THE MORNING RANT: Broken Institutions & the Rot that Ensued from Kicking Out Conservative Institutionalists

Ace had an excellent post last week about the state of institutions that formerly served an important role in society – institutions which were once worthy of respect, but are now irreparably broken. I would like to expand on that, pointing out that the eviction of conservatives from once-great institutions destroyed the foundational structures which sustained them. Without the volunteer labor, financial support, and reverence for an institution’s legacy that conservatives brought, many institutions find themselves in collapse – financially, structurally, and reputationally.

In that post titled Brokenism: The Main Political Battle of Our Time, Ace wrote, “It's between those that recognize our institutions are corrupt and hopelessly broken, and those who continue insisting, in the face of all evidence, that everything's fine and Our Precious Institutions have never been better. They just need ‘preserving’ and ‘protecting’ from people who... criticize them.”

Ace’s subject material was a Tablet piece titled “Brokenism” written by Alana Newhouse. In this piece, Ms. Newhouse relays this from a correspondent of hers:

"I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, I don't even think I could define myself narrowly as either a liberal or a conservative anymore. The one thing I know that I fundamentally do believe is…that the dominant institutions of American life--in education, in the arts, in politics--are either totally broken or so weak or corrupt that they're becoming irrelevant. In a way, the only thing I know that I believe in is brokenness."

Over at Twitter, the always insightful Coddled Affluent Professional offered up this spot-on observation a few months ago: “One of the stupidest things libs have done is kick conservatives out of the institutions. No one is more committed to an institution’s mission, reputation, and good health than a conservative institutionalist. There are so many key tasks that libs lack the work ethic and temperament for that conservatives will just take care of instinctually. Terminal narcissists, the libs were unaware of the free ride they were getting. Now there’s chaos and things are collapsing left and right, and it’s just a bunch of libs shrieking hysterically at each other.

Just one example of many is The Art Institute of Chicago’s determination a few years ago that accepting volunteer labor from white docents is an act of racism…so it fired them.

“Chicago museum fires all of its mostly White female, financially well-off docents for lack of diversity” [Fox News – 10/17/2021]

The Art Institute of Chicago fired all of its trained volunteers and guides last month, who were mostly older White women, to diversify its team.

The firings were apparently sparked by the fact that most of the docent staff was composed of older White, financially well-off women, the outlet reported. Stein said that the museum needed to take a new path "in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of class and income equity, and does not require financial flexibility."

As I noted at the time, “The Art Institute’s endowment is worth in excess of $1 billion. It was probably contributed by the same out-of-favor people who volunteer as docents. To show its commitment to ending racism, the Art Institute must re-distribute its endowment to Chicago’s non-docent class. Anything short of redistributing that full $1B endowment would be racist.” Alas, the Art Institute will keep the money given by the docent class, while also purging the museum of their physical involvement in the museum’s operation.

These actions have consequences. Benjamin Blair had been a contributor to the Art Institute of Chicago. A few months later he wrote this at The Chicago Contrarian.

My annual membership to the venerable institution was up at the end of last year. And when it lapsed, after “Docent Gate,” I responded that my family would not be renewing in an e-mail response to the renewal notice. I told the Art Institute of Chicago “no” on my family membership renewal because the docents were essential to why we loved the museum so much over the years, and that one-sided political advocacy from such an institution was deeply disturbing to me.

On a more personal level, I grew up with the Presbyterian church (PCUSA) that my family attended playing a prominent role. In the 1970s and early ‘80s, much of my social life revolved around that church. The adult role models who helped shape my values were very active in it, and I observed retirees dedicating themselves to the church, both financially and with their time.

The Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) has since collapsed, losing 70% of its membership between 1990 and 2022, dropping from 3.8 million members to 1.1 million. This was due to radical leftists taking over the church. They wear the vestments, but they’ve rejected the tenets of the faith, replacing The Word with left-wing politics. I had had enough and quit the Presbyterian Church about 20 years ago, but my mother hung on until just a couple of years ago, continuing to volunteer her time and money. Her peers kept peeling off, however, and going to non-denominational churches where they receive biblical guidance centered around an actual faith in God and Jesus. My mother, who is in her 80s, is still an active church-goer, but after 60+ years of being in service to the Presbyterian Church, it finally succeeded in running her off, and she now attends a non-denominational church.

Meanwhile the Presbyterian church my mom had been attending is about to close permanently. The kids disappeared when young families stopped bringing their children to a church that treats the rainbow flag as sacred. Sunday School obviously went away too, without children to attend it, nor volunteer parents to teach the children. The choir evaporated, with some volunteer singers choosing to leave for churches that were still vital, while others drifted away when they couldn’t stomach singing hymns that changed the lyrics to a gender-neutralized God. And, without all the retired and empty-nest men offering their time to the church’s upkeep, the grounds and facilities fell into decline.

The old institutions cannot be salvaged. It’s best to think of them as already dead and gone. Let’s defund them, disregard them, and create new institutions where the void needs to be filled.

Iowahawk’s most famous Tweet remains as relevant as ever:

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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