• Western Civilization And Its Detractors

    From Ilya Shambat@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 17 19:55:34 2021
    Along with Ward Churchill and Ayn Rand, I was exposed to any number of views that I could have lived without. One was Scott Lasch claiming that my generation was morally at sea. The reason for the phenomenon that he found is called democracy. Everyone is
    influencing everyone else. That has gone on for a long time, and I expect it to continue going on.

    I read in the Reader's Digest that integrity is an act of acting as a single unit. The question to ask here is, Integrity – as what? Integrity as a Nazi or a Muslim fundamentalist is not a rightful kind of integrity. There is the core belief structure;
    which, if it is bigoted, will – and should - get challenged. This will result in people not being able to get away with integrity - to a lie.

    In a place where everyone is constantly influencing everyone else, many people will in fact be at sea. It would be harder to get away with bigoted worldviews. The people living in such a climate may very well lose integrity. That however is not
    necessarily such a bad thing. If you have integrity to a lie, then you will use whatever strength or character you have to do wrong things. Bigoted integrity will be challenged by other people and by life. The best result of that is people will grow in
    wisdom. The outcome will be wiser, more informed and more tolerant people who will create a better kind of integrity.

    My own situation was quite an unusual one. I came from Russia to America at age 12. That is an age that is one of transition. People who come to America when they are little children become American, and people who come to America when they are older are
    shaped by the country from which they have come. Whereas someone who comes to America at age 12 has both influences, and it is not always easy to resolve them.

    My response to the claim that we were morally at sea was, “So learn to swim with the mermaids.” Figure out how to interact with whatever you find, for the better or for the worse. Make the good out of a bad situation. Use the conflict around you to
    learn what each party knows and in such gain real wisdom. And then apply this wisdom to improve the world.

    Pat Robertson kept going on about how college campuses teach things like Native American lifestyles and homosexuality instead of Christianity. This was a completely foolish claim. Most colleges have a theology department, and the person interested in
    getting a more insightful understanding of Christianity can take a theology class. Whereas the university is precisely the place to find out about other cultures. Most of these people will be working in their adult life with people from other countries;
    and the more they know about them the better they can deal with them.

    Some claims that we have seen have been completely ridiculous. One is that the Internet is a tool of Satan. That is ridiculous; even the conservative businesses use the Internet. Satan did not develop the Internet; American scientists and programmers did.
    Making ridiculous claims ruins your credibility even on matters in which you are right.

    There were other claims as well. One was that New Age parents practiced “Satanic Ritual Abuse” of children. Likewise complete nonsense; New Agers do not even believe in Satan, much less abuse children in the name of Satan or anything of the sort.
    Another claim was that Jews practiced ritual sacrifice of babies. More complete foolishness. If that had been the case, I would have known about it a long time ago.

    The survivalist movement likewise put out its belief system. In one story, two men from Boulder made their way to a survivalist community. Not only did they cry on spot – and not only did they carry Mao's Red Book – but they were also carrying a half-
    eaten baby in their backpack. Did these people fail to realize that character, integrity and conservative values also included honesty? Did they not realize how much they were hurting their cause with their irresponsible prevarication?

    Many people at the time hated Clinton. Clinton was the mirror image of Nixon. Both were brilliant. Both were corrupt. Both were pragmatic moderates who kept their country together when it was losing its mind in either direction. Both put into place ideas
    from the other side that the other side would not have been able to achieve. Nixon opened the door to China, replaced the conscript army with a professional army, and created the Environmental Protection Agency. Clinton balanced the budget and passed the
    North American Free-Trade Agreement. They were hated because they were not taking part of the mood of the time. But they both kept America together when the public sentiment was severely imbalanced and many people wanted to do the wrong thing.

    Ilya Shambat

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