Very interesting article addressing what I think are some real truths, but one thing that deserves critique is the near utter uselessness of citing national statistics on religion, specifically Christianity. There is no doubt that a large majority of people who claim to be "Christian", on whichever forms capture this data, would struggle to coherently explain Christianity and its central tenets and haven't been active in a church for years. In other words, not truly Christians in terms of how they live and influence society. It's one thing to lazily slap a label on oneself when pressed but another thing altogether to follow Christ and live within that moral framework that many modern man rejects. Most of these people would be disregarded in a serious discussion of the topic in how "Christianity" impacts culture, as they live more like agnostic hedonists or nihilists. However, don't ask me how one might capture more realistic percentages of who is Christian... it's beyond any survey.
I love AA and I love the people dissing AA. Great article, great thoughts, no j bullshit like on telegram, no theological shitfights, no denigration of Christianity either. Its quite clear that any western faith reaches its Zenith and its Elogy only through Huwhite Kultur. Thanks for the article.
Whether or not de Gobineau's central thesis is correct or not, the Cherokee are probably the worst choice to pick as far as North American natives go. They assimilated quite decently, at least to a degree, some of them even owning their own plantations and Negros by the middle of the 19th century, and I say that as someone who is descended from both people who were hacked to death and scalped by Cherokees and also from some Cherokee squaws.
Underlying this Christian Nationalism effort is the belief that too many of those other Christians are ultimately possessed by heresy and that by expunging this heresy the nominal "Christians" will shed the progressive world view. The analysis here is correct and coherent. However, I do think that a revivalist movement is something that could save Western man because it could provide the needed animating spirit. The problem is that Torba particularly is putting the cart before the horse. There is nothing inspirational about him or those associated. This is the much bigger piece than just intramural American protestant doctrine.
So are you suggesting you can have aa great civilization without a moral framework? Or even more cringe that like a 4 horseman atheist you can be good without god? A civilization without an ideal of the good, the true and the beautiful Isn't a civilization it is a post modern hellscape. This is actually worse than siding with the pagans who to quote The Big Lebowski "at least have an ethose." This is just nihlism.
Sorry but this is your weakest effort yet. Stick to long juicy video esaays about David Bowie.
You don't have to say them it is fully implied by rejecting the transcendence of having a god, or even gods as the scaffolding civilization is built upon. Humans left to their own devices decay into degeneracy very rapidly, in fact this is the central flaw of all forms of liberalism and the marketplace of ideas. Even a monarchy without the moral check of the church is likely to decay into enriching the royal family.
The claim that race is ontologically prior to civilization, which itself in turn is ontologically prior to religion (in essence, race gives rise to civilization, which gives rise to or adopts a religion), is not that same as a proscriptive argument for the abandonment of all that is transcendent in favor of some kind of atheism.
AA claims the former, yet you’ve characterized his claim as the latter.
I will note too that IMO your fanatical racialism is in turn motivating you and that is also IMO a thin reed to base a society on compared to an ideal of transcendending our base lot including the genetics of whatever racial group we are born to towards the good, the true and the beautiful. While your racialism doesn't offend and I don't think it should be surpressed IMO Christ > blood and soil.
First, regarding religion and its relationship to both Truth and our politics, there is a fundamental issue it poses for the Dissident Right, a religiously pluralistic group - who exactly has a monopoly on Truth and how do we figure this out? That is to say which religion is correct, and moreover, how do we make this determination without fracturing into isolated and ghettoized factions? Some parties in the DR wish to avoid talk of religion entirely, others fanatically proselytize their faith and would happily wage a crusade against other religions if given the means and opportunity to do so. As far as practical considerations go, it is best to leave that issue untouched until we, as a people, have secured our own existence and rid ourselves of our enemies, who wish to see us wiped off the map. I`m saying this as a religious person (wanted to point this out so that claims that I`m an atheist/agnostic with an agenda cannot arise out of my raising of this point about religion)
Secondly, Christ doesn`t make a black man white. Race is almost undoubtedly the sole dispositive factor in determining how a civilization will arise, expand, express, and preserve itself. We need not look any further than Christianity in Africa (a place where it has deep roots) versus Christianity in Europe to see that it is race, not religion, that gives rise to a civilization and determines its fate. As AA and our ideological forebears pointed out, a given religion that attaches itself to a given civilization is often chosen because it is compatible with that civilization`s ethos (or, at bare minimum, because it serves some practical purpose or confers some benefit on that civilization).
In practice it is the same, if you are not naive about psychology and look at motivation. The reason AA wants to downplay religion of all stripes is he is an atheist who sees it as unimportant and thus not worth fighting over. Yet it is the religious of all stripes who see that dismissing religion leads to vulgar materialism as the lynch pin of civilization, and this in turn leads to ruin. So perhaps religion is the only thing worth fighting over. Even Yarvin these days is looking for some minimal spiritual essence which we can all agree on which he calls animism. That is a thin reed IMO to scaffold a civilization on, but it is better than AA's nothing.
