Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Being Catholic #377: The Rise of Deglobalization: A New Era for America and the Church

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Being Catholic #377: The Rise of Deglobalization: A New Era for America and the Church · Catholic Spirit Radio

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This is Being Catholic with Bob Johnston on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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Hi, this is Bob Johnston, and you're listening to Being Catholic right here
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on Catholic Spirit Radio, 89.5 FM and 92.5 FM in good old McLean County in Bloomington Normal,
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Illinois and growing thanks to you We're going to have a great show for you today,
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I'm here with my wife, Lynn.
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And it's great to be back. We haven't been here for a while.
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John has been very, very busy working up in Wisconsin and up in Rockford.
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We've had some problems up there.
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And I want to talk about that just a little bit before we start.
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And we are a station that is reaching many, many people with the Catholic message,
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the traditional Orthodox Catholic message.
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A lot of young people, we're going to talk about that in the show today.
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Young men especially are converting over to Catholicism.
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We have a new pope who has talked about this and is very excited about it.
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Sometimes things are built one step at a time and one brick at a time.
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And that's how we have built our station and hope to do so in the future.
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So, is there anything, I'm here with my wife, as I said, and we have been gone
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for the last three weeks or so. John has been very busy.
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We've had a lot of trouble up in Whitewater, and there have been other things
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taking up our time. It's really good to be back.
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So, I'm going to turn this over to my wife and see what she has to say about
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all this hot weather and anything else that she might have to comment on.
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Well, as far as the hot weather, that's not my kind of weather, believe me.
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Not at all. Rather have cold.
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But we got it. It's here. Gonna have to live with it.
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We got some hot spots around the world, that's for sure.
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We've got all that's going on over in Israel, all the bombing and everything. And it's scary.
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Can only trust in God. These are God's people.
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We're God's people. We need to stick together, that's for sure.
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But the president has some very big decisions to make here with a lot of repercussions
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that could come along with those decisions.
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So they're going to have to be very careful with what we do.
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But it can't go on as it is, that's for sure.
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So pray. Pray for wisdom. Pray for peace.
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And especially pray for our new pope. He certainly has his work cut out for
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him, but there are a lot of good signs.
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As I said a little bit earlier, there are a lot of young men who are turning
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to Catholicism, and we are getting a lot of younger men converts.
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And what I think, Lynn, is that a lot of young men today are looking for something that is solid,
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stable, and definitive, and they find that in the Catholic faith.
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They like the idea of a tradition that's been handed down unchanged for 2,000 years.
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They like the idea of dogma that doesn't change and that is solid and clear.
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I think also they're turning to the need for the sacred, which we find in the Catholic Church.
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And they're beginning to understand that the Catholic Church has been there
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from the very time of Christ.
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It's the church that he founded, and it's the church that can say it is the one true church.
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And we do say that with pride, but at the same time with humility and understanding
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that that's something that's been given and that we must carry and hand on to
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the future. And so that's a help.
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And I would guess also that for women, a lot of women, I think,
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are turning to the traditional Latin mass.
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I think a lot of women especially are attracted to it because of its beauty
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and because of its mystery.
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I think that maybe a little bit more than the Novus Ordo mass.
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And there are a lot of young men doing the same thing along the same lines.
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And my topic today is going to be deglobalization.
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The world is turning away from this globalization and turning back to more of
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a nationalism and national unity and more of deglobalization.
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And there are some articles in First Things magazine by R.R.
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Reno, the editor, that talked about that. I'm going to read from some of that
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and talk a little bit more about that.
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And I think a lot of the turmoil that we're seeing in the world today and that.
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Donald Trump is causing as our president and so forth is not so much just the
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fact of Donald Trump as it is that he is a representative in a sense,
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whether he knows it or not, of the change that's taking place in the world,
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the deglobalization that's taking place,
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the reassertion of national unity,
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and a whole new era coming into existence and another era ending,
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and we're going to talk about that. So...
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Is there anything further that you might want to talk about?
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I think the studies have found that those coming young men coming into the Catholic
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Church and their attraction to it is to the traditional Catholic Church.
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We're talking about the Latin tradition. I think so.
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I think a lot of them are, some of them are attracted to that,
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and some of them are just attracted to Catholicism in general,
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whether it's in the Novus Ordo Church or not, simply because of the tradition
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in general of the church and because of its strong teaching.
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There was an article in First Things, the very magazine I'll be reading from
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some time back, and I think I read from that article, The Return of the Strong Gods.
