A stark cultural choice confronts the Ukrainians – and all of Europe.
I am not supposed to be a conservative, but I am a bit of one on social issues. I do support gay rights, but I respect the Orthodox Church’s stance on it. Gays are allowed into Orthodox churches and they are allowed to go to Confession. The Church vigorously opposes violence against gays. However, the Church is against gay marriage and gay pride parades, which is their right is how I see it.
Personally, I support gay rights parades and gay marriage, but not everyone is as liberal as I am. People surely have a right to their conservative values. And the rapacious greed of the West surely must be condemned. In its place, solidarity, tradition Catholic and Orthodox religion, very strong family and ethnic ties, a sense of socialist social solidarity and communalism and a general opposition to rootless cosmopolitanism, limitless greed and radical individualism.
When people attack me for “living too close to my mother” (I live 33 miles away) and going to eat dinner with my mother once a week, you know there is simply deeply sick about our atomized culture. Really? Radical individualism has gone that far? We are all supposed to get permanent divorces from our families move to the other side of the country or globe and be permanently estranged from our own flesh and blood in favor of the most lesser ties often temporary friendships and relationships with non-kin.
Your friends leave you all the time, but your family is always there for you. That’s how I play it. So it’s Old World. So what. Families evolved for a reason. The world is a nasty and brutal place. A family is a little tribe or nation, tied by blood and sworn to protect and even spill blood for each other and fight each other’s enemies in the same ways that larger families like tribes and nations do.
You’re on your own now!
Well, fine, but I there is nothing immature about being a part of a very strong family.
Keep it in mind. Traditions evolved for a reason. Tribes and nations evolved traditions and taboos because they experimented with all sorts of ways of living down through the ages. Our forefathers may have been unscientific, but they were not stupid. If something didn’t work or tended to screw up society, it was made taboo or proscribed as against tribal tradition. Everything that was proven to work well was instituted over time as a valued tribal tradition. The stuff that worked stayed and the stuff that didn’t work got chucked.
Adults who blindly oppose tradition in the name of being modern and hip are permanent adolescents, rebelling without cause or reason. It’s is silly and irrational behavior.
