THE ANTI-CIVILIZATION OF THE WEST

First published in Radix: The Great Erasure in 2012.

by Colin Liddell

In his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the New World Order (1996) Samuel P. Huntington put forward the thesis, popular with large sections of the 'Right,' that the post-Cold-War world would be shaped by its major civilizations and their interactions.

For some it was the gently coded recognition of race that appealed, for others it was the stigmatization of Islam as a rather unpleasant civilization that rang true, so that the book became, for better or worse, a landmark of political science. This makes it an ideal starting point for considering the topic of civilizations in general and the problematic nature of the West in particular.

THE DEATH OF FRANCE

After the second round of the French regional elections and the cynical way the Front National was excluded from power, it is time to re-run this article, which was originally published at the time of the French Presidential elections in May 2012. In the first round of that election Marine Le Pen managed to poll 17.9% of the vote and failed to make it into the second round.

by Colin Liddell

The trouble with European politics is that the so-called “extreme” parties are not really extreme enough. This is especially clear from the case of France, where the comparatively mild policies of the Front National have been described throughout the campaign as “extreme” and “far right-wing.”

Like most people, I am not a fan of extremism. But we live in an era when extreme things are happening all around us, so to act with conventional moderation is the equivalent of turning down the heating when the house is on fire.

Centuries of history, including scores of major wars, dozens of invasions and revolutions, and tens of millions slaughtered in battle, have not sufficed to change the ethnic and cultural character or France. However, mass immigration and differential birth rates threaten to do what the likes of Attila the Hun, Moslem Crusaders, English longbowmen, French Revolutionaries, and German panzers failed to do: i.e. change France in its very essence.

ISIS IS NOT THE CRISIS

The old cloud/silver lining metaphor.

by Colin Liddell

The first point that has to be emphasized is that we don’t live in a humanist society, that is a society defined by what we like to think of as human characteristics – sentience, foresight, willpower, transindividualism, etc. We live in a society that is more bee-like, frog-like, or sheep-like – the blind hive mind and unthinking herd – that reacts without consciousness, without vision, without leadership, hierarchy, and direction.

This means that we are incapable as societies or as a civilization of doing our own thinking, therefore actions and events have to do our thinking for us – reconnecting us to the realities we constantly stray from.