Sunday, May 06, 2007

What Do We Fight For?

The Fjordman Report

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.



I have tried to contribute to a new vocabulary by coining the word “Caucasophobia” for anti-white racism, and have suggested the term “self-termination” for organized Western self-loathing and the Western policy of unilaterally dismantling our own culture. Both terms are OK, but if somebody can come up with something better and more catchy, I’m all ears. One can say many bad things about the word “Islamophobia,” but it’s easy to understand and sticks in your mind. If the shariabots can come up with a word like that then infidels shouldn’t be any less inventive.

We are against Sharia and Jihad, but what are we for? What is Western civilization? What exactly sets it apart from others and makes it worth keeping? If we’re going to defend “freedom” and “Western civilization,” we need to define precisely what we are talking about.

I would personally say that the emphasis on the individual is our most defining trait as a civilization. Both Muslims and internal collectivists hate our individualism the most, because it stands in the way of their ideologies. This is why they go to great lengths to smash it and replace it with group thinking. However, even our individualism can potentially be carried into such extremes that it can become a problem. Individuals still need to feel part of something greater and enduring, or society will be left unable to defend itself.

Another Western trait is a non-fatalistic outlook on the world and a belief in the ability of individuals to affect their own future, combined with linear thinking versus circular thinking, a high value placed on rationality versus emotionalism and last, but not least, curiosity — wanting to know how things “tick.”

The KoranI still remember the first time I read the Koran. I soon discovered how intolerant it was, but my first impression was actually not that it was violent, but that it was remarkably incoherent and difficult to read. It’s frequently self-contradictory, and Allah is portrayed as an unpredictable god. The Bible is more structured and with a higher literary quality than the Koran, even to a non-religious person. When European scientists initiated the Scientific Revolution, they assumed that God had made nature according to logical patterns that could be uncovered and predicted. But Islam, starting out with the structure of the Koran itself, assumes that there is no pattern, and that nature is simply subject to Allah’s whims.

I have given detailed explanations to non-Muslims of how Muslims continuously deceive infidels, but frankly, Muslims even lie to each other. I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that it’s not so much about lying as about the fact that truth is irrelevant in Islamic culture, which is why all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories always find an eager audience there. Notice how Pakistani ex-Muslim Mohammed Rasoel writes in his book The Downfall of the Netherlands — Land of the Naive Fools how he comes from a culture where people “lie all the time,” and consider persons who actually say what they think to be gullible fools.

Eppur si muoveNeedless to say, this is also why Muslims have such a poor track record in science. Science is about uncovering truth, and if you come from a culture which holds that truth is irrelevant, you have a huge handicap. That is why the Scientific Revolution happened in Christian Europe, and not in the Islamic Middle East.

The sad part is, we are abandoning the scientific method in the West as well. And it’s not the only instance where we are regressing. Hate crime legislation constitutes a radical departure from the idea of equality before the law. You will be punished differently for assaulting a black Muslim than for the same crime against a white Christian, a Hindu woman or a Jewish woman, a gay man or a straight man etc. Some would argue that this already happens in real life. However, the point here is that this principle has now become a formal aspect of the law. This constitutes a gross perversion of justice. It mirrors Islamic law, which mandates different punishments for the same crime, depending upon the religious background and the sex of both the perpetrator and the victim.
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Islam has always valued individual life inequitably. But now there is a creeping tendency within the West toward the same view. In the case of assault or murder, an additional sentence is added if the act is viewed as a “hate crime.” Murder is murder, and all human life is to be valued equally. However, according to Multiculturalism we are required to treat all cultures and religions as equally valid, which they obviously are not. This perversion of reality makes the Western system of justice vulnerable to infiltration by Islamic law.

The West has traditionally been a rational civilization. We now have an emotional culture, which we see clearly in the immigration debate where emphasis is on whether you “feel good” and whether your “intentions” are good when you support mass immigration, not on rationally calculating the long-term consequences of your actions.

