Starbucks As A Substitute For Spirituality

[PoliticalChic]

1.I came across an interesting essay on Foreignpolicy.com, discussing a phenomenon localized to South Korea….but is actually a condition seen throughout modern society: young people who cannot see a way to a successful financial future.
[ Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge]



According to the author, desperation about their future results in simply giving up preparing for the future, saving, and delaying gratification.
The same can be seen in millennials in our nation.....and I bet throughout Western Civilization.


“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice.



2. …in South Korea, a generation of frustrated young people is reclaiming the idea of frivolous expenses—from cab rides to expensive sushi—as a psychological survival tool dubbed shibal biyong.
Loosely translated to “f**k-it expense,” the term is a compound noun combining shibal (a swearword for frustration) and biyong (expense)…. such as “an impulsive food delivery or a cab ride.”

3. A shibal biyong is an expense that might seem unnecessary but that helps you get through a bad day. It’s the $20 you splurge for a cab home instead of taking the subway after you’ve been denied a promotion or the comforting but expensive sushi you buy after you’ve been berated by your boss. The term implies that you might as well make yourself happy right now because your prospects in the long term seem bleak. Buy that nice coat, because you’ll never get on the housing ladder. Eat that steak, because you’ll never save up enough to retire.”




4. The average Starbucks in NYC is $3.25-$5…..we’re talking about something like $1500 a year. Want a croissant, too? We’re up to about $2500 per annum.
Now add the extra items above….the taxis, the extravagant dinners, the shoes you can’t do without….and your journey into poverty is a self-fulfilling prophesy.





5. I claim that this not a Korean phenomenon, but the ‘Millennial Disease.’ During the last three quarters of a century, Western Civilization has ‘converted’ to a new religion, a most attractive and dynamic one, one which replaces an investment in the next world with the search for materialism in this one.


Whittaker Chambers wrote this in Witness:

“It [Communism] is not new. It is, in fact, man's second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: "Ye shall be as gods." It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man's relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.
It is the vision of man's mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world.”



The need or desire for ‘things’ replaces planning for the future, ours and our children’s. Objects are moved to a higher level than concepts that once ruled our lives.....responsibility, planning for the future, families...honesty.
When nothing matters but that croissant or those new shoes.....the result is a feeling of worthlessness and desperation.


But.....consumer spending is up, Black Friday and all......

 

[Mac-7]

This is a very interesting topic

The first paragraph of you link really caught my attention

“In 2017, young people around the world fired back at an Australian millionaire who chided them for “spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees” and still expecting to be able to buy a home. “

The aussie rich guy has it right while the snowflakes have lost touch with reality

In every generation within free countries some kids understand thst hard word and savings for investment will lead to a brighter future

While others go through life with no clue

See the Aesop Fable about the grasshopper and the ant

Short Stories: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop

 

[PoliticalChic]

This is a very interesting topic

The first paragraph of you link really caught my attention

“In 2017, young people around the world fired back at an Australian millionaire who chided them for “spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees” and still expecting to be able to buy a home. “

The aussie rich guy has it right while the snowflakes have lost touch with reality

In every generation within free countries some kids understand thst hard word and savings for investment will lead to a brighter future

While others go through life with no clue

See the Aesop Fable about the grasshopper and the ant

Short Stories: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop

Gone are the days when parents or the school system teaches that sort of aphorism.....or the allegories we find in the Bible.


Did you notice that in the Foreign Policy story, the author agrees with folks who give up preparing for the future....
“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice."


I fear we are watching the end of our civilization....

 

[Gdjjr]

The need or desire for ‘things’ replaces planning for the future, ours and our children’s. Objects are moved to a higher level than concepts that once ruled our lives.....responsibility, planning for the future, families...honesty.
When nothing matters but that croissant or those new shoes.....the result is a feeling of worthlessness and desperation.

"Things" being bought is what makes the world go round- a lot, if not most, people mature and become more utilitarian. Their "thing" buying changes with the financial status/capability.
It is only an issue IF it's made an issue by someone else. Young people adapt- older people not so well.
I doubt the percentages of kids not worrying about the future has changed much.
I don't see the relation to Starbucks being an issue though. The same could be said about anything one considers frivolous.

OTOH, I remember reading that Native Americans (in the past) tried to imagine 7 years into the future while trying to decide a path- and they were *savages*. After having "God" forced on them they had to worry about the now- like how do they stop the persecution, or eat- were they perfect? No. But neither are proselytizers preaching doom and gloom based on their perceptions.

