Return To The Swamp

Return to the Swamp does this title make sense to you? Unless your are older than 30 years and I mean probably way older, you have no idea which Swamp I mean. Here’s a hint. Have you heard the famous saying, “we have met the enemy, and he is us!”? If so then a least recognize the cartoon character – Pogo. Did you realize that he was a swamp character? Do you know in which swamp he resided? He actually lived in a cartoon strip in the Okefenokee Swamp. Now if you know where we are referring to if you read the following article.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

“Survey of teens reveals entrenched habits of dishonesty---stealing, lying and cheating rates climb to alarming rates.” Josephson Institute, 2008 Report Card on Ethics of American Youth.

“We have met the enemy, and he is us!” Walt Kelly

Whenever I get discouraged about the direction of our civilization, I retreat to the Swamp: Walt Kelly’s Swamp which for almost 30 years from 1948 to 1975 entertained us with his animal kingdom of creatures from the Okefenokee Swamp in his syndicated comic strip, “Pogo.” Walt’s political humor as represented in his strips, dealt with all the human vices.

His characters were often” venal, greedy, confrontational, selfish and stupid, ” but while making the point of how wrong- headed we are as a nation, they somehow come off as bumbling, harmless and good natured. Despite their faults, they are loveable. I wish I could say the same for today’s politicians, but there is too much blood in the water today, and the consensus at the middle no longer exists. Obedient drones that we are, we watch the magician’s hands moving deftly in front of us with the media’s alarmist tones in the background on some petty thievery and miss the real corruption that is taking place all around us.

“What corruption” you say? “Yes, yes, I agree with you about our financial practices. They are shameful and will bring us to no good end. What, you say you have already written more than enough about that? Well, then what are you talking about?”

What I am talking about is the loss of our civilization. Throughout history our greatest national resource has been our next generation. While there are many fine young men and women coming to maturity today, they are overwhelmed by the mass of new adults mesmerized by the media message of anything goes and the emphasis on hedonistic pursuits for self gratification. The “Great Middle” in our society has always formed around notions of family and moral values that closely tracked the Bible and notions of Judeo-Christian right and wrong going back for centuries. This may no longer be true.

The Josephson Institute’s Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, document a dismal record of loss of moral fiber by the generation now coming to maturity. We are losing this societal norm. They report in a survey of 30,000 high school students, that one in three boys and one in four girls reported stealing from a store within the past year. For religious schools, it is still a dismal one in five for the same admission. More than forty percent admit lying to save money, and eighty-five percent admit lying to a parent about something significant. Sixty-four percent admit cheating on a test within the past year, and thirty-eight percent said they did it two or more times. The statistics for religious and non religious private schools are better but still abysmal. One in four also admit to lying on one or more of the survey questions, yet 95 percent rate themselves “satisfied” with their personal ethics and character. Seventy-seven percent rated themselves “better” than most people they know.

Coupled with this moral drift, are a continuing high rate of live births and an even higher rate of serial sexual experience by American teens. The Rural Assistance Center documents 750,000 teen pregnancies each year resulting in 2007 in 451,263 live births. RAC estimates that almost three in ten teenage girls will get pregnant at least once before the age of twenty. With these births come poor health and poverty for what is often a single parent household. For those young women aborting their pregnancies, there is an emotional cost that greatly dims their psychological fitness to weather the transition to adulthood with the skills and fortitude to succeed.

One last statistic that spells trouble ahead is the early dropout rate from high school. Nationally, John Stoessel recently reported that thirty percent of our teenagers leave high school before graduation. (Fifty percent here in South Carolina) Needless to say the stress of coping with teenage pregnancy and birth is often the cause, leaving the new family with minimal skills to support a child financially or emotionally.

Rather than lament the life decisions that have brought about this dismal situation, many new age sophisticates point to the new generation as the “cutting edge” of a different definition of “family, work, fragmentation and multi connection.” I take this as embracing lack of permanence in all things and assuming only the most tentative connection with those around you.

This society really doesn’t know anything for sure, but what it experiences in the moment. When it no longer works, it’s sayonara and on to the next. Their connection to the spiritual is “direct line” and the emphasis is on what HE/She has done for me lately! One source I found describes it thusly: “The values gap (with traditional models) represents a fundamental realignment of the basis on which people make their decisions about how to live their lives. The core values of autonomy, fulfillment, excitement, involvement and individualism (are those) on which young people will challenge social institutions.” You will note that the description avoids any notion of “we” in favor of “me.” Now that is a great prescription for societal longevity!

There is very little about man’s basic needs that have changed over the centuries. We all need shelter, food, social connection with other humans and the perpetuation of a value system that builds upon trust and mutual support, nor has anything changed about the duality of our nature. We all have both good and evil residing within. What redeems us is our ability to resist our baser nature and commit to overcoming it. Faced with natural and manmade challenges to our very existence even today, it is respect for the Ten Commandments and such other values as Courage, Sacrifice, Patriotism, Integrity and Commitment that are required for Civilization to thrive. Dedication to the preservation of our civilization is at once much bigger than ourselves and yet our greatest calling. It both lifts us up and preserves those conditions that permit man to flourish. I fear that with the loss of belief in this truth, like Pogo, we have met the enemy, and it is us!_._

Copyright © 2010 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr., is president of the Free Enterprise Foundation. He is also a professor at The Citadel and was selected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence and in 2009 to be their first BB&T Visiting Professor in Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership. A regular contributor to the Mercury, Prof. Freer may be reached at Robert.freer@citadel.edu. If you would like him to appear before your group or organization to speak on any of the subjects about which he writes, please contact him at The Citadel. Copies of his earlier columns may be found at The Free Enterprise Foundation

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