Conservative Thought
WHERE HAS RESPECT GONE?
I recently experienced a scenario that is becoming more and more the norm and more and more annoying. I was brought up in a different era. Things have changed since this time and not for the better.
The scenario that I speak of took place as I called my doctor’s office to request a prescription of antibiotics that I have to take before having dental work. I explained to the receptionist that I had a filling fall out and needed a refill of a prescription that I had recently been given. I also explained that I needed to get the prescription ASAP. The receptionist wanted to know when the prescription was order and I explained “within the last month”. She said that there was no prescription for that time, but there was one in November. Knowing that I had just received the prescription, I questioned the accuracy of the records. She then said, “You didn’t get a prescription recently, it was in November. I then asked if she thought I was lying. She responded, “Don’t put words in my mouth!” She then went on to explain that if I needed the prescription so badly, I should have planned better. I then interrupted her to explain that I don’t plan on having a filling fall out and was she saying it was my fault. She replied, “Yes.” I started to address her statement when she interrupted me and I said, “You just interrupted me!” Her reply was, “You interrupted me.” I am by now exasperated with this receptionist and said, “I am the patient, your work is to take care of me. Now, get a message to my doctor.”
I am not usually a complainer, but this kind of nonsense seems to happen too often. There seems to be no concern for civility in society. When I was growing up, I was taught to respect my elders, the police, the official authorities, the President of our country and its flag. A “tongue lashing” occurred if I got out of line and even though I protested the Vietnam War and racial prejudice I still maintained respect for others. When I became employed and worked with the public, the rule was “the customer is always right.” We know that is not always the case, but at least they deserve for one to listen with interest, not interrupt, be personable and be sure to say please and thank you.
I guess most young people are not being taught these lessons because as I researched on line there were multiple articles and YouTube videos explaining how to respect others. Yet, when I watch or read the news I see disrespect for police, ICE, public officials, and the President of the U.S.
Some young people don’t respect the law, they destroy personal and public property, they kill and injure people, they violate and disrupt Christian services and vandalize places of worship.
The body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ to provide dogma. The first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. There exists no Model Conservative; it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos. A people’s historic continuity of experience, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of liberal “utopian” philosophers. But, of course, there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives’ convictions but surely, we could agree that moral order would be one. The word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects of order: the inner order of the soul and the outer order of society.
The problem of order has been a principal concern of conservatives from the beginning. Our world has experienced the hideous consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral order. We have seen the pit into which societies fall that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls for a hoped-for solution instead of moral order. Conservatives believe a society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society. While a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society and it wouldn’t matter who was President.
Eric Voegelin came to America in the early 1940s as a refugee from Nazi Germany, having been fired as an associate professor at the University of Vienna in 1938 because of his resolute, scholarly opposition to Adolf Hitler. He became a professor at LSU.
Voegelin, who dedicated his life to the study of widespread political violence and the devastation that results when totalitarian ideologies that closely resemble religions foster the notion that pursuing the creation of utopias on Earth is achievable and worth any cost, including death, once said that the great line of demarcation in modern politics is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the order of their life is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human population. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant
human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.
May we continue to hold on to the moral order that God desires. May we expect and stand up for honor, civility, respect and love for each other. No matter how others may think that they are making this country or world a better place, only God and Godly principles change hearts and minds.kln
The integrity and moral courage of the upright will guide them,
But the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them.
Proverbs 11:3
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