Hell on Earth: Worst Events of the 20th Century

The five worst happenings of the last century:  5 is the many outbreaks of ethnic and genocidal hatred and violence; 4 is Nazism, genocide of the Jews and World War II; 3 is Stalin and the reign of Communism for most of the century; 2 is the Maoist Cultural Revolution which destroyed a huge, ancient civilization; and 1, the worst which continues into the current millennium, is the Cultural Revolution of the West.

The first four share a similar type: hellish outbreaks of demonic, vile hatred that attempted to destroy entire peoples. The last, and worst, however is the most subtle, deceptive, pernicious and powerful. It peaked in the explosion of 1968, continues to spread around the globe even now. It masquerades as a pacifism as it systematically kills the most powerless, especially the unborn; it presents as liberation as it efficaciously destroys the human person as creature, relationship, community, and image of God. It is the confluence, a "perfect storm" of five diabolical developments.

1. The forgetting, explicit or implicit, of God and all that is sacred and holy.
2. The renunciation of authority, tradition and bonds of religious community in favor of the hegemony of the autonomous, isolated Self.
3.  The release of sexuality from its unitive/fruitful nature and purpose.
4. Deconstruction of masculinity and femininity and the loss of filiality, spousality, paternity, maternity and fraternity in favor of the neutered individual as a unit of consumption and production.
5. The illusion of technology and technocracy as a divinity capable of saving mankind.

The net effect of these forces is to tear the person away from being embedded in family, faith and community (that reaches into past and future) as a gendered, relational creature and leave the individual alone, isolated, uprooted, without memory or hope, void of purpose and connection. It presumes to be the liberation of the individual and assumes a posture of superiority, righteousness, and arrogance. It has attained a mimetic, contagious ferocity as it sweeps over the globe and devours our youth.