Thomas Sowell wonders if Western civilization is going quietly by confusing squeamishness with morality:
How many times, in its thousands of years of history, has Europe gone 60 years without a major war, as it has since World War II? That peace has been due to American nuclear weapons, which was all that could deter the Soviet Union’s armies from marching right across Europe to the Atlantic Ocean.Having overwhelming military force on your side, and letting your enemies know that you have the guts to use it, is being genuinely antiwar. Chamberlain’s appeasement brought on World War II and Reagan’s military buildup ended the Cold War.
The famous Roman peace of ancient times did not come from negotiations, ceasefires, or pretty talk. It came from the Roman Empire’s crushing defeat and annihilation of Carthage, which served as a warning to anyone else who might have had any bright ideas about messing with Rome.
Only after the Roman Empire began to lose its own internal cohesion, patriotism, and fighting spirit over the centuries did it begin to succumb to its external enemies and finally collapse.
That seems to be where Western civilization is heading today.
How is Western civilization declining?
Internal cohesion? Not only does much of today’s generation in Western societies have a “do your own thing” attitude, but defying rules and flouting authority are actually glorified. Balkanization through “multiculturalism” has become dogma.Patriotism? Not only is patriotism disdained, the very basis for pride in one’s country and culture is systematically undermined in our educational institutions at all levels.
The achievements of Western civilization are buried in histories that portray every human sin found here as if they were peculiarities of the west.
The classic example is slavery, which existed all over the world for thousands of years and yet is incessantly depicted as if it was a peculiarity of Europeans enslaving Africans. Barbary pirates alone brought twice as many enslaved Europeans to North Africa as there were Africans brought in bondage to the United States and the American colonies from which it was formed.
How many schools and colleges are going to teach that, going against political correctness and undermining white guilt?
How many people have any inkling that it was precisely Western civilization that eventually turned against slavery and began stamping it out when non-Western societies still saw nothing wrong with it?
How can a generation be expected to fight for the survival of a culture or a civilization that has been trashed in its own institutions, taught to tolerate even the intolerance of other cultures brought into its own midst, and conditioned to regard any instinct to fight for its own survival as being a “cowboy”?