Pessimism

A reader writes:

This morning, Lawrence, you wrote, “We seem to be looking at the death of the West” in your “Things Don’t Look Good” post.

Yet you disagreed with that correspondent who saw the same things in the “Is All Hope for America Gone” post. I think he was being quite realistic in that he perceived “hope” to be a sentiment not grounded in any substance. He asked “HOW” were things to be changed, since there didn’t appear to be any concrete political, social and legal projects underway to concretely change things. The feeling of “hope” was not enough given that there was no groundswell of support for a change in direction.

I feel the same way. The best the conservative can do is be in a holding pattern. But even this is undermined by the fact that most conservatives themselves have sparks of liberalism in them. You noted that the “Intelligent Design” proponents lost in Pennsylvania. Notice however that conservatives such as George Will ( John Derbyshire have come out against “Intelligent Design.”

So how can optimism be grounded in anything substantial apart from “hoping” that liberalism self-implodes. That is assuming that WHEN liberalism self-destructs, the alternative will be a return to our origins. Yet looking at France, if liberalism were to destroy itself there, I feel that the turn will be towards a Muslim society in several generations (given the birthrate). Not back to a Euro-Christian France.

Frankly I see Hillary Rodham Clinton winning rather easily the presidency after George W. Bush. Conservatives will stay away from the polls demoralized by the Bush presidency as liberals rush to elect her. California’s governor Arnold S. and NY’s Giuliani are the most liberal “conservatives” I’ve seen in ages (being touted by mainstream Republicans as “acceptable” conservatives. Nothing but nothing shows me that America is about to undo the liberal mindset of the US in high places (government, academia, media, etc).

We may indeed be in the last days of Western civilization as informed by the Judeo-Christian ethic. The generations to come will be unrecognizable to us…

My reply:

That other reader was indulging in pure despair, basically saying there is nothing left for us to do but die, and I objected. But I also don’t close my eyes to a disaster such as is happening in France. As I said, even I wouldn’t have imagined that the French government would essentially do nothing after two weeks of riots and that this would not seem controversial.

I do see liberalism as doomed, one way or the other. But that doesn’t simply mean that there is this thing out there, called liberalism, and it’s dying, and we sit around while it dies, and then things will be better. The death of liberalism is part of the awakening to truth that has gone on in some people and can potentially go on in many more people. We have life in ourselves. That life exists in lots of other people whom we don’t know about. There are forces that will oppose the destruction, forces that may increase and rise up, but that we don’t currently see because they are beneath the surface.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 09, 2005 12:16 PM | Send