Caesar Alloquitur: Know Thy Enemy

"If you know the enemy, and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, then for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy, nor yourself, then you will succumb in every battle."

~Sun Tzu

In the story of St. George, the dragon symbolizes sin, the world, and the power of the devil. This is what made the image of St. George slaying the dragon so powerful to Christendom and made St. George - to this day - the Patron Saint of Crusaders. ~DEUS+LO+VULT~

Moments before I sat down to begin writing this blog, I saw an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. It's always been a favorite show of mine; Law & Order has got to be the undisputed king of crime drama, in my opinion. As I sat down to watch the episode, it opened with a young boy being the victim of sexual assault. As investigations went on, it eventually pointed back to mother's ex-boyfriend. He was a Jew, and had gone on to fully embrace the Rabbinic religion in the Hasidic tradition. He was even becoming a Rabbi, himself. Keeping in mind the way episodes usually turn out in Law & Order whenever religion is involved (it's always the religious figure; thorough beating of conservatism ensues, cover-up, crisis of faith, secular culture vindicated) I sat down and braced for the coming beating. They might've been Jews, but the message would be the same: religion bad, secularism good. I kept in mind a story I'd heard several months back involving sexual abuse cases concerning Rabbis and small children. So I thought this was somewhat gutsy of the television show. The Catholic Church might simply shrug its shoulders and take the abuse, but the Anti-Defamation League is anything but inactive.

However, the episode took a surprising turn for the good, just when it looked the worse. The Rabbi had an alibi, but then it turned out that the Chief Rabbi had gone off with the small boy to a Hasidic gated community upstate. At first it seemed like the community was going to cover for the Chief Rabbi, up until the last moment when they arrested him at the boy arrived, screaming for them to not arrest him and not to take him away. While they were questioning the Rabbi, the most interesting thing happened and probably one of the biggest plot-twists I've ever seen in an episode. The rape kit suggested that the boy's aggressor wasn't an adult, but rather, a child. Someone who was a little more than two years older than the victim, who was ten. Further examination lead the forensics scientist for the department to believe it was a fourteen year old boy.

Oh, you're shocked now? The boy wasn't even his first - or last - younger victim.

The results came back that it indeed was someone of that sort. As this was going on, the boy explained that he asked the Rabbi to take him with him because he was scared and didn't want to go back where his abuser was. He gave the name of his abuser, and the assaulter confessed after being arrested. The trial portion of the episode was incredibly interesting. The defendant's attorney pleaded insanity for her client, citing that with all the raunchiness in our media today things like this are bound to occur, bringing up statistics and the like. The plaintiff went for the usual approach; what he did was wrong, and no matter what, he deserves to be punished. Of course this was lost on the jury.

But, the more you thought about it, and the more the trial went on, you could see how the accused was just as much a victim. In a culture that doesn't enforce moral absolutes, or really uphold a true sexual code of conduct, is this to be anything but expected? With parents becoming less and less present in their children's lives and being seen more and more as just a burden to be thrown off with spite as soon as possible, isn't this the expected result in a secular society like ours? Inevitably, we'll make deviants and criminals out of them all, if we aren't careful with how we raise our children. The turning point was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when after the defendant was found, "Not Guilty" and two of the detectives - Munch and Stabler - had a conversation after everyone else left.

The American Judicial System even got some proper egg on its face when the young victim asked Detective Stabler, "Why didn't they believe me?" Detective Stabler, unsure how to answer said, "It's not that they didn't believe you, they just believed Jack more."

"Maybe these Hasidic parents have the right idea, unplugging their kids from the modern world."
"You can't shut out the world, John."
"These days, it might not be such a bad idea."

This statement does make someone ask very deep, very troubling questions. It's doubtless religion has had its abuses, but it's also completely doubtless that a new face for the religious demographic is emerging. Kids who came from bad homes or non-religious families and saw the problems and threw their fists down and said, "Enough! There must be a better way!" They found it in the religion of their forefathers, or in that of Catholicism, as is our case here. Even if there were abuses, it can be said that they were simply defects in the system and not intended consequences. Even if you would argue something else, it's doubtless the intentions of this newer generation are nothing if not idealistic. They've got a vision - a good one - and they want it realized not just for themselves but everyone else. So long as it can be directed to the right path to realize it and they can be unified and lead, the possibilities are endless.

The secular experiment has been a disaster on multiple fronts. There is no such thing as a Utopian society, and we here at the NSIR are not out to create or promise one. But we do promise and propose a better way. Even the culture itself is starting to realize there is virtue in the truly religious, and the truly fundamental. Like Sir Walter Scott tried to demonstrate in his books, there are so many beautiful things we are unwisely leaving behind in our rush forward toward modernity. If we are to make this a place worth fighting for, we would be wise to heed the moral lesson so subtly - and perhaps unintentionally - put into this episode I just saw. In a world where liberalism has made a mess, is authentic fundamentalism such a bad alternative, if it makes good people?

We shouldn't be ashamed of what our religion can do when good, determined, pious people put it to practice to its fullest and utmost. If we are to survive this age as our own, then we must do what the Roman Christians did during the Fall of Rome: we must form communities. Not necessarily monastic and celibate (though monks are always needed; Philip II's palace, the El Escorial was also a monastery where monks lived and these pious souls most likely proved invaluable guides and advisers to the King of Spain), but devoted and pious nonetheless. If we band together and keep strong, we will triumph. It will be difficult, getting off the internet, and into the world where we can meet one another and truly form a community. But we will do it, because it is what must be done.

It's time to get to work, Imperials.