The main task of the West is not to defeat “them” but to find itself.
“The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. …For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.” Philosopher Samuel Smiles wrote these brilliant words in the middle of the 19th century. It follows from this that the fate of a state or a whole civilization is determined not so much by its political system but by the set of values and the attitude of its average citizen.
Now let’s look at the average young man of the West. The Millennial hates his or her own values, and at same time naively believes in utopian theories. Leftist ideologies flourish in the imagination in lush color. British Labour and American Democrats look about as much like their Western liberal predecessors as the Turks of today look like the ancient Hellenes. Traditional spiritual and moral values are trampled to dust; they manifest more as self-flagellation and ingratiation in front of modern barbarians from the East, slowly turning into paranoia. Churches are turning into mosques. Christianity has given way to new fanatical quasi-religions: globalism, progressivism, the “fight against global warming” and the cult of sexual perversions. Islam, the rudimentary, archaic, patriarchal religion of the desert, has become the fetish of enlightened intellectuals.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The younger generation is completely disconnected from national culture. Nearly half of 18-24-year-old Britons (45%) don’t know that Nelson led the British to Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. Half of German teenagers do not know that Adolf Hitler was a dictator; only about half of the schoolchildren know that West Germany was a democratic state.
Eighty-three percent of Americans polled failed a basic test on the American Revolution. According to Belgian researchers Jan and Kurt Monten of the Catholic College of Limburg, “Young people studying to become teachers know amazingly little about history. Many of them were unable to tell in which century the Second World War took place and confused Zionism with Fascism.”
History is supplanted by vulgar phantasmagoria. We read about the British nobility of the 18th century practicing cannibalism; Italian Jews committing ritual murders; attempts by British intelligence to turn Hitler into a woman; King Solomon who was Pharaoh of Egypt, and Jesus, who was King of Edessa; Vikings who worshiped Allah.
Destructive nihilism, the avant-garde, and anti-rationalism in all spheres of human activity have transformed the West – in Ulrich Beck’s accurate expression – into a society of “substantial emptiness.” European culture, rooted in ancient philosophy, the cult of experience, logic; the reason of Locke, Spinoza and Descartes; the moral and ethical ideal of the Biblical prophets – all is equated to the culture of the Berbers, the Indians of South America and African tribes. No more is there “French culture.” No more “Swedish culture.” Oriana Fallaci noted with bitterness that Somali migrants urinating on masterpieces of Florentine masters were the symbol of the new time.
God has been replaced by exhibitionism as a form of gaining unlimited happiness. The new rulers of thought praise schizophrenic thinking; they have overthrown “suffocating” logic, declaring as irrelevant the concepts of “good” and “evil, “morality” and “immorality,” “truth” and “lie.”
There are no more “boys” and “girls” – males and females, “he” and “she.” There is the Swedish “it” (“hen”); “ze”, as laid down by Oxford University; “third gender”, according to the German Constitutional Court. There are “pregnant transgender people” and 15 types of sexes, according to a Canadian Federation of Primary School Teachers of Ontario manual. Barbie is no longer a girl – it is a “gender neutral doll.”
The descendants of those who landed in Normandy 75 years ago lock themselves in “safe spaces” and hunch over coloring books, unable to endure the anguish of the election of the “bad president.” Like mushrooms after rain, infantile subcultures have sprung up: Bronies and Furry fandoms, Harry Potter fandom, etc. Universities have become their own parody. One graduate student published the article “The conceptual penis as a social construct” as a joke. This “study” was greeted with enthusiasm.
Witchcraft, astrology, belief in Lizard People and aliens, the Satanic Temple – all have become part of the mass consciousness of nations that were rational no so long ago. Nearly four in 10 Britons believe in ghosts, 22% believe in astrology, and 15% believe in fortune telling or Tarot. In 1951, only 7% of people believed in such things.