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And people are looking for direction in life,
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some of the modernism and so forth, that the open society that has taken place
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has become so dissolute in the sense that,
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no unification and no strong belief and morals and so forth have been lacking and maybe have.
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Sort of faltered.
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And people are looking for direction again and so forth. And I think more and
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more, especially young men, because of the direction the world has taken,
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are finding it in a religion like the Catholic Church.
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Some of the other religions are changing so rapidly and becoming,
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in a sense, very unclear, and people are moving away from that and moving more
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towards something that's more solid.
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And especially, I think, maybe in the idea of marriage.
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Again, The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is permanent,
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and once you're married, you're married forever, and that a marriage really,
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you know, there's no such thing as divorce.
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It can't be broken up in that sense and so forth, and people are turning again
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to that stability, and I think young men are feeling that more than anything
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else in our society and modern world in the Catholic Church or something.
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And I always have been, had the theme, I think, through most of our shows and
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so forth, that one of the important things the Catholic Church can do is provide stability for society.
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And I think more and more, especially young men, are recognizing that stability,
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and that's an attractant also.
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And I think the Pope is recognizing that, and he's promoting it and understanding it.
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Yeah, that's true. I've been on the wait and see with the new pope,
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but so far I don't have any complaints.
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And I find it encouraging some of the things they're saying and thinking about
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that they're letting us know.
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I hope so. I know that he's, from what I've read, that he is a synodal pope.
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I mean, the idea of, you know, believing in the synod and so forth,
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and that's the one thing that I'm sort of leery about.
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I'm really, I wish him very much luck with it, and I hope he can take it in
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some kind of a direction in which it will help, you know, build the church and so forth.
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But my attitude toward the synod is sort of my attitude expressed in the saying
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that God so loved the world that he didn't send a committee.
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He sent Jesus as a representative and not a committee.
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And so I sort of have not too much of faith in committees and so forth and everything
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and these kind of things. But maybe I'm wrong, and I hope that it turns out
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to a good thing. So we'll see.
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Yeah. Church does things. But, you know, things, church has been around for
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over 20, how long, 2000, this is 20.
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I'll just say. You know, it's been around for two centuries.
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Yeah, roughly 2,000 years.
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Gone through a lot. 20, not two centuries, 20 centuries.
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Yeah. A lot of centuries. So it's been around for 2,000 years,
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and it's the one institution for 2,000 years that has maintained its teaching
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without basically altering that teaching.
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And so that is something, and I hope this is what the promise is.
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Christ handed on the religion to the church and said that the gates of hell
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itself would not prevail against it.
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And that's the responsibility the church has is to hand on, and that's what
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tradition is, the handing on of the information, what it was given by Jesus Christ.
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He said, go out into the world and teach everything that I have taught you. Right.
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Everything that I have given you. And he didn't say, go out and change it.
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He said, go out and teach it just as I have given it to you.
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And that's what the church does. It's what they're supposed to do.
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That's why we're called the apostolic church. Exactly.
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Apostolic, directly, the teachings all come directly from the apostles.
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And that's what people have to understand, is that the pope or the priests or
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the bishops or anybody else in the church do not have the authority to change
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the teaching that Christ gave the apostles.
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They don't have that authority. He gave it to them. It's Christ's teaching.
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It's his church, and he gave it to them and said, go out and teach everything,
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you know, that I have given you, go out and teach it to the world.
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And that's their responsibility.
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And a lot of people think that somehow or another a pope or somebody can come
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along and change things to fit the modern fads and the modern ideas and all of that kind of thing.
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And priests should be able to get married and this, that, and the other.
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And, you know, that's simply, there's no, once a dogma is put in place and fixed,
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that Christ has given us and interpreted and understood, there's no changing it.
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It's been given to us and that's what has to be handed on.
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And that's as simple as that. It's because it came from Jesus Christ himself
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and it has to be handed on intact as he gave it to us. We don't have any authority to change it.
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We can make it more clear and we can help understand it better,
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try to adapt it more to, you know, the different times and ages,
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but it's universal and it fits every age, and it fits the human nature as it is.
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And that's what Christ understood and gave us, and we just don't have the authority to change it.
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Yeah, think about it when even during the Mass when we said the Apostles' Creed, how does it go?
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I believe in one holy Catholic apostolic church,
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Isn't that what you say? Exactly. And that's what we're taught.
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Yeah, you say it every time you go to Mass.
