Endgame: prolegomena to the Matter of the West
By RONALD N. NEFF
Perhaps part of what it means to be a Faustian civilization, as some have called the West I would much rather call it Promethean or perhaps Icaran is that its creative flame burns much brighter, but also and necessarily far briefer.
Nicholas Strakon,
"Pride in the ruins, part 2:
Thinned blood, lost bones,"
TLD 15, p. 6
Prolegomenon I
It is sometimes asserted that civilizations have a "life span," just as living organisms have. Let us suppose
that that is true.
In that case, it is at least possible that Western civilization is now in a natural
decline.
It does not follow from that supposition that we might as well all lie down
and die. A man's life span is famously given as 70 years ("perhaps in strength
even 80"). A 65-year-old does not lie down and die. Neither does a 90-year-old.
Moreover, it is not defeatist for either of them to acknowledge his age or the
state of his health. In fact, one who acts or even dresses younger than he is
becomes a laughing stock.
If they are sensible and in good health (for their age), the elderly undertake
activities appropriate to their age. They normally do not take up rock climbing
or lacrosse. They normally do not attempt to start families. They do not invest
in growth, as opposed to income, securities. And refraining from those activities
is normally not regarded as defeatist.
If the West is in its declining years if on its own terms it is more like a
70-year-old man than a 40-year-old one it is foolish for its devotees to
treat it as if it were in the prime of its life.
Therefore, if one wishes to address the question "What is to be done?" there
must be some attempt to answer the related question "About what?" And in this
case, the "what" calls for an analysis of the nature of this achingly beautiful
culture that seems to be passing from our view. That analysis, in turn, calls for
some estimate of its age.
The rub, of course, is trying to estimate the "age" of the West (or any other
civilization while it is still functioning) without knowing what kind of life span
might be appropriate to it. Western cultures are not, after all, as plentiful as
human beings, so generalizations along such lines are difficult to come by.
But in that case, does it not at least make sense to attempt to answer the
"what if" question: What if the West is already an old culture? If we cannot
know its life span, does it not make sense for several courses of action to be
taken? Those who believe that its present ailments are analogous to a disease or
malady that is merely a temporary setback to a healthy man, not a sign of his
slide into senescence, will undertake certain courses of action. Those who fear it
is more like a last illness must investigate other courses.
The task, then, is threefold: to get a sense of what stage the West is in; to
determine what kinds of action are appropriate to that stage; and then to
undertake them.
Prolegomenon II
Now let us reject the "life span" theory of civilizations.
I take it as unarguable that Christianity has been integral to the history of the
West. Without it, Western culture would be virtually unrecognizable to us. But
some allege that Christianity is harmful or alien to the West; they hold that its
catholic message of charity to all men for the sake of a God who loves all men
must of necessity result in a fatal mixing of alien or inherently incompatible
elements. If they are right, it follows that Western culture is inherently and
cybernetically unstable.
Others may argue that Christianity is not at all a weakness in the West, but
that the Industrial Revolution and its consequences are. But industrialization is
as inherent in the West as anything may be said to be. The physics of the West
and its approach to solving the problems of nature contain within themselves
the seeds of the Industrial Revolution. Again, one simply cannot imagine what
the West would be if the antecedents of the Industrial Revolution are not
integral to it. If the Industrial Revolution has destroyed the West, then again,
the West is inherently unstable.
Still others say that it is individualism and ardor for liberty that are
destroying the West. But, again, both of these have characterized the West
throughout its history. Without them, it is just impossible to project what a
Western man would be. They, too, may be part of what the West means. And
again, in that case, the West is a doomed culture.
And finally, if it is the growth of the nation-state, with all that that entails,
including a ruling class and centralization or amassing of political power, that
is destroying the West, we nevertheless must admit that the growth toward that
end seems to have been part of the dynamics of the West for most if not
all of its history. And again, we should have to contemplate the
possibility that the destruction of the West comes from within itself, from its
own nature.
If any of those hypotheses is true, then the conclusion is the same: the West is
a doomed culture. And as in the "life span" analysis, it is not defeatist to arrive
at that conclusion or to defend it.
And if the West is a doomed culture, then it makes sense to investigate
whether the stage at which we find it is a natural, logically inevitable end stage,
or a contingent period of setbacks and defeats that can eventually be
reversed.
If it is the former, it is incumbent on those who love the West as in the
"life span" analysis to determine what actions are appropriate to its
stage and to take them, rather than take actions that might be more appropriate
to a culture with the vigor of its prime still before it.
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One writer who talks of civilizations as
organisms is Lawrence Brown (The Might of the West
[Washington: Joseph J. Binns, 1963]). For the purposes of this essay, I have in the
back of my mind his distinguishing of the West from Classical civilization. [Back to text]