The Neo-Romantic notion that Reason and The Rule of Law are inherently “oppressive” has been morphing through our culture for over 200 years now. While it is undeniable that slow but steady progress in the realm of social justice has been made throughout the post-War West within the framework of its democratically mandated institutions, it was inevitable that the last couple of generations, led on by Marxist academics given to the notion that it is actually noble to defile the conventions of mainstream Capitalist societies, would at some point decide their feelings of moral outrage, however devoid of historical context, however irrational, were more important than the Rule of Law. The chaos, the savagery, the violence, the disrespect for the fundamental principles of our Civilization so evident in the streets of America today are hardly surprising to those of a “conservative” mind-set. Following are but a few of the books published recently given to the theme that Western Civilization is in fact in the process of committing cultural suicide.
In 2004 “conservative” Ben Shapiro published “Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth;” in 2019, “The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great;” and in 2020, “How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps.” His concerns are fairly self-evident and seemingly validated seven days a week to anyone whose head isn’t firmly thrust up some dank “progressive” hole or other.
The title of Harlan Hill and Ryan James Girdusky’s 2020 work “They’re Not Listening: How the Elites Created the Nationalist Populist Revolution,” is self-explanatory. As I have made obvious elsewhere, I am hardly Donald Trump’s biggest fan. But the notion on the Left that all those who support him are a collection of ignorant, racist Neanderthals is a self-delusion of the first order. Both in Western Europe and North America those millions who have chosen to elect parties and candidates reviled in the mainstream media as Alt-Right, are more often than not rational, civilized people profoundly concerned with the preservation of their Culture, a value they have every right to defend.
Mark Steyn’s “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It” was followed in 2009 by “Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West.” He is of course regularly denounced as a racist. But in 2017 when Liberal M.P. Iqra Khalid presented M-103 to Canada’s parliament, a non-binding motion which virtually equated any criticism of Islam to hate speech, it was passed 201 to 91, this in a Democracy theoretically devoted to Freedom of both Speech and Conscience. Is it Steyn who ought to be locked up or those so concerned with their image as compassionate liberals that they would actually vote to imperil one of the basic principles of Liberalism itself?
In Douglas Murray’s 2017 work “The Strange Death of Europe,” he contends as follows: “Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument. By the end of the lifespans of most people currently alive, Europe will not be Europe and the peoples of Europe will have lost the only place we had to call home.” While certainly varying from nation to nation, the very essence of European Culture differs radically from that of Africa. To Murray it is a heritage worth preserving, not merely a matter of privilege but a reality forged out of 2500 years of effort and achievement. Whereas Angela Merkel seemed intent on turning the European Union into a refugee camp for those seeking to flee the dysfunctional countries of the Continent to the South, the recent election throughout Europe of a number of political parties intent on at least controlling the level of immigration into their homelands would suggest that European populations in general did not agree with her. As I’m sure you’re aware, their “populist” electoral victories have been condemned in the “progressive” media as but a latter day outbreak of Nazism. Whereas majority rule would seem to be one of the basic premises of a Democracy, when the majority fails to agree with the political Left, the latter invariably resorts to its sophisticated tactic of name-calling.
Tayip Erdogan, in a recent Al Quds day speech, invoked Muslims everywhere to go to Europe and reproduce with abandon so that by the end of the Century they might Islamize the entire continent. “Progressives” don’t seem to care. Vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris certainly doesn’t seem to care about the Culture of the country that took her in, championing the complete elimination of National borders as one of the chief items on her political agenda. Indeed the four members of The Squad elected to the House of Representatives in 2018, all ladies of non-Western heritage, are clearly devoted to, as Ilhan Omar has said, dismantling the entire political/economic system upon which America was founded. Why wouldn’t those simpletons marauding through the streets of Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Minneapolis, New York, etc. feel perfectly entitled to defy Reason and the Rule of Law which Democracy’s architects saw as so essential to civil society? That a good deal of the property they are destroying belongs to those they are pretending to support does not seem to bother them; nor, apparently, the fact that 67% of Blacks fervently fear the de-funding of the police.
[Black salon owner Flora Westbrooks had her business burned to the ground by protesters in May shortly after George Floyd’s death. The city of Minneapolis subsequently presented her with a bill of $200,000 just for removing the remnants of the building. Congratulations Minneapolis. Congratulations B.L.M. Congratulations CNN. Congratulations Barack Obama.]
Webster’s dictionary defines a Philistine as “An ignorant, narrow-minded person, devoid of culture and indifferent to art.” Such would seem to be the character of those willing to sacrifice the Principles and Values of Western Civilization at the altar of Inclusiveness, those who have reduced the entire span of human experience and aspiration to the single issue of socio-economic Inequality, those who, as I shall illustrate in my next blog, think so little of Man that they see his cultural articulations not as expressions of a legitimate quest for intellectual, moral and aesthetic fulfillment, but as just the mindless gestures of an instinct driven animal.