We Are Fam-i-lee!

Lisa Nowak, Astronaut,
Gavin Newsome, Mayor of San Francisco,
Mel Gibson, Actor, Director, Producer,
Mark Foley, U.S. Congressman,
Mike Tyson, Former Boxer,...

"In all these instances," [and countless others] "the message is the same: The booze made me do it. Even when some personal fault is acknowledged, the unstated assumption is that once the drinking or drug use is dealt with, everything will be okay."

"This is a prime example of what sociologist Philip Rieff called "the triumph of the therapeutic." In his book by that name, Rieff described the emergence of what he called "psychological man.""

""Psychological man," who was only possible because of Christianity’s declining cultural influence, is the product of a Freudian worldview. It isn’t interested in the good life, but “living well”—that is, with a minimum of emotional and psychological distress. Anything that causes this distress becomes the enemy, including a sense of responsibility and respect for authority."

"But what happens when you do something bad, like having an affair with your friend’s wife? Or trying to kill a rival for your lover’s affections? Well, now, you don’t talk about sin because that has been dispensed with in our culture. So you look for an external cause of the behavior like alcohol or mental illness. You do not punish; you provide “treatment” that deals with these external causes."

"Nonsense! What we need instead is to recover what therapy replaced: sin and individual responsibility, knowledge of right and wrong and the sense of shame that reinforces it. This might be decidedly politically incorrect, but it’s the only thing that will make “better persons” of us all."

From Chuck Colson's article, 'The Booze Didn't Make You Do It', in Townhall.com.