If Donald Trump is Trying to Save Western Civilization, He's Doing a Poor Job of it.

During a speech in Poland, Donald Trump said, “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”

This begs the question, what is "Western Civilization", and how do we preserve it? Yes, you must physically defend territory, and keep your citizens safe. That is obviously job one. But Trump's dystopian view focuses almost exclusively on borders, defense, weaponry to the point of losing sight of anything else. Bombs are not the only threat to Western Civilization.

I will cut to the chase; If Trump cares about Western civilization, he needs to fund the arts, and he needs to respect and nurture our values.

Western culture, or Western civilization, is a term used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, and political systems. Western culture is characterized by a host of artistic, philosophic, literary and legal themes and traditions; the heritage of Greek, Roman, Jewish, Germanic, Celtic, Slavic and other ethnic  groups, as well as Middle Eastern Christianity including the Roman Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Church, which played an important part in the shaping of Western civilization since at least the 4th century. 

A cornerstone of Western thought, beginning in ancient Greece and continuing through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is the idea of rationalism in various spheres of life, especially religion, developed by Hellenistic philosophy, Scholasticism, and humanism. Empiricism later gave rise to the scientific method during the Scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches are at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws, and institutions which constitute Western civilization.

Values of Western culture have, throughout history, been derived from political thought, widespread employment of rational argument favouring freethought, assimilation of human rights, the need for equality and democracy.

The Church preserved the intellectual developments of classical antiquity, and is the sole reason much of them is known today. Medieval Christianity created the university, the hospital system, scientific economics, natural law (which would later influence the creation of international law), and numerous other innovations across all intellectual fields. Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagan societies, such as human sacrifice, slavery, infanticide and polygamy. 

Rational thinking developed through a long age of change and formation, with the experiments of the Enlightenment, and breakthroughs in the sciences. Tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies include the concept of political pluralism, individual rights, and limitations on government.

Western Civilization is values, art, and literature. Western Civilization is ideas. It is Bernini and Aristotle, it is Hobbes and Mann, Caravaggio and Pollock, the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, Shakespeare and Twain, Augustine and Paine, Dante and Morrison, Newton and Galileo.

The survival of Western civilization depends, yes, on physically defending ourselves. But, the long term fate of western civilization is much more dependent upon us treasuring our values and in preserving those values and passing them on to future generations. The salvation of Western Civilization does NOT reside in guns. It resides in our literature, our arts, our principles regarding the rights of man.

When Donald Trump submits a budget which defunds the National Endowment for the Humanities, he weakens Western Civilization.

When Donald Trump suggests defunding the National Endowment for the arts, he weakens Western civilization.

When Donald Trump suggests eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, he weakens Western Civilization.

When Budget Director Mulvaney says that we can ask a tax payer to pay for bombs, but not for support of the arts, he displays perverted values which weaken western civilization.

When the EPA rejects Enlightenment values like rationalism, and scientific method, it weakens Western Civilization.

When Donald Trump attacks a free press, he weakens Western Civilization.

When anti-intellectualism reaches the point at which the majority of Republicans think college is bad, It weakens Western civilization.

You can't save Western Civilization with Guns alone.

Last edited by Goose (7/11/2017 12:04 pm)