Even two decades ago, religious commitment, patriotism, and having and raising children were values shared by large swaths of Americans. A recent poll, however, shows that significantly fewer American believe these things important. Moreover, the decline is primarily due to young people’s valuing them far less than do their elders. Christine Rosen comments:

Even if one is persuaded that younger generations are justified in rejecting values such as patriotism and child-rearing, nature abhors a vacuum. What new values have arisen to replace the old?

That is not clear. Secular alternatives to traditional civic, religious, and social institutions, such as the media and entertainment industries and Silicon Valley technology companies and their wares, have not proved to be reliable alternatives for those seeking value and meaning. In fact, in many ways these new secular alternatives have contributed to increased polarization and exacerbated culture-war tensions by encouraging people to embrace anger (and retweets) rather than abstract ideals such as love of God and country. . . . [Moreover, the fashionable] elevation of identity and personal experience has helped undermine people’s trust in institutions (and in one another).

The demotion of patriotism and faith and child-rearing as core American values will no doubt come as good news to many progressives and radicals who have long considered such notions retrograde. But theirs is a pyrrhic victory. If these trends continue, and “self-fulfillment” continues to outpoll patriotism while having children becomes increasingly less appealing to more and more Americans, who will be left to celebrate this supposed ideological maturation of the American people?

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.