Are there Chinese agents trying to steal the secrets of our government at this moment? Of course. Are they trying to steal the secrets of our industry? Of course. We know this.
But must we assume that the stupidity of our current crop of kids is part of a grander designe? Clearly, there are many Marxists at our universities, since none of those people have ever had to accomplish any large concrete task in their lives. At least many of the Communists of the 50’s and 60’s had some sort of military service, like Obama’s grandfather.
Systems in motion are defined by their principles. Various principles which simply evolve on their own can have enormously disruptive effects. Thus, the principle of No-God, itself, has a disruptive effect on all aspects of society, in that it leads to feelings of meaninglessness, helplessness, alienation, depression, and–to the point here–avoidance. You develop this mechanism by which unpleasant thoughts are avoided, and one way of doing this is to develop this reflexive (think rubber hammer and knee) thought pattern which systematically avoids the conclusions you drew before.
In many respects, I think much of the Left, for over the last century, can be defined, first and foremost, as a mental “technology” meant to avoid the despair of meaninglessness, itself caused by rejecting everything which could not be proven, and which appearted contingent–which is to say all religion and all human culture.
The Nihilists, for example, did not need to celebrate Christmas. They recognized the calendar was contingent, and an artifact of the Church and a Base-12 numbering system. You don’t have to say thank you, and you don’t have to pray. You don’t have to get up early and work all day. You can lie around, and sponge off of others (note the “nihilists”–the name given them by their opponents–were basically hippies without the positive vibe).
This sort of thing is the result of crappy thinking. Religion taught us that codes of behavior were somehow encoded in the cosmos, that there is a natural social pecking order, some meant to be in control, some to feed them. Obviously, this was a lie. Yet, it does not follow from this that there are no rules that can be seen in human social systems, that there is no approximate cause and effect. Plainly, courtesy yields dividends, as does hard work, and having SOME type of calendar. The details don’t matter.
The ideas of God, too, as they have arisen around the world yield dividends as well. I think it can be shown prayer works, that we survive physical death, and that a limitless source of energy and order underlies our physical universe.
All of these things start with perception though. You can never cease moving perceptually.
A fly flew in the window of my car the other day. It took it about two minutes of bumping and failure, but it eventually found the other open window, and escaped. A nihilist is a fly who gets trapped, sits on the seat trying to think his or her way out, and dies of hunger.