I've blogged extensively about the idea from Sorokin et alia that human society cannot live in a state of anarchy for long, that some authority must step in to run the show. If people will not govern themselves internally, then they will be governed externally. If you will not have God, as T.S. Eliot warned, then pay your respects to Hitler and Stalin. And so forth.
A word today about Sorokin's point that eventually sensate culture will play itself out -- he thought we were in that endgame now in the West -- and people would return to an ideational cultural model. Christians might take some comfort in this, in the idea that there would be a revival of traditional Christianity to revivify Western civilization. That may well be, and I certainly hope and pray that it comes. But Sorokin offers no assurance at all that the ideational culture to follow will be Christian. It could be that of another religion, or from some charismatic source that is yet to manifest itself.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, claimed the "social and sexual" revolution of the 1960s had led to a steep decline in the influence of Christianity over society which church leaders had failed to resist.He said that in its place, Britain had become gripped by the doctrine of "endless self-indulgence" which had led to the destruction of family life, rising levels of drug abuse and drunkenness and mindless violence on the streets.
The bishop warns that the modern politicians' catchphrases of respect and tolerance will not be strong enough to prevent this collapse of traditional virtues, and said radical Islam is now moving in to fill the void created by the decline of Christianity.
More:
But he said the Church's influence began to wane during the 1960s, and quotes an academic who blames the loss of "faith and piety among women" for the steep decline in Christian worship.He says Marxist students encouraged a "social and sexual revolution" to which liberal theologians and Church leaders "all but capitulated".
"It is this situation that has created the moral and spiritual vacuum in which we now find ourselves. While the Christian consensus was dissolved, nothing else, except perhaps endless self-indulgence, was put in its place."
And:
He said many values respected by society, such as the dignity of human life, equality and freedom, are based on Christian ones. But he warned that without their Christian backbone they cannot exist for ever, and that new belief systems may be based on different values."Radical Islamism, for example, will emphasise the solidarity of the umma (worldwide community of the Muslim faithful) against the freedom of the individual.
"Instead of the Christian virtues of humility, service and sacrifice, there may be honour, piety and the importance of 'saving face'."
Perhaps it is time to update T.S. Eliot for today's Britain: If you will not have God, you may one day pay your respects to Allah.
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EV:
I'm sorry Dale, I appear to have misunderstood you. I wasn't suggesting that Britain was in anyway a secular city on a hill. I was just saying that Britain was doing fine without religion, i think we'd have the same problem with violent crime even if we were religious.
Well, if you'd said *that* in the first place, I might have merely quibbled or, more likely, refrained from commenting. What I disputed were these statements: "Civilisation remains, as strong as ever, perhaps stronger" and "i'd argue it was evidence of increased civilisaton."
I don't really understand your points on illegitimacy? Being conceived in a loving monogamous unmarried relationship shouldn't really have any more problems than a loving monogamous mariied relationship? Surely the problem is an unloving and polygamous relationship whether married or unmarried?
The problem here is that you are begging the question--you assume that illegitimacy correlates mostly--even completely--with "loving monogamous relationships." Leaving aside the difficulty of quantifying "loving," I am curious as to how you came to the conclusion that most/all illegitimate children are the products of monogamous relationships. Historically, illegitimacy rates have correlated most strongly with unstable, non-monogamous relationships.
rombald: Of course we should be willing to kill Muslims. Although I don't necessarily support genocide (I mean in the full-blown, Auschwitz, sense), I do not see it as the worst possible alternative. ... BTW, I don't think Roland (not Ronald) is British. I think he's an American who's posing as a Frenchman for some obscure reason.
Interesting all this speculation about my -- what's the argot these days? -- ethnicity. Actually, I am an American who is posing as a Frenchman for some obscure reason, which I've forgotten. Oh yes, now I remember. My real name is Ronald Singer, which can be a bit dangerous for international travel. The false passport cost me a fortune. Merci, Sarko! (And all my love to Carla, if you tire of her.)
But I am relieved, rombald, that you do not necessarily support genocide. It is best when supported unnecessarily, merely gratuitously. The guilt and shame can be savoured long after. A propos, what, pray tell, would be the worst possible alternative? Just for planning purposes, mind you.
John E.: Ronald, Ronald, Ronald ... We're Americans - of course we are willing to kill them. ... Roland, who I believe is British and thus has no visceral understanding of how violent Americans can be when necessary, questioned whether or not Americans would be willing to kill when faced with the prospect of an Islam that was forcing conversions on pain of death.
Nu, so now I'm a Brit?
The problem is that Americans have forgotten what war is for. The purpose of war is to conquer or to avoid conquest. Five years in Iraq, thousands of soldiers dead, treasure squandered, an economy near its death throes, and what has been accomplished? Saddam hanged.
Iraq is a country Caesar would have conquered in less time that he took to embellish the ablative absolutes of his Commentarii. Of course, his genius was of both Mars and Clio. Bush, a military shirker and historical illiterate, congratulates himself on his res gestae in bringing the Enlightenment to benighted dark age bedouins. We are in his debt. Truly. We will be paying off his debt for decades to come.
Another loss. And the unseen enemy plots its insidious schemes. The American flaw, John, is that Americans are not violent enough.
P.S. The "Ronald Singer" shtick was a travesty.
rombald,
Nothing in my previous posts was meant to imply that the British did not contribute mightily to their own defense during World War II. They did almost everything that they could have done. But that alone would not have been enough to save them from Hitler or from Stalin, for which they needed help for the U.S., which the U.S. was willing to provide.
It's true that the U.S. did not intervene directly to help the British until the U.S. was itself attacked by the Japanese. But the U.S. did intervene indirectly to a great -- and indeed to a decisive extent -- in terms of logistical support prior to its military entrance into the war. Britain would not have held out as it did against the Germans from 1939 to 1941 without lend-lease support from the U.S.
It should also be noted that Britain was just as tardy in taking action against the Nazis as the U.S. was. If the U.S. should perhaps have taken action as early as 1939, it is also the case that Britain and other European nations should have taken action as some point much earlier than they ultimately did. It might also have been helpful not such punitive terms on the Germans after World War I as the British and the French were insistent upon -- terms which made for a context in Germany in which it was much easier for Nazism to take hold than it might otherwise have been.
The U.S. and the U.K. are indeed allies. Which is why I think that some in the U.K. should be a bit more tolerant than they sometimes are of a U.S. Judeo-Christianity from which they themselves have benefitted very much at certain turning points in British history.
I only mean to posit that even British non-believers are better off in the world mid-wifed by the bad-old bible-thumping U.S.A. than they would have been in the hypothetical worlds that were on offer from Germany and Russia not so very long long ago.
Andrew Bostom on the cleansing of non-muslims from muslim majority areas in Britain:
http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2008/01/13/britain-%E2%80%9Cthe-process-of-%E2%80%98cleansing%E2%80%99-muslim-majority-areas-of-non-muslims-already-begun%E2%80%9D/
More on the enforcement of Shariah by police* in the UK:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/021240.php#comments
*I believe this is the same West Midland's police Department that tried to have the producers of Dispatches Channel 4 documentary "Undercover Mosque" prosecuted for showing undercover footage from area mosques. (It's available for viewing on YouTube in 6 parts, btw)
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