Welcome to the conservative womens network. I am Michelle Easton and thanks to cspan, booktv for covering this excellent author and important new book and thanks to all of you for coming today. This year marks the claire booth center 25th anniversary for preparing and promoting conservative Women Leaders for their primary focus is on college age and some High School Girls and you see the photos on the wall teaching them to be better leaders of the country in the years ahead and inspiring them in policy and work ethic like those we sponsored this event. The womens conservative network is one of our favorites began 23 is over there for the purpose of promoting the best conservative leaders and they are tremendously important messages. Also it brings together women from virginia maryland d. C. And sometimes further to get to know a network with likeminded women and to learn from conservative Women Leaders. Conservative Women Leaders like a walk of memory and renewal. 10 years ago mary wrote in wonderful book entitled adam and eve after the pill, revisited paradoxes of the revolution Previous Year 2023 marys book was republished updated entitled adam and eve after the pill, revisited. Her book is so excellent in explaining the legacy of the revolution revealing the told that the revolution has taken on so much of western society for example she points out instead of lowering the rates of abortion that of wedlock births divorce and fatherlessness it has accelerated all of them and theres so much more in this book. Other outstanding books by mary include primal screams of the revolution created identity politics and how the west really lost got a new theory of secularization and also the letters a common tale of life, and atheism. And the 2010 novel the letters about aa young woman struggling with addiction and rehab and premiered at catholic universities in the fall of 2017. Marys writings have appeared in many places the wall street journal the policy review national review, time to name just a few. Shes a Senior Research fellow at the Faith Institute and holds a chair at the Catholic Information Center in washington d. C. During the Reagan Administration she served as speechwriter to secretary of state George Shultz for two years and she founded the Kirkpatrick Society the Literary Organization which mentors hundreds of riders. Mary graduated magna cum laude with two majors of philosophy and government and she has four children, grown right . And shes married to another celebrated author nicholas eberstadt. Following todays talk in time for questions and hope you will join us for lunch next door and marys book is available a for purchase and she has graciously agreed to sign them for you. Please join me in welcoming a walk of memory and renewal. [applause] thank you michelle for that wonderful introduction and thanks to lindsay and all who made it possible to be here today. Our last time together several years ago for my alltime Favorite Book event and i look forward to our gathering today. Id like to start with some of theba back stories to this new book adam and eve after the pill, revisited. In my mind this new book closes a body of work that began over 10 years ago with its predecessor adam and eve after the pill. I dont mean the last word has been far from it in a most welcome development. New voices are emerging including nonreligious wholy ae newly status quo. Instead an idea that i started developing over a decade ago has now with this new book received the more less systematic treatment. The elevator version of that idea is simple. For six decades the secularizing western society has beenas tellg itself a happy story about the outcome of the revolution. To counter that false reading we have accounted the fallout was closer to the truth. That account i thought should have two parts. One examining post revolutionary reality among individuals other examining the wider world. This unexpected adventure began with a spark a rethink of the papal encyclical issued in 1968 reiterating a traditional christian teaching about marriageia and. Its hard to get across just how transformative that First Reading was for f me trade as a researcher who had studied and written about. Aspects of American Society over the years i knew from various forms of evidence popular as well as expert, that the predictions in that encyclical were not just predictions. They had actually all come true and i get into this more both in the first and the second trade sources abounded especially in social sciences to prove it. What struck me most forcefully was the ancient teachings was being vindicated in inadvertently. Roundly by secular sources. It was not theology that was demonstrating the downside of separating recreation and procreation though no doubt theology can. Instead it was scholarship about subjects like broken homes, Mental Illness interrupted relations between the sexes and lots of other interrelated things. This body of work understood and full to show an effect that ancient teachings however unwanted or ignored it maybe had gotten something right. That perception, that ahhah moment went on to result in the two adam andnd ebooks and their contrarian readings of the revolution. The first one examined what might be called microscopic involvement of contraception. The effect on individual men women and children. Id like to share that some of the first books own fallout came as a surprise that particular the emotional reaction among some readers. After all neither of these books is a work of selfhelp. They are both based on social science in both analytical. And they make no sentimental appeal. And although most authors have tried to avoid weight readers and narcolepsy i do not believe the pros in the first book accounted for this emotional reaction. And yet it was forceful as the volumes made the rounds first in english and in spanish polish and other languages evidence of its unexpected impact continued to accumulate in email and the realm of life. Often following a book talk individuals in the audience would linger and confide their eve after thend pill had changed the way they saw the