All You Need Is Love

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION of the 1960s ran out of steam in the 70s and, whipped about by a militant conservative backlash, collapsed in the 80s. Now we wander aimlessly about trying to regain our footing in a world without standards or any consensus about the meaning of life, about good or evil, about God or mankind.

i he sixties revolution did not fail because its leaders said the wrong things, but because they all to often had no idea what they were saying. They talked about flower power but really believed in political pressure groups; they told everyone to do their own thing and then did their best to stop anyone who didn’t do what they believed was; right.

The reason why the sixties revolution failed is perhaps no more clear than in the claim of The Beatles that All you need is love. What they said was true enough, so long as love was supported by hope and faith. What most people really meant however, was that all we need is lust, and the result has been utterly disastrous. Love centres in self-sacrifice; lust in self-expression. Love is the desire to let oneself be used in the service of others; lust uses others to serve one’s self. Love is expansive; lust cannot see beyond its own desires. Love has been likened to the penetrating power of the sun; lust is more like a black hole in space, sucking everything into nothing.

Our society has no way out of the sixties debacle. The liberals cannot help; they are the result. Conservatives cannot help; they are the victims. Radicals cannot help; they are the perpetrators. Only Catholic Christians can find the way forward, for only they have a place to stand which is not part of this world’s standards. They carp still discover the meaning of love, because they know that its meaning comes from revelation; that we can only love the man or woman next door because God first loves us. We can live a life of personal sacrifice because we cling to the foot of the cross, knowing that it alone is the source of life and the only social revolution that has ever worked.

J.H.H.