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And so that's what it means.
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At any rate, we've taken up quite a bit of this section here,
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and I haven't gotten into the age of deglobalization yet, but we'll start to
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get into it and talk about it.
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But that's what's happening, I think, in the world today. and this article is
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from First Things magazine.
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It's the March 2025 issue, so it's a while back and it's from the public square.
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But, you know, it's something that's going on and it's causing a lot of turmoil in the world.
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There's a lot of change coming here. So I'm going to read from it and hopefully
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it will help people understand what's happening in the world.
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And it's very, very relative to the church because the church itself is the
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stable factor that's been running through all of the ages, it doesn't change,
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and it provides stability for every age.
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And that's one of the things that the Catholic Church can provide.
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And I think in this destabilizing time when things are changing and there's
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a reaction against the old paradigm here of the so-called open society that
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has gotten so open and so without norms and so without natural law.
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And so without any clear-cut teachings and so forth, that people,
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especially young men, are turning to something that is more solid.
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They're turning to the church, but society itself also is reacting to the old
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paradigm and seeking a more stable society.
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And the church can play a great role in that, and that's why we're talking about
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it. So we're going to have to stop here and take a break.
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We'll come back and we'll talk about the age of deglobalization and see if we
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can cover some of it. So stay with us.
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We'll be right back. You've been listening to Being Catholic with Bob Johnston
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Hi, this is Bob Johnston. You're listening to Being Catholic right here on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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We're back from our break, and we're talking about changes that have been going on in the world.
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And we're going to talk a little bit here about the age of deglobalization.
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And I'm going to be reading from an article in First Things magazine in March
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2025, The Public Square.
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And the title of the article is The Age of Deglobalization.
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And it's written by R.R. Reno, the editor of First Things. It says here,
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geopolitical realities have changed, and thus American foreign policy must change,
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and not just American foreign policy.
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A great deal of the world order constructed after the demise of the Soviet Union
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must be revised, and in some cases jettisoned.
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The era of globalization is over.
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America must consolidate her alliances and ensure her economic advantages.
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And I think a lot of the politicians and
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other people in the country here and around the world who are in favor of the
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open society and globalization and so forth are seeing this reaction and they are reacting to it.
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And there's a clash here that's going on.
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And I think Donald Trump is receiving a lot of the blame for this clash,
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but it would have happened, I think, regardless.
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He may understand that it's happening and may be steering along those lines
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because he understands it.
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I don't know if that's the case or not. But the point is, it is happening,
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and it would happen regardless of who would be president, and they're going to be caught up in this.
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And so there's a pushback against the globalization, and the people that are
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in favor of it or counting on it or taking it for granted are disturbed and upset.
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And so there's this clash that's going on in our society on account of this
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dramatic and huge change that's taking place. But this change is going to happen.
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It says here, economic globalization did not just happen.
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It was orchestrated by bipartisan consensus in the 1990s.
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That consensus led to NAFTA, empower Silicon Valley, and remade the American
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financial system as a center of the world economy.
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Those were heady times, and the end of the Cold War was interpreted as history's
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verdict in favor of the American way.
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The idea was to open up the American economy to the world so that the world
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could be Americanized and America globalized.
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Our leaders believed that globalization would serve America's interests.
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They were convinced that economic integration would enhance U.S.
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Security, just as linking Japan and Germany to the American economy after World
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War II had transferred enemies into allies.
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And back during the 90s, from 92 to 2000 or so, when Bill Clinton pushed NAFTA,
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this is what it seemed like.
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I can remember a lot of people in the Libertarian Party were convinced that
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if we brought everybody into a trading system with the United States,
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A lot of these countries would become peaceful.
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They would become our allies. And if not our allies, at least not our enemies anymore.
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And it would change the world and so forth. Great expectations were expected,
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I guess, great expectations.
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People had great expectations for this to happen.
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But a lot of those things didn't pan out the way that everybody thought they would pan out.
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And things are changing. It says that the consensus promised that globalized
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free markets would create interdependent economies, making for a harmony of
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interests that would moderate national rivalries.
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The consensus also held that an enlarged global market would redound to America's economic benefit.
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We would specialize in financial management and high-return innovation,
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while low-wage countries would focus on resource extraction and low-return manufacturing.
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Everybody would benefit.
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Over the past 10 years, innumerable commentators have detailed the failures of these promises.