world. Sometimes even the way they lived. Men and women alike wrote in paying their hard stories of life come of families and children lost through the revolution strikeout, divorce and abortion. Let me offer a few snapshots. In response to one chapter the first but the man who had lived on the street prostituting himself started posting extraordinary commentary about how post revolutionary permissiveness had nearly destroyed him. Another time after his talk was delivered in texas woman approached to confide that the books analysis had somehow convinced her to have more children. And she brought a friend with her and showed me photographs of these kids. Following a speech in ohio in a different year a young woman came forward to tell me that she had traveled some distance to be there just toon give one messag, thatnd chapter netbook had made her understand the pain she had suffered as a child of sexual abuse and she had become a christian after reckoning with it. What to make of these testimonials . After the first adam and ebook three conclusions suggested themselves. These kinds of stories and experiences amounted to an affirmation of the books thesis. The post1960s disorder was generating casualties of all kinds and was not being noticed let alone validated or addressed by secularizing culture in denial. Second it was clear that some readers galvanized by Something Else the idea that the revolution was open for questioning at all. After all ever since the 1960s liberationist have anchored their successes to the inevitability of history. Adam and eve adam and eve after the pill, revisiteds suggestions that these changes might not beth permanent and mit be subject to revision and scraping seemed to some readers readers and that their conclusion also materialized. Rosencrantz and in hamlet that first adam and eve book had wandered into a wider drama. The bucs country and implicitly have the big question at this secular consensus could whitewash the human damage in the name of progress what other critical fallout might it be missing . So this leads us to the book ate hand. Dancing in the darkness adam and eve after the pill, revisited is a new installment in a follow on to a decades Long Research and. Riding. The logic using managed to the first book by the same claim the desire to understand the of the seeds planted in the 1960s. So the new book why does the aperture to talk about the macrocosmic fallout from the revolution. It dissects the revolution on Society Politics in church. Needless to add support by the late great Cardinal Pell with whom i discussed some off the arguments in honor of a lifetime. Lets look at one area covered in the book the revolutions effect on society. The first thing to understand is this. Thanks to the compounding fractures of six decades people today live very differently from the way our ancestors did. Very differently from people across the planet, across history. This is simple arithmetic. Families are smaller, families are broke and. Many people no longer have siblings of the or opposite sex or siblings at all. Abortion continues. More and more kids are growing up without a father. These are all acts of subtraction and i called them acts of human subtraction. Post revolutionary men and women have subtracted potential out of our lives on a scale never seen before. Inadvertently. Really this means a diminished pool of loved ones to count on. It means fewer people to trust and learn from. It means reutimann terry social learning is harder to come by. The differences between men and women, the meaning of marriage the sanctity of motherhood and fatherhood more and more people the vocabulary for these foundational concepts. Postrevolution, the route to fulfillment and joy has become more elusive. It has do be rediscovered or reinvented by people who been deprived again if rudimentary social learning by protection. Consider just some of the empirical evidence illustrating our social integration. We are surrounded by data showing that something about post revolutionary life was inflicting widespread damage. Psychologists cite an unprecedented Mental Health crisis amongpr the young and ths was true for many years before the pandemic. Also at record levels psychotropic medications for adults, illicit and illicit. Across the United States drug overdoses are higher than they have ever been and for the first time in recorded history Life Expectancy is declining. Meanwhile broken children take to the streets sometimes in gangs, sometimes in solitary murders, proving that loneliness fuels. Depths of despair or phrase that did not exist 10 years ago have entered the vernacular. Everybody knows what it means. This tragic recital points to the causality for but as both books argue its the single most important cause of social and it is not yet understood. The hope behind both of these books is to change that misperception and to correct the record for the benefit of people president and to come. Consider briefly a second area discussed in the book, how post revolutionary trends are affecting our politics. The book argues is the primal communitys family and religious faith have become more dysfunctional more and more people have transferred their loyalties and attachments to other groups. In particular groups where they find identity politics are common bond of ethnicity, race, a lgbtq etc. In other words post revolutionary change is at the root of identity politics. These routes operate as substitute families and substitute religious communities or people who dont know the real thing as they used to. As per consider the timeline. The identity politics is relatively new. It first appeared in 1977 in the manifest published by feminist group. In that document the use of praise identity politics and tied to victimization. They make several declarations and charted a new course for american politics. They declared they were giving us a common cause with men. They said the conventional family and conventional community were out of bounds. They said and affect the only people that theyou could trust r people just like them victims who shared the same of oppression. There