{"id":41669,"date":"2014-07-14T18:15:28","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T23:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=41669"},"modified":"2025-12-21T20:06:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T02:06:06","slug":"were-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket-hooray-why-every-man-should-embrace-the-jeremiad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/featured\/were-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket-hooray-why-every-man-should-embrace-the-jeremiad\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re Going to Hell in a Handbasket! Hooray! Why Every Man Should Embrace the Jeremiad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vintage<\/p>\n

While the internet was supposed to produce a bevy of incisive, free-wheeling discourse, it has instead begotten a never-ending series of almost invariably predictable debates. Spend enough time online, and you can begin to predict with striking prescience exactly how a particular discussion will unfold: if someone submits input A, they will get output B.<\/p>\n

Case in point: whenever someone says: \u201cYoung people today are (insert negative trait here),\u201d someone else will almost assuredly counter the contention by busting out this quote from Socrates:<\/p>\n

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah-ha! Perfect proof that older people have always complained about youngsters and young people have always misbehaved! Things haven\u2019t changed at all!<\/p>\n

This particular internet debate \u201coutput\u201d has always made me shake my head for a few reasons:<\/p>\n

1. Alas, Socrates never actually said that<\/a>. The quote in fact originated around the turn of the 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Even though the quote is completely spurious, the part of the point it is often marshaled to make is still true: people have <\/em>always complained about young people. One can find somewhat similar sentiments in the writings of other ancient cultures, and I\u2019ve read plenty of complaints about \u201cyoung people today\u201d in books from a couple centuries back.<\/p>\n

2. However, while it is true that people have griped about the improprieties of youth since time immemorial, such quotes still do not prove the other part of the argument: that young people today aren\u2019t any worse <\/em>than they used to be. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say that on the hottest day in the summer of 400 BC it\u2019s 90 degrees, and someone writes in their journal, \u201cBoy it\u2019s hot outside!\u201d Then on a 95-degree day in 1700, someone writes down the exact same thought. Finally, on a record-breaking day in 2014, when the temperature soars to 100 degrees, someone declares, \u201cMan, it\u2019s hotter than ever!\u201d If someone else were to counter this statement by saying, \u201cMeh, look at these old journal entries — people have always<\/em> complained about the heat,\u201d that would not<\/em> in fact prove that temperatures hadn\u2019t gotten hotter over time.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another example more relevant to the original supposition: During the Jazz Age, dances like the Charleston and Lindy Hop were considered sexual and indecent. Even the Foxtrot, which now epitomizes class, came in for criticism for the amount of physical touching between partners. If someone today were to drop in on a high school prom and witness students bumping and grinding, they might deride such \u201cdancing\u201d as highly sexual. The fact that people once had the very same complaints about dances in the Jazz Age wouldn\u2019t prove that today\u2019s dances haven\u2019t become more<\/em> sexual. On the contrary, they demonstrably have.<\/p>\n

3. Even if it isn\u2019t<\/em> true that young people have gotten any worse over time, criticizing them still serves a purpose — as does criticism of all ages of people, and society at large. Cultural critiques \u2013 issued in the form of the jeremiad<\/em> \u2013 are actually what contribute to keeping the accusations untrue.<\/p>\n

Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n

What Is a Jeremiad?<\/h3>\n

A jeremiad is a form of rhetoric in which the speaker\/writer sharply laments a society\u2019s sins and shortcomings, and predicts that his people\u2019s offenses will lead to their demise and collapse. It is a stern, ominous, sustained invective against the immorality of one\u2019s culture \u2013 an attempt to reveal the sins everyone else is willfully ignoring.<\/p>\n

As you may have guessed, the word comes from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, who believed he was called by God to prophesy that Israel would be destroyed in consequence for their failure to keep the Mosaic covenant.<\/p>\n

