Most people strutting around the Western world today fancy themselves and their society as the pinnacles of human civilization thus far. They wear nice clothes; inhabit large houses with air-conditioned comfort; eat a variety of plentiful foods; drive sleek automobiles that conveniently transport them from place to place; fly in airplanes around the world; work in tall spires of steel and glass; make ample use of vaccines, drugs, and other life-preserving medical care; redistribute wealth to the needy or to worthwhile causes; send their children to publicly-funded schools to be instructed by licensed teachers; obtain impressive-sounding degrees from massive universities; flex their military might near and far; communicate with each other instantaneously on portable devices; have central banks who regulate interest rates; have courts that issue endless pronouncements; prohibit virtually any form of discrimination or other words and deeds that hurt people's feelings; and enjoy guilt- and consequence-free sex with a smorgasbord of rotating partners.
Yet none of these things a civilization make. These are mere trappings, or fruits, of civilization. When a tree is cut down, you do not judge it healthy by the lingering glow of its fruits. Yet that is what Westerners do when smugly appraising themselves. They gorge on the fruits of a tree they already felled. But the fruit is slowly turning rotten in their mouths, which spurs them to demand moving heaven and earth to make the fruit sweet again. Not by restoring the tree or planting a new one, which would be too sobering and require too much patience, but by artifice. The government churns out ever more rules and regulations to resist the reality of our decay, and as that decay accelerates, so will the intensity and lunacy of these efforts (think negative interests rates, "bail-ins," price controls, and martial law).
When I look around, I see no civilization. I see barbarians inhabiting and pilfering the civilization my ancestors built. What sort of "civilization" is it where no one actually owns his house rather than being owned by it? Where there are almost no educated people in the true sense of the word? Where parents are forced to inject their children with cocktails of drugs? Where people communicate endlessly about nothing substantial, using a devolving dialect reminiscent of cavemen? Where martial values and culture are absent (or prohibited) from supporting the military? Where plunder is considered a virtue if done by popular vote? Where a sense of the divine and eternal is scorned or even punished? Where people cannot use or transact their own property as they wish? Where people cannot associate or not associate as they wish? Where there is no clear and concise rule of law, rather the arbitrary and fickle rule of judges and other government officials? Where love is merely another appetite to be sated from moment to moment and partner to partner? Where women have full license to root out and extinguish a life growing within them, without the father's input, but on the other hand can force the father to support the child if she alone decides to bear it? Where people with healthy habits such as diligence, saving, and thrift are punished by government policy to reward the slothful and prodigal?
This is why I call our society a joke. I can't take it seriously, nor can anyone else with a mind or a soul.
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