is a Straight Line from that manifesto in 19772 black lives matter today. That movement also stance against the conventional family. It also declares that coexistence with the Wider Community is somehow unwanted or impossible. T the political wing of what is called a Lgbtq Community is just as absolutist and just as and traditional ideas of tolerance. Its also just on an just on on insistent in dividing nonpolitical universes of two groups allies and enemies. The point here is this whole phenomenon of identity politics the signature politics of our day is borne out of loss. It is borne out at the subtraction of the people mentioned earlier. Identity politics says the most important thing about an individual is not his or her relation to family and to god. Itst is instead that persons status as a victim. These groups command and receive absolute loyalty from f their members the unthinking primal loyalty formerly associated with family. And well all mentioned the third area covered in the book which is the affects of the sexual revolution. As the book shows in detail the churches today are being torn apart because of this very question. Can christianity jettison ancient teachings about marriage or sex without falling into decrepit or can it not . Systems are often accused of being accused ofof sex but but s and was a bogus charge. It tears the churches apart today not different interpretations of the beatitudes or the saints are angels. No, this is all about the sexul revolution. All of the things we see in the church is a just that. Once again the question before us is can christianity, and a christianity that turns its back on 2000 years of moral teachings succeed or can it not . I believe the evidence of the mainline churches about which there is a whole chapter in this new book speaks for itself the the readership assess the evidence and judge for themselves. This brings us to one final point to consider. We are all witnesses here and now to a great irony. It encompasses not only of america but the entire western world. After all western christianity spends most of its time in a crouch and yet all the while evidence from outside the churches continues to point toward something that many people inside the church tents not to know. Christianity practically a bond among all institutions now has been harboring profound truths for 2000 years most notably in this case the truth that living by that big bad difficult rulebook is actually better for human beings then discarding it. To repeat this irony is extraordinary. Even as the call for capitulation to the revolution grows louder transforming and deforming sessions within our churches the evidence thrown out by the world itself continues to point in the opposite direction. In some both adam and eve books make a contrarian argument post revolutionary reality is not what the dominant culture says it is. It is gratifying to know as i mentioned at the outset that today more voices have joined us in that argument including Secular Voices as noted in the footnotes. Youre regardless of public approval both books were driven by humanitarian conviction. The sexual revolution continues to claim many victims. To honor their witness is not some kind of reactionary indulgence. Its instead an attempt to give voice to the voiceless and there needs to be more of this. If my modest hope that both books will persuade believers and unbelievers alike and above all give new hearts to the wounded and those who defend them. Thank you very much. [applause] everybody wants to read the whole book now. A great summary. Here is our first question. Caitlyn has a mic echo just give your name and affiliation if you have one. Thank you so much for that great talk. He traced the movement back to the 60s but im curious if you go back further andof looked at the marxist roots of this . I wouldnt quite go there. I would distinguish two stages ofg the sexual revolution. Obviously sexual mores were changing before the Widespread Adoption of the Birth Control pill and related devices in the early 1960s. For example the first big argument over sex was had by the anglican communion in the 1930s at their annual conference when ithe was decided for the first time in the history of christianity to make certain exceptions for artificial contraception. This is a historical point thats not wellow understood because there was unanimity about this question from the beginning until the 1930s. Thank tangled and community decided in certain circumstances a marriage and in consultations with the pastor etc. Etc. And there was several steps that contraception would be okay. As it turned out that line did notwe hold and in short order there were no more exceptions for married people etc. But i draw attention to that book because it was pivotal within the history of christianity and because that year 1930 suggests there was a rethinking about sex going on well before the Birth Control pill in 1953. [inaudible] my question is with foreign policy. [inaudible] what do you see the relationship and inform policy and have you thought about it and do you think pushing back might have a reverse effect . Thats a great question and one that i have thought about. I think it is obnoxious and unsustainable for americans whether inside the government or as part of ngos to go around the worldng telling people who e almostd always or people that they should make fewer of themselves andth the solutions e to make fewer of themselves. I point to the lack of empathy in that message that is extraordinary. How many of us would like to be told that the solution to our problem is to make fewer of ourselves . Overpopulation and its our responsibility to have fewer children. I think theres a moral hazard here that has gone unaddressed by practically everyone but i know for example some friends in africa who are part of the t university there that when they receive aid from the United States whether government or nongovernmental it often has Strings Attached to attend one example that i was especially striking the University Professor told me that when computers were sent to a sixth class at gift from