But it is even harder for me to give credence to the pessimism behind such fears. What will happen in the short run? I do not know. Which ideas will triumph over the long run? That I do know. In the early '80s, the Soviet Empire appeared to be at its height, but Ronald Reagan, perhaps alone, understood: "The task," President Reagan said then, is "to manage the decline of the Soviet Union." A few years later, a false idea contrary to human nature collapsed in on itself. The Cold War was over, without a shot fired.
Human beings are free to adopt self-destructive ideas, but we are not free to make them work. Ideas based on a faulty view of human nature can grip the imagination of the powerful for decades, wreak havoc and suffering on untold millions, but they cannot triumph in the end. What is contrary to nature, including human nature, cannot ultimately survive.
Many good things, from a culture of civility and minority rights to greater respect for the unique contributions of women, may be rescued from the self-destructive impulses of -- what shall we call this beast, postmodern secularism? Fascist egalitarianism? Meanwhile, every tribe or group that adopts its sex code, from Europe to mainline Protestantism, is dwindling.
The present may look bleak, but the future belongs to those people and cultures that deeply commit to ideas grounded in human nature: Men and women are not interchangeable units, sex has a meaning beyond immediate pleasure, society needs babies, children need mothers and fathers, marriage is a word for the way we join men and women to make the future happen.