To take the world as one finds it, the bad with the good, making the best of the present moment—to laugh at Fortune alike whether she be generous or unkind—to spend freely when one has money, and to hope gaily when one has none—to fleet the time carelessly, living for love and art—this is the temper and spirit of the modern Bohemian in his outward and visible aspect. It is a light and graceful philosophy, but it is the Gospel of the Moment, this exoteric phase of the Bohemian religion; and if, in some noble natures, it rises to a bold simplicity and naturalness, it may also lend its butterfly precepts to some very pretty vices and lovable faults, for in Bohemia one may find almost every sin save that of Hypocrisy. ...
His faults are more commonly those of self-indulgence, thoughtlessness, vanity and procrastination, and these usually go hand-in-hand with generosity, love and charity; for it is not enough to be one’s self in Bohemia, one must allow others to be themselves, as well. ...
What, then, is it that makes this mystical empire of Bohemia unique, and what is the charm of its mental fairyland? It is this: there are no roads in all Bohemia! One must choose and find one’s own path, be one’s own self, live one’s own life.
GELETT BURGESS
Former NBC Nightly News Anchor Tom Brokaw wrote a book called The Greatest Generation that was well received by the public. The book talks about the generation that survived the Great Depression and fought and won World War II. Those were some fine folk, and you can hear the praise for them today fall from the lips of millenials who both admire and even wish to emulate those great people. My personal desire is that Brokaw would go on to write a sequel to that book called The Worst Generation. It would be about the children of the Greatest Generation that enjoyed the greatest prosperity while indulging in the worst promiscuity, hedonism, and drug abuse all while spitting in the face of the Greatest Generation. That book would be a bestseller, but it would be so upsetting that I doubt it would ever get written.
The USA is now fully under the sway of the Worst Generation. Baby boomers have been in the driver's seat ever since Clinton came into office, and this country has declined as a result. The cultural impact has been even greater with today's generation recycling and living off the cultural deposit of those boomers. Trust me, they aren't playing Sinatra and Bing Crosby on the radio anymore, but you can still hear the Beatles, the Stones, and the Who. Generation X and the Millennials have extended much of that debased culture and ethos. I confess my guilt in the crime. But my thoughts on this crystallized when the Duck Dynasty patriarch admitted that his generation messed up this country.
The USA is now fully under the sway of the Worst Generation. Baby boomers have been in the driver's seat ever since Clinton came into office, and this country has declined as a result. The cultural impact has been even greater with today's generation recycling and living off the cultural deposit of those boomers. Trust me, they aren't playing Sinatra and Bing Crosby on the radio anymore, but you can still hear the Beatles, the Stones, and the Who. Generation X and the Millennials have extended much of that debased culture and ethos. I confess my guilt in the crime. But my thoughts on this crystallized when the Duck Dynasty patriarch admitted that his generation messed up this country.
The Baby Boomers are known for war protests, drug abuse, free love, and Woodstock. They also experimented with every religion as long as it wasn't Christianity. So, they dabbled in Hinduism, Buddhism, witchcraft, the occult, and Satanism. The reason for this was because this generation essentially became pagans once more like their ancient ancestors. When you read the Old Testament, you are surprised and dismayed at how the children of Israel could keep turning again and again to pagan religions. It is even more surprising to learn that these were the pagan religions of all their enemies. It would be like this entire country becoming Muslim and praising Osama bin Laden after 9/11. But that is what this country did during the 60's when so many end up praising a guy like Che Guevara or carrying Chairman Mao's Little Red Book.
Despite the excesses of the 60's, the Boomers would spend the 70's in a cocaine fueled haze until they decided to cash in by the 80's. The collision of those decades is a superstorm of secularism, socialism, spiritualism, and materialism that still saturates our society today such that people can now credibly claim that the USA is now in a post-Christian era. It would be nice to say that all of this was fashion and fad, but it still lives on today among younger generations who mine their parent's past to rediscover and experience this garbage anew. Hippies never went away. You can still see them today in many cities or the spontaneous desert city known as Burning Man that pops up each year and becomes a magnet for this nation's drug crazed freaks.
Burning Man is nothing more than a pagan celebration of Dionysian frenzy. It is the worship of false gods. Those freaks would not be out of place in the pagan empires of old with temples devoted to black magic, prostitution, hallucinogenic substances, and human sacrifice. The fundamental religious character of Burning Man is no coincidence or mistake. And that religion is an anti-Christian religion. These people may talk about peace and love, but the end of the day shows promiscuity, hedonism, thievery, addiction, and rape. There is a reason many hippies abandoned the Peace Train back in the 60's. That train ran off the tracks. You will know them by their fruit, and the fruit of this New Bohemian revolution has been a bitter fruit. The parents ran up the bill, and the children must now pay it off.
The original Bohemians lived in France back in the 1800's and were called Bohemians because they resembled the immigrants from Bohemia who were outsiders in France. The name stuck, and Bohemianism was born. It has had many shades and flavors, but a few constants identify all of these communities:
-Devotion to creative arts
-Rejection of the wider Christian culture in favor of paganism/atheism
-Free love and rejection of traditional marriage and family life
-Drug use and alcohol abuse
There are many varieties of Bohemianism, but the variety is only window dressing. They are fundamentally the same. If Bohemianism was merely a minority viewpoint, it would be relatively harmless. But it lives on in a hundred ways from radical feminism, libertarian morality, New Age spirituality, pantheistic environmentalism, the move to legitimize gay marriage, inclusivess, political correctness, and on and on. The bottom line is that in this country you can be just about anything you want to be except be a Christian.
There is nothing new with any of this. Bohemians are always talking about what's "new" and "progressive." We can't "turn back the clock" and yadda yadda yadda. But this crap is ancient. It is Egypt and the Incas. It is Stonehenge and the Druids. It is old witches sneaking into the woods to worship the Devil and kiss him under his tail. Somehow, this foolishness becomes wisdom and sophistication while Christianity becomes old hat.
But there is hope. There is always a remnant who have refused to bend the knee towards Baal. These are the ones the world derides as idiots and rubes. They are "backwards." Times may change, but truth does not change. The remnant knows this. They know the new religions are simply the same old lies of the devil. They know that Bohemianism is the road to ruin. I am also heartened by a return by people younger than me to the morals, traditions, and religion of their elders. These people get it. They understand that what made the Greatest Generation great was that it was a Christian generation.
These are tough times with an economy in shambles, militant Islam threatnening us, families in ruin, and tyrannical government threatening with force what they lost with the decline in moral authority. But tough times make good people. This is how it was in the Great Depression. People forget the immorality of the 20's and the Lost Generation. But the decadence of that time preceded a great return to the basics which never change. I predict that a new generation will come that will be every bit as good or even better than that Greatest Generation. But the polluted inheritance of the Worst Generation must be exhausted first. The old gods must die, so that the Living God may be glorified. I have hope.