unknown sources the computers came with a pamphlet about. Pushing the standard version that we see in the newspapers every day. Trying to the stuff to sixthgraders and. [inaudible] how do you propose or what do you propose that we as individuals do that would have some effect on what happens. What is the most productive . All of the above. One analogy that came to mind continuously in the riding of this book was that of tobacco smoking and i say that because theres an analogy here. Decades and decades ago smoking was so prevalent and i can remember when you could smoke in your hospital room. I remember seeing that as a child. Not at the oxygen tanks were resident. People would smoke in the hospital and everywhere else. The world is very different that way today. Try lighting up in here right now and see what happens. So what changed . What changed was that nicotine which was and is an astonishing drug trade what changed was social perception and what arrived is the new consensus based on decades and decades of research about the harms to some people of tobacco smoking and it took a long time for this research to penetrate. I remember very well the first time california banned smoking inside restaurants and yet over time that happened was a social transformation because the information and not because of religious survival or not for any other reason. The fact information about harm eventually trickle down into individual lives. I think Something Like that will have indications in the sexual revolution. I dont know how many of us will be alive to see it because the revisionism is really just starting that we are seeing things we didnt see even 10 years ago. For example there are no longer just religious people that talk about the harm of. Perfectly secular therapists who deal with that talk about it and those themselves who were have come out and talked about it. This is an encouraging belt Encouraging Development in an example of how it could make a difference. [inaudible] i know one thing im concerned about is the suicide rate of our children. They are told in school they are responsible for Global Warming and the revisionism of history. I do know how that ties into the sexual revolution. Theres a lot going on where heros up in the story. [inaudible] what do they have too look forward to . Its a great and very sadon question. First of all we all realize by now i think the internet is throwing gasoline on the fire. And the more kids it can be kept away from the corners the better. Thats encouraging is the number of states that and i wish every state would do this. I wish every school would be mindful of that. The suns and daughters of the pioneers of Silicon Valley dont send their kids to school so they can they are made to write longhand. Again the internet is a big problem. As your opening sentence about suicide and about that i can only say it goes to what i was talking about in the opening about the number of acts of human subtraction and what they have done to people. We have had shootings lately. One of the shooters left a simple note. Said i have no family. I have no friends. Thats where this is coming from. It couldnt have been clear. Theres a way of getting good of the and many people should meditate on this. Im curious on your thoughts regarding future movements to push backdo on this and what do you see right now . And simply being a and people cant do find that t now. Its encouraging during the past three years three books that im aware of written by women, secular women won in france won in germany and one in england have gotten a wide reception and they were all critical of the sexual revolution. In that sense especially since the meat to Movement Women particularly are more open in asking these questions why is it so hard to find a good boyfriend and will i ever get married and other questions that werent quite heard before. Thats all to do good. Thatanger there is sometimes women are arguing among themselves. It would be good to have the guys stand up and take a look inside and outside of the churches etc. The last question well ask us about College Girls. We talk about this subject. We were talking to College Girls at one of our summer seminars about how to be respected and liked and loved this gears towards the two things that most colleges tell them is use contraception and make sure you get tested regularly. These are the only two words of wisdom and they are not getting unlike other guidance. Some girls are in groups and religious groups and they have groups of friends but its so incredibly hard. And we talk about a lot but i wondered if we could talk about the damage that happens to tooen many young women. Higher education treats them like animals. A view of human nature by extension of those kinds of messages to make sure your contraception is a flattened view of human nature and demeaning. And against that we do have versions of human nature and no ideas off what men and women are for. I think we all need to do a better job of getting that and that message goes especially to churches. And about how hard it is on campus today. I am encouraged by the existence of groups that are new on campus. Some of them are religious and some are not. Something called run by dominican friars is on every campus and the others in 10 years ago these things didnt exist and they prove this understanding out there at the great need of this wasteland unfortunately that isnt secular universities today and sometimes their religious universities too. Again thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. [applause] i want to give you our limitededition coffee mug. Courage is the letter on which all other virtues mount. Thank you. Its my favorite color by the way. And want to get a copy of my book how to raise a conservative daughter and covers a lot of areas and certainly the areas you have just discussed. Our thanks and gratitude for all you have done. [applause] scalia was in the of the student and how that shaped him in ways that made him that the judge and a better justice so you can understand how he got to be Justice Scalia without understanding his academic career