When Did The West Begin To Fall?

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We are badly underestimating the problem

The 1960s were not a good decade for the culture war. We saw the introduction of the birth control pill, the peak of the civil rights movement (a communist movement), and the beginning of America’s habit of getting into senseless wars with Vietnam. The 1950s are often considered, formally or informally, to be the peak of American civilization. There’s good reasoning behind this, but for the purposes of our strategy we have to think a little bit bigger than that.

The truth is, the decline of the West began long before then. This is evident in the works of great men whose writing sounds like it was written in 2014. Consider this observation by G.K. Chesterton, a great Christian apologist (emphasis added):

Let us suppose a man wanted a particular kind of world; say, a blue world. He would have no cause to complain of the slightness or swiftness of his task; he might toil for a long time at the transformation; he could work away (in every sense) until all was blue. He could have heroic adventures; the putting of the last touches to a blue tiger. He could have fairy dreams; the dawn of a blue moon. But if he worked hard, that high-minded reformer would certainly (from his own point of view) leave the world better and bluer than he found it. If he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colour every day, he would get on slowly. But if he altered his favourite colour every day, he would not get on at all. If, after reading a fresh philosopher, he started to paint everything red or yellow, his work would be thrown away: there would be nothing to show except a few blue tigers walking about, specimens of his early bad manner. This is exactly the position of the average modern thinker. It will be said that this is avowedly a preposterous example. But it is literally the fact of recent history. The great and grave changes in our political civilization all belonged to the early nineteenth century, not to the later.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

Evidently, the ever-changing “current thing” mindset is more than 100 years old, even if only minds like Chesterton were able to express it so clearly as this. Notably, he considers this development to have been nearly a hundred years old when he noticed it, in 1908. Our problem has been brewing for at least 200 years, then.

What led us to this?

The Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was not totally devoid of good ideas, but daring to challenge the very foundations of Western civilization was broadly speaking a mistake. We have watched these foundations turn to sand in only a handful of generations.

I argue that the most destructive of these ideas was the separation of church and state, which in itself is extremely vague. It is the ever-increasing interpretation of this principle that has led to the complete secularization of the West, as shown below (red states are religious, blue states are secular, as measured by their constitutions):

I have much more to say about this, but more importantly, I want to hear what you think. Reply to this email, or comment below on the web post, and I’ll respond to your comments on the new Constantine Option podcast! That’s right, I’m going to start hosting X spaces that will be recorded and broadcast wherever you listen to podcasts. I’ll try to keep them brief unless we have a lively conversation going. This week’s will be Thursday @ 10:00 PM Central, anyone will be free to speak, join here.

Fear no evil, for He is with us,

C.O.

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