On May 8, 1945, Soviet troops entered Berlin, quickly wiping out the last German resistance whilst looting and raping amid the ruins of a once-proud city.
To the surviving residents of Berlin, it must have seemed that Götterdämmerung — which was what Hitler had predicted if the German people failed him and the Nazi cause — had indeed arrived. Ten years previously, or even five years previously, it would have been unimaginable that the great and glorious Third Reich would ever come to this.
Western Civilization is rapidly approaching the point when it will have to awaken from its own dream. But the analogy with the end of Nazi Germany is not particularly apt, since the Third Reich existed for a mere twelve years. And the crucial period of modern history, in which Europe was all but destroyed, lasted for only thirty-one years: from June 28, 1914 until the summer of 1945.
The origins of the Dream of the West may be traced to various dates, depending on the ideological lens through which the past is scrutinized. Did our current Weltanschauung begin with the American Revolution in 1776? The French Revolution in 1789? Or should we move further back, to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648?
Americans may want to assign the birth of our current behemoth to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Europeans might trace their modern system to the Congress of Vienna in 1815, or to the novel nationalist-democratic arrangements that emerged after the Revolutions of 1848.
In any case, the order which is now coming to an end is at least a century old, and probably much older. Its history encompasses the codification of the sovereign nation-state, the emergence of nationalism, the (often reluctant) transition to modern democracy, the creation of the socialist welfare state, and finally the invention of the “fiat money” system to pay for the rest of it.
Our venerated cultural order will breathe its last within a generation. Whether it departs the scene with a bang or a whimper, it must needs give way to something else, a different way of ordering society. Its collapse is mathematically inevitable, for it is a house built upon the sand.
I resist, in my heart, that you are right. The math of our current economic payline will not work, there is more debt than there is money in the world to pay it back. The government covers it up with 'newthink' telling us that 'oldthink'is politically incorrect. To speak of liberty and god-given rights is 'crimethink', critical thought or speach is 'Racistthink'. Balancing the budget is very racist in 'newthink'. Paying you bills on time is 'oldthink'. Talking about founding fathers is 'slaveholderguiltthink'. This is what Orwell warned us about in the novel 1984. He was a socialist, but hated marxists. He Thought totalitarians could only come for the right, for he fought for the Loyalist in spain, but now we see it does also come from the left. StatistSocialism is the new realism, and in this statist society, their is no room for God, the Church or free thought. Only groupthink, groupharmony, wich leads to groupsuicide.
ReplyDeleteVery well said and I should make your comments a separate post.
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