The Benedict Option: A Strategy For Christians In A Post-Christian Nation, (Dreher) Chapter 2, "The Roots of the Crisis" (III)
Dreher begins with a story of two middle-aged or older women, lamenting the loss of previously-held sexual mores; namely, that they know so many young women having children out of wedlock. Indeed, although that crisis has hit minority communities even harder, it is interesting that he cites Charles Murray's recent sociological survey of White America, Coming Apart. It's at this point that the chapter becomes interesting, because what follows is a brief survey of Western civilization. Dreher is not after a jeremiad here, but an exploration of ideas. Ideas--or better said, philosophies--have consequences, and our author wants us to look at them. Dreher says that five movements built upon each other, and in a sense conspired together, to bring our societies to this moment: 1. The loss of metaphysical realism, or the classical theory of epistemology . It's very possible to get into the weeds here, but following the lead of the Greek philosophers, we believed that reality as w