| Written by Tim Heydon |
| December 2010 |
 What the End of a Civilisation Looks Like: Britain and the West 2010It is a truism to say that we live in an increasingly secular society. What those who welcome this present trend do not seem to realise is that it means the end of civilisation as we have known it. And if it were to continue and expand it would ultimately mean the end of any civilisation worthy of the name whatsoever. A Society cannot survive without agreed Standards of Morality Why so? Because a society cannot survive if there are no agreed standards of morality, and there can be no such standards without religion. That is because without religion the universe is meaningless. Our lives have no purpose beyond the animal urges endowed us by our genes which are themselves the mere accidental outcomes of physical laws. In a Meaningless World, No one has the Right to decree Right and Wrong. And so there can be no binding rules of behaviour on anyone, since if there is no absolute right or wrong, who or what is there to bind? And why should anyone behave in a way another wants him or her to behave? In such a world, if someone says to you, ‘you must behave in such and such a way,’ all one has to do is say, ‘I don’t agree’, because your preference is as good as anyone else’s. Political Correctness: Merely the Preferences of the Left imposed through Power That is or should be the end of it, but of course it isn’t, as we are seeing. Because the secularisers have tried to substitute Political Correctness for religion as the basis of morality. Since the nihilism on which Political Correctness is based denies that any one morality is superior to another, this means that their imposition of the morality of Political Correctness is invalid. But they choose to ignore that. As Nietzsche foretold, what is left without religion is power and the Politically Correct merely impose their own preferences on the rest of us through the exercise of it. Whatever the secularisers might say about religion, they cannot claim that it is self contradictory in the imposition of morality in the way that Political Correctness is. When there is no Religion and no Right or Wrong. What a Society on the Brink of Destruction Looks Like In the 1930’s the pioneering Harvard Sociologist and historian Pitirim Sorokin predicted that values in the West would continue to be undermined, would become more and more influenced by relativistic thinking, would lose their binding power and would be .‘ground to dust’ Distinctions between right and wrong, true and false, beautiful and ugly and positive and negative would more and more disappear in the opaque and chaotic world of crumbling ‘sensate ‘ culture as he termed it. Sorokin’s Chillingly Accurate Prophesy He has been proved absolutely right. Huge numbers of people are increasingly incapable of telling right from wrong including politicians, judges, journalists and even many clergymen. A quick glance at Modern Art (where Lucian Freud for example depicts human beings as soulless mounds of flesh and Frances Bacon saw them as ugly, tortured and almost dissected, staring into the void), modern music (based round the rhythm of the sex act), modern architecture (which banishes the human and the fitting in favour of deliberately meaningless gimmickry and the celebration of glass, steel and concrete), the cinema and TV, ‘all show that the borderline between the beautiful and the ugly, the positive and the negative have been erased’. Becoming more and more materialistic Sorokin also asserted that Man himself in the declining modern world would become more materialistic and less spiritually minded. Science would seek to strip life of its sacred character (think genetic engineering, abortion on demand and ‘designer babies’) and Mankind would become increasingly debased and sensual (Any TV soap and many town centres on a Saturday night are proof of this). Most people would ‘sink deeper into the muck of the sociological sewers’ and would be ‘progressively destructive rather than constructive, representing in their totality a museum of sociological pathology rather than the imperishable values of the Kingdom of God’ (It is hard to disagree with these remarks given the morality -free wastelands of so many of our towns and cities). The ancient place of true religion in society would be replaced by pseudo religions (such as Political Correctness, Environmentalism, all those little Buddhas used as ornaments, the devotion to ‘Yoga,’ the fawning over Islam etc. ) The Disappearance of Personal Honour and of Duty Sorokin also predicted that ’contracts and covenants in our age would lose the remnants of their binding power.’ This would make virtually impossible the proper functioning of representative government. (Do you trust our politicians?) The Rise in Violence and the Loss of Respect for the Law With the fragmentation of other values, Sorokin predicted that respect for law and civil order would dramatically decrease. Government would turn to its only remaining weapons; naked force and fraud. There would be an increasing war of all against all (such as we are beginning to see in our inner cities), riots, civil disturbances and brutality would become commonplace. (Is this not true?). The Hollowing out of the Meaning of Words Men once Died for. Words which previously were meaningful such as ‘freedom’ would gradually lose their definition and become mere fiction. (We can see that in our ‘liberal’ ie ‘free’ society in which people are in reality less free than they have been since Cromwell). Our rights would be alienated. Constitutions would be abolished or used as ‘beautiful screens for an unadulterated coercion.’ (The enforcement of EU membership and mass immigration and multiculturalism on this country by its Political Class speaks for itself); The Disintegration of the Family Sorokin also foresaw the attack on the family as an institution and as the fundamental building block of society. The sacredness of the family unit, of husband, wife and children would continue to disintegrate. Genuine difference between marriage and illicit relationships would disappear. (Helped along by the ‘marriage’ of homosexuals). Children would be separated from their parents at an earlier and earlier age (as they are doing through divorce and separation). These trends would continue to accelerate until, he remarks, ‘the family becomes a mere accidental cohabitation for male and female while the home becomes a mere overnight parking place mainly for sex relationships.’ (This state of affairs has already arrived for many). The Prediction of the Overwhelming of Western Civilisation Sorokin wrote in the 1930’s that Western culture, as a separate entity, would soon be overwhelmed by a grotesque collage of bits and pieces of every culture on earth (‘enrichment’). Culturally speaking, he thought that our culture would become a bazaar like those of Cairo or Damascus with everything and anything tossed into a muddled heap. The End of Creativity Sorokin though that genuine creative thinking in the crippled remnants of Western Society would wither and die. The Beethovens, Newtons, Rembrandts Shakespeares of our former civilisation would be replaced by mediocrities (Tracy Emin, David Hockney etc) vulgar showmen, pseudo-thinkers (Foucault , Derrida, the Frankfurt School etc etc) and the like. The End of Rising Living Standards Finally, with the collapse of moral values and ethics and the withering of creativity, Sorokin saw that economic production would eventually decline, and that standards of living would grow worse. With this, security of life and of possessions would fade as would peace of mind and happiness. Violence and criminal activity would grow to terrifying proportions and ever –increasing numbers of people would grow weary from the struggle for existence. (The ultimate decline in living standards Sorokin foretold may or may not be here –watch this space - but the rise in criminality certainly is) Sorokin’s truly chilling accuracy as to the way our society has evolved (written some 55-75 years ago let us not forget) demands that we take his ideas seriously. |
