By Davis Carlton

We live in depressing times. There can be little doubt that things are getting worse rather than better, the juvenile protestations of the #datpostmil crowd notwithstanding. Many on the Right acknowledge this without entirely understanding how we got here or what to do to fix the problem. Problems in contemporary Western society have become so numerous that the future prospects for the average Millennial are truly terrifying. The secular optimism that typified the decades following the Second World War and continued into the 1960s and 70s with promises of peace and universal brotherhood has disappeared among younger generations.

It’s hard to blame younger generations for their pessimism. Younger generations are crippled by student loan debt in a way that their parents and grandparents simply could not imagine. To make matters worse the debt of the U.S. Federal Government is a house of cards that is climbing to incomprehensible heights. Imaginary money propped up by little more than smoke and mirrors will inevitably lead to a collapse of epic proportions.¹ Young people implicitly understand that older generations have mortgaged their future even if their proposed solutions are often worse than the problems that they are supposed to solve. The outlook of many young people exemplifies the attitude, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32, cf. Is. 22:13).

This provides context for a new fad among Millennials called the “death positive movement.” The idea is to come to terms with the reality and inevitability of death so that people make the proper preparations for death and live in the moment. The “death positive movement” seems strikingly similar to the YOLO meme that is about a decade old. YOLO stands for “you only live once” and is used as a justification for low time preference, short-sighted and generally dumb behavior. There truly is nothing new under the sun.

Certainly being prepared for death is something that Christians can support. Just after his fall our first father Adam is told that he will return to the dust from whence he was taken (Gen. 3:19). Christians ought to live soberly with an understanding of the judgment that comes after death in which everything we have said and done will be taken into account (Eccl. 12:14).

Likewise there is a Christian conception of living in the moment by “redeeming the time” (Eph. 5:16). Biblical teaching on the subject of death and the brevity of life ought to inspire Christians to treat suffering and trials as fleeting difficulties that will end in the twinkling of an eye. At the same time Christians ought to understand that we have a limited stake in this life and are thus free to forgo the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake in order to store up our treasure in Heaven (Matt. 6:20-21).

The “death positive movement” is diametrically opposed to these Christian principles. When listening to the proponents of this movement speak it is immediately clear just how much of an oxymoron “death positive” really is. This subject was discussed during an interview of Sean Carroll by Joe Rogan. Carroll is a physicist and staunch atheist, and during their conversation the subject of the meaning of life came up. Joe Rogan clearly struggles with the nihilistic implications of the idea that there is no afterlife and death is the absolute end of our conscious experience.

Sean Carroll states that he doesn’t worry about death the way that he did when he was younger and suggests that we can still have desires about how we want the world to be after we’re gone. Carroll tips his hat to the death positive movement and suggests that people ought to make the most of the time that they have now and plan ahead for death in a way that will minimize suffering and loneliness. All this is well and good, but it does nothing to assuage the very legitimate fear of death that most people experience. The suggestion that we can overcome the pain and fear of death with psychedelic hallucinogens is anything but a “positive” view of death.

The fear of death cannot be overcome by safeguarding one’s social media and online banking passwords and arranging for a postmortem “celebration of life” that expresses peculiar quirks of personality. After we die we will be judged (Heb. 9:27), and this explains why people fear death in a way that they would not if death were simply a matter of going to sleep without waking up. The death positive movement is far more than a generation of young people seeking to be prepared for the future. Many are realizing the nihilistic and fatalistic implications of their godless worldview and are initiating death themselves through self-inflicted or physician-assisted suicide.

Jared Taylor has recently asked why whites are committing suicide over at American Renaissance. The question was prompted by a review of a book by Professor Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychologist and white nationalist. MacDonald suggests that white exceptionalism derives from the unique individualism of white culture and that Christianity and especially Puritanism have warped this spirit and led many whites to pursue reform projects based upon a universal conception of mankind. MacDonald suggests that Puritans preferred “moral community” to kinship ties did not exclude but rather attempted to convert blacks and Indians. MacDonald claims that whites have been imperiled by universalistic moral Crusades inspired by Puritanism.

I certainly don’t intend this to be a full-fledged rebuttal to of Kevin MacDonald or Jared Taylor, but I think that this thesis is flat out wrong. English Protestants who founded the United States placed a premium on kinship. David Hackett Fisher in his magisterial book on English settlement in North America, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, notes that Puritans were the most clannish in their settlement and migration patterns in comparison with other English colonies like Anglican Virginia and Quaker Pennsylvania. The Puritans certainly had some radical tendencies which ended up metastasizing and destroying their theology, but the original orthodox Puritans were thoroughly Kinist and were opposed to everything that Jared Taylor and Kevin MacDonald oppose today. The problem is that Puritans eventually lost their Christian orthodoxy, and this is when their reforming energies were applied to abstract universalistic causes that ultimately proved destructive.

But for all the destruction that these pursuits wrought on Western Civilization, this doesn’t adequately explain the suicidal tendencies of whites today. The Unitarian grandchildren of orthodox Puritans certainly caused more than their fair share of problems, and were rightly denounced by Southern apologists for their meddlesome ways, but in their personal choices and patterns of behavior they were more affirming of traditional Western values than almost any white person today. Many of these liberals continued to support traditional gender roles and oppose sexual degeneracy while procreating in a way that reflected their optimism for the future. I believe that the optimism of these early liberals was based upon their retention of the traditionally optimistic eschatology of orthodox Christianity even after they had forfeited theological orthodoxy.

This situation could not and has not lasted. The policies that theological liberals have espoused have run their course and ruined the prospects of future generations. When orthodox Christian ideas perish, it is only a matter of time until the optimism of Christian eschatology departs along with it. Confidence in God’s provision for the future is what drove white European civilization to achieve at a high level for millennia.

Building Christendom was a multi-generational undertaking. Christians built cathedrals and palaces, composed music, and wrote literature that drew upon the traditions of their remote ancestors with confidence that their labors would be safeguarded and maintained by their descendants. Christians affirmed God’s providential guidance of history and so were able to understand their purpose extended beyond their own individual lifespans to something far greater than the immediate present.

Christian optimism and confidence has given way to nihilism which affirms no foundational meaning or purpose to our existence. Our lives are conceived of as happy accidents that only last a brief period of time with death sure to follow. No cause is worthy of sacrificing one’s time, money, or comfort if there are no ultimate consequences for success or failure. It’s no wonder that this worldview is not conducive with the kind of sacrifices that build and sustain civilization. Suicide rates are increasing as many have abandoned any hope for the future. Jesus, personified as divine wisdom, asserts that “all they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36). This is vindicated in a dying world that has turned its back on God.

I appreciate that nationalists like Kevin MacDonald and Jared Taylor are seeking to address the problem of the suicidal tendencies of whites. But as long as this issue is treated as a merely political or sociological problem they will never arrive at the correct answer. The truth is that the problem of the suicidal tendencies of whites is a spiritual problem. Whites have been tremendously blessed because of our collective adherence to the one true God, and we are being judged for our disobedience. The call for whites to save our heritage and preserve our culture must be a call of repentance and conversion back to Christ. Anything else is just a waste of time.