Note it gives me no pleasure to write this, AA is one of our strongest thought leaders and generous with his time. But fhe advantage of the right is the pursuit of truth at all costs and thus we have an obligation to call out our best when they make an error. Coddling error for the sake of unified identity is what the woke do and we are much better than that, we are moral people with an ethos which in turn is predicted on the transcendent over the material and base desires.
How can you believe that "The reason AA wants to downplay religion of all stripes is he is an atheist"? Did I read the same essay as you? AA wrote that...
"Christianity cannot be reduced to mere utility — it is more than whatever worldly ends we may have today and must finally resolve always in affirming salvation in the name of Jesus Christ."
He's one of you, a type of theist, and like you he's not ready to reckon with the fact that Western civ. is an incoherent mishmash. Its people are suffering from its internal contradictions, its absurdities (e.g. the USA's Declaration of Independence), and its history of worldwide busibodyism. No one ought to expect it to survive, and we would be fools to exhaust ourselves trying to extend its lifespan. It would be better to form small study groups to work out the fundamentals of a defensible ontology, a religion, and a way of life for new society and a replacement civilization which rejects most of the legacy institutions of so-called Western civ. Americans, for example, would be expected to repudiate the precious Constitution, which begins with an obvious lie, one which contradicts history and implies that absolutely everyone, even children and Random, has authority to rule.
Since you are theistic, let me give you one example of a starting point for such a study group. Suppose that you and AA insisted for the sake of argument that your god(s) can do absolutely anything at all, without restriction. Probably you would not believe it, as Muhammadists do, but let's say that you did. Then I would talk you down from that ledge by asking if the god exists necessarily. Assuming your answer that it does, I would remind you that the alleged necessity is a way of asserting that the god is NOT in charge of existence. Rather, there must be some law (or regularity, if you like) which detains the god and limits its willpower. So even if the god of Genesis 1 exists, it's a being which deserves much less reverence than is popularly supposed. After all, it has neglected to explain carefully all of its limitations in the scriptures attributed to it.
Those who don't believe in a god may not be satisfied with that starting point, so here is another. Let the nihilist declare his denial of truth. "There is no truth," he says. Well, fine, then it's not true that "there is no truth", but it's surely true that the nihilist claimed what he did. If he makes a face, then even he knows it's true you've trampled down his nihilism. The assertion entails its own refutation, and all who cannot or will not strike a blow for absolutism against it may be dismissed from the group as termites or driftwood. Any Muihammadist who expects to remain in the room will have to admit that the hand of Allah is somehow chained by brute facts of existence which no being can alter or abolish. So much for Islam, which looks like a sect of Christianity begun by a street barker who hated the Trinity.
Still another starting point for our planning commission can be found in Euclid's Elements and other mathematical texts. It's been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that √2 could never be written in the form a/b where a and b are integers. This is a truth of number theory, which we really ought to call numerology, to deprive superstition of a word it doesn't deserve. This truth about √2 is good at all times and all places, and it's another important reminder about the limitations upon willpower, the 2nd most important ontological principle of Abrahamic religion. (The first is egocentricity. See Exodus 3:14.)
And so it would go, working as quickly as possible through a number of basic topics until we have formed a concensus on enough material to start planning how to tutor children. They must learn about existence and their place in it. Along the way we would form some ideas about the liberal arts, including Capella's conception. An update to his list could read like this, I think:
(1) logic
(2) linguistics (not just grammar)
(3) rhetoric
(4) dialectics (as method and rules of discourse)
(5) mathematics (arithmetic, geometry, and more)
(6) physics
(7) astronomy
(8) harmony (the aspect of music and a way to teamwork)
I am going by the Distributist stating AA is an atheist and that, that effects his world view. I would love to see AA have a dialog/debate on this subject with AA. I am new to Christianity and The Distributist as a long time Catholic I am sure could state why an acive faith is neccesary for western civilization to flourish in a deeper and more informed fashion than I am capable of. IMO this dialog about whether faith is neccesary for a dissident right reinvigoration of western culture is neccesary can only be dffered for ao long.
Conflating indifference to Christianity with indifference to morality is retarded. As though the Egyptians, Chinese, Romans, Greeks, and innumerable others just never existed.
That is a list of things basically you don't want to see and quite honestly reeks of Nietzsche's last man. What positive constructive things do you want to see and what metaphysical basis justifies them.
I don't need any of that. I live, I die, and while alive, me and the groups I belong to should have political power and create a society that benefits us most, easy as.
So a society with literally no positive content or transcendent aspirations? That is basically just what we have now minus forced diversity and will decay soon enough back into forced diversity without a transcendent moral framework to keep the cultural Marxists at bay.
Q. What has Christianity done to tame the savagery of the Congo?
A. My Archbishop (a white man) would rather spend most of his time in the Congo, than the West (even though it is part of his jurisdiction). He says in the Congo, at least they know men are men and women are women.
"Nations can be great only if the goal of their existence be the collective realisation of the commandments of the Gospel. Otherwise nationalists are reduced to senseless and pernicious chauvinism.
