If you want to look at it this way, I’m throwing noodles against a fridge, and noticing that a few major ones seem to stick. Maybe the fridge is worth keeping.  

Anyway, here’s another example.

Another cultural norm stemming from the sexual revolution is the belief that families are fundamentally restrictive. When it comes to marriage, easy-come-easy-go is the name of the game. If you’re not content in the family you’re in and you’re ready for a change, then we have pornography to make it enticing, role models in pop culture and the media to make it normal, and no-fault divorce to make it legal.

Now, enter problem 1) Kids in fatherless homes will grow up without an authority figure in their lives. They’re less likely to have a disciplined character and more likely to commit crimes.

“So here’s a solution: stop promoting porn, glorifying hookup culture, and legalizing divorce for any reason.”

“Well, I never! Don’t you realize that those are sacrosanct archetypes of the rights to free expression, reproductive liberty, and personal autonomy? We’ll just… institute social programs to encourage kids not to join gangs.”

“But what if you can’t educate criminal tendencies out of someone who’s never had a real authority figure in his life? Violence is going to increase anyway.”

“Well, we just need to enact stricter gun control!”

And so, we end up penalizing swaths of law-abiding citizens who cherish the right to keep and bear arms, rather than go back to the old stuffy idea that the permanent nuclear family matters. Again, we’re making the world worse—and this time, in a completely different area of life—because we refuse to repent of the sin at the root of it all.

Now, a couple qualifications are in order.

History is never monocausal, and I’m not saying that “the reason we have a problem with firearms and violence is because (and only because) hookup culture is glorified in rap music.” But I honestly do think you can follow the string of logical consequences clearly enough to say that the de-prioritization of fatherhood has led to generations growing up without ever-present loving authority, and thus more inclined to criminal behavior.

Just look at fatherlessness rates among the incarcerated. It may not be the only reason, but I still believe it’s an important one. Which is why it’s so frustrating that the mainstream cultural debates don’t seem to touch on it.

Another qualification. Some people might paint this idea as some kind of conspiracy theory—”do you think the left instigated the sexual revolution so they could take away your guns?” Not necessarily.

Raising the charge of “conspiracy” is rarely helpful, but I do have a couple thoughts. Some might say that the people advocating these kinds of things are all complicit in some kind of vast conspiracy.

It’s not impossible, but it’s not necessarily true—every individual is a tiny little historical actor kicking around in a tiny little corner of history, and sometimes people are simply oblivious to the trends that they help form.

Others might say that the people advocating these kinds of things may not be complicit, but are at least accidental participants in a vast conspiracy orchestrated by someone else—perhaps the evil one—to destroy a once godly society. That’s not impossible either; the enemy does love destroying things that honor God, and America would seem to be a good target.

But even if that’s a little too far-fetched for you, and you’d rather interpret such developments as simply the downhill slide of sinful men into more and more egregious expressions of sinfulness as God gives them over to a depraved mind (Romans 1), I think my main point still remains.

Regardless of how much coordination you want to read into things—maybe you believe everyone is taking orders directly from the Illuminati, or maybe you believe that not a single person has a clue what is going on or where we are headed—we can still notice this pattern.

In its contemporary form, the left seems to exhibit a pattern: it tries to 1) solve problems that it created, 2) when it pitted its own ideas against common sense, 3) and then removed common sense because it was too troublesome.

Something to think about when you watch the next political debate…