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But their journey South is just as much one of deliberate self-destruction, an epic flame-out that is clearly meant to climax once they arrive at their parents’ home — the prodigal child’s disastrous return.

This syndrome, I hardly need to add, is far more general, and is in danger of reducing what remains of our civilization to self-parody and self-destruction.

This time it’s at least a little bit true: Our national dance between Sex and Death, going back to the first Puritan refugees and the devil-haunted woods of New England, seems increasingly weighted toward self-destruction.

"I don't know why... it's as if there was an international drive towards self-destruction," the Pope said.

It left him with what he calls "a bent for self-destruction."