Multicultural MathOur education system is no longer dedicated to searching for truth or even recognizing the concept that there is such a thing as “truth” in the first place, only multiple truths, all equally valid. Christian Europe could stage the Scientific Revolution precisely because it believed in truth and wanted to uncover truth. Post-Christian, Multicultural Europe no longer believes in truth, and would thus have been unable to stage the Scientific Revolution.

It is remarkable to notice how effective the “counter-culture” of the 1960s has been at attacking the pillars of Western civilization: Our education system is now used to dismantle our culture, not to uphold it, and has moved from the Age of Reason to the Age of Deconstruction. We have thus abandoned the ideal of rationality and objectivity, which used to be the foundation of our culture.

The EUSSROur religious heritage as well as the social basis of our society, the nuclear family, has been under constant attack. Our legal system, at least in Europe, is moving away from the ideal of laws passed with the consent of the people and with their best interest in mind into transnational legislation written by faceless technocrats, with no loyalty to any specific people. The EU Constitution betrays an almost sharia-like desire to control all aspects of our lives, instead of upholding law and order and otherwise staying out of the way.

And finally, we are in the middle of an age where focus is on “subgroups” within the nation state, not on individuals. The anti-Westerners have taken great care to break down our religion, our individualism, our rationalism and finally our connection with the past, to make sure we don’t remember that we ever possessed any of these traits in the first place. Unfortunately, they have succeeded rather well so far. We are abandoning what once made us great, and are moving in the direction of Sharia Lite when it comes to free speech, equality before the law, and lack of rationalism.

What are we fighting for? We are fighting for freedom of thought and for freedom of speech, for the right to criticize not just our government, but all doctrines, political and religious. The fight against hate speech and hate crime legislation now constitutes a front line in the battle for liberty.

No to the UN!We are fighting for secular laws passed with the consent of the people, not sharia nor transnational legislation drafted by bureaucrats and technocrats unaccountable to the people. We do not want to be held hostage by international NGOs, transnational progressives or self-appointed guardians of the truth. Likewise, we are fighting for national sovereignty. No nation regardless of political system can survive the loss of its territorial integrity, but democratic states especially so. We pay national taxes because our authorities are supposed to uphold our national borders. If they can’t do so, the social contract is breached, and we should no longer be required to pay our taxes.

We are fighting for equality before the law. Hate crime legislation is weakening this, by treating people as members of a group, gay-straight, male-female, black-white etc, instead of as an individual, and also de facto results in unequal punishment for the same crime.

We are fighting for the right to view a nation as a cultural unit, not just a random space on a map. A country has the right to decide how much, if any, immigration it wants to accept. The idea of unlimited mass migration is 21st century Communism. Man is not just homo economicus, the economic man, the sum of his functions as labor and consumer, who can be supplanted from one region of the world to the next at will. Multiculturalism implicitly means that the native population have to suppress and erase their own cultural traditions and historical identity. People have the right to want to preserve their culture and pass it on to future generations.

Canaletto, ‘London: Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh’, 1754

Finally, I’d like to talk about one aspect of Western culture that tends to be downplayed, but is quite important: We are the only culture in the history of mankind to develop realistic, faithful depictions of beings and matter in our paintings and sculptures, rather than merely stylized depictions. We are also the only culture to invent a way to depict three-dimensional subjects in a two-dimensional format. A similar three-dimensional perspective was lacking in all other types of early art, be that Chinese or Japanese, East Indian, Mesoamerican, African or Middle Eastern. This could conceivably be because we have perceived space and spatial relationships in a different way than the rest of the world. What does that mean for our culture?

Egyptian art was dedicated to preserving the body for the afterlife. Artists drew from memory, according to strict rules. The ancient Egyptians were not Westerners, but they did contribute a lot to those who later became Westerners, the Greeks and the Romans.

In the brilliant book The Story of Art, writer E.H. Gombrich explains this. For an Egyptian artist, “once he had mastered all these rules he had finished his apprenticeship. No one wanted anything different, no one asked him to be ‘original’. On the contrary, he was probably considered the best artist who could make his statues most like the admired monuments of the past. So it happened that in the course of three thousand years or more Egyptian art changed very little. Everything that was considered good and beautiful in the age of the pyramids was held to be just as excellent a thousand years later.”

