Where Is America Headed? To Chaos or a Counter-Order?

by John Horvat IIFebruary 21, 2025 https://www.tfp.org/where-is-america-headed-to-chaos-or-a-counter-order/?PKG=TFPE3544

Where Is America Headed? To Chaos or a Counter-Order?

For society to work normally, there must exist an order, which can be defined as a state where things are arranged and function according to their nature and purpose.

“Order is the first need of the soul,” writes Russell Kirk. “Freedom, justice, law and virtue are all very important, but order is the first and most basic need.”

In the case of a Christian order, this would entail things functioning according to natural law and the rule of law. Its end would be the common good, human flourishing and the greater glory of God.

Such an order is incompatible with practices like procured abortion, unnatural vice and the destruction of the rule of law. For this reason, a return to the Christian order has always been linked to moral issues that guarantee the general functioning of society, even in non-Christian nations.

A Secular Counter-Order

Liberal society established a secular counter-order. It is not properly speaking an order but only a semblance of one. It contains defects, shortcomings, laws and principles that work against society’s end and nature. It leads to ever more radical forms of liberal behavior that end up destroying authentic order.

The radical form of this liberal counter-order now manifests itself in wokism, gender theory, human extinction movements, eco-alarmism and other aberrations that conspire against what remains of the Christian order.

America is at a point where the old liberal counter-order is breaking down. The left is crumbling as its firebrand and vanguard elements demand unpopular ideologies and programs.

A Reaction, Backlash and Explosion

On the right, there is a massive reaction and backlash against the tyranny of these oppressive ideologies and the overall decay of modern society.

People are demanding a return to common sense and an elimination of the madness that has come to govern society.

The unexpected result of this clash has not been a return to order but an explosion.

Two Factors

This explosion is caused by two factors: the radical demands of the left that will not retreat. The famous metaphor of the toothpaste that cannot be put back into the tube fits a disoriented left that is doubling down on its errors.

The other factor is the partial nature of a restoration of order. It consists of spectacular and very necessary measures against the more radical elements of the liberal counter-order. However, this reaction tends to sideline the moral, cultural and family issues that guarantee the proper functioning of society. It tends to leave in place elements of the old liberal order (like procured abortion and same-sex “marriage”) that corrode society.

Godless Crusade

Despite exterior trappings of Christian symbols and rhetoric, the reaction turns the religious element into a mere “cultural identity marker” without substance. It presents the paradox of what author Tobias Kremer calls a “godless crusade.”

National conservative thinkers like Oren Cass recommend that America adopt a secularized version of virtue for its political agenda that can more widely appeal to those with little or no faith.

“By anchoring our account of virtue in an explicitly religious foundation, conservatives weaken our own cause, quiet our own voice. We are left not only ineffective in countering the left but derelict in reforming the right…” Cass writes in the very religiously-oriented First Things.

Thus, this crusade without Christ no longer relies on the powerful and dynamic force of religion, which is necessary in the fight for the restoration of society.

Chaos not Order

The result of this hurried clash of doubled-down left and partial reaction on the right is not order but chaos.

Chaos is an explosive destruction of both order and even the appearance of order. In this case, it represents the contradiction of using disorder as a means toward order.

Such a situation can lead to anarchy. An authentic restoration to order can only happen when there is an authentic moral conversion. That is where the reaction should be headed. Anything else will only lead to some counter-order or, even worse, to chaos and anarchy.