Where Will We Be in 2,500 AD

The last twenty-five hundred years of Western History seem to be divided roughly into five-hundred-year chunks.  500 BC to the beginning of the Christian Era was dominated by the Greeks and their successors the Macedonians and the successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great’s conquests (remember I said roughly, the Romans finished off the last of the Hellenistic kingdoms in 30 BC).

Then the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean and the rest of Europe for the first five centuries of the Christian era.  When Rome fell, we had five hundred years of interregnum.  From 500 AD to about a 1,000 AD the petty kings fought each other over the carcass of the Roman Empire and the Church attempted to keep the peasants alive and give them hope.  By 1000 AD some stability had been restored and the “Dark Ages” were replaced by the High Middle Ages and civilization began to coalesce and Europe was no longer just a maelstrom of savagery.  And just exactly around 1500 AD Europe exploded into the Age of Reason and the Age of Discovery.  Science, technology, commerce and learning were everywhere and the Renaissance Civilization of Europe conquered the world.

And now here we are at 2,000 AD and European civilization is collapsing into some kind of squalid self-hating cult.  All of the remarkable triumphs of science and technology are despised and feared by the technophobic ignoramuses that crowd around the campuses of the universities where pseudo-intellectuals pose as philosophers and preach a false gospel of defeatism and anti-European hatred.

So, are we doomed to repeat the five hundred years of dark ages that swallowed up Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire?  I guess it’s possible.  It certainly looks that way.  But history doesn’t repeat itself.  We live in a very different world.  Even the powerful Islamic caliphate wasn’t able to roll any farther than Iberia and Asia Minor so Europe had a chance to reassert its independence.  But the world is a very different place today.  China and other non-European powers are emerging.  If Europe and the United States were to decay into weak entities their independence and survival would be far from a guaranteed result.  It truly behooves the leaders in the West to address the loss of morale and direction that is currently ubiquitous in Western countries.  It is basically an existential necessity at this point.  And there is very little time left to reverse the situation before it becomes impossible to solve.

What is needed is a cultural revival.  And a revival requires a leader.  Someone has to focus the resources of the state to purge the negative aspects of the present culture and replace them with institutions and goals that will strengthen society.  And the institution that must be restored and strengthened the most is the family.  All the reforms should work to restore the nuclear family to vigorous health.  Laws that encourage women to stay home and care for children while their husbands work are the most important aspects of a revival.  All elements of society that are detrimental to the family should be weakened and discouraged.  No one should be telling children that they can decide what sex they are or any other madness like that.  Traditional sex roles and other stabilizing patterns should be showcased and encouraged in entertainment and educational media.  Society as a whole should be focused on restoring healthy lifestyles and activities for everyone.

If a program of renewal is pursued strenuously, I think it’s not impossible for us to stave off the destruction of Renaissance civilization.  But where do we find the leader to initiate it?