The armistice and the debacle of the
League of Nations stemmed the onrush of Wilsonian Progressivism but only
until a new crisis loomed in the Great Depression, when the Wilsonian
banner was taken up again by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had served
in Wilson’s cabinet during the Great War, and his response to the crisis
of the Depression was to treat “the task as we would treat the
emergency of war.” The administrative state has marched to that beat
ever since.
The Great War lived up to few of its
promises and brought in its wake a century of sorrows. Even those who
saw only the war’s opening months knew that it would change the face of
human history in irrevocable and ugly ways. Looking back from 1915, the
Belgian poet Émile Adolphe Gustave Verhaeren wrote, “Il dédie avec
émotion, ces pages à l’homme qu’il fut autrefois” (He dedicates these
pages, with emotion, to the man he used to be). That might well be a
general motto for the century after the guns fell silent. And it also
might well be that the best monument, like the Vietnam War Memorial,
would be a vivid scar in the ground.
“America is facing a Rubicon moment,” Guinness said. “Either there will
be a restoration of the founding vision, or it will be replaced, in
effect, by different views of the Republic, different views of freedom
and what we’ve known of American will soon become increasingly
unrecognizable.”
Ironically, however, the ability to analyze precisely, identify
underlying assumptions, and make careful distinctions is precisely what
you gain when you get a real education. Indeed, many very educated
people––Dorothy Sayers and John Henry Newman, to give two famous
examples––have remarked that the ability to make clear distinctions is
almost the definition of what it means to be educated.
It’s easy to see why: without such abilities, you simply aren’t able
to get beyond the level of ramming generalizations at one another until
someone gives up. And if the modern person is not equipped for it, then
tracing the subtle track of a discussion to get at the real core of the
argument is bound to be a dizzying endeavor. No wonder he complains of
semantics––he really has no idea how to navigate such a discussion.
Naturally, being able to analyze effectively, make careful distinctions,
and get at the deep assumptions of things are all invaluable for
confronting the truly overwhelming amount of information we are exposed
to daily. But something we often overlook is entertainment, which
contains its own kinds of deeper assumptions, although they are usually
hidden to one degree or another.
They’re unable to understand what it means to govern ourselves, and
they’re unable to understand the meaning of true freedom — that one must
be free from government restraints in order to find his purpose and
live freely. With the loss of this knowledge, and a culture that leads
them astray from that birthright, they predictably become less able to
think their own thoughts. Those who have completely lost their compass
are more inclined to lose their minds in blind rage. And that is, sadly,
where too many Americans are.
Natural law and our natural rights are written on our hearts. They
are instinctive, and can be handed down by older generations through a
healthy culture and exemplary role models. Still, if we are too far
separated from understanding them, if they are flouted in our
institutions, we are set adrift. We can recover our rights. But we must
recognize and accept this uphill challenge.
No matter the results of an election, our first order of business
should be to struggle with all our might to do whatever is necessary to
recover our compass and restore in every American heart the true meaning
of freedom.
Cheap transportation and instant communications paradoxically made
the country far more familiar and fluid, even as local and distinct
state cultures made Americans far more estranged from one another. The
ironic result was that Americans got to know far more about states other
than their own, and they now had the ability to move easily to places
more compatible with their own politics. Self-selection increased,
especially among retirees.
Small-government, low-tax, pro-business states grew more attractive
for the middle classes. Big-government, generous-welfare, and high-tax
blue states mostly drew in the poor and the wealthy. Gradually, in the
last 20 years, our old differences began to be defined by geography as
well.
IV. The Salad Bowl
Racial relations deteriorated. Affirmative action was no longer
predicated on the sins of slavery and Jim Crow and aimed at reparations
in hiring and admissions for African Americans, often on the implicit
rational of helping the poorer to enter the middle class.
Instead, “diversity” superseded affirmative action and eventually constituted an incoherent binary of white–non-white.
V. The Post-War Order
The world of post-1945 is coming to a close — after the end of the
Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany,
the creation of the European Union, the ascendance of a mercantilist and
authoritarian China, and the post-9/11 rise of radical Islamic
terrorism. Our closest NATO allies near the barricades of Russian
aggression and radical Islam are the least likely of the alliance to
prepare militarily. Yet Russia is a joke compared with the challenge of
China. The European Union project is trisected by north-south financial
feuding, east-west immigration discord, and Brexit — and the increasing
realization that pan-European ecumenicalism requires more force and less
democracy to survive than did the old caricatured nation-state.
As people sensing we live in the winter of western culture, it can be discouraging. After all, what’s the point of trying to preserve anything, if it is already dead? Why engage in political fights, if the outcome, in a larger sense, has been decided? It’s important to remember that the world does not end when an important man dies. The world may go off in a different direction than if he had lived, but it goes on nonetheless. Cultures come into being, grow and thrive, then decline and die. That is the cycle of history, the cycle of life.
Unlike other forms of government that can rely on the blessing of the
religious authority, democracy inevitably obliterates any threat to
itself. Christians like to believe that the decline in faith corresponds
with the rise in public corruption, but it is the reverse. The spread
of democracy is what drives the decline in faith. Everywhere democracy
becomes ascendant, religion moves into decline. This is an observation
Muslims have made, which is why they oppose democracy, and specifically
American liberal democracy.
That need for moral authority is still there, so inevitably
democratic system evolve a civic religion and before long a civic
clerisy. This intellectual elite, supported by the political elite that
control the democratic institutions give their blessing to the whims of
the office holders. The role of economist is that of the court
astrologer in Persia or Merlin in the court of King Arthur. They appear
to be consulting hidden knowledge to find the correct policy answer, but
they always end up endorsing whatever their patron desires.
The other side of this coin is there is no reason for the political
class to attack their court magicians, even when they are completely
wrong, because they will need them to bless the next set of polices.
i often wonder if i see a thing/idea in the world more because i now have it/ thought it…. or
the world has changed in such a way there is more of that thing / an idea is more obvious
am i looking two steps behind or two steps ahead… The Reason
someone will always explain more clearly, thankfully . that how we progress
CultML 