Akhenaten and NefertitiThere was only one major exception to this, and that was the heretical Pharaoh Akhenaten in the 14th century BC. The art depicting him and his wife Nefertiti is quite naturalistic. It is unlike anything before in Egyptian history, and may have been inspired by that of the Minoan culture on the island of Crete, by many considered to be the first European civilization. Some of this style is still discernible in objects found in the tomb of Tutankhaten, believed to be son of Akhenaten, who later changed his name to Tutankhamun as the old religion was reestablished.

Even though the artistic legacy of Akhenaten was quickly forgotten, his religious ideas may have proven far more durable. His insistence on worshipping one supreme god, Aten, makes him a pioneer in monotheism. It has been speculated, though disputed by many scholars, that Akhenaten’s ideas may have inspired those of Moses, which led to the creation of Judaism and, by extension, Christianity.

What is less disputed is that the earliest alphabet, the ancestor of nearly every alphabet used around the globe, including, via Phoenician, the Greek and the Latin ones, was partly derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs representing syllables.

Greek artists studied and imitated Egyptian art, but experimented and decided to look for themselves instead of following any traditional, ready-made formula. As Gombrich says, “The Greeks began to use their eyes. Once this revolution had begun, there was no stopping it.” It is surely no coincidence that this Great Awakening of art to freedom took place in the hundred years between, roughly, 520 and 420 BC, in Greek city-states such as Athens where philosopher Socrates challenged our ideas about the world:

“It was here, above all, that the greatest and most astonishing revolution in the whole history of art bore fruit. (...) The great revolution of Greek art, the discovery of natural forms and of foreshortening, happened at the time which is altogether the most amazing period of human history.” This art was later spread far beyond the borders of Greece, when Alexander the Great created his empire and brought Hellenistic art to Asia:

Gandhara Buddha“Even in far-distant India, the Roman way of telling a story, and of glorifying a hero, was adopted by artists who set themselves the task of illustrating the story of a peaceful conquest, the story of the Buddha. The art of sculpture had flourished in India long before the Hellenistic influence reached the country; but it was in the frontier region of Gandhara that the figure of Buddha was first shown in the reliefs which became the model for later Buddhist art. (...) Greek and Roman art, which had taught men to visualize gods and heroes in beautiful form, also helped the Indians to create an image of their saviour. The beautiful head of the Buddha, with its expression of deep repose, was also made in this frontier region of Gandhara.”

Buddhist scriptureBuddhism spread from India to the rest of Asia, and brought with it these influences from Western art. This is highly significant if we remember that the invention of block printing during the Tang dynasty in China was intimately linked to Buddhist monasteries and Buddhist art. Alexander the Great may also have brought with him inked seals to India during his invasion, and Indian merchants later introduced them to the Chinese. Stamped figures of the Buddha marked the transition from seal impression to woodcut in China.

The oldest surviving printed texts from East Asia are Buddhist scriptures. Printing was thus used to promulgate a specific religion, just like Gutenberg’s printing press in Europe was later used to print Bibles. The Islamic Middle East, however, for centuries rejected both the Eastern and the Western printing traditions due to religious intolerance and hostility towards pictorial arts. And they suffered all the more for it.

26 comments:

Paul said...

Fjordman, Sir:

For several months I've been enjoying your articles on this blog, as well as your comments here and there on LGF. Your insights are very interesting and informative, and I look forward to learning and understanding more about our predicament at this moment in history from your insights and knowledge.

However, I am puzzled by your position concerning the authenticity of Christianity. Very much so. It concerns me as I consider the feasiblity of our surviving the current crisis intact. If I may comment:

You said, "When European scientists initiated the Scientific Revolution, they assumed that God had made nature according to logical patterns that could be uncovered and predicted."
Also, "Science is about uncovering truth, and if you come from a culture which holds that truth is irrelevant, you have a huge handicap. That is why the Scientific Revolution happened in Christian Europe...".