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Globalization created an environment in which China could emerge as a dangerous
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rival, moving its economy up the value chain rather than remaining content to
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manufacture cheap clothes.
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Why would we have imagined any other outcome? But we did.
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We imagined that all these countries and so forth would become peaceful,
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and like I say, if not become our allies, at least not become our enemies anymore.
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Economic interdependence did not deter Putin in Crimea or Ukraine.
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Globalization succeeded in creating great wealth in the United States,
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but the benefits flowed largely to the fortunate few, at the great social cost.
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As the gulf between those plugged into the global economy and those left behind
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in the Rust Belt towns grew, the social contract in America frayed.
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Globalization was possible only because the United States enjoyed unprecedented
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military hegemony in the 1990s.
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During this unipolar movement, American power faced no credible adversity.
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Adversary. Setbacks in the Middle East after the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq exposed limits.
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But it was only in the 2010s that the decline in American hegemony became evident.
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Russia's annexation of Crimea revealed that nations other than the United States
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could control events, at least in their own neighborhoods.
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We should not underestimate the importance of hard power.
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It is simply impossible for the architecture of globalization made possible
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by American superhegemony to endure without our military supremacy.
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Every aspect of America's diplomacy, security arrangements,
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alliances, and especially our financial regime must necessarily change so as
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to accord with the reality of America's relative decline from its serene omnipotence
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in the two decades after the demise of the Soviet Union. So look what we had.
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First of all, we won the World War II, and the world was devastated,
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and the United States was not.
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And we were very, very powerful after World War II.
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And then there was the Cold War, And finally, the Soviet Union in the 1980s
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under Reagan was defeated.
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And we had the 1990s in which we were a very powerful country with much of the
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stronger nations in the rest of the world defeated in both the Cold War and
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also earlier devastated during World War II.
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We were in a very, very strong position and everything seemed easy to do.
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Globalization seemed a natural thing, but it really wasn't. It was because we
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could exercise and project, and that's the other thing we could do.
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We could project so much power and so much military power.
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But once that era was ended and other countries began to project their own power,
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and the United States could no longer project the power that it was able to
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do so because of the events of World War II and the events of the Cold War,
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then things began to change.
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And all of a sudden, in the era that we're living in, they are beginning to
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change more and more rapidly.
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And that era of globalization is coming to an end, as the article says here.
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And that's causing a huge reaction, and it's causing a lot of the problems that
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we think are simply cultural problems or problems otherwise.
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It's simply that the open society is beginning to decline, and people are looking
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again for stability and more dogma and a more normalized culture.
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When countries unify, they have to develop cultural norms that are spread across
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the entire country in which people can believe in and understand.
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So culture goes right along with the material change that takes place during
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a deglobalization period as well.
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It says, Trump's blunt statements about Greenland, Canada,
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and NATO are demonic ways of conveying the necessity of significant changes
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in America's relations to allies and adversaries.
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Speaking at a June 2024 Manhattan Institute event, incoming Treasury Secretary
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Scott Besant acknowledged the changing geopolitical situation.
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He observed that the end of the unipolar moment will require a grand and global
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economic reordering on a scale of Bretton Woods or the Treaty of Versailles.
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And, of course, the Treaty of Versailles after World War I and the scale of Bretton Woods,
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that was also early in the 20th century in which the United States became the
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monetary control of the world economy.
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In another setting, Bacent noted that a reserve currency functions within a security zone.
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American military power undergirds the dollar status as a global reserve currency.
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Changes in the scope of our power demand a rethinking of our economic and financial
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policies and institutions.
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In the present global system, the United States plays three crucial roles.
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We have consumptive power, the capable of absorbing production from around the world.
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In other words, Trump has been using this, for example, and this has been causing
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a lot of disturbance and ruckus.
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For example, China depends much on our consumptive power.
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They have to keep their people working. They have a lot of people in China that
30:14
if those people aren't working, it destabilizes the whole country.
30:18
So they have to keep their people working, and they have to have a place where
30:22
they sell their manufactured goods.
30:24
And the United States is one of their biggest customers in that.
30:28
If we, through tariffs or otherwise, stop absorbing a lot of the goods that they produce,
30:36
and their work declines, and people are laid off, it causes a huge disruption
30:41
and a lot of trouble in their country.
30:45
And it's a lever that the United States can use to deal with them,
30:49
and that's what our president has been using.
30:52
We provide liquidity to the world also, which is to say that the U.S.
30:58
Financial markets and the U.S. Treasury Department issue on turnover debt,
31:02
the essential lubricant for markets.