 

[PoliticalChic]

6. It may be simply the natural course of things, no culture remains forever, and ours may have run its course.
There is a saying ‘Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generation,’ first the hardworking generation, then the one that basks in the success of the first….then the one that expects luxury and leads to a licentious lifestyle…..and loses it all.


An earlier generation was more religious, more prepared to work hard and be guided by restraint and personal responsibility. Parents did without, to make a better life for their children. Today, they simply don’t have children, or….abort ones they could have.

“Liberal columnist Jill Filipovic says having lots of kids is immoral”
Liberal columnist Jill Filipovic says having lots of kids is immoral




The decadence doesn’t come without the sort of pain that the author paints as resulting in the excessive spending that is almost a self-imposed punishment for having given up faith, and replaced it with materialism, Marxism.

7. This is the explanation for “…the collective despair of a generation of South Koreans who find life in their country intolerable because it seems rigged to benefit people born into wealth (like gold spoon kids) or rich enough to emigrate.” Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge



The phenomenon is spending rather than saving…..then complaining of not having enough money…..followed by a belief in socialism rather than capitalism.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The need or desire for ‘things’ replaces planning for the future, ours and our children’s. Objects are moved to a higher level than concepts that once ruled our lives.....responsibility, planning for the future, families...honesty.
When nothing matters but that croissant or those new shoes.....the result is a feeling of worthlessness and desperation.

"Things" being bought is what makes the world go round- a lot, if not most, people mature and become more utilitarian. Their "thing" buying changes with the financial status/capability.
It is only an issue IF it's made an issue by someone else. Young people adapt- older people not so well.
I doubt the percentages of kids not worrying about the future has changed much.
I don't see the relation to Starbucks being an issue though. The same could be said about anything one considers frivolous.

OTOH, I remember reading that Native Americans (in the past) tried to imagine 7 years into the future while trying to decide a path- and they were *savages*. After having "God" forced on them they had to worry about the now- like how do they stop the persecution, or eat- were they perfect? No. But neither are proselytizers preaching doom and gloom based on their perceptions.

The thread is about advanced societies that may have reached the end of the line, largely because of the acceptance of materialism.
There is no place in this thread to include the imaginary 'Native Americans.'

There were none.

'Indians' came to North America from Asia, just as settlers came to North America from Europe.
Neither were 'native.'

The former were Beringians, and without the benefits that Europeans brought....religion and capitalism....they would have slaughtered each other to extinction, as they did with untold numbers of organism that once existed here.

The Indians were stone age savages, and nothing else.....thousands of years behind the settlers in societal and intellectual development.



You are the poster who brags about not having attended school?


It shows.

 

[Gdjjr]

The thread is about advanced societies that may have reached the end of the line, largely because of the acceptance of materialism.
There is no place in this thread to include the imaginary 'Native Americans.'

There were none.

'Indians' came to North America from Asia, just as settlers came to North America from Europe.
Neither were 'native.'

The former were Beringians, and without the benefits that Europeans brought....religion and capitalism....they would have slaughtered each other to extinction, as they did with untold numbers of organism that once existed here.

The Indians were stone age savages, and nothing else.....thousands of years behind the settlers in societal and intellectual development.



You are the poster who brags about not having attended school?


It shows.

Brag? No, That's you twit. (you're never wrong, so you say- LOL) I pointed out some things you can't brag about- and, you are probably a part of the crowd that believed yourself to be something you ain't. Smart. I don't claim or make threads showing how smart I ain't- I present contrarian views you don't like. Try to show me where I'm wrong.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The thread is about advanced societies that may have reached the end of the line, largely because of the acceptance of materialism.
There is no place in this thread to include the imaginary 'Native Americans.'

There were none.

'Indians' came to North America from Asia, just as settlers came to North America from Europe.
Neither were 'native.'

The former were Beringians, and without the benefits that Europeans brought....religion and capitalism....they would have slaughtered each other to extinction, as they did with untold numbers of organism that once existed here.

The Indians were stone age savages, and nothing else.....thousands of years behind the settlers in societal and intellectual development.



You are the poster who brags about not having attended school?


It shows.

Brag? No, That's you twit. (you're never wrong, so you say- LOL) I pointed out some things you can't brag about- and, you are probably a part of the crowd that believed yourself to be something you ain't. Smart. I don't claim or make threads showing how smart I ain't- I present contrarian views you don't like. Try to show me where I'm wrong.

