Societal Decline by Michael Theroux

It is possible for a people to become ashamed of their own success.

It is apparent that an entire race can tire of that process by which the strong rise, the weak fail and fade. Morality has interpreted Godliness to admonish that we tend to those that cannot fend for themselves, to assist the Meek in claiming their worldly inheritance. This has been the essential teaching of a Christian upbringing, and interestingly is also the base premise of a Communal Society. And just perhaps this is also the ultimate cost of becoming too thoughtful, too smart, too damn righteous for our own good.

Races may become too self-aware for the continuance of their own society at large. We are a species whose primal motivation is love / fear of a remote, all-knowing presence, an unthinkable, unimaginable Oneness. Man is incapable by his own admission of really understanding the very Godhead he has defined. Our instinctive recourse is to interpret, to look to those who would dare to interpret Godliness, knowing this will be too narrow and short-sighted, inadequate to match whatever unattainable reality actually exists. We may assume for the sake of argument here that such a reality does indeed exist, at some ultimate level. We fear what we don’t know. This is a hard-wired survival instinct. The logical extension is to seek familiarity with All, thus eliminating Fear. In the past, this generally proved fatal: predators never respect pathos.

Yet with all the self-protective layers we have built around ourselves, with all the isolation we can afford distancing us from the horrors of natural predation, perhaps FDR spoke Truth, about fearing Fear itself: ‘—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.’

This great nation has been on the retreat from its own greatness, in large part because of its inherent goodness. Those Grand Interpreters claiming our leadership positions have leaned into that public fear of fear, picking up the cadence of the retreat, apologizing for the natural process that has for so long advanced this American Machine, yes, at the expense of other social mechanizations. This isn’t the first time that such primacy has been advanced by a society, just the most recent. And ‘what goes up’ … For generations now we have been struggling with the repercussions of social decline, and wondering, ‘Who’ll be the next in line?’

But I hold it as my charge to Protect and Defend this particular machine, this national construct wherein myself and those I love, live. It is to me abhorrent to give that charge away without a bloody fight, indeed, to lay down and apologize for my thoughtlessness simply because others might somehow suffer at my expense.

Man is an omnivore, eating whatever will sustain himself and those in his charge. This is no accident, no cosmic mistake. It is instead a characteristic of that Oneness, and is the very means by which strength is identified and propagated with some elements of life at the cost of others.

Love thy neighbor, yes, but fight for your life.

We of this American megalopolis can and do ‘stand back and watch’, perhaps to our own detriment. On an on-going basis, we are tasked with incremental yet critical decisions yet unfortunately, the decision for self-isolation and selective blindness has become all too common a response to the overwhelming pressures of just staying alive. This is where we must look to and follow some form of moral compass, our own underlying belief system. If we adopt the beliefs, the dogma, of others who claim to Know, who position themselves to rule uber alles, we forfeit our ticket: ‘Oh, well – what can just one person do, anyway?’

I believe strongly in a meritocracy: continual improvement that both leads to and justifies leadership. I do not condone any societal mechanism that levels all to the lowest common denominator.

Michael writes from Northern California. His career has spanned field botanist, environmental health specialist, green energy developer and resource recovery website editor. Now in his seventh decade, he is shifting from the scientific and technical environmental field to placing his cache of creative writing. Many pieces may be found or will soon be seen, in in Down in the Dirt and their semi-annual collection, ‘Cast Off!’, Ariel Chart, 50WS, CafeLit, Poetry Pacific, Last Leaves, Backwards Trajectory, Small Wonders, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Preservation Foundation / Storyhouse, Cerasus, The Acedian Review, Kelp Journal, WordSwell, Hedgeapple, Young Ravens, Instant Noodles, the Lothlorien Poetry Journal & its Anthologies #2 and #4, City Key, Wild Word, Fixator Press, the 2025 California Writer’s Club anthology, in the new America First Magazine, and elsewhere.