I couldn't agree more with your comments above. However, there is a reason what you've said is true and that is there is a God who exists and he is not silent. He set forth his truth, though not exhaustively, in scripture. That is in what we call the Torah, the old testament, and new testament. What he has said about the nature of man and of the cosmos is truth from his perspective as creator, and from an infinite reference point. What we observe is from the perspective of the created, and from a finite reference point.

At this point I am sure you've automatically discounted me as another religious simpleton. And that is a shame because it interrupts potential meaningful dialog. We need meaningful dialog to shut down the madness that strives to pull the west down into the vortex.

I only wish I was could be an 'enlightened' philosopher or multilingual professional diplomat to be able to communicate with you. My problem is that I must work all week long, and come home tired. So there is a problem.

Have you read Francis Schaeffer? Francis Schaeffer of 'L'abri' in Switzerland? You sound as though your depth of insight is on his level. Regrettably, Schaeffer died in 1983, however several of his books remain.

What you seem to be getting at in your article, 'What Do We Fight For' implies the question, 'How in the world did we get to be in the shape we now find ourselves?' Francis Schaeffer answered that last question for me 25 years ago, and it changed my life. But be warned: Schaeffer writes to the 'thinker'. I'm sure you qualify.

Best intentions and regards.

Paul said...

A point I left out: The God who exists set forth his truth not only in scripture, but also in what we are able to observe in nature and in man: at the molecular level, at the astronomical level, and in the content of the heart of man. This is an awesome statement when you consider that as mankind furiously strives to uncovered the deep answers to the fundamental questions of being, he consistently verifies the truth of scripture.

livfreerdie said...

Would love to discuss this with y'all but you are way over my head. Two passage come to mind Luke 18:15-17.And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked the. " Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for such is the kingdom of God.Verily I say unto, Whosover in no wise enter therein"(KJV)

An oldie but goody:George Orwell People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

What this has to do with your remarks I don't have a clue.

Tom

Ypp said...

I believe the most important question of our time is as follows: will capable and arrogant non-believing eurocentrists find common grounds with dogmatic, benevolent and irrational religious right? If they continue to fight, we are finished.

Dan said...
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Dan said...

Self-termination- Self loathing westerners have already labeled themselves (pronounced vehement), why not just stick with it?

Dan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dan said...

Err. Make that VHEMT (pronounced vehement.)

http://www.vhemt.org/

Profitsbeard said...

Fjordman,

Let's give credit to the artist from Italy who invented linear perspective and honor the man who devised how to draw 3-D reality onto a 2-D surface, maestro Filippo Brunellesco (1377-1446).

This was an intellectual revolution as profound as Copernicus'.

The shift from the geocentric to heliocentric Universe and the human ability to see nearby reality accurately are sublimely joined.

Each clarification of our vision shakes the superstitions from their thrones.

And the less we bow to irrational answers, the safer the future will be.

We fight for the freedom to say: Here are my best honest answers to the World's mysteries, what are yours?".

And preventing any One Answer from violently silencing every other.

We fight for the liberty to question or even mock the Idols of another, and not be imprisoned or killed for laughing at any human arrogance.

And for allowing our own Idols to be interrogated or mocked in return.

We fight for the freedom to have an Open and Imperfect Future, and not live under the domination of a Closed and Perfect Past.

Otherwise, what was the mind made for?

(Whoever or whatever "made" it.)

It makes a messy doorstop.

Ypp said...

The first Fjordman's article that I could not read to the end. So, what are we fighting for? For staues from Norway which inspired buddhists at the time of Faraoh?

Tushar Saxena said...

"Greek and Roman art, which had taught men to visualize gods and heroes in beautiful form, also helped the Indians to create an image of their saviour."


