WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DECLINE?

Sometimes as I glance through the pages of a newspaper or flip the channels on my TV set, I become convinced that this particular moment may be the worst of times and that nothing in the future could be more troubling. Of course, like most impractical, wishful thoughts, the future proves me wrong. The times do get worse. Sometimes the next day.

Recent news items announcing the birth of an illegitimate child born to Donald Trump and his current girlfriend were depressing beyond belief. The stories relating such blessed events no longer bother to mention the fact that such glamorous individuals aren't married, and the implication of this omission seems to speak volumes: society no longer sees anything wrong in having children without first having benefit of legal marriage. Well, this is one small speck on the universe that does, and I don't plan on changing my mind just for the benefit of some sleazy financial manipulator on the Eastern seaboard.

Flipping TV channels is almost as bad, perhaps even worse. Until the other night, I had not been privileged to cast eyes on Beavis and Butt-head on MTV, a channel I have been able to avoid ever since it came on the air. What makes B&B so revolting is not their lack of grammatical skills but the glorification of inane stupidity by mindless juveniles. As I watched them on a TV channel presumably owned by all Americans, I couldn't help wondering how anyone could find these two characters appealing, or funny, or socially redeeming in any way. I would hate to meet the creator and producer of Beavis and Butt-head in a dark alley some night.

Obviously the decline of American civilization did not begin with the illegitimacy of one baby or the creation of a cartoon series that is devoid of even a scintilla of good taste or intelligence. Unfortunately, I have not the foggiest idea when the dumbing of America began, and more importantly, who started it all. Surely no one in any responsible position sat down one day and decided he or she would devise a process that would bring about a lowering of public values and morals. Hitler might have wanted to accomplish such a project, and Stalin and Lenin, and perhaps on a modern note, scum like Saddam Hussein. But these people, with all their power and all their might, could not have hoped to accomplish what we Americans have done to ourselves. For this, gentle reader, is a Made in the USA project. We didn't import it from Japan or Nazi Germany or Iraq. It's genuine American, folks, and we hoisted the petard ourselves.

If I have not the slightest knowledge when we did it, I am even less informed about why it was done. Did the inventors of widespread illegitimacy have some motive that eludes us all, or is it simply an effect of a greater cause? If so, what is the cause and who financed it?

There's probably some reader out there right now saying, "Dummy, it started during the Korean War." Or "The whole thing is the result of a Democratic Congress." Or "We were all right until Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt." Bee's wax. It didn't start with Vietnam or the Democrats or a Republican president. Nor did it start with any combination of political forces. I say that with certainty because America's political parties are not revolutionary but reactionary. Candidates may promise change, but in reality they have no greater agenda than to maintain the status quo. Show me a candidate who has the intelligence, the will and the power to effect any monumental, lasting change in American civilization and I'll show you a phantom. Reagan couldn't run his own budget director; Bush couldn't get more than 5 percent of his agenda through Congress, and Clinton couldn't even control his own White House travel office. The power of presidents to effect any dramatic difference in U.S. life is highly exaggerated. Ask any former president.

Did the news media, blamed by the politicians for creating a bad image of government, really cause today's drug crisis? Did publishers and producers send reporters out into the streets to drum up armed assaults and drive-by shootings? Have you ever read one editorial, column or commentary that advocated a decline in the American family or a proliferation of dysfunctional teenagers? Of course not.

Did parents suddenly decide to let their children become juvenile delinquents, or worse yet, juvenile addicts and murderers? Of course not. Most parents, past and present, want the very best for their children and most work all their lives to assure such a future. Most parents know that the best part of their life is in the creation and growth of their children.

Well, if no one plotted this mess we're in, it could have happened by accident. But how? It may have occurred as a result of momentary indifference, when everyone was thinking about something else, more important. It probably happened because we didn't know it was happening. The problem is that when it happened, like Topsy, it just grew and grew. And we were indifferent to its growth. Crack cocaine wasn't available on every street corner in America a few years ago. Safe streets used to be the rule, not the exception. Unlocked front doors and unguarded cars were commonplace.

Do you mean to tell me, Stapleton, that the decline of America just happened? No, pay attention, I didn't say that. I said it happened because no one paid attention to the warnings that it was going to occur. And when no one is responsible, everyone's a victim.

All right, then, smarty, who really is responsible for the mess we're in?

Creating a civilization as complex as the United States at the cusp of a new century is not an individual enterprise. It is a collective one, with each player making a contribution, regardless of how small it may seem at the moment. The civilization we have forged for ourselves, then, is a group effort.

If your answer to that accusation is, "I'm not responsible" or "You can't blame me for society's ills" then I rest my case. History is littered with the ruins of dead civilizations in which no one was responsible. Are we next?