Western Civilization
Contents
Definition
Applications
Purpose of Criticism of Civilization
The cornerstone of civilization has been demolished by rational critique and no wonder, it needed to be criticized but it needed to be more deeply understood and criticism and deep understanding are the same thing, unless the criticism is only destruction. If you criticize something what you’re doing is separating the wheat from the chaff, you’re not burning all of it.
What should we conserve and what should we dispense with?
We conserve what’s centrally true and now we need to understand it.[1]
The West as Tyrannical Patriarchy
"We think Western culture is a tyrannical patriarchy and the only way you get to the top is by misusing power, and that all the people who have the aim and ambition to achieve that are just tyrants in training. Everything about that is pathological and inexcusable and shameful."[2]
"The idea that Western culture is primarily a tyrannical patriarchy is historically ignorant beyond belief. Compared to what, exactly?"[3]
"The idea of the West as a tyrannical patriarchy is rapidly translated into the idea that young men who strive forward are to be regarded with suspicion because they are doing nothing but manifesting the same sort of tyrannical power that has kept women oppressed for the last 2000 years, and I think that entire narrative is appalling, right to the core." [4]
The West's Place in the World
"There's plenty of sins on the conscience of the west, as a civilisation, but you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are far worse places, like all the other places, for example, that have ever been."[5]
"We’re unbelievably fortunate to live in our time and place. It isn’t that way because we exploited the rest of the world and robbed them blind. It’s that way because we decided to take a stand for the nobility of the individual."[6]
Interpretations
- SJW is an assault on the metaphysics which underpins western society. An assault on everything that has been established since the enlightenment, such as:
- Rationality,
- Empiricism,
- Logic and dialogue (logos).
- Clarity of thought
- Science
- The individual
- Our modern problem may be lack of problems (harsh reality has been banished) (Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece).
- You can retreat into Order in modern life, and soon we will have so much security and comfort that what we will want more than ever is deprivation and challenge (Kierkegaard said this). This is especially true of young men.
- It’s always good to have enemies. Enemies make you think, and they tell you things that nobody else will.
- (Q: How can we have confidence in the existence and benevolence of the logos)
- The testament of the ages. Try it, find things in your life and fix them (that’s why Christ was a carpenter, archetypally speaking, he fixed things).
- You can’t speak the truth, perhaps, nobody can, but you can decide not to tell lies and you can learn to do that very quickly. When you lie, you are failing to bear the burden of your existence, and you feel that in your body. And then watch what happens.
- You have to sacrifice your life to the logos in order to prove its existence.
Free speech is the fundamental principle of Western civilization. Criticism is just a way to achieve consensus. The alternative to free speech is tyranny or slavery. The alternative to negotiation is war; combative speech is the replacement for combat.
We have been cowed and we are cowing ourselves; it has become so dangerous that we can’t criticize Islam. ‘Patriarchy’ is the code word for ‘Western civilization’. The SJWs think it needs to be retooled from the ground up. They are mounting an all-out assault on it.
See Also