While the jeremiad has its roots in religious preaching, over time it has expanded to encompass a variety of ethos and mediums. Jeremiads can take the form of poems, songs, novels, speeches, articles, and even movies. They can concern both spiritual and secular matters, and while we often think of them as conservative in bent, they can be progressive as well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to point out that while we typically associate this form of rhetoric with doom and gloom, jeremiads always have a layer of optimism as well; they are given in the hope that in showing the listener\/reader how far they have fallen from the ideal, they will be motivated to strive for improvement. They look forward to a brighter day — a new golden age. Jeremiah himself, for example, did not only foretell Israel\u2019s destruction, but prophesied that his people would eventually rise from the rubble to become even stronger than before.<\/p>\n

The jeremiad has had a particularly significant place in American culture. Americans have long thought of themselves as a special people with a special mission, due to the way in which the country was created through a series of idealistic founding events. The country\u2019s birth was woven with promises and principles that we have sought to recapture and live more perfectly ever since.<\/p>\n

The Puritans were the first to conceive of the nation as a \u201ccity on the hill,\u201d and jeremiad-type warnings about living up to this model accompanied such rhetoric from the very start. In the same sermon in which John Winthrop exhorted his fellow settlers to be a light to the world, he predicted that \u201cif we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a new nation was officially created a century later, another founding took place, and the ideal for Americans to live up to became a kind of civil religion. The principles and promises of democracy \u2013 and the documents upon which they were recorded — took on a sacred weight. In the centuries since, cultural reformers and critics have frequently evoked the Constitution, and the bloody sacrifices made over the decades to protect it, to point out where we have fallen short, and to motivate citizens to close the gap between the current reality and what they argue was the founders\u2019 original intent.<\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/p>\n

For this reason, the jeremiad has a long history as part of African-American culture. Reformers like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. used it to illuminate the ways in which the Constitution\u2019s guarantees of freedom and equality remained unfulfilled for blacks. They argued that things like the Civil War and the civic turbulence of the 1960s were a divine punishment for the sins of slavery and discrimination, and would not cease until Americans \u201crepented\u201d and made things right.<\/p>\n

Throughout American history (and in countries around the world), the jeremiad has been employed by those on the left and on the right — ministers and labor union leaders, gun rights defenders and civil rights activists, feminists and masculinists — to decry those areas of culture in which they believe their people have fallen short. The jeremiad remains alive and well today, and while we may be tempted to turn away from them, we would do well to actively seek them out instead.<\/p>\n

The Temptations to Tune Out<\/h3>\n

Jeremiads have never been popular with the masses in any age. Nobody likes to hear that they\u2019re decadent and depraved; we\u2019d much rather get a pat on the back and a hearty \u201cwell done!\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet while jeremiad-spewing prophets and reformers never achieve widespread acceptance, they do often gain a sizable following. There are always individuals who see truth in what these reformers say and embrace the chance to turn from their morally-bankrupt ways.<\/p>\n

Yet I think there are several obstacles particular to our modern age of which we should be aware that may inhibit even these humble, open-minded types from giving jeremiads a fair hearing:<\/p>\n

Our over-inflated sense of self-worth<\/strong>. While people have never enjoyed hearing that they\u2019re not as awesome and upstanding as they think they are, there has never before been such a gap between the average man\u2019s self-perception and reality. Thus jeremiads have never before been so likely to be greeted with disbelief and antagonism. We\u2019re told that we\u2019re special from an early age, and that no one has the \u201cright\u201d to say we\u2019re not good enough. \u201cWe are<\/em> good enough, and gosh darn it people like us! Anyone who thinks otherwise can go to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our choice-abundant society.<\/strong> There was a time where people could quite literally get up on a soapbox and make themselves heard. There wasn\u2019t an awful lot going on, so if the rabble-rouser was interesting enough (even if he made people furious, maybe especially<\/em> if he made them furious), he could amass a large audience. Today the internet has completely democratized the ability to potentially get one\u2019s rantings out to the masses, but at the same time, it has created millions of other options competing for people\u2019s attention. With so many choices for listening or surfing, people are liable to tune out the person who convicts them in their weakness, and latch on to those who offer a more flattering message.<\/p>\n