"That's you twit. (you're never wrong, so you say-"

I believe you've just helped prove it......clearly unnecessary.



"I present contrarian views you don't like. Try to show me where I'm wrong."

I just did: there are no 'native' Americans.



"Smart. I don't claim or make threads showing how smart I ain't-"

You can say that again.





What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

 

[Gdjjr]

What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

LOL- look in a mirror- and hope it doesn't break

I believe you've just helped prove it......clearly unnecessary.

Actually, you've proved my point- you're a self aggrandizing, sanctimonious twit that thinks(?) their shit don't stink-
Can you "prove" what I said is wrong? No? Imagine that.
Come on, twit- give evidence what I said is wrong- did Native Americans not have "God" forced on them? Did they not worry about the persecutions by Christians? Were they not "savages"?

 

[DOTR]

The need or desire for ‘things’ replaces planning for the future, ours and our children’s. Objects are moved to a higher level than concepts that once ruled our lives.....responsibility, planning for the future, families...honesty.
When nothing matters but that croissant or those new shoes.....the result is a feeling of worthlessness and desperation.

"Things" being bought is what makes the world go round- a lot, if not most, people mature and become more utilitarian. Their "thing" buying changes with the financial status/capability.
It is only an issue IF it's made an issue by someone else. Young people adapt- older people not so well.
I doubt the percentages of kids not worrying about the future has changed much.
I don't see the relation to Starbucks being an issue though. The same could be said about anything one considers frivolous.

OTOH, I remember reading that Native Americans (in the past) tried to imagine 7 years into the future while trying to decide a path- and they were *savages*. After having "God" forced on them they had to worry about the now- like how do they stop the persecution, or eat- were they perfect? No. But neither are proselytizers preaching doom and gloom based on their perceptions.

The thread is about advanced societies that may have reached the end of the line, largely because of the acceptance of materialism.
There is no place in this thread to include the imaginary 'Native Americans.'

There were none.

'Indians' came to North America from Asia, just as settlers came to North America from Europe.
Neither were 'native.'

The former were Beringians, and without the benefits that Europeans brought....religion and capitalism....they would have slaughtered each other to extinction, as they did with untold numbers of organism that once existed here.

The Indians were stone age savages, and nothing else.....thousands of years behind the settlers in societal and intellectual development.



You are the poster who brags about not having attended school?


It shows.

They preach nihilism to our kids and the non-reproductive lifestyle. They attack our culture and the family unit and instead promote a rootless bohemian live for today and spend all you got lifestyle.
And they worship barbarian civilizations...or any civilization besides our own.
Satanic.

 

[PoliticalChic]

What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

LOL- look in a mirror- and hope it doesn't break

I believe you've just helped prove it......clearly unnecessary.

Actually, you've proved my point- you're a self aggrandizing, sanctimonious twit that thinks(?) their shit don't stink-
Can you "prove" what I said is wrong? No? Imagine that.
Come on, twit- give evidence what I said is wrong- did Native Americans not have "God" forced on them? Did they not worry about the persecutions by Christians? Were they not "savages"?

As usual, we find vulgarity as the hallmark of the ignorant.

Re-post sans the vulgarity and I may honor you with more of the education you so sorely require.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The need or desire for ‘things’ replaces planning for the future, ours and our children’s. Objects are moved to a higher level than concepts that once ruled our lives.....responsibility, planning for the future, families...honesty.
When nothing matters but that croissant or those new shoes.....the result is a feeling of worthlessness and desperation.

"Things" being bought is what makes the world go round- a lot, if not most, people mature and become more utilitarian. Their "thing" buying changes with the financial status/capability.
It is only an issue IF it's made an issue by someone else. Young people adapt- older people not so well.
I doubt the percentages of kids not worrying about the future has changed much.
I don't see the relation to Starbucks being an issue though. The same could be said about anything one considers frivolous.

OTOH, I remember reading that Native Americans (in the past) tried to imagine 7 years into the future while trying to decide a path- and they were *savages*. After having "God" forced on them they had to worry about the now- like how do they stop the persecution, or eat- were they perfect? No. But neither are proselytizers preaching doom and gloom based on their perceptions.

The thread is about advanced societies that may have reached the end of the line, largely because of the acceptance of materialism.
There is no place in this thread to include the imaginary 'Native Americans.'

There were none.

'Indians' came to North America from Asia, just as settlers came to North America from Europe.
Neither were 'native.'

