Blog & Mablog - The Great Shantytown Plausibility Structure | Doug Wilson

Blog & Mablog
Apr 29, 2024
The Great Shantytown Plausibility Structure | Doug Wilson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMAOYL7MKfI
On one level, the protests at Columbia should have been the easiest thing in the world to fix. All you needed was about 14 fire trucks and 28 fire hoses, all going full blast. The problem almost solves itself.

But on another level, nothing can really be done. No amount of fire trucks, or riot police, or speeches by the Speaker of the House, or isolated expulsions, or stern letters to the Times, can address the actual problem, the problem we actually have. The actual problem is that the goddess of secularism has despaired of her project, and she has gone off to have her nails done somewhere. Somewhere else, anywhere else. The Enlightenment project, once so full of hope and promise, is now a sodden mess, like Voltaire’s birthday cake left out in the rain.

The problem is a theological crisis, one created by the failure and collapse of the gods of the secular public square. This thing isn’t working anymore. The prayers are still said, the litanies are offered, the sacrifices are made, the smoke ascends, and yet the gods remain silent. They remain silent, of necessity, truth be told, because they aren’t there and never were. That was always the weak point in this particular theology.

But it used to be that lots of people believed that they were there, and that was good enough . . . for a while. For a time.