Embracing the Inner Knight

Sly sent this article from the American Thinker on a topic well familiar to readers of the Hall. 

Parts of it are better than other parts even though it is on a topic near and dear to my heart. For example, of course the CIA doesn't swear an oath to "eschew deceit" as a knight might have done; keeping such an oath would rather eliminate the value of such an agency. Nevertheless the CIA officers who in my youth taught me very much were often the most patriotic of men and women, highly honorable and upright, and loyal to a fault to the American project. That was what allowed such good and honorable people to engage in shadowy projects without losing their core. 

And then there's this section: 

Are we better, as a society, without virtue?  Are we happier, as a people, since the philosophers declared that God is dead?  Do men behave more or less honorably than they did in the past?  Have pornography and the indulgence of strange sexual appetites taught people to respect each other and behave nobly?  Are there fewer rapes and murders now that several generations of men have been disarmed of their masculinity?  Do we kill fewer people during war because we have chosen science over moral conviction?  Are our streets safer because we have decided that decrying sin is too “judgmental” for our modern tastes?  Do we have more selfless heroes, brave knights, and noble leaders in this age?

These are rhetorical questions, but in fact it's hard to say what the truth is about some of them. It seems likely, for example, that there actually are fewer rapes: the crime rate has been falling since 1992, and even though rape reporting is higher among women than in previous generations, there seem to be fewer rapes. The statistics are also muddy because FBI changed its definition in 2013 in order to capture more things as "rape," which gave the appearance of a huge sudden spike but was really an artifact of this definitional change. Even given increased reporting and also a definition change to expand the category, however, we do seem to be down from the 1992 high. I don't of course suppose that men being "disarmed of their masculinity" is the cause of this even if there is a correlation; but the rhetorical question's answer isn't as obvious as the author supposes. 

Likewise, the conclusion: 

But we are not a happy people.  We are not a brave people.  We are not an honorable people willing to fight each day for what is right.  

Speak for yourself, sir. I know some very brave and honorable people, and even a few happy ones.