Our consumer-driven culture.<\/strong> The number of options vying for people\u2019s time and money has led to every institution taking a consumer-driven approach and catering to, instead of challenging, people\u2019s preferences. Even formerly hallowed institutions like colleges and churches have succumbed to this trend. If a professor says anything too inflammatory, students will protest his class. If a minister calls his congregants to repentance, they\u2019ll just head to the megachurch down the road where the friendly pastor offers positive, affirming, Joel Osteen-esque sermons that make them feel good about themselves and about life. Jonathan Edwards could get away with telling his audience they were \u201csinners in the hands of an angry god<\/a>\u201d \u2013 there weren\u2019t too many other options for church meetings in Northampton, Mass. Today\u2019s spiritual seekers can shop around until they find a minister with a perspective that exactly aligns with their own.<\/p>\n

One can even trace the disappearance of the jeremiad through hip-hop music. In its early days, hip-hop artists wrote songs that were sharply critical of culture and politics. But along the way they figured out that a mainstream audience didn\u2019t want their music to engage big issues, but to help them forget their issues. And so the music went from \u201cFight the Power\u201d to \u201cWhistle While You Twurk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our short attention spans.<\/strong> Even if a modern person can put aside their umbrage at being criticized and begin to engage a jeremiad, they are not likely to make their way all the way through it. In our TLDR culture, people actually celebrate their short attention spans, claiming that anything worthwhile can be condensed into something short and pithy. Were they to have lived in ancient times, they would have said, \u201cDude, Socrates, too much filler — can you give me the Cliff Notes version already?\u201d<\/p>\n

Our lack of a shared ideal.<\/strong> Jeremiads evoke a sacred founding or creation event \u2013 the moment in time when a people made a certain covenant or set forth a set of common principles. Jeremiads challenge people to live up to their own history. But today, there is little agreement on what the ideal way of living should be, and many feel like they should not be constrained by standards that were erected in a hazy past.<\/p>\n

Our worship of the cool.<\/strong> We moderns like nothing more than being cool. Sophisticated. In the know. And jeremiads are anything but. Cool people laugh at anyone who preaches doom and gloom \u2013 who even hints that our culture might be weak and decadent.<\/p>\n

The Daily Show<\/em>, for example, is often a televised deconstruction of jeremiad-like discourse. A clip of someone with a supposedly ignorant\/bigoted opinion is played and then carved up for yuks. I\u2019m actually a regular watcher of the show, and usually enjoy it (which I\u2019m telling you so you know I\u2019m cool), and this comedic deconstruction can sometimes be quite incisive and serve an enlightening purpose. But it does represent well our culture\u2019s current stance towards jeremiad-type rhetoric.<\/p>\n

I say jeremiad-type<\/em>, because in fact, what is usually skewered on the show is not the real deal, but modernity\u2019s rhetorical medium of choice — the pseudo-jeremiad.<\/p>\n

The Proliferation of Pseudo-Jeremiads<\/h3>\n

We all know the pseudo-jeremiad well. It dominates many blogs, 24\/7 news channels, and talk radio programs.<\/p>\n

The pseudo-jeremiad has many of the trappings of the traditional jeremiad \u2013 it angrily laments where our culture has gone astray, and predicts society\u2019s demise if such trends continue. But it departs from the classical model in one key way: it blames other people, rather than those in the audience, for society\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n

A jeremiad is a challenge to one\u2019s own<\/em> people. It should convict the speaker’s or reader\u2019s core audience as to their sins and shortcomings. It should shame them. If it doesn\u2019t offend some of them or make some of them angry, it hasn\u2019t served its purpose.<\/p>\n

Pseudo-jeremiads, in contrast, flatter the speaker\u2019s or writer\u2019s audience. \u201cWe\u2019re <\/em>doing awesome, we\u2019re<\/em> in the know, but those other people<\/em> are immoral ignoramuses who are ruining the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus a liberal who tells his liberal audience that conservatives are a bunch of backwards bigots is not issuing a jeremiad; likewise a conservative that says that all liberals are effeminate pinheads isn\u2019t offering a jeremiad either. But if a conservative or liberal went after his own political party for its excesses, that would be a jeremiad in the classical mold.<\/p>\n

Pseudo-jeremiads aren\u2019t necessarily a bad thing. Some can still be sharp and incisive, showing people the support behind their already-held beliefs, inspiring them to continue living those beliefs, and helping them see their beliefs in a new light. But one\u2019s information \u201cdiet\u201d should also be supplemented with pointed, piercing criticisms that challenge those beliefs entirely.<\/p>\n

