David McElroy

When postmodern American society dies, everyone will rush to write the autopsy.

Journalists will focus on whatever was going on right before the end. Historians will frame the story in light of the decades before. Economists will talk about income inequality or GDP or national debt. Sociologists might talk about groups they saw as oppressive. Theologians might say we lost faith in God.

There will be some truth in many of those things — and many others — but I suspect the core truth will be found by something they’ll all overlook.

Individuals became so selfish that they were no longer willing to treat strangers with respect and decency.

Something has changed about how people treat each other today. We’re not as polite. We’ve lost the sort of manners that used to be expected among strangers in middle-class society. We believe that only suckers are honest if cheating will bring an advantage.

No society has ever been perfect about any of these things, but fewer and fewer people in postmodern America stick to the “social script” that used to allow us to feel a sense of community.

We’ve lost our way — our values — and unless those things radically change, our society will fail.

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I’ve experimented with doing YouTube videos several times in the last few years and I can now tell you about the latest experiment.

For months, I’ve been working on a video series about some of the ideas I’m most passionate about, but this is something different. This channel will feature video essays that mirror many of the articles I publish here.

So far, it just has a brief intro and video versions of two recent essays. I have no idea whether enough people on YouTube will be interested in something of this sort, but we’ll find out. I literally just uploaded the two essays minutes ago, so almost nobody knows yet that the channel exists.

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The devil doesn’t have horns and a pointed red tail. He doesn’t wear a red suit. The devil looks exactly like whatever it is you want the most.

The devil is a shapeshifter. In every moment, he becomes something which seems too good to be true. To me, he appears as the object of my deepest desires. To you, he appears as whatever you believe will finally make your life complete. But when we follow where this shapeshifting demon leads us, the heaven on earth we expected often turns out to be a living hell.

The devil is one of the most enduring archetypes of human history. For some people, he’s been a literal creature roaming the earth. In Christian theology, he’s seen as a spirit who’s the chief of the fallen angels. But however the devil has been conceived in theology or mythology or psychology, the real demon is in your head. It’s the lying trickster promising whatever it is you want and need the most.

The things that destroy us are typically the things we eagerly accept and even pursue. When evil and heartbreak arrive in our lives, these things don’t typically force their way in. They come in disguise — and we eagerly welcome them in.

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