The Sixties ... the dream of this-worldly paradise based on sensory overload and instant wish fulfillment went nowhere.

Out of the Wrechage

by James Kalb

The Sixties wanted Paradise Now: a paradise that ignores the distant and difficult in favor of the immediate and effortless. We wouldn’t transcend life’s conflicts and difficulties by striving after a higher unity, we’d abolish them by denying them recognition. Each would do his thing and follow his bliss, and all would be well. As the slogan on the poster put it, “What if they gave a war, and nobody came?”
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The most basic political and social problems must be dealt with through what precedes politics and society, so we must work from the inside out, starting with knowledge of ultimate things. On that view, the logical sequence for Catholics is first doctrine, then faith, then purity of heart, and then reform of conduct, starting with what is most immediately at hand.

It’s solid advice, because it means we start with what’s real rather than what we happen to believe, want, and do. The world of the Sixties was based on rejection of transcendent realities and their relevance to life here and now.

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