OPINION:
Another day and yet more and more claims of sexual assault flood the news.
NBC announced Wednesday its firing of Matt Lauer. Axios reports that, in addition to Mr. Lauer, the list of sexual miscreants now includes the likes of celebrity chef John Besh, Comedian Louis C.K, Cinefamily executives Hadrian Belove and Shadie Elnashai, actor Richard Dreyfuss, director-producer Gary Goddard, casting employee Andy Henry, actor Dustin Hoffman, actor Robert Knepper, showrunner Andrew Kreisberg, actor Jeremy Piven, filmmaker Brett Ratner, comedy festival organizer Gilbert Rozon, producer Chris Savino, actor Steven Seagal, actor Tom Sizemore, actor Kevin Spacey, actor Jeffrey Tambor, actor George Takei, writer-director James Toback, “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner, actor Ed Westwick, Billboard magazine executive Stephen Blackwell, Penguin Random House art director Giuseppe Castellano, New Republic publisher Hamilton Fish, Artforum publisher Knight Landesman, NPR news chief Michael Oreskes, Amazon executive Roy Price, Webster Public Relations CEO Kirt Webster, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier, NBC News booking exec Matt Zimmerman, Sen. Al Franken, Senate candidate Roy Moore, Florida Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Bittel, Florida Democratic state Sen. Jeff Clemens resigned, Florida Republican state Senator Jack Latvala, Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, International Olympic Committee member Alex Gilady, Former South African soccer association president Danny Jordaan, Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, and CBS News personality Charlie Rose.
And let’s not forget the 2006 accusations against Vice President Al Gore, the 2008 disclosure of vice presidential candidate John Edwards’ illicit affair, the 2016 recording of President Trump’s boorish boasting, and the granddaddy of them all: the repeated accusations of multiple rapes and assaults levied against former President Bill Clinton.
Why are we surprised by any of this? Why do any of these rampant claims of sexual aggression seem to catch us off guard? Can we really take anyone seriously who pretends to be shocked? Can we even take ourselves seriously if we act as if this all has taken us unawares?
If we have any measure of honesty left in our cultural soul, the answer has to be no. This story was as predictable as the sunrise and, furthermore, we all know the above list is only the tip of the iceberg.
How did we know this would happen, and how do we know that more is yet to follow? It is obvious. All we need to do to is look at our public schools and what we’ve been teaching for the past several decades. Ideas always have consequences and lecherous behavior will always be the inevitable consequence of teaching lechery.
For years our schools have mocked morality. Why are we now shocked to find we live in a society that has no understanding of personal morality?
For decades, we’ve taught our children that there are no boundaries. Why are we now surprised to find we have raised young adults who behave as if there are no boundaries?
Year in and year out we have taught our kids the merits of sexual experimentation, rather than the virtue of sexual restraint. And now we wonder why our country lacks virtue and our culture is void of sexual restraint?
We act as if something has gone wrong but yet we continue to teach our kids to do what is wrong.
We have torn down all standards but yet we are incredulous to find that we are led by men who have no standards.
We mock what is right and then shake our heads at leaders who don’t know how to do what is right.
“We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful,” said C.S. Lewis.
Nearly a hundred years ago, G.K. Chesterton warned of this moral castration: “The terrible danger in the heart of our Society is that the tests are giving way. We are altering not the evils, but the standards of good by which alone evils can be detected and defined.” He went on to say, “The next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on morality; and especially on sexual morality. And it is coming from [those] resolved to enjoy themselves, with [nothing] to hold them back.”
Indeed the “attack” has come. It did not come from without but, rather, from within: from right within our own local schools. As your grandmother once said, “Garbage in and garbage out” and the ideological garbage we have taught our children in our classrooms is now bearing itself out in the garish behavior we now see in our culture.
Ideas have consequences. When you teach lechery, you get lechers. Alter the standard of good by which you detect evil, and evil prevails. If you don’t want your progeny to get cancer of mind and soul, you might want to stop feeding them the ideological carcinogens that gave them the disease in the first place.
• Everett Piper, is president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University and author of “Not A Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery Faith, 2017).
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