Monday 8 January 2024

The Decline of The West - a thought experiment

Here's a thought experiment regarding the ongoing, inexorable (and primarily self-inflicted) decline of The West towards extinction...

Yes, it is terrible that so much that was once so great will be lost...

But would you really prefer that The West as it now is in terms of values and ideology was waxing in economic power and military might, increasing in global influence; once again replete with geniuses in science, technology, the arts; efficient and results-orientated in its societal institutions - and effectively led by Men of aptitude and charisma? 

**

Note: Of course, this "thought-experimental" combination of The West as is in terms of values and ideology - and The West as a great and positive human accomplishment; is actually an oxymoron, an impossible self-contradiction; because what has made the decline, is also what has destroyed all the goodness. 

4 comments:

Stephen Macdonald said...

"The West" is losing no temporal power -- in fact, power is increasing. The West is being de-Christianized and re-paganized. Wealth -- therefore worldly power -- is being concentrated in the hands of a pagan elite while the masses become ever more despondent and delusional. The elites don't need a lot of people - or won't within 40-50 years (this much is obvious to any reader of this blog). The powers and principalities are not restricted to Europe or America but spread throughout the world in places like China, Korea, and South America. The Black Iron Prison will be global but controlled primarily by Western gnostic elites.

This induces in the follower of Christ a resigned sadness, tempered by the serenity that defies understanding.

Simply, Deo confidimus, rather than the American Deo et patriae.



Bruce Charlton said...

@Stephen - Well; the thought experiment is for those, such as myself, who see The West as in an accelerating and terminal decline - which will (at an unpredictable time, but unavoidably) be marked by catastrophic collapse and mega-death.

But those who see the opposite can appreciate the problem even more viscerally!

cecil1 said...

"replete with geniuses in science, technology, the arts; efficient and results-orientated in its societal institutions"

My reaction would be a strong yes!! In fact it is exactly the lack and suppression of those people that has resulted in a great deal of the evils befalling the West.

I suspect since you phrase the question that way, that you clearly say NO, you would not want that, as the moral and spiritual degredation of the age would result in men of ability simply amplifying the ability to do more evil in the world.

Is it too naive to think the very absence of those geniuses in a SIGN of the spiritual evils of the times, and their return would mark an opportunity for another Great awakening?

Brett Stevens said...

It seems to me that the usual clash between essence and instance is afoot. The eternal West is a spirit and a people; the temporal West is the mess of it made by democracy, equality, and other symbolic quests. Do we like the temporal West? No, because it is not the West. We long for the eternal one.