If nationalism flourishes not by the power of evangelical podvigs and not to Orthodox catholicity, then it will choke in its own egoistic chauvinism. Nations pass, the Gospel is eternal. Only in so far as a nation is filled with eternal evangelical truth and righteousness, does it exist, and itself becomes and remains eternal.
This is the patriotism of the Holy Apostles, the Holy Martyrs, the Holy Fathers. When the emperor-tormentor asked the Holy Martrys Acindynus, Pegasius, and Anempodistus where they were from, they answered:
'Are you asking us, O Emperor, about our homeland? Our homeland and our life is the most Holy, Consubstantial and Undivided Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one God.'
It should be evident we cannot celebrate the "Orthodoxy" or "Patriotism" of political or Ecclesiastical leaders who in any way proclaim heresy. Those who espouse and proclaim heresy are not Orthodox patriots and nor are they champions of or defenders of the Faith - regardless of how much the 'externals' of Orthodoxy may flourish under their watch and irrespective of their battles against particular evils."
I think your view of South America is incorrect and rather reeks of Black Legend. The Spanish empire was extremely successful and one of history's greatest civilising forces. Spanish America's troubles began with the political instability caused by "independence".
"The labourer in the viceregal age of 1792 could buy 23 measures of a hundred kilograms of flour yearly, in 1891, he could only purchase 9.71 and in 1908, only 5.35 …. Thus have we descended down the path of progress." Esquivel Obregón, "Influence of Spain and the United States over Mexico", 1918. (my translation)
Civilization is the tower of Babel: the attempt by man to assert himself against God, without God. It is an attempt to energize oneself and one's neighbors, however you choose to define your neighbors, to rally them to you, by provoking God. The tower of Babel provoked God to divide the tongues, causing all the ethnic splits and racial conflicts that exist today. How exciting! Who will survive, I wonder? Who will come out on top? It's all very tiresome/interesting.
Without God, there is no civilization because there is nothing. But civilization does not want God. The entire premise of civilization is the rejection of God, and the perfection of civilization is the perfect rejection of God. As long as there are Christians left, as long as there are some people who are not fully ready to reject God, civilization has something to aspire to: the final annihilation of Christ on earth. As soon as it reaches its aspirations, it will have completed its own self-destruction. Time will be abolished, and all civilizations will be erased from reality, completely and forever.
What is civilization? Civilization is self-destruction. Civilization is nihilism. Civilization is death. Civilization is total self-contradiction, total confusion, total chaos, order without meaning, temporal and temporary everything, eternal nothing, illusions and lies, whitewashed sepulchers, corpses, preliminary death foreshadowing permanent death. Civilization is idleness, meddling, vain lust for power, and empty words. Civilization is scholarship, printing presses, computers, networks, blogs, and endless stupid comments like this one that no one will ever read, and rightly so, because they add nothing to anything.
Give thanks for Lenin and for AA, if you value your soul, because if you do not get out of politics on your own, they will force you out, or kill you. They may be destroying themselves, but at least they are doing you a big favor in the process. May God have mercy on them, for the benefit that they bring to us by driving us out of the world, if for no other reason.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
It was the Germanic peoples who, in modern times, reintroduced mass abortion and face been largely successful in imposing it on the world. They were also the first to adopt LGBTQ doctrine and are once again set on spreading it around the world. Why exactly should they be regarded as civilizationally superior to, say, the Philippines? And if none of that stuff matters to civilization, what exactly about Western civilization is worth preserving?
This is an old article, but since AA recommended reading it again recently, I feel justified in commenting. The topic is not less relevant today than when it was written.
This well written and thoughtful article unfortunately misses one important fact that AA usually never misses, which makes the entire thesis fall flat: elite theory.
Why bring up population statistics to argue your case, when you yourself admits that culture is downstream from law. What religion the masses believes is irrelevant when determining if christianity betters a civilization. All that matters is to figure out what faith a civilizations elites have, and if that has a positive effect on civilization. Instantly almost all examples listed and quoted by this article becomes irrelevant, as it cannot be argued that the elites of Eskimos, Chinese, African people, Brazil, Mexico or Haiti were believing Christians. As for Carlyle, your own quote from Julius Evola perfectly explained that the west were captured by Freemasons, Jews and American protestant since the French Revolution. What nation's elites still remained mostly christian? America. Which civilization became the next super power? America. The elites in Europe in the meantime either embraced enlightened freemasonry ideals as in france, sweden and prussia (Germany), or was captured by jewish banking elites as in England. No wonder Carlyle saw the decline.
As for the muslim example, I do not contend, since my defence is only for Christianity. When it comes to other religions such as Islam, my contention is that they are better for society as far as they come close to Christian sentiments, and is bad for civilization where they differ from christianity.
Sorry for my poor English. English is not my first language, and Im saving to take your (AA) English grammar and writing course.
