Too many minds have been colonized by contaminated ideologies; in turn, we, as a society, have become dangerously immature.
Bonhoeffer argued that genuine community is not built on childish utopian dreams or ideological unity, but on a sober acceptance of others as they are.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor executed for resisting Nazism, saw firsthand the rot of cultures driven by contaminated ideologies. In his 1939 book Life Together, he described the dangers of a seminary warped by students’ private fantasies of what the monastery “should be.” Bonhoeffer argued that genuine community is not built on childish utopian dreams or ideological unity, but on a sober acceptance of others as they are. As he cautioned: “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”
Bonhoeffer knew that genuine community requires humility in the face of human limitations. To believe you possess the blueprint for a flawless world is not only delusional — it is a child’s delusion. (RELATED: Bonhoeffer Exposes the Left’s Blindness)
Michel de Montaigne, centuries earlier, diagnosed the same disease. In his essay “Our Feelings Reach Out Beyond Us,” he condemned a childish fixation on the future at the expense of the present. He wrote: “Our feelings reach out beyond us, not as a product of our minds, but through the inherent nature of our being, which is always straining after something to come.”
Montaigne saw that to live in constant anticipation is to live as a toddler — whining for Lucky Charms, restless for a turn with the yo-yo, incapable of contentment with what is before us. A society that confuses impatience for wisdom is a society bent on permanent adolescence and ultimately, destruction.
Anthony Burgess, in a 1972 conversation with William F. Buckley Jr. on Firing Line, noted how modern life was being warped by an Idolatry of youth: an obsession with beauty, triviality, sexual competence, and all the trappings of perpetual adolescence. That was half a century ago. Today, the decline seems steeper. Fathers strut in ironic T-shirts with backward caps; mothers join their children at college to guzzle warm beer in parking lots.
It looks inconsequential on first glance, but the message is profound: to grow up is to die. “Adulting” has become a punchline, a tedious ordeal to be mocked rather than embraced. And in too many academic settings, this juvenile spirit has corrupted the learning process. Burgess warned that some teachers might cling to youth culture not out of conviction, but because “it’s rather nice to be young and to be associated with the young.” (RELATED: Does Gen Z Need ‘Adulting 101’?)
Recent events confirm the suspicion.
When Charlie Kirk was killed, teachers, administrators, and professors across the country flocked to social media to gloat — snickering like adolescents; deep immaturity on full display; an involuntary doom element they were utterly unaware of. (RELATED: It’s Charlie Kirk’s America Now)
But maybe these “educators” have misjudged their audience. Perhaps the young, forced to endure their teachers’ childish tantrums, are beginning to see through them — and to turn away. Hopefully, their revolt will not come with fists, fire, or violence, but with refusal: a silent rejection of the last decade’s idiocies — the riots, the academic decay, the lockdowns, the political thuggery, the mass stupidity peddled by society’s most immature and half-educated. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Exposes a Generation in Crisis)
With any luck, these over-schooled and under-informed educators may have chucked one too many of their toys from their over-funded cradles, mistaking tantrums for insight, and overplayed a very weak and vapid hand.
It’s high time for the perpetual adolescents of our society to be exposed for their luxury beliefs, trendy credos, and shallow indulgences — and finally grow up. The rest of us — the ones willing to embrace responsibility, to build communities instead of fantasies — must remain steady, vigilant, and, like Bonhoeffer, learn to love those around us.
READ MORE:
Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Exposes a Generation in Crisis
Charlie Kirk Is a Casualty of the Cultural Counterrevolution