The Power of Self-Selection
The power of “No” and the foolishness of enabling
In recent weeks, three departures have gotten my attention: a family fleeing Florida because scary Gov. Ron DeSantis has outlawed “gender affirming care” of minors, the Rez Austin church leaving the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and Elevation church leaving the Southern Baptists (SBC).
I wrote about the latter two earlier this week.
Obviously these departures are different in some ways. For one thing, Rez Austin and Elevation are showing much more class. They aren’t flouncing and playing the victim for the cameras like the ex-Florida family did. But all three illustrate the power of self-selection.
The term “self-selection” means different things depending on the context, so I best define what I mean here. By self-selection, I mean the tendency of many people to move out of situations in which their conduct and/or values are not welcome and difficult to continue to where their conduct/values are welcome or at least enabled. The conduct can either be positive or negative.
And the result for a community can be either positive or negative. A simple example is typical anti-social “homeless” behavior. (Note that I am not talking about the atypical situation of someone temporarily down on their luck.) “Homeless” will go where they are hassled and restricted the least or even rewarded for their behavior. (Weather is a factor as well, but leaving that aside…) Hence they will go to cities where they are allowed to camp even in parks and streets. And if they are unlikely to be arrested for openly buying and using drugs, defecating on the streets, aggressive panhandling and other anti-social behavior, all the better. Hence, the increase in homeless problems in L. A., San Francisco, and Seattle.
By contrast, in my community, we had a growing homeless problem about three or four years ago. Back then a number of us saw our situation was bad and getting worse, so we organized and made it clear in a number of legal ways that we were not going to put up with anti-social behavior. We non-violently ran off a lot of anti-social people, such as those trespassing and blocking sidewalks, and we kept at it. The police were supportive, and we worked together. And now our situation has improved markedly while, up the highway, Austin’s has gotten much worse.
Thus one does have to force “homeless” to depart here to move there. They will self-select, i. e. they will themselves choose to move away from where their conduct is unwelcome and made difficult to where it is enabled.
I select the above example because of its simplicity, not at all because I equate Elevation or Rez Austin with anti-social homeless. I do not. But those churches as well as with the Florida family that transed their child have also engaged in self-selection. Nobody was forcing them to move out of Florida or to leave their denominations. But they did so because enough people in the state/denomination made clear that key aspects of their conduct and values were not welcome.
And this is good for Florida. If people who are fine with child mutilation move out, that makes the state and its politics even better. This is good for the SBC and ACNA. In ACNA’s case, the woke who have infiltrated us have been a problem that undermines our faithfulness and enflames our divisions. But ACNA still has managed to say “no” to wokeness enough that Rez Austin and other woke are leaving. It would be better if the woke would repent and stay, but that is not happening for the most part, which is sad.
Back to the states, self-selection is now happening on a historic scale. California is net losing people, I think for the first time since the Gold Rush went bust, as people flee crime, unlivable conditions, high taxes and regulations, hostility to free speech, COVID tyranny and more. California, Seattle, New York, Chicago etc. have long had issues, thanks largely to being one-party Democrat enclaves, but now matters are well past a tipping point (thanks in large part to applied Critical Theory), and people are fleeing. The flight may accelerate as a few states are passing laws requiring parents to provide “gender affirming care” to their children.
As for red states like Florida and Texas, far more people are fleeing to them than fleeing away. Whether the overall effect on those states is positive is not clear. There is a sort of person, typically from California, that departs bad conditions they helped create by voting for Democrats only to vote for Democrats in their new location. Austin is plagued by these, and that is one reason Austin has become less livable (although I would still much rather live there than California).
But many have fled to Texas and Florida in part because they like red state policies and support them. In the meantime, as mentioned, at least a few who don’t like red state policies flee or stay away. I think these good trends outweigh the incoming parasites. But I’m not sure.
So I do not know the net effect of all this self-selection. But there is no question that the self-selection going on in America today is massive. It will be interesting to watch and see what the long term result will be in the states and in the country. But you know that old curse about “interesting times” . . .
But don’t just watch. In your community and state*, do your part (legally and ethically) to make unacceptable conduct unwelcome and to welcome decent conduct and values. That combined with self-selection can do more good than you might expect.
