Saturday, June 1, 2013

Revised - If The West Falls, What Then?

The decline of Western culture and civilization, although not a foregone conclusion by any means, is certainly a real possibility.
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Added 6/2/13 -
I have no idea of when or how I did it, but before I hit the "publish", button, I cut an entire paragraph from this post last night . It went something like this:

If couples only have one or two children, populations cannot maintain current levels, let alone grow. Without population growth, societies decline. From an historical standpoint, the end of every great and strong society has been marked by declining birthrates. Rome, Sparta, and the Hellenistic word are just a few examples. Interestingly, the massive and steady decline of birthrates in the Muslim world from roughly the 16th to the early 20th century had a direct correlation with the decline of Islamic political power, just as the massive rise of birthrates in the same world since then has paralleled the resurgence of its political power. Our fellow citizens would rather reap all of the benefits of the safety and prosperity of our society than be saddled with the burden of kids. Consequently, (Unless things change soon) the best features, attractions, or attributes of the West will be the cause of its decline.

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As Alexis de Tocqueville (Whom I refer to as being mind-shatteringly insightful) noted in Democracy in America, a Republic or a Democracy must have a core group of people with a common or reasonably related culture. Without such a safeguard, the structure will not stand.

Whether one's culture is  from (Or has been made by a lifetime of exposure to) a New England-type Puritanism, Midwestern farmers, any one of the old southern or Appalachian subcultures, American blacks, southwestern Anglo or old Mexican-descent  subcultures, Native Americans, or any other region/group of the United States, each person is keenly aware that his identity is tied in with the settlement and history of this nation. Some of it, like the history of any region, is marked by tragic and sometimes atrocious acts and practices, but few will try to argue that the degree of freedom and prosperity of the US was not earned without sacrifice and that it certainly not was simply the result of an idea that could just be taught to newcomers. When Poles, Italians, Irish, and other groups came to the US, they possessed enough of an understanding of a Western Culture (And a common religion that was closer to Protestantism than many will care to admit) to assimilate within one of two generations. Eastern European immigrants, seeing the means by which others took on an American mindset, followed the same pattern.

The demographics are changing in the West - and rapidly so. In Western Europe, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, and others in Western Europe are not having enough children to keep their respective nations "Spanish" or German". As Pat Buchanan noted in The Death of the West, Italy is being fast-tracked by her own people into becoming a macrocosm of what Venice is now - a "theme park" was his phrase for the future of Italy. The vacuum is being filled filled by non-European immigrants - mostly Muslim. Islam greatly changes societies in which it has gained a substantial minority or a plurality. A majority will turn the entire structure upside-down.

In the US, we are tripping over each other to add another 10-11 million illegal aliens (Primarily Latin American) to our voter rolls. It is unfortunate that far too many of our fellow citizens from Latin America are perfectly  fine living their entire lives in the US without making any real effort to learn English or to identify themselves as Americans . With the additional influxes of large numbers of Haitians, West Africans, East Asians, South Asians, and others who do not share a common cultural or religious culture, the US is poised to go in the same direction as that of Western Europe. When fewer and fewer people can recall childhoods in which attending Memorial Day ceremonies and other classic American observances were an integral  part of their lives, the sense of American identity will wither away. Canada and Australia are heading in the same direction.

In South Africa, those of Dutch, German, and British decent live in constant fear of vicious sexual assault and for their very lives.

The Western variant of Socialism, softer on the totalitarian side but all-controlling nonetheless (And much filthier, uglier, and immoral), is advancing steadily towards its fruition.

Are the people of these nations helpless to stop this march of events? Not all, but I fear that they will fail to admit that something must be done until it is too late to stem the tide. Even the thought of a political fight that a preservation of national and cultural identity would require seems to be too much for Westerners, and neither do they want to start having big families again. In solitary protests, many Catos will be spilling their guts in their individual Uticas as societies deteriorate into the darkness of Western Socialism.

I also cannot rule out the possibility that, Western Europeans and some of those of related cultures will opt to leave their countries, reforming and coalescing  in a region or nation chosen to become a place in which Western Culture can be restored and reshaped; not American, French, German etc, but something that includes the best of all of these without any of their weaknesses, such as that which the Left exploited to fully destroy the American electorate by creating generations of dependence on welfare. Schools would have to be made to be eternally free of Leftist thought. Parents would have to be guaranteed their authority except in extreme circumstances. The people must not be enslaved to support those who would not work. Simply reaching a certain age would not make you a voter. Citizens would not have to live in fear of firearms confiscation. Churches and Synagogues would not be forced to pay for abortions or contraception; indeed, the horror of abortion itself must be laid bare for all to see, and people must be reminded the primary purpose of the conjugal act. Marriage would be kept inviolate. Judges would be bound by the Law and the civil Law would be bound by the Natural Law. Atheists would not be free to sue to have cross monuments removed. Crime and moral decay would not be tolerated.

This would be a modern-day Volkerwanderung - a mass movement of peoples determined to find a place in which they can live in the manner of their choice.

That failing to occur, I hold that the future is with Russia. This may very well happen even without a Western collapse, but that is for another post.








3 comments:

  1. I have just moved from the UK to South East Asia to get away from cultural Marxism and the rise of islamic street mobs. There are many English expats here and the number appears to be growing daily. Go back? You must be joking.

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    1. Not even close.
      Although I sympathize with the mindset of the expats and have entertained the very notion myself, that move just contributes to the decline of Western societies no less than does the lack of a reasonable birth rate. Doing so would make me just as much at fault as the couple that chooses to go childless so that they can enjoy the comforts of prosperity without any aggravation. I would only support such a move if, like I wrote, it is geared towards a bigger picture of expats from other Western countries coming together to reform and restore what they can of Western Culture. Giving up being an American, German, Spaniard, etc. if necessary to save a remnant of that the West is may be the only option in the end.

      In the end, I would firstly prefer to act the part of Scipio after the catastrophe at Cannae, confronting at swordpoint the aristocrats contemplating flight to a foreign court, and forcing them to swear to remain until Hannibal and his army is gone from Italy.

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    2. "Hannibal and his army 'are' gone from Italy".
      Please forgive me - I was still half asleep when I wrote the above.

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