31:05
Finally, America provides security to the system.
31:10
Promising to use military might if needed. So we provide those three things,
31:14
the consumptive power, the liquidity that the world markets need,
31:21
and also the military might to keep things stable.
31:25
And when those things change, then the whole world changes, and it's in a change right now.
31:32
In an obvious way, tariffs and other trade restrictions serve as a tool for
31:36
regulating access to America's consumptive power.
31:40
In a geopolitical environment in which the United States must halt its relative
31:45
decline in global hegemony, using this tool becomes necessary.
31:50
And of course, it's disruptive as well.
31:53
And it disrupts the natural order of things.
31:57
I shouldn't say natural order, but the order of things that has been going on for some time.
32:02
And when that order is disrupted, of course, It causes trouble in the world,
32:07
and that's what's going on right now, and a reaction to that trouble.
32:11
And a lot of people don't understand this, but it's something that is going
32:15
to happen regardless of who happens to be president or what anybody's intentions are.
32:21
It goes on here, it says, The world is evolving toward a new Cold War.
32:26
The ideological divides will be less clear than those that obtained during the old Cold War.
32:34
But the end of history has ended. That's another thing.
32:37
This idea that you have to be on the right side of history and that history has ended,
32:44
that the model that we were living in from the 90s on, and some people are still
32:50
saying the model that we're living in now that hasn't completely changed yet,
32:54
that that model somehow is going to last forever.
32:57
And that's the whole idea of the end of history that all nations will join this
33:03
global economy and that it will be sort of a relatively stable turning over of the global economy.
33:11
Things will run along smoothly and the United States will lead the way and its
33:17
way of doing things is the way that everybody will adopt and so forth and that
33:21
this will go on for as far as we can see into the future.
33:26
All of that you can call it a pipe dream if you want, but all of that dream.
33:32
All of that particular golden age, all of that idea is ending.
33:36
This whole idea that you have to be on the right side of history,
33:39
that that's the history that's going to be fixed and go on forever and not end.
33:45
Well, that history is ending.
33:48
The ordinary history has returned, and it can be very blunt sometimes and hit
33:54
us over the head when it does return. Thank you.
33:57
It says, international norms are not timeless principles.
34:01
In other words, we've been living in an age in which we have
34:04
laid down these international norms and this idea of a certain type of global
34:12
capitalism that the United States leads and that all these norms somehow are
34:17
fixed and that they're going to be lasting and you have to get with it and join
34:21
us and join the rest of the world along these lines.
34:24
And if you don't do that, you're in effect some kind of an old stick in the
34:27
mud and so forth and you're on the wrong side of history and history is over.
34:32
Things are going to run along smoothly along these lines. Well,
34:36
again, that picture needs to be erased because history has, as it usually does,
34:42
intruded back into the picture and reality has set back in.
34:48
New realities require new thinking. And these realities really,
34:53
in my opinion, are not even new.
34:54
It's just the return of the strong gods.
34:57
In other words, the return of the world as it is.
35:01
As I think it was Yeats, the poet
35:04
said, you know, you can go out and enjoy yourself at Scarborough Fair.
35:09
And you can drink the ale, you know, by pints and quarts, you can drink it down.
35:14
But in the morning, you know, the world is still the same world yet.
35:19
The ground was damp and your clothes are wet and things return back to the way they were.
35:24
And it's better to prepare yourself in a different way than that.
35:28
Ours is a time of reconsolidation. That's what we're living in.
35:33
And sometimes that can be a rough time.
35:35
It is not occurring in ignorance or rejection of America's international responsibilities.
35:42
Reconsolidation is necessary to renew the sources of power so that we can meet
35:47
those responsibilities.
35:49
And I think that the church here is a stabilizing factor in doing so,
35:55
and it always has been a stabilizing factor in society.
35:58
And I think for all of these reasons that we're reading here and for the effect
36:02
that the modernization and the open society has had,
36:08
especially on the generation of young men coming up, is why a lot of the young
36:14
men are turning to the church and also why more and more young men are.
36:20
In favor of and turning to a society that is reconsolidating and reconstructing
36:25
more stable norms and a more nationalistic outlook and nationalistic ideas as
36:31
our other societies as well.
36:34
So we're going to stop here and take a break. So stay with us.
