“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free,” observed Anglo-Irish philosopher Edmund Burke. “Their passions forge their fetters.” In light of this, what are the implications of the reality that, according to a new poll, Gen Z is more likely to “identify” as having sexual devolutionary status (being “LGBTQ+”) than as being Republican or “white Christians”?
Is it any coincidence that Gen Z (born after 1996) is the most “progressive” and “pro-government” generation in American history?
It’s also the most racially and ethnically “diverse” generation in history and the most likely to see this — which some would characterize as balkanization — as a good thing.
As The Advocate reports:
A new report from the Public Religion Research Institute [PRRI] further reveals Gen Z’s political leaning, and their overall attitude towards religion. The survey questioned 6,014 participants, both Gen Z adults (ages 18–25) and Gen Z teens (13–17), highlighting how their identities and values “set [them] apart from older generations.”
Twenty-eight percent of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ+, compared to 16 percent of millennials, seven percent of Generation X, and four percent of baby boomers. As only 21 percent say they are Republicans, there are more members of the queer community in Gen Z than GOP members.
In comparison, approximately 36 percent of Gen Z adults identify as Democrats, aligning closely with 35 percent of millennials, 31 percent of Generation X, and 34 percent of baby boomers. Republicans only claim 21 percent of Gen Z and millennials, 28 percent of Generation X, and 32 percent of baby boomers.
… Gen Z adults are also less likely to identify as white Christians (27 percent) compared to baby boomers (54 percent), and more likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated (33 percent) than every generation except millennials (36 percent).
Commenting on the 28 percent sexual-devolutionary figure, writer Andrea Widburg notes that these “numbers defy biological reality. They can occur only because of indoctrination, leaving kids unanchored to traditional norms and biology.”
Also consider that sexual-devolutionary status today brings advantages: attention, sympathy, and affirmative-action-like preference — in a word, privilege.
The Advocate states that Gen Z’s left-leaning passions don’t bode well for the GOP in future elections. While this is true over the shorter term, remember that, like water, political parties take the shape of the vessel in which they find themselves. That is, unless something alters our cultural trajectory, the Republicans will simply adapt and become more like European “conservatives”: generally very socially liberal and accepting of sexual devolutionary “lifestyles.”
The real issue is that, in accordance with Ronald Reagan’s warning that freedom “is never more than one generation away from extinction,” breeding young people of “intemperate minds” doesn’t bode well for our civilization.
The Children Shall Lead Them?
As to this, the PRRI report did also find “that less Gen Z members of voting age are planning to participate in the 2024 presidential election (49 percent) than [did in] the 2020 election (57 percent),” The Advocate further informs. However, “The survey noted this likely reflects disinterest in a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump,” the site continues, “as 58 percent of Gen Z adults agreed ‘we won’t be able to solve the country’s big problems until the older generation no longer holds power.’”
Of course, it’s not unprecedented for young people to believe they know it all and that their elders are ignorant. It’s also not unprecedented for demagogues to use the young to gain and cement power. This never ends well, either.
Brutal Chinese dictator and mass murderer Mao Zedong used the Red Guards — a paramilitary, student-led group whose first members were middle–schoolers — to effect his destructive “Cultural Revolution.” Approximately a decade later, the savage Khmer Rouge in Cambodia would have children inform on adults, give them authority over their elders, and might even put 12-year-olds in charge of work camps.
“Camps run by these children became notorious for the extreme and arbitrary violence inflicted on the inmates,” writes The Open University. “Children, even more than adults, appeared particularly cruel.”
Of course. Children do not yet possess fully developed moral compasses; we are born barbarians and must be civilized.
More innocent, but also reflecting a lack of wisdom, was the “Children’s Crusade” in the Middle Ages. Never sanctioned by the Catholic Church and discouraged by the Pope at the time, it was an example of youthful but misguided passion. It was a dreadful failure, with most of the youths involved ending up dead or enslaved.
As for our marching-toward-madness young people, how did we get here? The aforementioned Widburg has some idea. She writes:
This is what happens when the culture — education, the media, and the entertainment world — relentlessly promotes a belief system, even one that is antithetical to reality. It’s probably not a coincidence that Zoomers also have a 20% absentee rate because of mental health needs.
The human mind needs to have belief systems. Without these systems, the chaos of the world around us is untenable and unnavigable. For two thousand years, the belief system in the West came from the Judeo-Christian Bible. Its values slowly but steadily led to the most productive and humane cultures in the history of the world.
But then the sense of virtue (not “values”) Christianity prescribes eroded, slowly but steadily. And now, awash in relativism and void of substance, youths are easy prey, empty vessels that can be filled with a poison peddled oh-so seductively. The next few videos illustrate who and what is filling this void, too (warning: graphic content).
And the below is the result.
Alas, this can bring to mind that, as Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov warned, it takes only 15 years to demoralize a nation — because that’s just how long it takes to raise one indoctrinated generation.
