There’s a distinctly American quality of believing—or at least wanting to believe—that the best is yet to come. And as a result, there’s almost an instant dislike for the cynic. In fact, when we call someone a cynic, we don’t even think of its dictionary definition—“the belief that most people lack sincerity and operate out of self-interest”—(much less the philosophers of cynicism like Diogenes or Metrocles). When we call someone a cynic, we’re calling them bitter. A “content cynic” or “happy cynic”, most Americans would tell you, is an oxymoron. Cynics are grouchy. Cynics are not personable. Nobody likes a naysayer (a word, by the way, that originated in the American colonies in 1721). In American culture, if somebody tells you they have dreams, the only socially acceptable response is to validate them. You don’t ask questions and you certainly don’t suggest that somebody’s dream is a bad idea. We are a dream culture. We traffic in dreams. When Martin Luther King marched on Washington, his immortal words were “I have a dream.” And in a dream society, realism—especially if it leans toward the negative—is considered rude. Instead we are optimistic. We believe in anti-aging cream, fad diets, and New Year’s Resolutions. But worse, we still believe politicians and parties can be our saviors.

Yes, yes… I know that even a specific legal definition of pornography has vexed anti-porn campaigners in the past. But surely a nation which invented scotch tape and sent a guy to the moon can come up with a happy medium definition of “visual pornography” that allows us to watch Bridgerton but prevents us from watching Gag Me Harder Stepbrother 2.

After discussions with my wife and many long nights staying awake in conversation with good godly friends, I have made the decision to “cross the Tiber”.

If aliens exist and if they have evolved consciousness just as humans do, wouldn’t it make sense that the God of the universe would have something to do with them too? Wouldn’t He also be their Creator? Wouldn’t He know everything there is to know about their civilizations, the course of their history, the structure of their languages and customs? Embark with me upon a brief exercise of imagination…

To some extent conservatism’s association of managers, bosses, and executives with “hierarchy and order” has been influenced by America’s historically Puritan roots, which taught us to equate idleness and wealth with slothfulness and avarice, and thus by extension equate leisure time and prosperity with wrongdoing; this negatively predisposes us to view disgruntled workers who want more time and more money as being morally suspect.

A proper understanding of conservatism—as a cultural, economic, personal, and spiritual intuition—cannot arise by adopting purely reactionary stances against whatever Distraction Of The Day woke liberalism throws at us. Conflicts are not won solely by taking defensive positions. A “shield wall” army will eventually find itself shield-walled off a cliff. Instead, we have to develop and articulate alternative visions for an alternative world that competes with the world woke liberals are trying to foist. Part of that project is crafting a conservative approach to environmental care.