The former were Beringians, and without the benefits that Europeans brought....religion and capitalism....they would have slaughtered each other to extinction, as they did with untold numbers of organism that once existed here.

The Indians were stone age savages, and nothing else.....thousands of years behind the settlers in societal and intellectual development.



You are the poster who brags about not having attended school?


It shows.

They preach nihilism to our kids and the non-reproductive lifestyle. They attack our culture and the family unit and instead promote a rootless bohemian live for today and spend all you got lifestyle.
And they worship barbarian civilizations...or any civilization besides our own.
Satanic.

You couldn't be more correct, DOTR....

For me, the problem is that their 'religion' is the most dynamic in a century, and I find it difficult to see their retreat.....


Perhaps I will include Emilia Clarke's soliloquy later, as a ray of hope in a dark, dark future.

 

[PoliticalChic]

8. It is debatable whether the rash spending comes before the feeling of hopelessness, or as this author states, the spending is to assuage the hopelessness.

“The title of a recent South Korean bestselling book, I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), captures the essence of shibal biyong. Or as BTS, the most famous Korean boy band, sings in “Go Go”: “No money but I want to eat Jiro Ono [sushi] / worked hard to get my pay / … / let me be even if I overspend / even if I break apart my savings tomorrow.”

According to one survey from 2017, the usual maximum amount people spent on a single shibal biyong was around $90. The rate of increase in consumer spending among millennials—those born in the early 1980s to mid-1990s—since 2014 is twice as high as that of baby boomers, according to credit and debit card usage data obtained by South Korean media last year. At this pace, by 2020 the average millennial may outspend the average baby boomer (a generation that in Korea is a decade younger than its U.S. counterpart, dating to the boom at the end of the Korean War), despite having far less wealth.” Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge




…..but it is not just a Korean phenomenon.

Here, the same folks who are behaving as those South Korean youth are, demand wealth taken from others:

"POLL: Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism
Posted by Kemberlee Kaye Monday, August 13, 2018 at 7:00pm

Only 47% of Democrats view capitalism positively
A new poll released by Gallup shows that for the first time in over a decade, Democrats are more passionate about socialism, viewing it more positively than capitalism."

Notably, only 47% of Democrats view capitalism positively, a drop of 9 points (from 56%) in only two years."
POLL: Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism



When one embraces socialism, he has left the religion of our Founders behind.

 

[Mac-7]

This is a very interesting topic

The first paragraph of you link really caught my attention

“In 2017, young people around the world fired back at an Australian millionaire who chided them for “spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees” and still expecting to be able to buy a home. “

The aussie rich guy has it right while the snowflakes have lost touch with reality

In every generation within free countries some kids understand thst hard word and savings for investment will lead to a brighter future

While others go through life with no clue

See the Aesop Fable about the grasshopper and the ant

Short Stories: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop

Gone are the days when parents or the school system teaches that sort of aphorism.....or the allegories we find in the Bible.


Did you notice that in the Foreign Policy story, the author agrees with folks who give up preparing for the future....
“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice."


I fear we are watching the end of our civilization....

Popular media has a very strong influence on people under 30

When the message is always negative its understandable that the weakest links choose to live only for today

 

[PoliticalChic]

This is a very interesting topic

The first paragraph of you link really caught my attention

“In 2017, young people around the world fired back at an Australian millionaire who chided them for “spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees” and still expecting to be able to buy a home. “

The aussie rich guy has it right while the snowflakes have lost touch with reality

In every generation within free countries some kids understand thst hard word and savings for investment will lead to a brighter future

While others go through life with no clue

See the Aesop Fable about the grasshopper and the ant

Short Stories: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop

Gone are the days when parents or the school system teaches that sort of aphorism.....or the allegories we find in the Bible.


Did you notice that in the Foreign Policy story, the author agrees with folks who give up preparing for the future....
“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice."


I fear we are watching the end of our civilization....

Popular media has a very strong influence on people under 30

When the message is always negative its understandable that the weakest links choose to live only for today

And this has what to do with the post linked to?

 

[Mac-7]

This is a very interesting topic

The first paragraph of you link really caught my attention

“In 2017, young people around the world fired back at an Australian millionaire who chided them for “spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees” and still expecting to be able to buy a home. “

The aussie rich guy has it right while the snowflakes have lost touch with reality

In every generation within free countries some kids understand thst hard word and savings for investment will lead to a brighter future

While others go through life with no clue

See the Aesop Fable about the grasshopper and the ant

Short Stories: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop

Gone are the days when parents or the school system teaches that sort of aphorism.....or the allegories we find in the Bible.


