What Does "In The Wrong Direction" Mean?

Fra Chris, blogging at Portiuncula, has a novel take on the common polling question: "Do you feel that America is headed in the right direction or wrong direction?"

There have been great shifts in how Americans think and act in the last four decades. The social revolution of the 60's promised us that if we were freed from all the restraints that society and religion place on us, we would find utopia. We have to ask ourselves, "Is this utopia?"

I hadn't thought of it that way before and it's possible that the respondents aren't consciously thinking of the question in that way, either. However, consider this chain of events.

By destroying the family through the worship of self-gratification, we have handicapped our children. These children become adults with more psychological damage and fewer skills. We've increased mandatory labor expenses on employers to the point where unskilled workers produce less value than they cost. The unskilled have fewer opportunities to work themselves out of poverty than they used to.

We've tried to make the government replace the father in the family. We did this so we could pursue pleasure. It hasn't worked. Maybe that's the underlying message in the responses to the "Right Direction / Wrong Direction" questions.


Horatio Alger stories always center around hard work and siezing opportunities. Without the support of an intact family and job opportunities for the unskilled, such stories are more difficult to imagine.