The great historian Victor Davis Hanson has another must-read:
. . . Civilization alone permits
humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer
aspects of culture.
So, the great achievement of
Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in
partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant
self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence,
random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature.
But so often the resulting leisure
and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that
modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took
to be his elemental birthright.
As a result, the once prosperous
Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies
of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.
We in the modern Western world are
now facing just such a crisis.
. . .
He concludes:
As we suffer self-inflicted mass
looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border,
unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate
just how thin is the veneer of their civilization.
When stripped away, we are
relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying.
Read the rest here at American
Greatness. A Must Read.
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