You make a good point that they're mostly unrelated, but also I would argue that Christianity stripped of an actual mysticism or applied spirituality was just a set of moral codes posing as something more and that is another reason why it was superfluous. As Asia among other examples have shown, you can have a functioning moral code without Yahweh and Jewish supremacist literature at the core of your theology.
There is some evidence that de Gobineau had abandoned Christianity altogether by the time of his death (cf. Michael Biddiss’s biography). Oscar Levy writes in his introduction to the English translation that he believes the Christianity of the Essai itself (written 1854) to have been purely a matter of form and to avoid association with contemporary radicals like the Carbonari and Freemasons, whom Gobineau as a legitimist aristocrat would have despised.
Finally, this question of Christianity and the west has been extensively treated by the classicist Revilo Oliver, in his “Christianity and the Survival of the West,” and a later work whose name escapes me. I imagine these would be of interest to you.
You came in the front door and took a wrong turn, making the long analysis irrelevant.
First, you must consider the question NOT as "decline of the West," but rather "the decline of the USA." The "West" is only coherent when considering the USA as the culmination of that culture. The USA is special because we built our culture on the foundation of the Greco-Roman civilization that spread through Europe. But the USA is also the culmination of that culture because we separated, geographically, philosophically, and politically from Europe.
With that in mind, the other point that caused the wrong turn mentioned above is: It's NOT "Christianity" that made/makes the USA special. It is WASPness (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture) separated from Europe and given space and freedom to develop itself.
Catholic (Italian, Spanish, Irish) culture, though Christian, is/was NOT able to create the freedom, individualism, liberty that created America. Neither can Orthodox Christianity (Russian, Slav, Greek).
So, NOT "Christianity", but rather WASPism is what created America. A special flavor of Christianity is part of it, but NOT all of it.
"Christianity" includes flavors such as Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestant sects, etc, etc.
While many of those were steps on the path to the success of the USA, those flavors were NOT the keys to the success of the USA--WASPism was the key. NOT just "Christianity."
If you substitute WASPism for "Christianity" in the essay, most of the questions go away. Hispanic Catholics are NOT WASP. Congolese Presbyterians are NOT WASP. Questions answered.
That said, I did not read the whole thing--he lost me in the opening!
Meh waspness was the first step to liberalism. IMO to really restore a society with organic wholeness where everyone has a place and a purpose it should be modeled on either the medieval European Catholic society or the pre conquest Byzantine empire under Orthodox Christianity. These are the last vestiges of the "west" before it was destroyed by nominalism and the mercantile class overpowering the clergy and aristocracy. Once you get usury and social mobility it is only a matter of time before you liberalism and decadence.
So WASPism was the key to the creation of pre-PC-Prog American peak culture.
But....WASPism also had a poison pill inside it, that led to the destruction of American culture. In addition to the Protestant work ethic, the Puritanical busy-body, cancel culture just needed new software to replace the 10 commandments, and voila--destruction instead of steady advancement.
Catholicism? Orthodoxy? Sure? That culture was a step on the way, but devolved into corrupt, hierarchical cultures that rested on their laurels, resisted innovation, and dragged down entire countries--see Latin America, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc, etc., AND all their former colonies.
WASPism was the engine that created exceptional America, now destroyed--NOT vanilla "Christianity". WASPism also contains the key non-religious components of Anglo-Saxon culture--the slow evolution of individual liberty, freedom, individualism, which flowered in 20th century America. Which are all sort of anti-thetical to pretty much ALL Christian belief systems, but especially to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Protestantism is mostly about you taking charge of your soul, with a direct line upstairs. Freedom, individuality, liberty, in other words. The priestly flavors of Christianity are all about individuals kow-towing to the priest class, who have the only direct line to God. Shut up and do as you're told, we're talking to God, peon! That does not lead to "Western" excellence. That system leads to corruption. More quickly than WASPism did, at least!
You taking charge of your soul is exactly the problem, there is a direct line from that to you can can construct your own morality which is at the root of all decadence.
Meh America from the beginning was already in the possession of what we now call classical liberals and the mercantile class, they traded an organic social order with a place for everyone, patronage of the high arts buildings that would stand for a thousand years like cathedrals, and firm moral boundaries for usry, socially mobility, continuous moral transgressions, and "prosperity," for the new "middle class," it was a bad trade IMO
Very interesting article addressing what I think are some real truths, but one thing that deserves critique is the near utter uselessness of citing national statistics on religion, specifically Christianity. There is no doubt that a large majority of people who claim to be "Christian", on whichever forms capture this data, would struggle to coherently explain Christianity and its central tenets and haven't been active in a church for years. In other words, not truly Christians in terms of how they live and influence society. It's one thing to lazily slap a label on oneself when pressed but another thing altogether to follow Christ and live within that moral framework that many modern man rejects. Most of these people would be disregarded in a serious discussion of the topic in how "Christianity" impacts culture, as they live more like agnostic hedonists or nihilists. However, don't ask me how one might capture more realistic percentages of who is Christian... it's beyond any survey.