Why Should Every Man Engage with Hard-Hitting Jeremiads?<\/h3>\n

\"Ancient<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, since the world has still
\nMuch good, but much less good than ill,
\nAnd while the sun and moon endure
\nLuck\u2019s a chance, but trouble\u2019s sure,
\nI\u2019d face it as a wise man would,
\nAnd train for ill and not for good.\u201d \u2013A.E. Housman<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The general knock against jeremiads is that they\u2019re nothing more than angry screeds that are often given by cranky, closed-minded old-timers who fear change, are overly anxious about “kids today,” and long for a time that never was. Jeremiads are frequently dismissed as gloomy diatribes that lack nuance because they only concentrate on the negatives of something, and miss the bigger picture by ignoring evidence that belie their claims.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the truth does <\/em>usually lie between the extremes on both sides of the spectrum, but, I would contend that jeremiads play a vital role in creating this between<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In any given society, you always have three groups of people — two on the extreme ends, and then the moderate middle. At one end you have the \u201ceat, drink, and be merry\u201d types who spurn any notion of society\u2019s slide into decadence, and in fact embrace it. Then there is the crowd that spends all their time wringing its hands about rampant immorality and assuredly believes we are on the cusp of utter collapse.<\/p>\n

In the middle you have the majority of folks, who worry about signs of cultural decay, but don\u2019t think we\u2019re on the wrong track with everything<\/em>. Yet the existence of this moderate crowd is in fact contingent on their willingness to occasionally engage with jeremiads.<\/p>\n

Actively seeking out arguments for moral indulgence isn\u2019t necessary; every man, woman, and child has a built-in penchant to follow their natural desires, and we\u2019re bombarded 24\/7 by media images selling the desirability of giving in to our base appetites (restraint isn\u2019t profitable for corporations). But if we wish to avoid sliding into moral decadence and mental decay, we do<\/em> have to intentionally seek out rhetoric that offers the very opposite message. We need penetrating analyses that arouse us out of apathy and snap us out of our drift towards the path of least resistance. Even if we don\u2019t end up agreeing with many of the contentions contained in a particular jeremiad, there is usually a kernel of truth to it that pricks the heart and convicts us in our weaknesses. Even when they initially offend us, or make us angry, they still, if we are humble, almost invariably lead to reflection on where we can improve. A sense of insecurity can truly be a positive thing, and questioning if we\u2019ve gotten too comfortable individually and as a culture is absolutely vital to the health of both enterprises.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One can think of it like two separate pipes leading into the same faucet. Through one pipe flow the inclinations of the \u201cnatural man\u201d that lead us to the path of least resistance; through the other comes the jeremiad that tells us we have fallen short and need to shape up. These two streams mix, and what emerges from the faucet is the Golden Mean.<\/p>\n

Ultimately then, while the jeremiad\u2019s lamentation of wholesale decay is rarely completely true, it is ironically this form of rhetoric\u2019s existence that keeps<\/em> it from being entirely true. Mark Twain said that \u201cevery civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction\u201d; jeremiads are the caustic, but necessary herbicide that keeps those seeds from ever bearing fruit.<\/p>\n

________________<\/p>\n

Inspired to dig into a challenging jeremiad and need some recommendations? Check out our list of 16 thought-provoking cultural critiques.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the internet was supposed to produce a bevy of incisive, free-wheeling discourse, it has instead begotten a never-ending series of almost invariably predictable debates. Spend enough time online, and you can begin to predict with striking prescience exactly how a particular discussion will unfold: if someone submits input A, they will get output B. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,6,42269],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-41669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-featured","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"medium":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/07\/jerjpg-236x123.jpg","large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/07\/jerjpg-400x280.jpg","small":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/07\/jerjpg-50x50.jpg","index-image":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/07\/jerjpg-350x200.jpg","it-gallery-thumb":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/07\/jerjpg-400x250.jpg","it-gallery-singular":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/07\/jerjpg-300x250.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41669"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141147,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41669\/revisions\/141147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41669"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=41669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}