I’m Tired of Hearing About the End of “Western Civilization”
"Western Civilization" has been dead since its murder-suicide in 1914, what we have now is a bastard thing called Pax Americana
Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan: “It’s the end of the West.” Blah blah blah. I’m not even saying that the horribly racist aspects of their philosophy (and sorry to Buchanan for lumping him with Coulter) is necessarily a problem. Of course, Coulter’s racism is horrible, but assuming that there’s this “Western Civilization” to save, I don’t know, if it’s a really great thing then maybe horrible ideas might be worth considering to save it. However, to Pat, Ann, and the many many other commentators who worry about the West’s collapse, I have news.
Western Civilization died already, a long time ago. It was called “The Great War”. Britain, Germany, America, France, Russia, Italy, Austria – all the great sub-expressions which embodied “Western Civilization” all charged into that war head first. Sure, everyone entered at different times, for different reasons, with some amount of fair rationalization for their actions. Who said, “Hell, no!”?
As “great” as Western Civilization was, and I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, it still had warfare (and consequently colonialism, class, and statism) as part of its foundation. I think, at this point, it’s honestly disingenuous to think about the West’s “good part” without acknowledging the bad and admitting that, going forward, we aren’t going to “save” the West, but move forward into some new civilization to come.
The inseparable role of the “bad” parts of Western Civilization – inseparable from the good – are why WWI happened.
Western Civilization was nothing but a Jenga tower – that game with the blocks you have to carefully remove. It grew higher in proportion to compromising its foundations, it was structured that way from the beginning And finally, during the Great War, the thing collapsed from truly dizzying heights. What a mighty collapse it was. How it reverberated.
Kind of like Rome’s fall. What a coincidence.
Now we have this bastard thing called Pax Americana, American hegemony. A lingering remnant of European war culture, poorly conceived, lacking self-knowledge in any meaningful capacity.
Hey, maybe there are good principles which trickled out intermittently from the West’s carnage. Maybe Ann Coulter’s general demographic concerns have a kind of validity.
Let’s stop waxing nostalgic for “the West”, and “Western Civilization”. You’re worshiping a corpse. There’s a desperate need to wash our hands of it and move on. Otherwise we’ll never be able to defend liberty, because we’ll never stop being too busy dealing with our neighbors incessant trampling out of the grapes of wrath upon all the world and each other.
Source: The Libertarian Institute
That’s great “let’s move on.”
>to what?, from what?
That’s great “wash our hands.”
>from what?
“we’ll never be able to defend liberty”
>from who?, from what?
“because we’ll never stop being too busy dealing with our neighbors
incessant trampling out of the grapes of wrath upon all the world and
each other.”
>what?
the entire article is an unconscious meandering in a field of nothing.
we’re going nowhere with this kind of “thinking.”
A very genuine observation and yes something new to read about so called “Western Civilization”, In the name of saving this unicorn Ann Coulter and her likes are spewing venom. Venom that is infecting our true human society in which we may differ and look different, speak different languages but we are still one, Human race. We ought to preserve that.
Why not just stop talking about “Western” and just speak about civilization ? Definition of civilization depends on culture, region and so on…
A refreshing view.
And simply the kind of truth we rarely see published.
I’ll just add a small consideration.
People just don’t seem to understand how hybrid a thing “Western civilization” is anyway.
Take just one Western country, although any of them have similar stories to tell.
Britain, the land of bowlers and pubs and cozy villages.
The British identity started with groups like the Celts.
Then came the Romans, for four centuries.
Later Anglo-Saxon conquerors became dominant.
The Vikings played a role over quite a few years, although never ruling the whole place.
There was the big invasion by the Norman French, and lots of little towns still have old French names.
Various waves of immigrants for centuries.
The influences of the British Empire, notably from India.
So the Winston Churchill image represents a blending of many influences over many centuries, and, indeed, that most British figure of modern times had an American mother.