The last refuge of the Clan Testudo: How to shield your family from poisonous pop culture.

A little while ago I met a wonderful family who exemplify everything I’m looking for in modern-day Hoplites: The adults share a firm and fixed moral philosophy, with dad firmly in charge and with mom supporting him fully in that executive authority. Accordingly, the children are growing up as secure, charming, self-responsible individuals.

This is the way happy families work. This is the only way families can work happily. If mom competes with dad for dominance, their Runaway Minivan is destined to crash. If dad abdicates on his responsibility to lead, so much the worse. If the children learn how to drive a wedge between their parents, they will spin out of control. But if they all live according to the ideals dad upholds, they will be as one against the world.

In Sunday’s Church of Splendor service, I talk about this family, likening their approach to the world to the testudo formation used by ancient Hoplites to march imperviously into a rain of arrows and spears.

This same kind of metaphorical testudo is how you can shield your family from the noxious cultural influences you encounter everywhere. The world may be going to hell in a hand-cart, but you and the people you love most don’t have to go along.