When I was a boy there appeared a series of films that used the word Follies in the titles. Most famous were the Ziegfield Follies. A year was sometimes attached to the title with the assumption there would be another Follies film the following year. The films were taken as helpful to a public clouded by a great financial depression. Even so, the films were seen for what they were – bits of glamor and illusions of wealth offering visual candy to persons reduced to frugality. The extravagances now appear dated and unrealistic. Cinematic dreams contradicted daily reality. People gained relief in the Follies, through vicarious emotions.
Mankind has a knack for mixing folly with faith, practice, and aspirations in a mix that conjures dream (unreal) reality. An evidence of this is that informal society tries to build the good life on public opinion. There is in the background some good stuff, but the lives of people seem to be guided by current rationalizations that omit serious evaluation. We experience unexamined lives. Many simply live out whatever happens. Knowledge of good and evil is blurred. Contradictions are large. For example, in 1973, 72 % of respondents felt that extramarital (marrieds) sex was wrong and deserved social condemnation. In 2001 the number of respondents condemning the practice rose to 91%. During that period of years, those who condemned premarital (singles) sex significantly declined. It is now presumed less wrong to have sex before marriage, but infidelity has become more heinous. Why the shift? Are we narrow minded when we disapprove of morality shifting? Do we determine right and wrong from public opinion? Morality is firm.
The shifts in beliefs about what is right or wrong, what is convenient or inconvenient, can be demonstrated in many contexts. When I first began to gather materials about the irritating factors in marriages, women stated that their husbands should stay out of the kitchen, if marriages were to be happy. They now say husbands ought to take their turns cooking and washing the dishes. Men once said their wives should stay home and take care of the kids. Now they pressure their wives to work as soon as possible after the birth of a child. Which line is best for society and marriage? A recent public story of a marriage in which the wife pressured the husband to take over daily duties of the household, noted that she then looked down on him for doing so.
We have become a people of significant contradictions. We believe in good health and nutrition but have become an obese society, noted especially as severe in our youth. We believe in the benefits of discipline, education and integrity, but are turning out youngsters unable to read, write and speak well. We do not know how to apply discipline. We may not know what it is, but we know when we don’t have it. What about integrity? Millions misstate their tax reports, some business leaders cheat investors, numerous workers fail their employers (reporting ill on days when they are not) – the list seems to grow longer with each new study. So it is that mankind conjures follies in both silly and serious conduct. We shift opinions, and insist that currency admits the thing to do. The Scriptures warn every generation that: There is a way that seems right to [us], but the ends thereof are the ways of death. We need a right way, but it is revealed from Scripture, not from current popular conduct. So it is that God defines righteousness and assists us in an approved recipe for living. I have asked others to provide for me a better book on the factors of life, family formation, and ideals than those offered in Scripture. I have not yet received a suggestion of a title or other source that would serve as well. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020