Anyone can see that Western civilisation is on the way out. Let me rephrase that. Anyone should be able to see that Western civilisation is on the way out, but most people don't because they are too wedded to their own paltry pleasures or selfish resentments or greedy desires or shallow ambitions. The list continues but it basically encompasses all those who do not place the good, the beautiful and the true above their own egos, and that is the majority. If ever a civilisation deserved to collapse, it is ours because we are not worthy of those who established that civilisation. We, who place the temporal above the eternal, put ourselves at the mercy of the temporal and our time has passed.
There is a solution but we will never take it. The solution is to return to tradition and the soul of Christianity. That would include a form of what is now dismissed as patriarchy since, by and large, it is only men who are willing to fight for truth and to preserve it in the face of the inevitable attacks on it, inevitable because Satan exists and wages an ongoing war against creation. This has become so apparent in our day, and especially over the last 25 years, that anyone who wishes to tread the spiritual path has to see that path in terms of the war of good and evil. If you refuse to recognise that and retreat to an 'everything is one' position you are simply being spiritually blind, not to mention irresponsible. The mask is almost completely off now and the face of evil beginning to be seen for what it is.
Satan has weakened the West with, among many other things, the debasement of culture, mass immigration and feminism. In a society that wished to preserve itself immigrants would not be given a say in how the country was run (in other words, a vote) for at least 2 generations, and their number would be restricted. The number of immigrants that flood (the word is fair) into Western countries now will inevitably change them utterly. This may have good or bad results in the long term (I'm being diplomatic), but clearly for the host nation to permit it is borderline insanity because it will destroy itself thereby. A basic instinct is self-preservation. To go against this instinct is to succumb to the unnatural and the anti-spiritual. The failure to reproduce and the desire to kill yourself are ungodly.
Feminism is the devil's secret weapon because, while ostensibly based on reason and justice, it actually seeks to reverse natural hierarchies and turn the two sexes, meant to be complementary, into rivals on the same ground. The promotion of women to previously male spheres damages society because establishing harmony and consensus becomes more important than the search for truth and excellence. This again is one of those things that its so obvious it shouldn't need saying but the ideologically committed will never acknowledge it. That having been said, feminism is not the cause of the collapse but a symptom of it though it does hurry it along as well.
I say the remedy would be a return to some sort of modified patriarchy, meaning one that takes into account the evolution of consciousness and agency of both men and women, but I am not recommending this even if it were possible which it isn't as things stand. The West must die and that is right and proper. The energies that sustained it are now weak and feeble and it has come to the end of its life. It is becoming a corpse on which the parasites will feed as it dies. But in the greater scheme of things that is not a problem because everything in this world only exists to serve spiritual needs. As the West collapses there are great spiritual opportunities for those who know how to take advantage of them. We may lament the collapse because of past good but everything dies and the West has rejected God so become evil. There is no more to be said. It must go but since the primary function of this world is as a school for consciousness and sphere in which the soul may choose or reject God and be tested thereby that is no great loss. All that is good and true and right exists in the higher worlds eternally.
Conditions are no better - possibly worse - in the rest of the world. At least in the large countries (Russia, China, Islamic world etc - monolithic, oppressive, dedicated to extreme "control", and selfishly aggressive without even the veneer of "corrupted idealism" of Western aggression, and fully committed to accelerating modernity) - but some spiritual health seems to linger in some "peripheral" regions at least. Last time I was in Southeast Asia I felt some traces of the old, spiritual Asia yet endured, visible in the delightful traditional color and chaos of the backstreets that continue to resist the efforts of our machine like age to render everything oppressively "controlled" and homogenized.
ReplyDeleteBut things are bad and getting worse there as well. The trends are terrible . And India, which even a decade ago seemed timeless and eternal, seems to have finally entered the "modern age" - with predictably accelerating spiritual decay and a new aggression and materialism. Although likely traces of the old spiritual India endure in the backstreets as well.
But yes, the global predicament is dire - the genie of modernity has been let out of the bottle and rapidly expanded everywhere, especially the large countries and civilizational blocs.
But as you say, amid these challenges are the most extraordinary opportunities for personal spiritual rejuvenation, if one has the courage to take them. One must give up this world and "lay ones treasures in heaven" truly.
Recently I have taken to giving up work and money - and inevitably safety and security - and wandering nomadically the great Western Wilds, ecstatically connecting to Gods beauty in nature and living a simple life.
If one is willing to live simply and perhaps somewhat precariously, foregoing comfort, money, and the accepted level of security - one today has perhaps unmatched opportunities for checking out of the world and pursuing spiritual aspirations.
Food is so cheap one will never starve. One might have done so in an earlier age.
Still, it takes sacrifice and courage, and there are many forces against one.
But many people today are opting for this.
But in the end this world was never our true home, so what is to be sad about? Spirituality is always "glad tidings" amid the darkness of this world.
I'm sure you're right about the rest of the world. It will be better in some ways and worse in others but the general trend will be away from spirit and towards the material and the debased. Your recommendation to lead a simple life is surely right. We should try to reduce our dependence on the System as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteIt is a brilliant summary. You go through the ruins of what used to be Christendom, seeing the magnificent physical and cultural works of your ancestors and seeing all the people destroying what you love the most. On the other hand, as someone who lives in the rest of the world, all the degeneracy we receive here is imported from the West, so the fall of the West is bittersweet.