36:36
We'll be right back. You've been listening to Being Catholic with Bob Johnston
36:40
on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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38:03
Hi, this is Bob Johnston. You're listening to Being Catholic right here on Catholic
38:07
Spirit Radio. We're back from our break, and we're talking about the...
38:13
Change, the deglobalization of our society, the change that is coming in the
38:18
world, and probably why actually underlying everything, there is so much chaos
38:25
going on. Our society is so split right now.
38:28
And of course, that is happening as well in other societies,
38:31
but perhaps more pronounced in the United States because the United States is
38:36
a leader along the lines of world change.
38:41
And any time you change a world paradigm from one thing to another,
38:46
there is going to be disruption, and that disruption is happening now.
38:50
Plus, there's technological change, too, that we've talked about,
38:53
such as AI and so forth, and other things along in there.
38:57
But by and large, the paradigm of this idea of globalization,
39:03
one-worldism and so forth, and the totally open society and somehow or another
39:10
the more closed or nationalistic society is wrong and the open society is right.
39:15
All those things are changing.
39:16
And I think R.R. Reno expresses it very well.
39:20
And I think we can see that that's going on and the church has a role to play in all of this.
39:25
So I'm going to read a little bit more from the Public Square by Reno.
39:33
In another article, he says, our problem is disintegration.
39:37
And he goes on here, he says, as I've talked with my liberal friends,
39:42
I've come to see that we have fundamentally different assessments of the central
39:47
problems facing our country.
39:49
And these problems, of course, are resulting from this change in globalization,
39:54
from going from a globalist economy to a non-globalist economy, de-globalization.
40:01
It says, they fear a closed-minded hostility to the other.
40:07
I worry about the disintegration of crucial institutions and anchoring authorities.
40:14
So in other words, there are some people seeing the change going on in the world and.
40:20
Worry about two different things. The people that worry about reestablishing
40:25
unification, about reestablishing integration, about the disintegration that
40:32
happens with this globalism.
40:34
And now that globalism is ending, as Reno says, there's a necessity for building
40:39
a centralized society and building integration and building the institutions
40:45
that will integrate society and keeping a country together.
40:49
And we have two different groups of people focused on two different things, and they clash.
40:54
It goes on here, it says, Progressives seek to be open to the future,
40:59
which they believe can be better and brighter, provided we're willing to free
41:03
ourselves from present constraints and embrace new possibilities.
41:07
The unique circumstances of the 20th century encouraged this attitude.
41:12
After World War II, liberals interpreted fascism as arriving from a closed-minded mentality.
41:20
Eric Fromm's widely read book, Escape from Freedom, was a psychological version
41:26
of this interpretation.
41:28
So, as I pointed out, World War II changed things greatly, and we went into
41:34
a one-world or global order paradigm.
41:37
Moreover, the decades after World War II were a time of extraordinary demographic stability.
41:44
Aside from wartime refugees, immigration was minimal.
41:49
So we had a very stable society, and people felt very comfortable.
41:55
And when people are very comfortable, they look forward to changes that were coming about.
42:00
Aside from wartime refugees, I'm sorry, by 1970, the percent of non-Native-born
42:07
residents in the United States was at a historic low of less than 5%.
42:14
These factors, ideological, cultural, and demographic, fueled a consensus in
42:19
favor of openness, the open society consensus.
42:23
It took unity and stability for granted and focused on the failures,
42:28
injustices, and dangers of an overly consolidated society.
42:33
But that era is ending, and the people who are attached to it,
42:38
of course, are sort of being dragged,
42:41
kicking, back at that time, people were saying we have to take these people
42:46
who are too attached to stability and bring them kicking and screaming into
42:52
the new world. This is what the liberals said.
42:55
Now it's the other way around. Now that there is a need for stability,
43:00
unity, consensus, and reintegration, we need to bring the people who are in
43:06
favor of the open society kicking and screaming into the new world.
43:11
To this day, being liberal means adopting the open society consensus,
43:16
and they can't understand the fact that that society is changing and can't understand
43:23
that the society that they are trying to hang on to is going out of existence
43:29
and that they have to change with that fact. It goes on here.
43:34
The liberal believes that diversity enriches and strengthens the body politic,
43:38
and it does to a certain extent, but at some point, there's too much of it,
43:42
and in the era that we live in,
43:45
a reconsolidation and a reintegration of society is necessary.
43:49
He goes on, he says, I'm baffled by these sentiments, not because they are wicked,
43:54
but because they are so disconnected from the present reality.
43:58
In other words, he's saying liberals are disconnected from what's happening now.