Did you notice that in the Foreign Policy story, the author agrees with folks who give up preparing for the future....
“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice."


I fear we are watching the end of our civilization....

Popular media has a very strong influence on people under 30

When the message is always negative its understandable that the weakest links choose to live only for today

And this has what to do with the post linked to?

The reason they are so depressed is the negative message in the popular media

They are nothing like the generation that pulled S Korea up from the 3rd World to leading 1st World nation

 

[PoliticalChic]

This is a very interesting topic

The first paragraph of you link really caught my attention

“In 2017, young people around the world fired back at an Australian millionaire who chided them for “spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees” and still expecting to be able to buy a home. “

The aussie rich guy has it right while the snowflakes have lost touch with reality

In every generation within free countries some kids understand thst hard word and savings for investment will lead to a brighter future

While others go through life with no clue

See the Aesop Fable about the grasshopper and the ant

Short Stories: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop

Gone are the days when parents or the school system teaches that sort of aphorism.....or the allegories we find in the Bible.


Did you notice that in the Foreign Policy story, the author agrees with folks who give up preparing for the future....
“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice."


I fear we are watching the end of our civilization....

Popular media has a very strong influence on people under 30

When the message is always negative its understandable that the weakest links choose to live only for today

And this has what to do with the post linked to?

The reason they are so depressed is the negative message in the popular media

Isn't it malfeasance of parents, and weakness in the individual to allow themselves to be so manipulated?

Maybe the famous quotes by Nazi propagandist Goebbels....or, as Al Sharpton calls him, 'gurgles'.....is correct., "...a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

 

[Mac-7]

This is a very interesting topic

The first paragraph of you link really caught my attention

“In 2017, young people around the world fired back at an Australian millionaire who chided them for “spending $40 a day on smashed avocado and coffees” and still expecting to be able to buy a home. “

The aussie rich guy has it right while the snowflakes have lost touch with reality

In every generation within free countries some kids understand thst hard word and savings for investment will lead to a brighter future

While others go through life with no clue

See the Aesop Fable about the grasshopper and the ant

Short Stories: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop

Gone are the days when parents or the school system teaches that sort of aphorism.....or the allegories we find in the Bible.


Did you notice that in the Foreign Policy story, the author agrees with folks who give up preparing for the future....
“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice."


I fear we are watching the end of our civilization....

Popular media has a very strong influence on people under 30

When the message is always negative its understandable that the weakest links choose to live only for today

And this has what to do with the post linked to?

The reason they are so depressed is the negative message in the popular media

Isn't it malfeasance of parents, and weakness in the individual to allow themselves to be so manipulated?

Maybe the famous quotes by Nazi propagandist Goebbels....or, as Al Sharpton calls him, 'gurgles'.....is correct., "...a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

I wonder if these kids in S Korea are being raise much like the Baby Boomer generation in America

I think the biggest mistake parents who grew up during the Great Depression made was to spoil their children rotten

 

[PoliticalChic]

Gone are the days when parents or the school system teaches that sort of aphorism.....or the allegories we find in the Bible.


Did you notice that in the Foreign Policy story, the author agrees with folks who give up preparing for the future....
“Why Young Koreans Love to Splurge
Sometimes blowing your paycheck can be a rational choice."


I fear we are watching the end of our civilization....

Popular media has a very strong influence on people under 30

When the message is always negative its understandable that the weakest links choose to live only for today

And this has what to do with the post linked to?

The reason they are so depressed is the negative message in the popular media

Isn't it malfeasance of parents, and weakness in the individual to allow themselves to be so manipulated?

Maybe the famous quotes by Nazi propagandist Goebbels....or, as Al Sharpton calls him, 'gurgles'.....is correct., "...a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

I wonder if these kids in S Korea are being raise much like the Baby Boomer generation in America

I think the biggest mistake parents who grew up during the Great Depression made was to spoil their children rotten

Exactly my point.

Nationality is less a factor than upbringing.


I can definitely say that my South Korean parents didn't bring us up that way.

 

[DOTR]

The need or desire for ‘things’ replaces planning for the future, ours and our children’s. Objects are moved to a higher level than concepts that once ruled our lives.....responsibility, planning for the future, families...honesty.
When nothing matters but that croissant or those new shoes.....the result is a feeling of worthlessness and desperation.