I love AA and I love the people dissing AA. Great article, great thoughts, no j bullshit like on telegram, no theological shitfights, no denigration of Christianity either. Its quite clear that any western faith reaches its Zenith and its Elogy only through Huwhite Kultur. Thanks for the article.
Whether or not de Gobineau's central thesis is correct or not, the Cherokee are probably the worst choice to pick as far as North American natives go. They assimilated quite decently, at least to a degree, some of them even owning their own plantations and Negros by the middle of the 19th century, and I say that as someone who is descended from both people who were hacked to death and scalped by Cherokees and also from some Cherokee squaws.
Underlying this Christian Nationalism effort is the belief that too many of those other Christians are ultimately possessed by heresy and that by expunging this heresy the nominal "Christians" will shed the progressive world view. The analysis here is correct and coherent. However, I do think that a revivalist movement is something that could save Western man because it could provide the needed animating spirit. The problem is that Torba particularly is putting the cart before the horse. There is nothing inspirational about him or those associated. This is the much bigger piece than just intramural American protestant doctrine.
So are you suggesting you can have aa great civilization without a moral framework? Or even more cringe that like a 4 horseman atheist you can be good without god? A civilization without an ideal of the good, the true and the beautiful Isn't a civilization it is a post modern hellscape. This is actually worse than siding with the pagans who to quote The Big Lebowski "at least have an ethose." This is just nihlism.
Sorry but this is your weakest effort yet. Stick to long juicy video esaays about David Bowie.
Where did I say any of those things?
You don't have to say them it is fully implied by rejecting the transcendence of having a god, or even gods as the scaffolding civilization is built upon. Humans left to their own devices decay into degeneracy very rapidly, in fact this is the central flaw of all forms of liberalism and the marketplace of ideas. Even a monarchy without the moral check of the church is likely to decay into enriching the royal family.
The claim that race is ontologically prior to civilization, which itself in turn is ontologically prior to religion (in essence, race gives rise to civilization, which gives rise to or adopts a religion), is not that same as a proscriptive argument for the abandonment of all that is transcendent in favor of some kind of atheism.
AA claims the former, yet you’ve characterized his claim as the latter.
I will note too that IMO your fanatical racialism is in turn motivating you and that is also IMO a thin reed to base a society on compared to an ideal of transcendending our base lot including the genetics of whatever racial group we are born to towards the good, the true and the beautiful. While your racialism doesn't offend and I don't think it should be surpressed IMO Christ > blood and soil.
The issue is twofold.
First, regarding religion and its relationship to both Truth and our politics, there is a fundamental issue it poses for the Dissident Right, a religiously pluralistic group - who exactly has a monopoly on Truth and how do we figure this out? That is to say which religion is correct, and moreover, how do we make this determination without fracturing into isolated and ghettoized factions? Some parties in the DR wish to avoid talk of religion entirely, others fanatically proselytize their faith and would happily wage a crusade against other religions if given the means and opportunity to do so. As far as practical considerations go, it is best to leave that issue untouched until we, as a people, have secured our own existence and rid ourselves of our enemies, who wish to see us wiped off the map. I`m saying this as a religious person (wanted to point this out so that claims that I`m an atheist/agnostic with an agenda cannot arise out of my raising of this point about religion)
Secondly, Christ doesn`t make a black man white. Race is almost undoubtedly the sole dispositive factor in determining how a civilization will arise, expand, express, and preserve itself. We need not look any further than Christianity in Africa (a place where it has deep roots) versus Christianity in Europe to see that it is race, not religion, that gives rise to a civilization and determines its fate. As AA and our ideological forebears pointed out, a given religion that attaches itself to a given civilization is often chosen because it is compatible with that civilization`s ethos (or, at bare minimum, because it serves some practical purpose or confers some benefit on that civilization).
Is that you Adolph Hitler? Your schtick didn't work before and we have moved beyond it into the realm of culture and metaphysics. Nice try though...
In practice it is the same, if you are not naive about psychology and look at motivation. The reason AA wants to downplay religion of all stripes is he is an atheist who sees it as unimportant and thus not worth fighting over. Yet it is the religious of all stripes who see that dismissing religion leads to vulgar materialism as the lynch pin of civilization, and this in turn leads to ruin. So perhaps religion is the only thing worth fighting over. Even Yarvin these days is looking for some minimal spiritual essence which we can all agree on which he calls animism. That is a thin reed IMO to scaffold a civilization on, but it is better than AA's nothing.
Note it gives me no pleasure to write this, AA is one of our strongest thought leaders and generous with his time. But fhe advantage of the right is the pursuit of truth at all costs and thus we have an obligation to call out our best when they make an error. Coddling error for the sake of unified identity is what the woke do and we are much better than that, we are moral people with an ethos which in turn is predicted on the transcendent over the material and base desires.
How can you believe that "The reason AA wants to downplay religion of all stripes is he is an atheist"? Did I read the same essay as you? AA wrote that...
"Christianity cannot be reduced to mere utility — it is more than whatever worldly ends we may have today and must finally resolve always in affirming salvation in the name of Jesus Christ."
