A low-volume echo to an ongoing major trend.

From the outset, North America has been a purposeful experiment. It was to prove that Europe’s best ideas were viable after a start from scratch. 

To proceed, we need a working designation of what “Europe” means. Along with “Western Civilization”, we like to use the term loosely. When we call Europe the “West”, we add the Americas, Australia, and New Zeeland. This separates Europe from its geographical anchor and suggests a civilization defined by change and mobility. We can continue by applying the criteria to include other “progressive” world neighborhoods. In doing so, we imply the membership of Japan, National China, Korea, Singapore. Reaching ahead to what is to follow, the reader notes how many non-European components are included. As things stand, it might be desirable to replace the term “Europe” and “West” with a new term. It would need to be cognizant that the essentials of what has once been a western monopoly – material progress and political democracy- have cut its umbilical cord to Europe and its ethnicities.  

Throughout the world the mantra rises for all nations to protect “human rights.” And while this normally refers to protecting life, it often goes out as a call to protect the latest interest of an esoteric movement: usually one availing itself of the tactic of shame in a bid to have its every demand met in full. We see this in the push to end “gender-labels,” where academicians argue that the traits of being male or female are socially constructed vehicles of oppression that stand in violation of “human rights.”  And we also see it in pushes for “universal healthcare,” where people claim medical services are just one more thing to which they have a right. 

About the limitations of legislating historical truth.

Have you known that not everything that looks, moves and smells like genocide is genocide? A 1948 convention criminalized such actions. According to its definition, the extermination of ethnic groups, religious communities and nationalities constitute genocide. At first glance, this appears to be in order. However, the approval lasts only until the second glimpse. As a concession to the Soviets, the persecution of social classes and economically defined groupings are excluded by the phrasing. For instance, liquidating Kulaks –as done in the Ukrainian Holodomor- does not qualify. Admiral Farragut said, “Damn the torpedoes” and this escape clause applied to the Ukraine says, “Damn the seven million that starved”. Perhaps the helpful critique in the “why do they not eat cake”-style would be “why did they diet and not eat?” 

Most thinking conservatives believe that the modern West has gone off the deep end, and most of them also identify a particular historical event as the start, or at least the first major symptom, of this development. For many modern cultural conservatives, that event was the moral revolution of the 1960s; for some on the American right, it was the Civil Rights movement, the New Deal, or the end of the Civil War; and for certain counterrevolutionaries, it was the French Revolution.

Europe’s self chosen fate is, due to her weight, not a local but a global issue.

It does not take much skill to plead that, due to her size and economic power “Europe” is a decisive world neighborhood. The continent might not have the will or the organization to determine on the US, Russian and Chinese level global events. Nevertheless, its failures can, as in the past, shape worldwide developments. For this reason, the process that aims to give the term “Europe” a new content is of interest to those whose vision extends beyond the tip of their nose. 

Cecil B.DeMille died on January 21^st, in 1959. At the time of his death he was at the very top of the “A list” of Hollywood directors. DeMille is probably not well remembered by many outside of the film industry today. But among DeMille’s Academy Award winning films were “Cleopatra”, “Samson and Delilah”, “The Greatest Show on Earth”, and, of course, “The Ten Commandments”. This last film was among the top five most profitable films in history and is still considered a classic (it won multiple Academy Awards).

Those that practice the politics of prejudice are serving their own phantom but not the common good.

Some nations can only be defeated if its people lend a hand. Recent US cases come to mind. Russia and China, regardless of their system, are also members of the same club. In the coming election, the GOP can only be rescued from victory if it decides to commit hara-kiri. The debates suggest that such a self-disembowelment is an ongoing process.

A disturbing impression arises during the apparently pleasing auto-amputation of limbs. Minor issues regarding the candidates are raised. They are to grade the would-be occupants of the White House before it is repossessed to cover the national debt. It is a good thing that dietary habits and BMI have not yet become issues.

About a misuse of the media in the service of the challenged “Political Class”.

The international press and the TV stations that serve the world are full of news that pillory an otherwise neglected Hungary. These reports bemoan that country’s new 2012 constitution. The charge is that this legislation creates a dictatorship. It is alleged to empower permanently a two-third majority that is the product of a free election. 

The accusations emphasize only a few themes. One is the lowering of the retirement age of Supreme Court judges. The second issue is the fusion of the directorate of the National Bank and of the organ, which controls financial institutions. Third, the document holds that life begins at conception. Fourth is that, marriage involves a male and a female partner. Fifth, the size of the national debt and the budget’s deficit are capped and a flat tax is imposed. In sixth place is the preamble of the fundamental law that causes most of the indignation. 

Incompatible ambitions hide behind the professed desire to create a “Europe”.

Europe wobbles since about 1900. The attempts to structure the Continent have repeatedly turned the world upside down. Reacting to two world wars, the reluctant USA had to become a great power, Communism captured a major state and China was restored to her old global position. In a revolutionary restructuring of world affairs, the European era ended by the end of the colonial empires and by the modernization of the non-western world. Although typically, most Europeans do not worry about it and non-Europeans act as uninterested witnesses, our future is tied to the perennial crisis. As in 1914 and 1939, the calamity is homemade and it reflects a political collapse that expresses itself by misgovernment.

The words “The Clash of Ideas” are splashed across the cover of the special anniversary issue of Foreign Affairs this month. This is of course a play on the “clash of civilizations” narrative that we’ve heard countless times since 9/11, and a nod to the notion that this clash – between radical Islam and the West, or liberal democracy – is fundamentally a “war of ideas.”

I have come to believe that this diagnosis is not only wrong, but a large part of the reason why we, who believe in freedom and the rights of the individual, appear to be losing ground. (For example, we are seeing more sharia in the West, despite us knowing that full sharia demands the execution of homosexuals, the stoning of women who commit adultery, and discrimination against religious minorities. And we are seeing our right to free speech eroded, especially across Europe.)

The battle is not one of ideas. It is a spiritual battle, pure and simple.