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NOTE:
*As for churches, it can be more complicated. We should welcome sinners (which are all of us) but not affirm sin. Also, we should protect those who come to church. For example, no one should have to be in fear from dangerous criminals on church grounds when they come to church. My church is not in the best neighborhood, so that has been an issue for us.
Also, all individuals, especially seekers and new Christians, come with some mistaken views. I remember I remained pro-abortion for maybe a couple years after I became a Christian. So grace is needed. But if someone in leadership or a whole parish pushes abortion or wokeness, that is a different matter. So in my view, a woke church leaving my denomination is good overall. But if an individual with rainbow pins visits my parish with a respectful attitude, she should be welcomed and invited back.
Like I say, it’s complicated. I guess the best way to put it is a church needs to be welcoming, but not affirming or enabling. Yes, easier said than done!
By the way, there is big self-selection by design among Methodists now as well as a messier self-selection for decades in other denominations. But that is too huge a topic to continue now.
Self-selection is a huge topic for that matter. I freely confess may have oversimplified it and may have to revisit it.
"I've come to believe that a partial solution to this would be to arrest and hospitalize the homeless, subject them to every test medicine has within reason, and force into treatment those who are sick in some way or who have substance addiction. It's expensive, civil liberties maniacs on the left and right would howl, federal courts would have to find such policies licit, and only a Christianization of the United States can really make a difference, ultimately."
The road to you-know-where, as the old saying goes, is paved with good intentions. A lot of our problems with homelessness began with de-institutionalization, also known as "mainstreaming," of mental patients – whether their presenting factor is traumatic brain injury, or some other cause. But because some mental patients, at some hospitals, were being abused, rather than directly and effectively address that specific issue, the decision was made to basically release everybody, or at least a great number of people who should not have been released (and subsequently, to not institutionalize a lot of people who should have been institutionalized). And what any level-headed individual might have predicted is the result.
And yes, I have come near to homelessness for a period of time, myself, due to a job loss during the "Great Recession"; the line between solvency and abject poverty is thinner than some would believe. So I do have sympathy / empathy for those who are homeless through no fault of their own (unfortunately I *have* met a fair number of people who are homeless as a career choice, although that too many be rooted in some sort of mental illness...). But such empathy cannot be allowed to permit or excuse behaviors that chisel away at the underpinnings of society. That is neither Christian nor is it pragmatically sensible!
Of course you're right that the only real solution to the problem of evil is the re-Christianization of this nation... and in absolute terms, there won't be a complete solution until Christ comes again. But we still should try to do what we can – as my dear late mother used to say, "work as if it all depends on you, and pray as if it all depends on God!"
And may the Lord bless and keep you, sir, to bring about a good outcome from your examination, and to protect you from all maleficent intent.
Sir, you need to research the connection between traumatic brain injury and homeless. It's significant. Study after study has found that as many as half or more of the chronically homeless have suffered a traumatic brain injury during their lifetimes.
Therefore, articles such as yours do not sit well with me. The great majority of homeless people are not layabouts whom society should be wary of, as though they were wild animals who have encroached upon the suburbs once too often. Most homeless are physically very sick people. Of course, the incidence of substance abuse is very high among them. Why would it not be? They're desperate for physical relief.
I understand this in ways you never can. I am a childhood mass murder survivor, who has two severe disabilities, one of which is a traumatic brain injury. I have never been able to work. I was never able to finish school, or to marry.
I'm now 71 years old. I have been homeless, thank God for only ten weeks, in 2002. If God had not provided for me through the pittance which is SSI ( $914 per month in 2023 ) and through help from my church, I would have had to commit suicide. I still may.
In addition to looking into the link between traumatic brain injury and homelessness, you need to look into the correlation between higher scores in the ACE Study and lifetime incidence of homelessness.
And obviously, the miserable problems of alcohol and drug addiction run through all of this.
My point is that the great majority of homeless people are sick, and American society's disgrace is not that we have so many homeless people, but that we do such a terrible job of looking after our most vulnerable.
The expression which you used in your article, "down on their luck," shows a cluelessness about the problem which you should be better than.