He's one of you, a type of theist, and like you he's not ready to reckon with the fact that Western civ. is an incoherent mishmash. Its people are suffering from its internal contradictions, its absurdities (e.g. the USA's Declaration of Independence), and its history of worldwide busibodyism. No one ought to expect it to survive, and we would be fools to exhaust ourselves trying to extend its lifespan. It would be better to form small study groups to work out the fundamentals of a defensible ontology, a religion, and a way of life for new society and a replacement civilization which rejects most of the legacy institutions of so-called Western civ. Americans, for example, would be expected to repudiate the precious Constitution, which begins with an obvious lie, one which contradicts history and implies that absolutely everyone, even children and Random, has authority to rule.
Since you are theistic, let me give you one example of a starting point for such a study group. Suppose that you and AA insisted for the sake of argument that your god(s) can do absolutely anything at all, without restriction. Probably you would not believe it, as Muhammadists do, but let's say that you did. Then I would talk you down from that ledge by asking if the god exists necessarily. Assuming your answer that it does, I would remind you that the alleged necessity is a way of asserting that the god is NOT in charge of existence. Rather, there must be some law (or regularity, if you like) which detains the god and limits its willpower. So even if the god of Genesis 1 exists, it's a being which deserves much less reverence than is popularly supposed. After all, it has neglected to explain carefully all of its limitations in the scriptures attributed to it.
Those who don't believe in a god may not be satisfied with that starting point, so here is another. Let the nihilist declare his denial of truth. "There is no truth," he says. Well, fine, then it's not true that "there is no truth", but it's surely true that the nihilist claimed what he did. If he makes a face, then even he knows it's true you've trampled down his nihilism. The assertion entails its own refutation, and all who cannot or will not strike a blow for absolutism against it may be dismissed from the group as termites or driftwood. Any Muihammadist who expects to remain in the room will have to admit that the hand of Allah is somehow chained by brute facts of existence which no being can alter or abolish. So much for Islam, which looks like a sect of Christianity begun by a street barker who hated the Trinity.
Still another starting point for our planning commission can be found in Euclid's Elements and other mathematical texts. It's been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that √2 could never be written in the form a/b where a and b are integers. This is a truth of number theory, which we really ought to call numerology, to deprive superstition of a word it doesn't deserve. This truth about √2 is good at all times and all places, and it's another important reminder about the limitations upon willpower, the 2nd most important ontological principle of Abrahamic religion. (The first is egocentricity. See Exodus 3:14.)
And so it would go, working as quickly as possible through a number of basic topics until we have formed a concensus on enough material to start planning how to tutor children. They must learn about existence and their place in it. Along the way we would form some ideas about the liberal arts, including Capella's conception. An update to his list could read like this, I think:
(1) logic
(2) linguistics (not just grammar)
(3) rhetoric
(4) dialectics (as method and rules of discourse)
(5) mathematics (arithmetic, geometry, and more)
(6) physics
(7) astronomy
(8) harmony (the aspect of music and a way to teamwork)
I am going by the Distributist stating AA is an atheist and that, that effects his world view. I would love to see AA have a dialog/debate on this subject with AA. I am new to Christianity and The Distributist as a long time Catholic I am sure could state why an acive faith is neccesary for western civilization to flourish in a deeper and more informed fashion than I am capable of. IMO this dialog about whether faith is neccesary for a dissident right reinvigoration of western culture is neccesary can only be dffered for ao long.
Conflating indifference to Christianity with indifference to morality is retarded. As though the Egyptians, Chinese, Romans, Greeks, and innumerable others just never existed.
I already said I'll take pagans over atheist nihlists as at least they have an ethos. Perhaps you should slow down and actually read what I wrote.
The moral framework is blood bonds, heterosexuality, family, sanity, land, and political power.
Sounds more like national socialism than a basis for high culture that will raise cathedrals and give us musicians at the level of Bach.
Live cozy life with as little deviants, foreigners and conflict as possible
That is a list of things basically you don't want to see and quite honestly reeks of Nietzsche's last man. What positive constructive things do you want to see and what metaphysical basis justifies them.
I don't need any of that. I live, I die, and while alive, me and the groups I belong to should have political power and create a society that benefits us most, easy as.
So a society with literally no positive content or transcendent aspirations? That is basically just what we have now minus forced diversity and will decay soon enough back into forced diversity without a transcendent moral framework to keep the cultural Marxists at bay.
"If religion were a thing that money could buy, the rich would live--and the poor would die. All my troubles Lord, will soon be over."
Easy as equals simple minded and not thinking at why socities decline in the first place.
I don't live in the West, and not planning to.
You guys should consider fixing things.
Would love to see AA debate The Distributist on this topic.
Q. What has Christianity done to tame the savagery of the Congo?
A. My Archbishop (a white man) would rather spend most of his time in the Congo, than the West (even though it is part of his jurisdiction). He says in the Congo, at least they know men are men and women are women.