"Things" being bought is what makes the world go round- a lot, if not most, people mature and become more utilitarian. Their "thing" buying changes with the financial status/capability.
It is only an issue IF it's made an issue by someone else. Young people adapt- older people not so well.
I doubt the percentages of kids not worrying about the future has changed much.
I don't see the relation to Starbucks being an issue though. The same could be said about anything one considers frivolous.

OTOH, I remember reading that Native Americans (in the past) tried to imagine 7 years into the future while trying to decide a path- and they were *savages*. After having "God" forced on them they had to worry about the now- like how do they stop the persecution, or eat- were they perfect? No. But neither are proselytizers preaching doom and gloom based on their perceptions.

The thread is about advanced societies that may have reached the end of the line, largely because of the acceptance of materialism.
There is no place in this thread to include the imaginary 'Native Americans.'

There were none.

'Indians' came to North America from Asia, just as settlers came to North America from Europe.
Neither were 'native.'

The former were Beringians, and without the benefits that Europeans brought....religion and capitalism....they would have slaughtered each other to extinction, as they did with untold numbers of organism that once existed here.

The Indians were stone age savages, and nothing else.....thousands of years behind the settlers in societal and intellectual development.



You are the poster who brags about not having attended school?


It shows.

They preach nihilism to our kids and the non-reproductive lifestyle. They attack our culture and the family unit and instead promote a rootless bohemian live for today and spend all you got lifestyle.
And they worship barbarian civilizations...or any civilization besides our own.
Satanic.

You couldn't be more correct, DOTR....

For me, the problem is that their 'religion' is the most dynamic in a century, and I find it difficult to see their retreat.....
.

Know who the enemy is. You cant convert them or reason with them or meet them halfway because it is madness, evil and mental illness led by an amoral elite which we face. It is civilization against chaos (which may partially explain their worship of Indians and other barbaric groups).
And it is nothing new so dont get depressed over it. Remember...when the Communists fell in the Eastern Bloc the church they persecuted was still there.

"In this very short space of time they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy: their church; their nobility; their law; their revenue; their army; their navy; their commerce; their arts; and their manufactures. They now are lying in a sort of trance—an epileptic fit—exposed to the pity or derision of mankind, in wild ridiculous convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out their brains against the pavement.... Instead of this they first destroyed all the ballances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it a steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongruous mass of mob and democracy. And when they had done this with a perfidy most unexampled and atrocious, they laid the Axe to the root of all property of all national prosperity by confiscating the possessions of the church. They next proceeded systematically to destroy every hold of authority civil or religious on the minds of the people by making and recording a sort of institute or digest of Anarchy called the rights of man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as wou’d disgrace the imbecility of schoolboys..Their savage war whoop is “A l’Aristocrat” and by this senseless bloody cry they animate one another to rapine and to murder: while abetted by ambitious men of another class they are crushing all that is virtuous or respectable.
Let us shudder at our present danger of being influenced by a people whose character knows no medium between despotism and anarchy—no medium between the bigotry of superstition and the madness of Atheism—Atheism that foul unnatural vice foe to all the dignity and consolation of man...Let us beware of being led through an illegitimate admiration of successful fraud and outrageous violence to an imitation of the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating plundering ferocious bloody and tyrannical democracy."
Edmund Burke 1790


...led on by rash demagogues...Then the magistrates and chiefs... are pursued, impeached, insulted, and called oppressors, kings, and tyrants.”
"And in this condition of things, it follows, of course, that there is an unrestrained license in a government of this kind; so that every private family is without any government: and this evil extends even to the beasts. At length the father fears the son—the son disregards the father: every sort of decency is extinguished, that an open license may prevail. Nothing distinguishes the citizen from the stranger. The master pays court to his scholars, that he may be flattered by them. Teachers are despised by their disciples. Young persons take upon themselves the authority of aged ones, who abase themselves to mingle in their games, lest they become odious and burdensome to them. At last slaves give themselves all sorts of liberties. Wives assume the privileges of their husbands. Nay the dogs, the horses, the asses at length are so infected with liberty, and run kicking about so, that it is absolutely necessary to get out of their way. Wherefore from this infinite license these things result, that the minds of the citizens become so scornful and impatient, that if the least power of government is exercised, they become exasperated and will not endure it; whence they come to despise every kind of law, that they may be without the least restraint whatever.”
Cicero