ReplyDeleteThanks Chent. Yes, it's an irony that the West has given the rest of the world most of the best and a lot of the worst.
ReplyDeleteI believe I read a line in a literary work of some note, " the blood of Numenor is all but spent". And despite that, against all odds, the good and the righteous overcame evil. While the story is fiction, the author saw ahead to what we have become. Western civilization may pass into history, but I believe there are still sufficient numbers of what I call "muscular Christians " and warriors of the enlightenment that perhaps "not this day".
ReplyDeleteYou may be right but in the book you mention though evil was powerful it was also obvious and most people were still on the side of good. Now that really doesn't seem to be the case. Evil presents itself as good and most people align with false goods. But still, as you say, there are plenty of people who don't. Not enough to turn things around but perhaps, like the Biblical remnant, enough to act as seeds for the future.
ReplyDeleteComment from Ron Tomlinson:
ReplyDelete>There is a solution but we will never take it. The solution is to return to tradition and the soul of Christianity.
I want to agree however given that traditional Christianity seems to have failed what would prevent it from failing a second time -- is there a missing ingredient?
My response:
I didn't mean traditional Christianity which is why I phrased it as tradition and the soul of Christianity. The missing ingredient is internalising the teachings of Christ and not relying so much on external authority. It requires the development of the mystical sense though keeping that checked and balanced by the best of traditional teaching and wisdom.
Just to be clear, the evolution of consciousness does require a new approach to religion and that includes Christianity. I would not say that Christianity has failed but we have failed to live up to it (not an original insight on my part). At the same time, the changes in human consciousness do mean that the old structures are no longer fully adequate. We must build on the same foundations though.
ReplyDeleteI have never understood this idea that Christianity has failed.
ReplyDeleteI think it comes from conceiving Christianity as some kind of "technology" that -externally and from the outside - imposes a solution on mankind as a whole.
But to the extent that one chooses to live genuinely as a Christian, it "works". It always has and will. Of course in this corrupted world many won't, and increasingly so. This is predicted in Christianity itself, in Revelations. Buddhism has a similar prophecy that it will ultimately decline until it is renewed. So does Hinduism. The premise of many spiritualities is that the world gets worse until it gets renewed.
In addition, Christianity's ultimate promise is not for this world - it is for the renewal of this world, (with the prediction that things may get better for a while but ultimately things will get worse until that happens).
I'm the meantime, individually, Christianity "works" in ones life to the extent one adopts it - which always requires risk and genuine sacrifice, and always will (as it goes against worldly motions of the good life). But one is healed and made whole by its adoption - one achieves happiness even now, except that this happiness looks like unhappiness to the "world" (since it lies precisely in giving up the happiness of the world).
I do however agree that no historical form of Christianity is really adequate, although some are better or worse - each is a highly imperfect and often scandalous and utterly contradictory vessel for the true "spirit" of Christ's message, which has to be grasped anew by each person individually and practiced.
@William, Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI see, we can use our knowledge of Christian tradition to help and guide us in reaching its soul and developing our inner lives. Makes sense.
Apologies for implying that traditional Christianity has failed outright. I meant that it doesn't seem to be preventing the collapse of the West.
It isn't a tool or technology, but supposing it were. That would mean in order for it to work we would at least have to pick it up and use it. Which we aren't doing!
If life were really so simple as working like a slave (getting a job) and breeding like animals (getting a gf), then humanity would truly be dead already. We would be born and our entire lives would be lived without mystery and adventure. Sure, we probably would not fear anything, but we would have no souls. What we fear is only loss of ourselves, but we need to accept that whatever happens is part of an amazing and magnificent creation.
ReplyDeleteWell said. You write from a more European perspective, but as someone who spends a good deal of time in rural America things do not seem so bleak here. I'm often surprised at the realization of how many people are having revelations and the right kind of revelations. What I notice is visible through my real world interactions here and I don't think it is something that can be noticed online. I'm not saying that I am an optimist but it is clear to me that even if "the west falls" there will remain a remnant.
ReplyDeleteTraditional Christianity has failed socially. Communal/Social Christianity simply isn't working and hasn't for a long, long time - just look at the obvious historic secularisation/ desacralisation/ de-Christianisation. Traditional Christianity can still work for individuals and, as families are made up of individuals, for families. Though the fact that Traditional Christianity has failed socially/communally undermines traditional Christian families and individuals to a huge degree.
ReplyDeleteThe fault of why Traditional Christianity has failed socially is the fault of traditional Christianity and traditional Christians (primarily their talented and well educated through the centuries). Traditional Christianity is mal-adapted to modern conditions, doesn't work socially in modern conditions.
It seems like the world has grown dark because the Christian people's light has grown dim.
Looks like Traditional Christianity will decrease further despite the appearances to traditionalists of an upward trend.
I look forward to the time traditional Christianity is reformulated with different emphases. With some emphases, not only, that are also geared to overcome socially/communally the challenges of the modern world. Then too, as well as the communal/social light growing brighter, traditional Christian individuals and families will find more support in their work of salvation and theosis.
This is the only way 'to save the West'. But will traditional Christians, particularly their talented and well-educated natural leaders, accomplish this. I hope so. But it's looking like the will is not there. Primarily because Traditional Christianity blinkers a lot of its faithful.