Still, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be in a geographical location where the community still respects traditional virtues. I also find it hard to fault people who have lost faith in the ability of the common culture to do this, and who, in response, have decided that the best thing they can do is to quit worrying about fixing what is, for whatever reason, unfixable, and instead to focus on building new forms of community where the moral life is still possible. As the guy in “Slacker” says, “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy.”

Look at the homeschooling movement. In effect, homeschoolers are saying that they no longer have faith in the public schools to educate their children, morally or otherwise. I have found in talking with various people who oppose homeschooling in theory that they don’t necessarily disagree with the gist of the homeschoolers’ critique of public schooling, but they (the homeschooling opponents) are bothered — to the point of being unnerved — by what the withdrawal of homeschoolers’ children from the public school system means. I’ve had it said to me time and time again, “Homeschooling parents are usually those who care most passionately about their childrens’ education; don’t you think it’s a catastrophe for the whole if those parents and their kids withdraw from the system?” Answer: yes, it’s bad for the whole, but why is it that the kind of people who expect their children to be self-disciplined, to work hard, to be conventionally good kids — why is it that nobody worries about people like that, and their needs? Why are we not trying to make schools a better place for those who have high academic standards, and standards of personal conduct. For those who believe in order (and not just rule-following)?

A relatively minor example, but one that resonates right at this moment: Within the past hour, I stood on the fourth-floor terrace here outside my office in downtown Dallas and watched hundreds of Latino students pour out of the trains and take over a downtown street, waving Mexican flags and acting with indifference to the traffic laws, and the rules — internal self-discipline, to say nothing of school rules — that say they should be in school getting a good education. For the second day, Latino students from all over Dallas public schools are walking out in protest of proposed immigration legislation. You watch: nothing is going to happen to them. There will be no consequences. The establishment will fall all over itself to accommodate their demands. And people like me will sit back and watch this admittedly small thing, but see it as another example of a collapsing common culture with the ability and confidence to defend itself. Like I said, withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy. I care about my children’s character and education, but I don’t believe the common culture, such as it is, does.