No school girls "gone wild" because of high humidity.

Some ridiculous studies in the U.S. have been tracing the higher rate in crime to heat waves. Now, my ancestors on the prairies of Iowa did not have air conditioning, nor did my ancestors on the ranches in Oregon.

People slept in the heat, ate in the heat, worked in the heat. They got rich in the heat, had lots of babies in the heat, and died as good Catholics in the heat. Women wore heavy. long sleeved blouses, and copious layers of skirts. Men wore long shirts to shield their arms from the sun. They lived a long time. My great-grandmother on the Oregon Trail died a week before she reached 100 years of age. She never had "air" in her life. My grandmother died at 94. She had "air" for a few years.

And, if one grows up on the Mississippi River, one knows what humidity is.

So, modern people need air conditioning to sleep, and get irritable in the heat. What happened to the life of virtue? What happened to coping with being uncomfortable? We have become soft, but not for long.

When I was in grade school, there was no air conditioning. We managed. By May 1st, temperatures in Iowa could easily be in the high 80s Fahrenheit. We managed. Same was true for high school, and we wore uniforms. We never thought of complaining. The weather was just that. The climate was just that. Nor did we commit horrible crimes after school in our green, heavy pleated skirts and blazers. No school girls gone wild because of high humidity.

So, why are social-psychologists making a connection to heat and crime, blaming sleep deprivation, stimulated hypothalami, and general grumpiness on the heat?

One simple reason: those in the world of science or, pseudo-science, if you prefer, cannot deal with the simple fact that two generations have been raised without a moral framework or without moral consequences.

The "time-out" bench did not work. And, the omitting of Faith-based education has created many malformed consciences, consciences which have no means of determining right or wrong, except for how persons "feel" at any particular moment,

To blame crime on the heat borders on magical thinking-like the pagans, who read signs and saw omens in the "entrails of an owl". To blame nature in general, (or climate or darkness), for bad behaviour has become a popular trend in psychoanalysis. Now, I have two members in my family who suffer from what is called seasonal affective disorder or SAD. For years, one travelled to Arizona on a regular basis to get away from the long, dark winters of Iowa. She never committed a crime, however. She knew her moral boundaries. The other coped, staying in cold, dark Iowa during the winters, and remained a virtuous woman as well. SAD was, for both of them, a personal cross.

I think the so-called modern world is falling back into pagan ways of thinking and a moral softness. The ancients prayed to their gods for prosperity, rain, abundant harvests, victory over their enemies, and then blamed the gods if their prayers were not answered. Only, now, modern gods are socialist governments.

The Hebrews were the only people who blamed themselves for disaster, and if one reads the Pentateuch, one sees the ebb and flow of sin and punishment. But, the People of God did not blame the heat-never. Read Joshua, Maccabees, and so on. God punished His People. We are possibly entering into a great time of purification of the Church, that is, the People of God. But, Catholics must think like Catholics.

We are sliding back into magical thinking in many ways. Any type of thinking which exonerates each one's personal responsibility to create a peaceful and ordered society will lead to more and more societal dysfunction.

Social dysfunction is the name of the game in Great Britain and in the States. When we remove the traditional, glorious Rule of Law based on the Greco-Romano-Judaic-Christian traditions of Western Civilization, and when we depart completely from natural law philosophy, whatever a government, or a people, or a cult suggests is law will be law. The law will be what Parliament or Congress or the President or Supreme Court decides it will be. The law will be what the EU Court of Justice will decide it will be. No framework of morals outside the relativism of the lawmakers and judges will determine laws.

Neo-paganism,  polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, and  animism are on the rise in what used to be Christian nations. The growth of these "isms" is directly related to relativism and individualism. Some of these "isms" fall under the larger grouping of New Age religious beliefs, many of which involve magical thinking, and, sadly, many which are followed by so-called Catholics.

As Catholics, we need to be aware of these types of faulty thinking and any magical thinking. 

We need to think like Catholics. Get strong..

DISCLAIMER--I had not read Chesterton's Essay found here  http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/misc.html#2H_4_0010 which was just bought to my attention.