"Nations can be great only if the goal of their existence be the collective realisation of the commandments of the Gospel. Otherwise nationalists are reduced to senseless and pernicious chauvinism.
If nationalism flourishes not by the power of evangelical podvigs and not to Orthodox catholicity, then it will choke in its own egoistic chauvinism. Nations pass, the Gospel is eternal. Only in so far as a nation is filled with eternal evangelical truth and righteousness, does it exist, and itself becomes and remains eternal.
This is the patriotism of the Holy Apostles, the Holy Martyrs, the Holy Fathers. When the emperor-tormentor asked the Holy Martrys Acindynus, Pegasius, and Anempodistus where they were from, they answered:
'Are you asking us, O Emperor, about our homeland? Our homeland and our life is the most Holy, Consubstantial and Undivided Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one God.'
It should be evident we cannot celebrate the "Orthodoxy" or "Patriotism" of political or Ecclesiastical leaders who in any way proclaim heresy. Those who espouse and proclaim heresy are not Orthodox patriots and nor are they champions of or defenders of the Faith - regardless of how much the 'externals' of Orthodoxy may flourish under their watch and irrespective of their battles against particular evils."
paraphrased from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCyzhhhLOS4
If you become pitiless, you will receive no pity. Become merciless, you will receive no mercy.
Well put. Nazism has already been tried it was a failure.
I think your view of South America is incorrect and rather reeks of Black Legend. The Spanish empire was extremely successful and one of history's greatest civilising forces. Spanish America's troubles began with the political instability caused by "independence".
"The labourer in the viceregal age of 1792 could buy 23 measures of a hundred kilograms of flour yearly, in 1891, he could only purchase 9.71 and in 1908, only 5.35 …. Thus have we descended down the path of progress." Esquivel Obregón, "Influence of Spain and the United States over Mexico", 1918. (my translation)
What is civilization?
Civilization is the tower of Babel: the attempt by man to assert himself against God, without God. It is an attempt to energize oneself and one's neighbors, however you choose to define your neighbors, to rally them to you, by provoking God. The tower of Babel provoked God to divide the tongues, causing all the ethnic splits and racial conflicts that exist today. How exciting! Who will survive, I wonder? Who will come out on top? It's all very tiresome/interesting.
Without God, there is no civilization because there is nothing. But civilization does not want God. The entire premise of civilization is the rejection of God, and the perfection of civilization is the perfect rejection of God. As long as there are Christians left, as long as there are some people who are not fully ready to reject God, civilization has something to aspire to: the final annihilation of Christ on earth. As soon as it reaches its aspirations, it will have completed its own self-destruction. Time will be abolished, and all civilizations will be erased from reality, completely and forever.
What is civilization? Civilization is self-destruction. Civilization is nihilism. Civilization is death. Civilization is total self-contradiction, total confusion, total chaos, order without meaning, temporal and temporary everything, eternal nothing, illusions and lies, whitewashed sepulchers, corpses, preliminary death foreshadowing permanent death. Civilization is idleness, meddling, vain lust for power, and empty words. Civilization is scholarship, printing presses, computers, networks, blogs, and endless stupid comments like this one that no one will ever read, and rightly so, because they add nothing to anything.
Give thanks for Lenin and for AA, if you value your soul, because if you do not get out of politics on your own, they will force you out, or kill you. They may be destroying themselves, but at least they are doing you a big favor in the process. May God have mercy on them, for the benefit that they bring to us by driving us out of the world, if for no other reason.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
It was the Germanic peoples who, in modern times, reintroduced mass abortion and face been largely successful in imposing it on the world. They were also the first to adopt LGBTQ doctrine and are once again set on spreading it around the world. Why exactly should they be regarded as civilizationally superior to, say, the Philippines? And if none of that stuff matters to civilization, what exactly about Western civilization is worth preserving?
"Religion does not matter to the fate of civilizations." USSR; hold my beer...
This is an old article, but since AA recommended reading it again recently, I feel justified in commenting. The topic is not less relevant today than when it was written.
This well written and thoughtful article unfortunately misses one important fact that AA usually never misses, which makes the entire thesis fall flat: elite theory.
Why bring up population statistics to argue your case, when you yourself admits that culture is downstream from law. What religion the masses believes is irrelevant when determining if christianity betters a civilization. All that matters is to figure out what faith a civilizations elites have, and if that has a positive effect on civilization. Instantly almost all examples listed and quoted by this article becomes irrelevant, as it cannot be argued that the elites of Eskimos, Chinese, African people, Brazil, Mexico or Haiti were believing Christians. As for Carlyle, your own quote from Julius Evola perfectly explained that the west were captured by Freemasons, Jews and American protestant since the French Revolution. What nation's elites still remained mostly christian? America. Which civilization became the next super power? America. The elites in Europe in the meantime either embraced enlightened freemasonry ideals as in france, sweden and prussia (Germany), or was captured by jewish banking elites as in England. No wonder Carlyle saw the decline.
