Al Fin: Abandoning Western Civilisation: Views of an Evolving Professor
Al Fin: Abandoning Western Civilisation: Views of an Evolving Professor
Interesting post that loyal Sojkas Call readers will find familiar. This one takes a while to digest unless you have previously read Professor Bruce Charlton or the French Philosopher Andre Glucksmann. Al Fin highlights the suicidal tendencies existing in western society using the writings of Charlton and Glucksmann as background. Sojkas Call readers have engaged in discussions pertaining to the insanity of government policies and how they are leading to an inevitable catastrophe either economic, social, or militarily.
Glucksmann writes using Greek mythology and the rise and fall of the Roman empire as examples and to show how the thinking from that era still permeates western culture today. Charlton, while to me not as persuasive intellectually, uses powerful religious arguments that did get my attention.
Check out the link to the Al Fin post and read the recommended background material. The posts by readers on both Charlton's and Al Fin's blog help further illuminate the thesis.
Interesting post that loyal Sojkas Call readers will find familiar. This one takes a while to digest unless you have previously read Professor Bruce Charlton or the French Philosopher Andre Glucksmann. Al Fin highlights the suicidal tendencies existing in western society using the writings of Charlton and Glucksmann as background. Sojkas Call readers have engaged in discussions pertaining to the insanity of government policies and how they are leading to an inevitable catastrophe either economic, social, or militarily.
Glucksmann writes using Greek mythology and the rise and fall of the Roman empire as examples and to show how the thinking from that era still permeates western culture today. Charlton, while to me not as persuasive intellectually, uses powerful religious arguments that did get my attention.
Check out the link to the Al Fin post and read the recommended background material. The posts by readers on both Charlton's and Al Fin's blog help further illuminate the thesis.
Comments
Is this really more an essay by the paranoid who feel there are those that they perceive a threat to Western Civ. Specifically, without seeming to PC, is this not a disguised anti-Islamist essay? Having previously expressed my positon on any foreigners that wish to extend their stay beyond tourist visa, accepting total assimilation, I certainly am not defending anything resembling the creation by Moslems of their own Islamic "state" within the US that does not represent freedom of thought, religion, etc.
Unless we as the current tenants of this place in time in the history of Western Civilization are willing to abandon the scientific method, or the Constitution which is the dogma of our faith in those methods in evaluating new ideas, I am not fearful of the end of Western Civilization. Given that the majority of people in the West do not want to repeat the type of feudalistic closed society that much of the Middle East is stuck in, I do not believe we have a problem. Are we not busy converting that part of the world to Western Civilization? Ala Afghanistan, Iraq etc. It would seem they are more threatened than we. The real threat to Western Civilization is, I believe about energy. We grind to a halt and will be forced to ratchet back if we don't develop sustainable energy outside of petroleum. So there in a nutshell are the keys. Make the scientific method the test for change, hand on to the Constitution as a anchor document, and develop sustainable energy and we continue the geneology of Western Civilization.
So, why cannot those terms be used to designate Western Civ as we know it to encompass many countries? All those semantics aside, and getting back to the articles and your other points, I like your focus on the scientific method and agree that was what liberated the common man from the yokes of religious authority and in many ways was responsible for the industrial age and letting people believe they were not peasants and serfs anymore.
But, back to the authors points, they are saying that the majority of people who belong to western civ have given up defending themselves and their culture against the encroachment of the Islamic culture in particular, but, also eastern (China). Since the world has changed so much you now you don't need to conquer a country militarily to change its culture, secure it resources, and make its people work for you. Now, you can do all that economically and with population migration (legal and illegal). Unless a culture is willing to defend itself from those seemingly indirect attacks it will succumb.
From that point the two debates were whether Western Civ has already succumbed and just does not realize it, or, is this a process that can be reversed. And, your belief seems to be we have nothing to worry about at this point as long as we keep the scientific method and the constitution. When I think about this further, it seems both of those are under serious attack. The Pubs repeatedly throw out science and revert to religious pronouncements in place of science or just call everything they don't like to hear "junk science" and the Constitution has been ignored by the Supreme Court whenever it has been convenient and it senses the political winds and stays in them even if the executive order or congressional bill was blatantly unconstitutional.
My point regarding the scientific method and the Constitution is they are they are the process and means for retaining our cultural identity coupled with an understanding by every westerner of the History of Western Civilization, the narrative of how we got to where we are today is what will allow us to continue as a unique "civiliation". The majority hasn't given up. They just don't know what Western Civilization means. Again it goes back education which has failed across all fronts. Science, history of Western Civilization and what the Consititution means and how it embodies the principles that came about through the scientific method. How many people even know what the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason is all about and what it means to us today? Faith based reason, as embraced by Moslems, Hindu, and Fundamentalist Christians was an aspect of Western Civilization whose yoke was thrown off 500 years ago, however those elements are still a threat to Western Civilization today.
Looking at the world today, China, Japan, and even India are considered westernized, ie they have embraced western values, therefore I believe they are now part of the ongoing Western Civilization narrative. The Moslem countries which in the 14th and 15th centuries played a major role in the preservation of Western Civilization through mathematics, sciences etc have ironically reversed course with the embrace of Islam and now are a threat to progressive thinking. Couple that with extremists on both ends of the US political spectrum from extreme right wing republicans and yes, Tea Party (know-nothing advocates), and anarchist bound leftists, and the Consititutional side-stepping Supreme Court who now more than ever makes political decisions vs using the Constitutional as the testbed, it is no wonder that one would feel Western Civilization is under attack. I am not worried that we have lost the battle, and believe that protecting the scientific method of evaluation testing radical changes to the the Consititution will prevent our loss of direction. We have not lost it because you and I are still here and we still understand the legacy of Western Civilization. If we lose it, it is not because of Islam or China (a new westernized country) but because of our own loss of identity, lack of knowledge of our history, and the embrace of the "new ignorance" as embodied in the likes of Sarah Palin, and Christine O'Donnell and our attacks on Islam, and foreigners in general. It will be our failure rather than their success because we just don't understand what our lineage called Western Civilization is all about.
As far as giving a summary of the world in 100 words or less, I think the guy on Airplane did it best: Well first the earth cooled, then the dinosaurs came, they got too big and fat and died and turned into oil, then the Arabs came, and then Price Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's close and I couldn't understand it...
He states... Demographic shrinkage is also leaving Eastern Siberia open for Chinese takeover.Moscow is also warily watching China's unauthorised movements into Siberia and the Far East.
Beijing is about six times closer to the port city of Vladivostok than is Moscow, which has very weak administrative control over its eastern territories.
Already, an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 Chinese nationals have illegally settled in these oil, gas and timber-rich areas.
Beijing is also tempted by Siberia's freshwater supply, given that China already has severe shortages throughout the country.
The Russian Far East is inhabited by only six million people, while the three provinces in northeast China have about 110 million Chinese inhabitants. By 2020, more than 100 million Chinese will live less than 100km to the south of these Russian territories, whose population will then number between five million and 10 million.
As Medvedev recently admitted, if Russia does not secure its presence in the Far East, it could eventually "lose everything" to the Chinese.
See this link for more.......... http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2010/12/29/watch_out_for_russian_wild_card_in_asia-pacific__99333.html
So I guess you support the devaluation of the dollar vs the Yuan as I do which was one of the purposes of the Feds $600B purchase of Treasury notes since it is the one thing we can do to increase the cost of Chinese goods that are artificially held low by the Chinese government which would in turn help US manufactured goods compete in our own markets as well as international markets? Couple that with tax incentives to US manufacturers and you have a recipe for revitalization of the US economy.