America and Europe

The United States is becoming more like Europe and that is not a good thing, according to an opinion piece by Charles Murray titled Thank God America Isn't Like Europe -- Yet in today's The Washington Post.

According to Murray, the problem is

a spreading European mentality that goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible. If that's the purpose of life, then work is not a vocation, but something that interferes with the higher good of leisure. If that's the purpose of life, why have a child, when children are so much trouble? If that's the purpose of life, why spend it worrying about neighbors? If that's the purpose of life, what could possibly be the attraction of a religion that says otherwise?

For more about this issue, see also the article Secularizations by Richard John Neuhaus in the February, 2009, issue of First Things.