Losing Civilization

Are we going to tolerate the downfall of Western ideals?

Victor Davis Hanson writes about the fragile nature of our civilization and how it can be lost if we are unwilling to defend it. The recent, and ongoing temper tantrum of Muslims around the world regarding the Danish cartoons is but the most recent example of the Wahhabists in the Arab world at war with the rest of humanity. Like spoiled children who understand that their parents are push-overs, they have discovered that many in the West are so tainted by multiculturalism and leftism that they would rather see their own civilization fall than risk "offending" Islam in the defense of a Western value like freedom of speech.

Those who are advocating the abject surrender of our civilization to the barbarians are the Angry Left. This fifth column left in our own society is small in number, but noisy in its extremism. In the long run I think the Angry Left will be defeated because they do not represent the majority of people who enjoy the benefits of living in our country and the freedoms we have come to expect. But because they have had such a hold on media and cultural institutions in recent decades, they have been able to present a larger and more formidable appearance than their numbers would otherwise have allowed. The collapse of the Elite Media Monoculture and the corresponding rise of New Media have changed all that. Now we can see the Angry Left for the cheap cardboard facade that it is. And regular Americans who are seeing it for the first time have recoiled in horror at the sight.

Average Americans do not hate their country; on the contrary; they are mostly patriotic even if they can't quote DeTocville or the Federalist Papers. But those who are activists for freedom cannot take anything for granted in this war. If the West is to survive, then those who are dedicated to its values must continue to actively defend it on all fronts, including the political and cultural here at home. The Angry Left wants America defeated. They cannot be allowed to have their way.