This is the most ignorant line in the whole article. It is infact so fantastically ignorant as to warrant hilarity. Indian art has always from millennia focussed on creating beautiful three dimensional sculptures of Gods and Goddesses. The bas-reliefs of every major ancient and medieval temple has beautiful coverings of Gods and men in all kinds of activity rivaling those of Florentian fresoes. Of course, if we had a time machine we could go back to the pre-islamic Indian era to see the magnifient temples at Somnath, Kashi and Ayodhya and maybe 60,000 others destroyed by the barbarian jihadi hordes.It is no European import, thank you. Why dont you simply do some research? Here's a name to follow: Ananda Coomaraswamy. He was the curator of Indian art at Boston's Museum of Fine arts.

But overall, a fine article as usual, Fjordman

Unknown said...
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Asger Trier Engberg said...

Dear Fjordmand :-)

I absolutely agree on most of your points, especially the point you made on the on the 68´ths. They have ruined so much.

Just imagine one generation, and the entire cultural heritage of 2500 years are almost lost, to what? Multiculturalism - it is absurd. But on the other hand, it gives us something to figth for.

As you, I hope that the bird phoenix, rising from the ashes of the islamic/multiculturalist onslaught will be, truly a renewal of the beauty of classical art, science, political thought, and philosophy.

Concerning art, well, as i see it, there are basically two points of reference: Plato and ancient Egypt, and here i think we agree. And in many ways they are both the same, Egypt was actually the first civilization around the meditaranean, and the actually based their faith on truth. The God Ra was actually more the faith in truth, and the light it brings to society, than an actual God. These ideas are the ones that the Greeks inherited, and flowed into science. The faith in truth is actually an idea that can be traced all the way back to the ancient Nile Delta. Still evident in the beauty of the statues and the impressive pyramids.

Second touchdown of truth and beauty is the Symposium written by Plato in his late years; professing a combination of truth beauty and what is good in life.

Same ideas, but just formulated by the Athenian Greeks.

And this all comes together with politics when Socrates sacrifices himself for democracy and freedom of speech. I have thought a lot about that, and after reading about the ancient egypts I realised the basic beauty of the Socratic idea. What he does is to combine democracy with the search for truth - as i understand him, he thinks that political truth has to be found in dialogue, and that can only happen in a democracy.

And that is why he is elevated in the mind of the Athenians - he combines the faith of the ancient meditaraneans with the invention of the Athenians, truth and democracy.

Talking about christianity, I agree with the comment made upabove - we should make a renassance, but it should not be opposed to christianity. What we need is to understand the two systems of faith democracy and christianity as a whole. So far it has worked quite well, and i think the reason why it workes so well is, the fact that Jesus and Socrates are very close to each other in basic method. Jesus wanted to abandon stupid pharisee rules and do what was right, to make people follow their conscience. And that is very close to Socratic idea. There are actually theories here in Denmark by other philosophers, that Jesus was inspired by the "Cynics" wandering men of wisdom - men who were inspired by the example of Socrates. Wandering around trying to find the truth, abandoning all worldly possesions. This is off cause just theories, but it gives credibility to the fact that democracy and christianity are very close.

So where are the fronts rigth now?

Well the Socratic idea had a renaessance lastly in France - mainly professed by Voltaire. You know in the first french Republic they tried to dress like the ancient greeks, in Toga and everything, citing Socrates and Cicero.

This line of thought was planted in Scandinavia mainly by Brandes and in Denmark continued with the "Kulturradikale".

The US were extremely lucky to be founded just in the renaessance, so the Constitution was pure philosophy. The point that freedom of speech is the first amendment is just simple and beautiful.

So being a democratic philosopher - our predecessors would be Socrates, Cicero, Voltaire, Brandes.

The one we are fighting against - and we have so far lost to - is Nietszche. An intriguing philosopher in many ways, he ruined everything form God to Socrates, he only liked one other philosopher; Heraklit. But in many ways it was his arguments that led Marx to abandon God - there have been talking about Feuerbach, but having read them both, it is Nietzsche that is hammering our culture into dust. So i think Marx took his cues from Nietzsche.

So these are fronts (philosophically speaking), as I see it;

Socrates vs. Nietzsche.

Democracy vs. Communism.

Islamism is not really a threat, it is a lost system only, and should have been sleeping in the elephant graveyard of ideas tried but not really working. As soon as Communism is finished, Islamism will be a wark in the park.

