Sintropy

There is a natural trend from order to disorder. The second law of thermodynamics asserts that, absent the addition of energy , systems will move from states of higher order to lower order until equilibrium is achieved. Social Entropy Theory looks at macro-sociological systems as entropic systems - in essence seeking an answer to what represents equilibrium in human society. I hope we never find out.

Building, growing, or creating, requires an application of constructive energy. Destruction, on the other hand, can be brought about either by the application of destructive energy, or by the removal of constructive energy, or by some combination of the two. Destruction always has the advantage because it is a force of nature. Avoiding it requires effort.

There are certainly destructive forces at work in the world, but scandals like the harvesting of fetal body parts for profit, or making a large and profitable business out of connecting married people secretly seeking affairs, don't require some massive influx of destructive energy. When the Gosnell case broke, I remember mentioning to a friend that it was striking how sensational something became simply by becoming visible. Gosnell was not an anomaly. What kind of people do we expect to be drawn to such grisly work? Imagine doing what these people do - day in, and day out. The unscrupulous, greedy, unsanitary, back-alley abortion doctors didn't vanish from the face of the earth when abortion became respectable. They just moved off the street and started advertising. I remember hearing years ago about an abortion doctor that was suffering from repetitive motion injury due to the thousands of abortions he had done. Do we really want to know where these people fall on the human equilibrium scale?

Then there is Ashley Madison. If you spend much time on the internet you've probably seen their advertisements - obviously targeted towards men. It's been said that what one generation tolerates, the next will embrace. And, as a society, we tolerate everything these days. Well, everything except virtue. Virtue we mock, ridicule, and fine for not baking cakes. We'll accept any standard low enough to exceed. But set your standards too high, and the most judgmental American generation in history will rejoice in your failings and openly hope for your destruction.  It's a shame that Josh Duggar fell short of the standards he set for himself. It's a greater shame that we live in a society that sees more virtue in not striving for those standards in the first place. A society that has less contempt for the company that preys on the brokenness of its customers than it does for its prey for being broken.

There was a time in Western civilization, and in America in particular, when our heroes were larger than life. A time when we agreed to strive towards standards none of us expected to attain. It's our collective and individual striving for unattainable greatness that pours that constructive energy into the entropic social system. It keeps us moving away from the bedlam of equilibrium.  The "I'm ok, you're ok" and politically correct approach to the issues of the day starve the system of constructive energy. We've gone from encouraging each other towards impossible heights, even in the midst of failure, to reveling in failure free mediocrity by un-defining failure itself.

Before the apostle Paul became a Christian, he was a killer of Christians. Even after becoming a Christian he struggled with his human nature - 

"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?".

In striving to become like Christ he never expected to become like Christ, just more like Christ. It did not keep him from preaching, or encouraging others toward that unattainable standard. His inability to meet that standard didn't keep others from joining him in its pursuit. He certainly wasn't silenced with accusations of hypocrisy or admonitions against "judging".

The effort to shame good people into silence is an effort to remove their constructive energy from society. The effectiveness of that effort grows more visible day by day. Complacency is the ally of destruction. Silence is not neutral. Or in the words of Dietrich Bonhoffer: "Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." There are no sidelines to sit on. Our choice is simply to chose a side, or to let a side chose us.