44:02
I look at America in 2025 and see a globalized, and financialized economy that
44:10
has eroded the foundations of middle-class prosperity.
44:13
And that's exactly what has happened. I mean, this
44:16
whole idea of globalism has left a lot of people in the Rust Belt and so forth
44:24
without the prosperity that they once had when we had a more stabilized society
44:29
back in the 1950s and 1960s and maybe 1970s.
44:33
It goes on here, Charles Murray's book, 2012 book, Coming Apart,
44:38
documents the nearly complete secession of society's winners from those who
44:44
have been abandoned and damaged by the economic and cultural revolutions of recent decades.
44:50
In a word, our society is threatened with disintegration.
44:55
In the face of this peril, the regnant, meaning the ruling regnant liberal consensus,
45:01
is worse than irrelevant.
45:03
It's part of the problem. In other words, liberals don't see that because of
45:08
the changes that are taking place in the world,
45:11
that the things that they're clinging on to are causing huge problems,
45:16
and they're getting a reaction to those problems.
45:20
The peoples in the Rust Belt and so forth are not going to take it anymore.
45:24
They're tired of all these promises that are not working out because things have changed.
45:29
In return to the strong gods, I, that is R.R.
45:33
Reno, argue that the open society consensus has become a flesh-eating monster.
45:39
We are living in a deconsolidated and disintegrated world, one that lacks the
45:45
strong loves and loyalties that anchor personal and collective life.
45:49
And this is what people are looking for. And this is what I'm talking about,
45:53
Lynn, when I talk about the young men coming back into the Catholic Church.
45:57
Yeah, okay. Because a lot of these young men are looking for more stability.
46:02
They want stable marriages. They want, they're tired of the hookup society.
46:08
They're tired of the, maybe the constant movement or the whole idea of the good
46:15
jobs and so forth and everything being constantly moved up to other countries.
46:20
And so they are looking for not only stability in the material world,
46:25
in the regular society, but they're also looking for cultural norms.
46:29
Any society that reintegrates is going to have to also establish strong cultural norms.
46:37
People have to understand each other in a reintegrated society.
46:41
They have to get along with each other, and they have to have a lot of things
46:45
in common with each other.
46:47
They can't live in a society in which they don't, because it takes unity and
46:52
working together to make things work.
46:55
So we need a new consensus that recognizes that fascism, middle-class complacency,
47:02
racism, and other dangers of an over-consolidated society were our grandfather's problems.
47:08
Our challenges are quite different. They can be summed up as the dangers of
47:13
drowning in a liquid world.
47:15
And look at the racism and problems and so forth are receding,
47:20
and yet we have on the left or the progressives almost hysteria.
47:27
To reinvent or to reconstitute or to bring back all the racial problems of the
47:33
past. And those are over.
47:35
Our society no longer has those problems. Things have changed.
47:39
And people want to consolidate with each other. And they don't seem to understand that.
47:46
So that's what's going on. And all of the things that the left keeps on bringing
47:51
up and demanding that our problems are no longer problems.
47:54
People don't see them as problems anymore. And most of the so-called minority
48:00
peoples don't see them as problems anymore.
48:02
They are changing along with society and coming over to a different viewpoint as well.
48:06
So as we can observe a parallel spiritual trend, and there it is,
48:13
Lynn, as we can observe a parallel spiritual trend.
48:17
In other words, there is a parallel spiritual trend along with the social trend
48:23
and the material trend that is going on in the world and in our society.
48:28
And that is when people begin looking for a more stable social society,
48:34
more stable social relationships, a more stable material society,
48:39
more stable jobs and more stable wealth and so forth.
48:42
They also begin looking for a more stable spiritual, because the spiritual is
48:47
what holds people together, and they want things in common along those lines.
48:52
And the Catholic Church provides that in spades. And I think our bishops and
48:56
the church itself, and I hope the Pope, needs to recognize how much it has to
49:01
offer. And that's why so many people, our Vice President himself, J.D.
49:06
Vance, and so many other people are turning to the Catholic Church for their
49:12
religion as well, because they're looking back and seeing that through all of this,
49:17
the tradition that the church has held on to for all these years is highly important.
49:25
And it is something that they need and that they want. Yeah.
49:30
Yep, we need to re-educate the educators.
49:35
You know, you can't step too far away from human nature. And I think that's what we have done.
49:43
And I think those that are thinking know and regret that it was done, but it was done.