And it is time to sharpen our pens, and fintune our arguments - the world is changing again. Multiculturalism and socialism is finished, and a new paradigm will be formed. And here we have our chance, right now, to reignite democracy, and refind the roots of our culture. To create another renaessance.

X said...

Tushar, I think you're missing the point. To me it appeasr that fjordman was trying to explain that nearly every culture on earth has influenced every otehr to some degree. Now I know indian art fairly well and I can tell you there's a qualititive difference between the fresco reliefs you're talking about and the greko-roman style of art. These cultures - pre-islamic india and the ancient greeks - were contemporaries They shared a great deal of cultural artefacts with each other through trade and exploration. This influence created a stylistic change in the north of india that subsequently spread. Ne never said that indian art was a european import, but that the style change was a european import.

A lot of that ncient indian art displays the characteristics of the contemporary culture. India, especially where it was hindu,w as less concerned with physical reality than spiritual reality, and this is reflected in the art which, while amazing and beautiful in its own right, is not particularly accurate to the real world. And so what if it isn't? It's art! Fjordman was simply pointing out that indian art was subsequently influenced by greek and roman art, which was originally influenced by the import of ideas from elsewhere. A lot of these styles have been invented and re-invented over the years. What else would you call our rennasance, but a rediscovery of ancient greek and roman artistic ideas coupled with the new understanding of mathematics (and, again, influenced by indian and chinese ideas).

The pre-enlightenment era produced some very ugly and yet surprisingly beautiful art of its own which, like the indian art mentioned earlier, was less concerned with physical reality than what was then understood to be spiritual truth.

That's the point. Our cultures talk to each other and influence each other over millenia because our cultures, (if not necessarily individual members of those cultures) are open to new ideas.

You see, art goes in phases like this over the long span of history. It's cyclic, following the same paths but subtly different each time. Living where I assume you live you probably should understand cycles. ;)

David M said...

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 05/07/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.

Anonymous said...

We are against Sharia and Jihad, but what are we for? What is Western civilization? What exactly sets it apart from others and makes it worth keeping? If we're going to defend "freedom" and "Western civilization," we need to define precisely what we are talking about.

If we define Western Civilization as the Christian nations that began to flourish in Europe a little over 1500 years ago, then we don't need to worry ourselves with their defense, for we murdered this civilization with our silly idea of democracy long, long ago.

First of all, there's nothing wrong with democratic institutions - in and of themselves. But we can't forget that democracy is simply mob rule, and when we seek it as both an ends and a means, then we're holding open the door for evil. We did this in 1918.

You mentioned individualism as a defining trait of the West, but apart from the Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons, this was never a popular concept. It flew directly in the face of Germanic militarism and collectivism that was, and always had been, rampant on the continent. It was this unique heritage -- from Magna Carta to the English and US Bills of Rights -- that the liberal societies of the US and UK were able to flourish. The French -- having gone through three republics, two empires, a July Monarchy and a Bourbon Restoration -- still had no idea who they were or what they wanted. The rest of the Western Powers were ruled by totalitarian Christian Monarchs, as they always had been.

And then disaster struck. Short-sighted politicians in the UK and France entered in a war that was none of their business. In the US, a crazy man named Wilson just happened to be President, and he convinced his people that they too needed to enter this war that was none of their business.

Soon it was the US, UK, and France who were fighting a "war to end all wars" that would make the world "safe for democracy". It was Wilson who believed that if only the European monarchs would fall from power, then everyone could magically live together in peace and harmony. And fall they did.

But democracy wasn't the magic goose that the US, UK, and France thought it would be. Without an Orthodox Czar in Russia, or Protestant and Catholic kaisers in Germany and Austria, democracy wasn't the only thing the world was made "safe" for; we had heroically paved the way for Communism, Nazism and Fascism.

