But it is not unfair to assert that the greatest scar inflicted by the totalitarianisms of the 20th century was not on the material landscape, but on the soul of the West. The Communism and Fascism which abolished God and disabused civilization of the sacredness of human life in the name of enlightened progress also destroyed much else. If we are lucky Islam is simply progressing through a Western vacuum that has not yet been filled, stepping over a population still mesmerized by the illusions of the 20th century.
From: "City of the Dead." By Dr. Sanity <-- "Metropolis," The Belmont Club, 8/1/05 [emphasis added].
The Colonel once got into a minor political argument with a good friend that got a tad heated. His friend remarked at the end that what really was bothering him was the absence of community in America. (The Colonel's not suggesting he was the soul of reason during the argument, btw.)
My friend raised no small point. I remember living in a community in Northern Virginia and going to eat in a crowded restaurant one Saturday by myself. It was amazing to me that after eight years in this community I could not find one person there whom I recognized. Apart from one family next to me in my townhouse, I had no daily contact with anyone other than tradespeople, and even the checkers at the grocery store were only occasionally someone I recognized.
One must be proactive in this life and I found considerable pleasure in learning to dance and acquiring hanger on status at a local church. That filled many a void. But if one does not or cannot find such an outlet, especially if one is without a mate, daily existence can easily be a soul sapping experience. And television is just digitally enhanced bread and circuses for the most part (though the Colonel always will enjoy a good T&A movie with plenty of fights and car chases with Sly Stallone, Arnold, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker).
Joseph Sobran once said that the opposite of faith is not unbelief, but crassness. In that brilliant statement is encapsulated the signpost for any age. God is what what man searches for as the most distilled repository of the sublime. Zealotry of any flavor is tawdry and the Western Left rails against religion, Christianity chiefly, as having been used as a justification for oppression in our past. Yet its substitute gods have been vapid (New Age, multiculturalism, hedonism) and homicidal (communism [red fascism] and National Socialism [black fascism]). If you think religious fundamentalism is bad, just think about what secular fundamentalism[1] has wrought. (And the Left is maddeningly and completely oblivious to the nuts and bolts of maintaining liberty [e.g., limited governmental powers, laws not changed at the whim of judges] and energized only by compassion contests, i.e., who can provide the most goodies to "the underprivileged.")
The 19th century saw great spiritual experimentation in America. Perhap the reinvigoration of the national debate in the non-MSM -- and the greater clarity that is now possible now that liberalism is increasingly sidelined -- will permit us at least to stop doing the the things that are insane.
Asking what is and what is not sublime is a good first step.
Having teenagers blow themselves up in restaurants is probably not something sublime, though the Colonel knows it's a close call and hates to go out on a limb on this issue.
See also along these lines our "Maybe it's not just the "mad mullahs, " below.
Notes
[1] Dr. Sanity, Narcissism and Society - Part II, 4/17/05:
The second type of evil is more subtle . . . . This side also does not see other people as individuals either; and instead sees them only as fodder for the expression of an IDEAL or as pawns for an Omnipotent Object (e.g., a dictator).
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