WHY? (FREE)
“The task of the civilized intelligence is perpetual salvage.”
Why has Western man lost his nerve and his sense? That is really the only important question of the day. Everything else that is happening in the world is merely a by-product of forces occupying the space made by the shrinking of the West.
Or I should say “HOW has Western man lost his nerve and his sense?” The Why is always in the deep mystery of God’s time. The only way we can approach it is in describing the How. We might then hope to understand a little or even to find a way back.
Every thinking person has observed aspects of the phenomenon and doubtless has ideas of what are major causes of the West’s terminal state. I can but describe what strikes me, in some cases perhaps things not illuminated by other diagnosticians.
To call on empirical facts. It seems to be established that in all Western countries the level of intelligence and the level of testosterone in the white male population has been declining. No doubt as an effect of urbanism, easy living, the increasing impotence of the European ethnic core, and the feminization of culture. I noticed in my last years of teaching that not only young women but young men were starting to speak like Valley Girls---tentative and trivial.
It is easy to find wimps, thugs, and con artists in the U.S. today. Much harder to find those who would have been regarded in earlier ages as fully realized men. And even harder to find among those who have risen to the highest ranks of politics, bureaucracy (including the military), religious government, and culture. What used to be ordinary integrity is increasingly scarce. A lot of our people cannot even muster the normal male instinct to protect the home territory from interlopers but seem to delight in raining down death at remote control on distant people who have done us no particular harm.
How is it that so many Americans have become abnormally indifferent to the slaughter of the unborn and passive in the face of immigrant invasion?,
Is this phenomenon a cause or a symptom?
Professor Wilson,
It’s a symptom. The causes you desire to converse about are too varied to list in the small empirical realms available to modern minds. The only categories apparently available are either, economic, political, environmental or genetic. Too small a sample size for any human being to even bother with, in my opinion. It’s like the old Colonel who believed that if too much liberty created a morale problem, then only a total lack of liberty can cure it.
In regard to the decline of male testosterone levels, someone pointed out that the decline began and coincided with the government’s creation of the “food pyramid,” and their suggestion that Americans should load up on grains, now mostly GMO grains, and cut out meats, oils, butter, and other natural fats, etc. The sharp increase in obesity also started at this time, surprise, surprise…
Also, widespread marijuana usage began around the same time, and has really skyrocketed in the past decade. Not only are people smoking themselves dumb, numb, and servile, but they are feminizing themselves and making themselves impotent. Freedom to do as you please is really slavery to any number of vices, whether it be drugs, sex, gambling, shopping, etc.
Some of it, I think, has been caused by the destruction of any sense of local, geographically bounded communities. There’s simply no place for men anymore. I know much is made of how men are no longer men in their own families, with women being co-bread earners and co-leaders in the family and what not (I’m still enough of a chauvinist that I refuse to even let my wife drive when we take long family trips), but even before and after the having of a family there is no place for men because there is no community for men to live in. Without any real community, there’s no place to earn a reputation, to have one’s hard work or efforts lauded and appreciated (either by young ladies or honorable elders), and there’s no place to feel useful, to contribute, or to take on responsibilities. Best case scenario, outside of some ever-shrinking and often impoverished havens in the rural South (and possibly other regions), most folks make due with sectional communities, like the “group of families I hang out with at my parish” or “the group of my kids parents from school that I get along with” or “that subset of coworkers that I go to happy hour with.” But these aren’t adequate substitutes for a real community in which a young man can participate and build a name for himself.
As a result, I think many have sought phony online communities through Facebook or Reddit, and instead of having the place and support to apprentice with a tradesman or start their own business these men either go to college in order to live the frat boy life and wind up eternal adolescents and/or take jobs for some faceless, heartless national or global corporation that forces them to waste much of their time either doing pointlessly menial bureaucratic tasks or ride out the clock as a salaried employee since hard work is only punished. When a young man cannot make a reputation because of his work, his endurance, his wit, or his trustworthiness, what is left but to try to make a reputation by being a smirker or a social justice warrior or an activist – if these are the only currencies the national / global world deals in when it comes to respect, and there are no other communities for a man to exist in – what else can we expect?
I’m sure my generalizing here is nigh on useless, but it’s a thought I’ve been long pondering. One can’t grow corn without soil – I don’t think we can expect to have men without a place for men to exist.
Well said Mr. Cornell.
It is neither a cause nor a symptom but a manifestation as shown by liberal choices that were made and approved by government. An example is the LGBT group in Portugal. Recently this year, a law has been made that makes it easier for a minor to change his/her gender identification to transgender. http://en.wikipedia.org/Portugal Pg. 11. This in a country that is 86% Catholic yet is a secular country. I imagine the rest of Europe is the same.
Dear Dot,
Yes, its hard to know much these days looking at statistics. I do know that statistically speaking there were very, very, few Catholics in Libya and yet those twenty-one who had the option of renouncing Christ or having their heads cut off, probably were practicing their faith. Reading about them I discovered that 20 of the 21 recited, “Come, Lord Jesus! ” before the Jihadists started cutting on their necks. Number 21 was not a baptized Christian but did tell his executioners “Today, their God is my God” before excepting death. Its probably true there are not many characters among all the trimmers in our post christian culture to pay much attention to and if most of us were accused of practicing The Faith, there would not be enough evidence to convict. But there are still a few in obscure places of the world. How to increase their number is doesn’t seem to be a question very many politicians are concerned about —- in Portugal or elsewhere.
Sorry for the ugly rush but its just a blog.
Dr. Wilson – getting back to your last question, I would say sympton. As John Lukacs keeps saying, no one has ideas, we all select our ideas from those we are exposed to. The plethora of false ideas promulgated by public education, popular media, and other outlets predominate.
I am not sure what to say:
Here I am mixin misery and gin
or
Think I’ll just stay here and drink.
Too bad its Friday night I want to go back and cut wood but its too dark. Funny how the bottom of that bottle brings everythig into focus. God bless fleemmingFoundatiosn.
I love yuoall
and dr wilson. God bless Dr Wilson. .