As for the muslim example, I do not contend, since my defence is only for Christianity. When it comes to other religions such as Islam, my contention is that they are better for society as far as they come close to Christian sentiments, and is bad for civilization where they differ from christianity.
Sorry for my poor English. English is not my first language, and Im saving to take your (AA) English grammar and writing course.
Your English is fantastic. You're 'humblebragging'... but still -- good work!
You make a good point that they're mostly unrelated, but also I would argue that Christianity stripped of an actual mysticism or applied spirituality was just a set of moral codes posing as something more and that is another reason why it was superfluous. As Asia among other examples have shown, you can have a functioning moral code without Yahweh and Jewish supremacist literature at the core of your theology.
Great blog!
Fascinating. Subscribed. Just finished reading Vico too. He concludes New Science:
“In sum, on account of everything that has been reasoned upon in this work, … if one is not pious, one cannot in truth be wise.”
Sir,
There is some evidence that de Gobineau had abandoned Christianity altogether by the time of his death (cf. Michael Biddiss’s biography). Oscar Levy writes in his introduction to the English translation that he believes the Christianity of the Essai itself (written 1854) to have been purely a matter of form and to avoid association with contemporary radicals like the Carbonari and Freemasons, whom Gobineau as a legitimist aristocrat would have despised.
Finally, this question of Christianity and the west has been extensively treated by the classicist Revilo Oliver, in his “Christianity and the Survival of the West,” and a later work whose name escapes me. I imagine these would be of interest to you.
You came in the front door and took a wrong turn, making the long analysis irrelevant.
First, you must consider the question NOT as "decline of the West," but rather "the decline of the USA." The "West" is only coherent when considering the USA as the culmination of that culture. The USA is special because we built our culture on the foundation of the Greco-Roman civilization that spread through Europe. But the USA is also the culmination of that culture because we separated, geographically, philosophically, and politically from Europe.
With that in mind, the other point that caused the wrong turn mentioned above is: It's NOT "Christianity" that made/makes the USA special. It is WASPness (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture) separated from Europe and given space and freedom to develop itself.
Catholic (Italian, Spanish, Irish) culture, though Christian, is/was NOT able to create the freedom, individualism, liberty that created America. Neither can Orthodox Christianity (Russian, Slav, Greek).
So, NOT "Christianity", but rather WASPism is what created America. A special flavor of Christianity is part of it, but NOT all of it.
How this contradict what article say?
"Christianity" includes flavors such as Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestant sects, etc, etc.
While many of those were steps on the path to the success of the USA, those flavors were NOT the keys to the success of the USA--WASPism was the key. NOT just "Christianity."
If you substitute WASPism for "Christianity" in the essay, most of the questions go away. Hispanic Catholics are NOT WASP. Congolese Presbyterians are NOT WASP. Questions answered.
That said, I did not read the whole thing--he lost me in the opening!
Meh waspness was the first step to liberalism. IMO to really restore a society with organic wholeness where everyone has a place and a purpose it should be modeled on either the medieval European Catholic society or the pre conquest Byzantine empire under Orthodox Christianity. These are the last vestiges of the "west" before it was destroyed by nominalism and the mercantile class overpowering the clergy and aristocracy. Once you get usury and social mobility it is only a matter of time before you liberalism and decadence.
So WASPism was the key to the creation of pre-PC-Prog American peak culture.
But....WASPism also had a poison pill inside it, that led to the destruction of American culture. In addition to the Protestant work ethic, the Puritanical busy-body, cancel culture just needed new software to replace the 10 commandments, and voila--destruction instead of steady advancement.
Catholicism? Orthodoxy? Sure? That culture was a step on the way, but devolved into corrupt, hierarchical cultures that rested on their laurels, resisted innovation, and dragged down entire countries--see Latin America, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc, etc., AND all their former colonies.
WASPism was the engine that created exceptional America, now destroyed--NOT vanilla "Christianity". WASPism also contains the key non-religious components of Anglo-Saxon culture--the slow evolution of individual liberty, freedom, individualism, which flowered in 20th century America. Which are all sort of anti-thetical to pretty much ALL Christian belief systems, but especially to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Protestantism is mostly about you taking charge of your soul, with a direct line upstairs. Freedom, individuality, liberty, in other words. The priestly flavors of Christianity are all about individuals kow-towing to the priest class, who have the only direct line to God. Shut up and do as you're told, we're talking to God, peon! That does not lead to "Western" excellence. That system leads to corruption. More quickly than WASPism did, at least!
You taking charge of your soul is exactly the problem, there is a direct line from that to you can can construct your own morality which is at the root of all decadence.
Meh America from the beginning was already in the possession of what we now call classical liberals and the mercantile class, they traded an organic social order with a place for everyone, patronage of the high arts buildings that would stand for a thousand years like cathedrals, and firm moral boundaries for usry, socially mobility, continuous moral transgressions, and "prosperity," for the new "middle class," it was a bad trade IMO
People shouldn't comment on articles they do not read.
Where does Paul Gottfried's thesis in 'Multiculturalism' about the role of Protestantism fit into this picture?