abstract: Or is bin Laden right? Is the United States a decadent society that cannot even muster the unity to defend itself against a group of people who have no doubt that they are right and are willing to do and spend what it takes in service of that view?

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by John Fielding

"For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Cor. 14:8)

Gene Edward Veith, writing in World magazine, remarks that if the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis in 1972 was the official end of modernism, the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001 was surely the official end of postmodernism.

Postmodernism is the basis of the current "diversity" talk, denying the existence of objective truth in favor of values either chosen by the individual or forced upon that individual by the particular social and cultural milieu in which he or she find themselves. Since all choices and cultures are valid, we have no standard to judge that one way of thinking or culture is better than another. Reality, however, like the rock on which Bishop Berkley stubbed his toe, has a way of reasserting itself. The attack by Osama bin Laden was the ultimate reality check. Peggy Noonan has recently observed that only a society that has it as good as the United States has the luxury of "deconstructing a text" rather than simply "reading a book." As she pointed out:

In the world that has just passed, careless people--not carefree, careless--spent their time deconstructing the reality of the text, as opposed to reading the book. You could do that then. The world seemed so peaceful that you could actively look for new things to argue about just to keep things lively. You could be on a faculty and argue over where Jane Austen meant to put the comma, or how her landholding father's contextually objective assumptions regarding colonialism impacted her work. You could have real arguments about stupid things. Those were the days! It's great when life is so nice you have to invent arguments (WSJ.com Opinion Journal).

Can the United States come up with a singular view of reality with which to combat Mr. bin Laden? Or is bin Laden right? Is the United States a decadent society that cannot even muster the unity to defend itself against a group of people who have no doubt that they are right and are willing to do and spend what it takes in service of that view? Unfortunately, we have seen the deriding of those as "fanatics" who believe in something strongly enough to act on it. In the United States, so intellectually fat and lazy through prosperity, in fact, the only sin that remains unforgiven is the sin of believing in something so strongly that one is willing to spend lives and treasure in pursuit of it. After all, we're Americans; our motto is "moderation in pursuit of everything is no vice; extremism in pursuit of anything is no virtue." The only fanatics we brook are football fanatics, otherwise known as "fans."

The only ideal that the United States can bring to the table is the belief that no belief is so right as to require intolerance of any other belief, including, presumably, one that is dedicated to the destruction of the United States. Osama bin Laden knows that the United States was founded as a Christian nation; the United States is not so sure what it was and has thrown a dedication to the truth of Christian values and God's law aside in favor of a witch's brew of pluralism, diversity, rationalism, secularism, naturalism, and irrationality. Can a society that believes nothing strongly prove itself equal to the challenge of a group that believes one thing strongly enough to die for it?

Osama bin Laden has declared himself at war with the values of the United States and is willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of that war. At the risk of being misunderstood, he is an example to us all.

John Fielding (M.A., M.Div., J.D.) is the president of the National Reform Association. He is active in politics and practices law in Berks County, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at fielding@talon.net.

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