The inoculation

"So Welcome to the Machine". Pink Floyd.

So, who hasn't yet watched "the" Jordan Peterson interview?
I guess there are a few, even though the Channel 4 full version on You Tube shows nearly 8 million views.

There's been loads of analysis since it appeared at the end of January, most discussing why Cathy Newman got it so wrong, and Peterson himself, on plenty of other videos, talking about what he is actually trying to say. It's all part of the present culture wars thrust and parry amidst the maelstrom of how we speak about, or speak to, our culture, but there's the rub... Can we really talk about "a" culture any longer?

I was bluntly reminded this morning that the liquefaction that is violently tearing us apart is much, much deeper than we think, and this is why the tussles between the likes of Peterson and Newman, when placed within the real context of today, are almost irrelevant.

Almost.
The malady is that we can think that if we're engaging with these kinds of discussions, reading the latest 'advice to ("young" men/women/??? - fill in the appropriate blank)' best seller, looking to science for gifts akin to vibranium (aka Unobtainium), we think we're aware, but we are, in fact, just skating on thin ice.
The real problems, which, like weeds, have worked roots down into the very fabric of the world, are much, much deeper.

Here's an inkling of just how deep they are.

It all reminds me of a very telling (and quieter) moment in Ridley Scott's epic spectacular,
Gladiator. 
The barbarians have been quelled, so even though the old order, in the form of Marcus Aurelis, has passed, there really isn't anything to worry about - Commodus has brought bread and circuses back to Rome... a grand era of games, so all is well, notes his cunning ally, Gaius.

"He will give the people death", Gracchus astutely retorts, "and they will love him for it".

Poison in the form of refreshment and stability.
We touch it everyday in what is so often deemed to be 'recreational' - narcotics, sex and eating addictions, gladitorialism in virtual reality... these are the church windows of our temples of self indulgence.

It's the dying nightmare of a burning world tarnished by our unrelenting "triumph" - the telling neglect of the dreadful death that resides at the core of each of us, concluding in our own sorrowful physical demise as we finally cannot escape our long-standing exile from home any longer.

The hollowness of the days can be tracked right into the very heart of all our most revered professions and houses of power.
When his nation began to fall into the abyss of decimation, the Prophet Ezekiel looked deep into the sanctuaries of the land and found only evil of the darkest kinds (Ezekiel chapter 8). As with the warnings of Jeremiah, there were plenty who sought to downplay the significance of such exposure, but their very words re-affirmed the tragedy of the times.

The answer isn't in us.
As I've sought to say here before, we need the remedy of the saving grace that flows from God in Christ alone.

We need to have that shock of what is hit us full on - then we'll begin to see we cannot do anything except ask God for that lifeline.