49:52
You can't ignore how people are going to react.
49:56
You always seem to hit a very, very, very vital point a lot of times that I miss, and you are right.
50:04
Human nature always reasserts itself, doesn't it?
50:08
Yes. It always comes back. It always reasserts itself, and that's what's happening.
50:12
And I think a lot of the progressives are clinging on to this idea of all of
50:20
the open things that they've invented in this new world and so forth,
50:25
and they're beginning to slide away,
50:27
and people are beginning to gravitate back to old norms and so forth.
50:34
And they are going to be leaving these people behind.
50:37
They are going, these people are once again, their norms and so forth that they
50:43
are trying to establish are not going to be the norms that human nature gravitates towards.
50:50
And they're clinging desperately to them, trying not to give them up,
50:54
but they're going to lose.
50:56
And again, they're being dragged, kicking and screaming into the new world.
51:00
And they don't want to accept the fact that all of their dreams and so forth
51:06
to a great extent are simply not going to be realized.
51:09
Well, you only have to look at history and human nature.
51:14
Why would we all want to be one?
51:17
Is that really part of human nature? No.
51:21
Well, there you have it. Pretty simple, isn't it? Yes, it is.
51:27
But the fact is that people want stability.
51:32
Yes, they do. They want real spirituality.
51:36
They want religion. They want all of the things. I mean, all of those things
51:40
that the church established in the past that were given to us,
51:44
especially by Jesus Christ,
51:46
are things that people need and that people ultimately, once they reject them,
51:54
will find that they can't really do without.
51:57
And they will return to those things because they are the things that satisfy
52:01
the human soul. Human beings are not animals.
52:05
They have a physical side that needs to be satisfied, but they also have a mental
52:11
side that needs to be satisfied, and they also have a spiritual side that needs
52:15
to be satisfied. They have all three.
52:17
And if any one of those is lacking, they will gravitate back toward it.
52:23
There is such a thing as the natural law. And this is what our modern society
52:28
has rejected and tries to reject is the natural law.
52:32
But people gravitate back toward those things that are natural to human beings.
52:38
And I've explained natural law before. or it doesn't mean, you know,
52:41
a bare skin rug and a piece of raw meat and living in a cave.
52:45
It means a lot more than that. But they will gravitate toward those things that
52:50
are natural to the human way of living, just like other things will gravitate
52:56
toward their natural way of living.
52:59
And so... Right, I mean, we are part of...
53:05
I'm trying to say, a part of nature, are we not?
53:10
Yes. We were created, and we have wants and needs and so forth.
53:16
But what are those? Those things relate to our spiritual side as well as our
53:23
physical side. Exactly.
53:25
You can't have one without the other.
53:29
Exactly. We'll have to go again sometime into natural law. it's more complex
53:34
than just, you know, people think of, well, you wouldn't be wearing glasses
53:38
if you believed in an answer. Oh, yes, you would.
53:41
The eyes are made for seeing, and any aid to help them see is a good thing.
53:45
But at any rate, we'll have to stop here pretty soon.
53:50
But he says here, Reno says, in return of strong gods, I argue that the open-sided
53:56
consensus has become a flesh-eating monster.
53:59
We are living in a deconsolidated and disintegrated world, one that lacks the
54:04
strong loves and loyalties that anchor personal and collective life.
54:08
We need a new consensus that recognizes that fascism, middle-class complacency,
54:14
racism, and other dangers of an overly consolidated society were our grandfather's
54:19
problems, as I've said, and as he said.
54:23
Our challenges are quite different, and I think that paragraph's important,
54:27
and that's why I'm reading it again.
54:28
Because they can be summed up as the dangers of drowning in a liquid world.
54:34
And those things of the past are past.
54:39
We've met those. We've solved most of them.
54:43
The little bit that needs solving will be carried into the new world that's coming into existence.
54:49
We don't need to be reminded over and over and over again of the failures of our past.
54:56
We need to meet what's happening now.
54:58
Of the changes of the future. So with that, we're going to end.
55:02
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the
55:07
wickedness and snares of the devil.
55:10
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, Prince of the Heaven and the
55:14
Host, by the power of God, trust in the hell, Satan, and all evil spirits who
55:20
wander through the world for the room of souls. Amen.
55:24
You've been listening to Being Catholic with Bob Johnston on Catholic Spirit
55:28
Radio. If you'd like to contact Bob, email bob at catholicspiritradio.com.
55:34
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55:37
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