World War One proved to be a gift that kept on giving, and we gave it to ourselves. It got us World War Two, the Cold War, and all the posturing and consequences that came as a result. The US and UK were the major powers left standing in the West, and they tried their little hearts out to force their ideals of freedom and democracy on those parts of the world that weren't gripped by Communists. But the rest of the ex-West was not ready for Anglo-Saxon freedom, and soon developed into a neutered cesspool of valueless people who lacked anything remotely close to an organic culture.

It was this "we gotta save the world!" mindset that murdered Western Civilization nearly a hundred years ago, and continues to plague us today. If the US and UK had simply effed off and left the rest of the world alone, it would be a much better place. True Conservatism (ie Monarchy - the only form of government personally instituted by God Himself) would still protect the West from the outrageous ideas of the uncultivated masses. But we still haven't learned our lesson, and today thousands of our young brothers and sisters have died in our current attempt to export democracy. We'll keep doing this until we bankrupt ourselves and vanish into oblivion.

The point is that there is no war of civilizations, there is no east versus west. There is no West. We abandoned our heritage long ago. We worshiped democracy as a golden cow, and it gave us the only blessing that it could - our demise.

Kassandra Troy said...

Dear Fjordman et al.,
Excellent article, good point. Lovely thing, cultures, isnt it?! So much a pity postmodernism wants to turn them into hotchpotch.
Concerning various kinds of phobia and the matter of the self-destruction would like contribute the following, and sincerely hope this will reach the author as the point is important enough. Phobia is a very catchy if imprecise illegal term: it's a misnomer. Phobia means 'fear' while it is being used as 'hatred'. Obviously you can hardly punish offenders for being afraid (say, for terrorism). I have written about it here:
EU Phobia: More Crimes Against the Ideology
The hatred of Islam towards the West has psychologically most to do with 'envy'. Would Occidental envy be an idea?
As for the matter of cultural suicide I use both the terms "Down With Us" (not that catchy and rather unsatisfactory) and "Operation Western Auto-Destruct".
The essence at the heart of the scientific revolution seems to be the Christian principle that the universe is in principle an order and 'knowable', whereas Islam centres around the fickleness of God, who does what he pleases and man has but to live with this chaos as best he can.
Greatly enjoying the blog. Keep up the good work: never give up! Cheers, Cassandra.

mikej said...

Fjordman,

If I may make a minor about hate crime laws, here in America they don't usually apply to murder, but only to lesser offenses. See, for example, section 12.47 of the Texas Penal Code. Homsexuals, rather than non-whites, seem to be the primary beneficiaries of the latest federal hate crime legislation. I understand that in Europe, people are prosecuted and imprisoned for mere utterances, but that's not true in America, yet. Absent some radical change in our political elites, one can expect hate crime laws to grow ever more oppressive.

As to what we're fighting for, it should be obvious that we're fighting for the simple physical survival of our kind. It should be apparent that, shortly after our countries acquire non-European majorities, Europeans will cease to exist. We need not justify our struggle for survival in terms of our art or institutions. Indeed, we cannot, since only Europeans, and not all of them, value European art and institutions. As we say in Texas, you're preaching to the choir.

Paul said...

Bad Gringo:
You lost me a little bit on this:
"We need not justify our struggle for survival in terms of our art or institutions. Indeed, we cannot, since only Europeans, and not all of them, value European art and institutions."

America is an extension of Europe. Period, the end. You realize this of course... I take for granted. The legacy from the start was English and Dutch, with a lot of Scots.... (In the beginning they were primarily devoted Christians after the reformation looking for a new world free of European religious persecution!)

If you've ever traveled through Minnesota, Wisconsin or especially North Dakota you can still hear the Scandinavian sound in spoken English. I heard an attendant at a grain elevator in North Dakota speak one time. (Nort DeKOta). He had a distinct Norwegian, or was it Swedish accent. Even today the Minnisota Swedes and Norwegians exchange jokes about each other. (Give me some Lutafisk and Lefsa please... ...and salted Cod.) Usually the Swedes are the butt of the jokes... sorry! Later the Germans heavily settled central Texas.

I digress... Point is, hey, we appreciate European art..... So I don't get it.

Anonymous said...