Before the U.S. election in 2012, National Geographic Channel sponsored a survey to check “Which Presidential Candidate [Barack Obama or Mitt Romney] Would You Trust During An Alien Invasion?” Sixty-five % of respondents said that Obama would better cope with this task. Supporters of “flat earth” theory and even advocates of cannibalism have emerged to help prevent global warming.
Disney announced that the new “Little Mermaid” will be a black actress. In Spain Little Red Riding Hood and other classic works are banned because of “hidden sexism.” In Sweden, Astrid Lindgren’s fairy tale about Pippi Longstocking was burnt because of “racism.” In the USA, a movement wants to rename Columbus Day “Indigenous Peoples Day.”
Foucault’s vision of “transgression” – “the hysterical woman, the masturbating child, the Malthusian couple, and the perverse adult” – has become a reality. Classical art in galleries is replaced by paintings of ugly figures with punctured eyes and buried noses; drawings on asphalt and on bodies; architectural complexes turned inside out with “interiors” made out of sewer pipes and “DJ music.”
This world, in words written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in an unpublished dissertation, was “disassembled to the state of a cemetery, where there is no life, but every single thing or any idea emits [a] smell of decay.” (Author’s translation from the original Russian.)
With no foothold, no anchor, no lodestar or safety belt in the form of religious and moral values, modern man drifts, becoming an easy prey for totalitarian ideologies, sects, and banal frauds.
Not surprising, then, that there is an epidemic of depression among young people in USA. Every sixth EU citizen has mental health problems, with the majority in Western Europe.
Curiously, the collapse of the Soviets was the beginning of the end of Western democracy. But it’s not so surprising.
Whether we like it or not, human societies traditionally have identified themselves according to a simple principle: “We and They.”
The presence of a strong and dangerous enemy facilitates the unity of a society, the formation of its spiritual values and prosperity. It happened in ancient Athens during the wars with Persia, and in Rome during the confrontation with Carthage. In the Punic Wars, the republican values of the Romans reached their highest peak; they disappeared when the external enemy was crushed, and Rome carried on to larceny and ruthless conquests.
We’ve witnessed the same course of action in the USA and in the West in general. In the face of the “Red Scare,” the democratic ideals of American society and its cohesion were extremely strong. Differences in the approach of the Democrats and Republicans basically disappeared: John Kennedy was as resolute as Nixon or Reagan in his willingness to confront the Soviets. And even Carter – a “soft-bodied” hypocrite – was forced to respond to the Kremlin’s aggression in Afghanistan, rallying the nation.
But a great and bitter paradox of our time is that the deadly threat not only has not disappeared but has become much more real. A new threat, political Islam, is much more dangerous and poisonous than Soviet power and the Red Army with its tank armada.
Ultimately, Soviet Communism was product of Western philosophy itself, a continuation of Utopian communism. But Islam is alien and absolutely incompatible with Western values. Its main and supreme task is to destroy the West and subsume it in a future caliphate. It’s not about Iran or ISIS – it’s about Islam as a political-theological system
Their leaders, political and spiritual, don’t conceal their aim at all. Hear them: Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the main preacher of the Muslim Brotherhood, proclaims “Constantinople was conquered in 1453 by a 23-year-old Ottoman named Muhammad ibn Murad, whom we call Muhammad the Conqueror. Now what remains is to conquer Rome”. Erdogan (the “big friend” of all American presidents) says there is no moderate Islam. Dr. Subhi Al-Yaziji, dean of Koranic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza: “Conquer Andalusia and the Vatican” after Palestine.
“The Qur’an is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, Jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal.” That’s Mohamed Morsi, supported by Obama. Believe them. They’re not lying!
The principle “We and They” didn’t disappear. However, the main task of “we” is not to defeat “them” but to find ourselves. If “we” are able to do that, “they” will have no chance. “They” will return to their desert: vicious, soulless, fruitless ghosts of gloomy past
And vice-versa. A society that remains one of “substantial emptiness” will inevitably be subjugated by a caliphate.
