The Modern Man

Taken from John C. Wright's blogpost, which of course is a must read.

Now, an odd suspicion should be growing in the mind of the reader at this point, having heard this list of passions. These are all matters the modern men, especially men of the Left, the cynics and nihilists, have taken particular pains to mock and deride.

Lust and fornication, the moderns certainly admire and support, but lust and romance are opposites, even as fornication and marriage are opposites. The idea of a bride and bridegroom both coming to the marriage bower as virgins and cleaving to each other in tender yet fierce mutual adoration, worshiping each other with their bodies, and forswearing all other partners, this is an image the moderns find repellant, if not incomprehensible. It reminds them of the suburbs, or white picket fences, or Ozzie and Harriet. To them it is saccharine and nauseating. The only marriages they favor are gay marriages.

As for glory and honor and patriotism, love of chivalry and love of nation, the modern mind regard these things with distaste or disgust or even horror. They are regarded as machismo, as sinister attempts to oppress the weak, or to glorify violence and aggression. Patriotism to the modern man is bigotry, and vile; love of God they dismiss as superstition. The moderns have an insolent double standard: The superstition is harmless or even admirable, in an avuncular and condescending way, when practiced by Mohammedans or Buddhists or Animists, but it is an appalling enemy of enlightenment and progress when practiced by Christians.

The mere fact that a matter so basic as the difference between the emotions called appetites and the emotions called passions needs here to be introduced is itself a symptom of the disease that afflicts the modern mind, and hence part of this autopsy.

 Well, go read the rest!  It involves the Lord of the Rings!