Poul I think Gringo male consideres USA to be European.

And I agree culturaly, USA is European.

Thats what you are saying also, so you agree :-)

Asger Trier Engberg said...

The point is that there is no war of civilizations, there is no east versus west. There is no West. We abandoned our heritage long ago. We worshiped democracy as a golden cow, and it gave us the only blessing that it could - our demise.

Don´t you jump to conclusions here? Your first point was that demcracy only works for Anglo/saxons and the norsemen - and then you blame it for the demise of our culture.

I agree, that spreading democracy to states not willing - is a true waste in any sense. But our own democracy in our own countries is that not worth fighting for?

Anonymous said...

I didn't say democracy only works for Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen...I was pointing out that the character trait of "rugged individualism" was predominately found in those two peoples.

As far as our own "democracy" being worth fighting for, I say no. Personally, I'd fight for a good king, a Christian man who'd actually defend his people and their fatherland. But we have nothing of the sort. And it's our "democracy" that invites the leeches to our countries so they can vote themselves so much of the treasury and bleed it dry. It's our own "democracy" that's ruined us.

Again, I have nothing against democratic institutions. But we've pretty much abandoned any and all constraints that were ever put in place. When is the last time the politicians in Washington bothered to rule in accordance with the Constitution? Oh well - the mob says it's okay so it's okay.

Tushar Saxena said...

IVE ALso posted this on the latest thread.

I never claimed that cultures are closed systems without influences. I only took issue with the construction of Fjordman's sentence which, if i read correctly, suggests that Europeans "LET INDIANS" express their love for their Gods, which they couldnt before. Obviously, cultural exchanges are marvellous and have always taken place between Europe, India, China, Egypt etc. But the above sentence just doesn't fit the point you are attributing to Fjordman. Or perhaps, I'm just being pedantic.

Thanks, Its nice to see someone who knows a bit about Indian art. Being called heathen idol-worshipping barbarians gets tiring sometimes. ;)

Good day

Asger Trier Engberg said...

Johnny Anonymos;

I suppose we basically agree, that western culture at this point is in serious need of change.

Our culture is extremely superficial, if you talk about good - evil, God, truth you are scorned upon. It is ridicoulous.

But we differ on the conclusion - as I see it, democracy is the natural rule of the Men of North - as you see it in the Islandic Althing, the democratic rule of the danes before christianity. The spirit of freedom comes from these original institutions. So by fighting for democracy we fight for our own culture.

It is not, that I do not see the quality of a christian king - we actually have a very good queen here in Denmark. Especially in fighting, kings are good.

But I just personally value my freedom too much to hand it over to Kingstate.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't be inclined to hand over my freedom either. The problem is that in a democracy, the Sans-culottes can legislate it away from you at any time they want and that's supposed to be justice.

A strong monarch these days would have to rule according to a constitution. And if he didn't, well, it's easier to kill one man than millions. Personally I define myself as an anarcho-capitalist. The rule of none. That's why the next best thing, to me, is monarchy.

I just think that those in the modern west who want to save what little is left of their heritage need to re-think the institution.

Pax Federatica said...

Re: Multiculturalism and the nation-state: It occurs to me that multiculturalism isn't the only factor, maybe not even the main factor, jeopardizing the nation-state (and by extension, democracy and Western civilization). What's the other one? Hint: You're partaking in it right now.

Globalized real-time communication (not just the Internet, but also satellite TV and international cell-phone service) is so commonplace today that it's already making a mockery of national borders. Actually the problem isn't so much the ability to interact across borders without so much as having to go through virtual customs first, as it is the cultural attitudes engendered by that ability. Why should an immigrant bother to assimilate into the culture of his new land when his old culture is just a phone call or a mouse click away? And in a day and age when many people interact with perfect strangers in other countries via the aforementioned media more often than they interact with their next-door neighbors, it's just a matter of time before they start seeing being subject to a political entity defined by mere geography as a little silly and quaint.

Multiculturalism isn't helping matters any, of course. Still, I suspect that it's acting more as an accelerant than as a catalyst.

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