A recent Pew study found that less than half of Americans (39 percent) believe that “society should prioritize marriage and having children.” The sentiment is not consistent across the electorate. Among Democratic supporters, 81 percent believe society should have other priorities, while 59 percent of Trump supporters believe that marriage and children are important for society.

Considering that the nuclear family is the foundation of Western civilization, this trend should alarm everyone. As Aristotle rightly argued over two millennia ago, family formation precedes the formation of any kind of polity. While governments, welfare programs, and good fortune come and go, families remain the stabilizing force that sustains individuals and enables communities. This is why societies without strong families inevitably become destitute, degenerate, and dangerous—as well as decrepit and depopulated over time.

So why have so many on the Left and Right become so indifferent to family? Have material conditions in the twenty-first century improved so much that the family has become unnecessary? Has the average American family become so dysfunctional that a substantial number of adults would rather do away with the whole idea? Has technology corrupted social interaction to such a degree that men would rather content themselves with AI girlfriends and pornography while women endlessly scroll through addictive social media apps and celebrate spinsterhood?

Some of these factors play a role, but a deliberate media and educational campaign to turn Americans away from family started decades ago and has had a major impact on the American attitude toward marriage. From the nineties onward, popular programming has glamorized single life and disparaged family life. Sitcoms like Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, and The Office made being child-free attractive, cool, and funny. By contrast, shows like The Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill, and Everybody Loves Raymond made family life seem humiliating at best, and outright trashy at worst.

Added to this is the war on romance in film. Men and women can work together, kick butt together, and maybe go to bed together, but they can’t really fall in love with one another. What was once common to see in movies has disappeared entirely. A spirit of cynicism has taken over, sweeping the themes of marriage, family, and even basic courtship into the ash heap of history.

At the same time, children’s entertainment has followed the same course. Most Disney princesses barely have a family and usually assemble their own family with the friends they meet on their adventures. In the past decade, even this makeshift family narrative has been substituted with the narrative of the girlboss, who gradually realizes she doesn’t need anyone to thrive. No longer do girls grow up with the dream of meeting their prince, marrying, and having children like Cinderella or Snow White; now they hope to dominate others like Elsa or Moana.

Online media fads promote single, child-free living. DINKs (dual-income, no kids) and DINKWADs (dual-income, no kids, with a dog) have taken to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to tout the fabulous lifestyle which allows them to travel more, drink more, and enjoy various delicacies at Costco. Those in the queer community also like to flaunt their newfound freedom in rejecting the traditional family and glorifying lust, winning over a sizable portion of young adults in the process.

Educational institutions adopt agendas that propagandize against family life. Many schools in blue states, as well as most universities across the country, actively promote countercultural values that undermine parental authority and dissolve family ties. The nuclear family and conservative parents are cast as the enemy while school officials and leftist advocates are presented as allies and surrogate parents.

Even schools in conservative areas tend to take the place of family, usually with the idea of promoting school spirit and boosting student morale. In most suburban schools (including those where I’ve taught) it’s common for students to spend most of their waking life at school, busy with coursework and extracurricular programs, and treat it like their home. All too often, unless they’re part of a church, these students miss out on developing social skills and never seriously think of marriage or family.

It’s tempting to think that this public crusade against the family is merely incidental to modern culture, but there’s more reason to believe that it is purposeful. Citing the work of Soviet defector and propaganda expert Yuri Bezmenov, Somali-born activist and writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues in The Free Press that American culture is being collectively subverted. Through a massive, decades-long information operation, the values and beliefs that once defined America are being inverted to promote a revolutionary cause.

According to Bezmenov, subversion is a four-stage process: demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization. Demoralization, which involves disillusioning people on core values, takes the longest amount of time and effort. Once a population is demoralized, it enters a shorter period of destabilization in which the legal and social framework of a country unravels, power struggles emerge, and society is fragmented into factions. This leads to a period of crisis where civilization breaks down altogether, allowing for a new regime to be normalized and accepted.

This dynamic applies to the American family. The younger generations, especially Millennials and Zoomers, have been thoroughly demoralized in their perception of marriage and raising children. This has led to a destabilization period in which alternative lifestyles, sexual exploitation, and childless households are becoming widespread. Soon enough, America will face the crises of depopulation, mass abortion, assisted suicide, and the full loss of parental authority. In its place, the new normal will be the state and large businesses raising children and regulating reproduction through unnatural means (i.e., surrogacy, IVF, cloning, and artificial wombs).

The twenty-first century is becoming a real-life Brave New World. Indeed, the most farfetched elements of Huxley’s great and prescient book, having to do with eugenics and synthetic human reproduction, are the ones that will become normalized. Accordingly, those who still marry and have large families the natural way will be increasingly marginalized by a majority of childless adults who will make family life impossible in the city. First, these families will flee to the suburbs and then the exurbs, and will finally reside in self-contained enclaves in the wilderness—much like the “reservations” in Brave New World. Meanwhile, the majority of people in this fully subverted culture will vainly try to reverse decline by importing more immigrants from the Third World and relying on AI to keep up their quality of life.

Consciously or not, avoiding this outcome is what unites conservatives more than anything else. As for progressives, it’s clear that the great majority either have no clue about the process or accept—and even celebrate—it as a necessary and salutary development. Whatever their position, far more Americans need to see the current situation for what it is and reject the demoralizing lies told about marriage and having children. Only then can we successfully address a destabilizing demography and the major crises that follow.

It’s vital to understand that all of this is happening in the cultural realm. Nations hoping to boost their birth rates and avoid population decline need to foster an authentic pro-family culture. Desperate pro-natalist policies that bribe mothers with tax credits and stimulus checks are bound to fail when the most influential voices have declared that marriage is meaningless and having children will make people unhappy. So long as those voices continue informing the consciences of society’s young adults, the population will continue to be deluded. Thus, for the sake of civilization’s future, and for the sake of today’s confused and lonely men and women, let the truth be known: if you want society to continue, you should indeed prioritize marriage and children above everything else.