Fraternity Against the Great Domestication
Sometime in 2023, a local chapter meeting of the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) closed amid laughter, toasts, and handshakes between future business partners. Earlier in the evening, over a meal, three members had exchanged information on an important urban development hearing that hadn’t been covered in the local press. One member gained a godfather for his newborn son; another secured a valuable internship for his teenage son; yet another obtained a second opinion on an institutional matter from an expert in the subject. Such fruitful evenings are common among the members of the fraternal organization we helped found, proving the worthiness of its ongoing mission. SACR’s thesis is that the flowering of deep fraternal bonds, informed by a traditional spiritual vision, is necessary for the renewal of civil society and the preservation of the common good. This is apparently quite the radical proposition. Upon discovering the existence of SACR, the leftist press predictably fired a salvo of hit pieces. The idea of an exclusively male, explicitly Christian civic organization—of the sort common throughout American history—confuses and terrifies them. In their imaginations, confidentiality becomes “conspiracy.” Maintaining standards of conduct and belief is “exclusionary.” Promoting republican civic order is to seek the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of an “authoritarian” regime. Praying for the revival of Christendom is tantamount to wishing for “genocide.” Such histrionics reflect ignorance of how the West rose to civilizational excellence, or perhaps a judgment against the pursuit of excellence itself. Either way, these writers reinforce the spiritual enervation, isolation, and domestication of men demanded by our neoliberal regime. As SACR’s website reads, “A man is no longer encouraged to fly to the stars, to tame the wilderness, to plant the seeds that his children will inherit.” Tom Wolfe’s classic account of the Greatest Generation in The Right Stuff (1979) is almost inconceivable today.
More From First Things:
Fraternity Against the Great Domestication
4/9/24Moral Decline Creates Society of Anger and Hate
1/3/24Why identity politics is poisonous to the ideal of human equality
10/26/23Children will benefit if we face this fact: Married parents are ideal
9/20/23Newspapers (news & real life)
8/12/23This is about what happens when you expose false political narratives
7/20/23How the Gas Stove in Your Kitchen Became a Symbol of Freedom
1/16/23Parental Authority Is the Basis of Civilization
9/30/22Should Society Tell 10-Year-Olds, 'The World Is a Better Place With You in It'?
9/20/22Political narratives and virtue signalling has begun a soft, yet dangerous, civil war
8/8/22Will America Remain Virtuous Enough to Be Free?
6/5/22What Is Truth?
4/4/22Speech, Violence & the State? Plus, A Life Lesson For All.
3/28/22The Religious Nature of the City
2/12/22The Way Out
2/8/22The Eight Degrees of Ignorance and Stupidity
1/10/22God's Servant First: Our King of Peace
12/23/21An Appalling Attack on Adoption
12/7/21Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization
12/6/21Is this the future or the death of comedy?
10/20/21