Agony of Hercules or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger)
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Chimera of the "Substantial Void"
“France is at war,” President Francois Hollande says after ISIS attack. Hollande is awaken from a dream, like the West is awaken in general. Similar to carefree and capricious Olympic Gods, the West has found itself in the epicenter of the storm and now repeats the same question feverishly and desperately: “How one can fight with the ISIS?”. But the existential question is much more complicated and deeper: “For the sake of what one should fight?”.
People fight for certain ideas: the Motherland, national dignity, religion (as Muslims do today), ideology - in our case, Liberal values and Democracy.The Motherland and national dignity are no longer values for the young generation of the West. They are completely cosmopolitan; patriotism for them is synonymous with nationalism, xenophobia and prejudice. They know practically nothing and don't even want to know anything about their country, history and roots. Cromwell and Nelson, William of Orange and Charlemagne, Sherman and Bismarck, Louis the Great and Prince Eugene of Savoy, Lorenzo de' Medici and Alfonso the Brave don't mean anything for them, or worse - represent something dangerous and unpleasant, associated with war and violence, alien to tolerance and pluralism (“Dead White European Males” , isn't it so?).
Christianity has long been turned into archaic relic of the “dark past”. In European churches you will find only a few old ladies or homeless who shelter there from bad weather. Cathedrals have long turned into museums, monuments of a far-away and gloomy epoch, and Christian confessions themselves carefully and diligently try to fit all the fashionable trends: from “human rights” to gay marriages and "Free Gaza ". What one should fight for, if Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams believes that it is inevitable to recognize Sharia courts in Great Britain, if French bishops, like Monseigneur Ribadeau-Dumas, are ready to turn empty churches to mosques voluntarily?Liberal values in the vision of Locke, John Mill, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin were based, firstly, on the foundation of the national culture, secondly, on traditional humanistic ideals, thirdly, on principles of morality, laid down by the Jewish prophets and Christian thinkers, and finally, on the concepts of Rationalism. In the contemporary post-modern society, all these four pillars are either destroyed totally, or undermined.
National traditions are erased from the collective memory and remain only as historical relics in museums and monuments of medieval Gothic. The humanistic ideal of a person striving for a self-improvement, praised by Socrates and Epictetus, Tacitus and Marcus Aurelius, Alberti and Coluccio Salutati, is castrated and crucified.The religious-ethical code, started by Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, was denigrated and rejected.
Finally, Rationalism of the 18-19th centuries was declared dead in disasters of the 20th century and was substituted by ridiculous eclecticism, relativism, irrationalism as an “independent approach” free from any restrictions.Idea of Liberal values degenerated into the concept of “Human rights” but rights of what “human” and for what purpose? What is displayed by those people that need to be protected so ardently, and do they deserve the protection, support and even condolence at all?
Do fanatics, criminals, dregs of society, perverts deserve any support? Whose rights shall we protect? Those of Abu Qatada or John Tuo - the leader of the bloody Mungiki sect in Kenya, who personally butchered 400 of his compatriots and was granted a political asylum in Brittan? Or rights of Sture Bergwall - the sadist and cannibal who was set free by Swedish Court in August 2013? This was “a major failure for the justice system” according to Swedish attorney general Anders Perklev. Or rights of nine Islamists who were engaged in planning terrorist attacks in the name of "the liberation of Spain and establishment of the Islamic Caliphate" on the Iberian Peninsula and were declared not guilty in April 2012 by the Spanish Supreme Court? Democracy?But democracy itself is not something sacred, essential and significant. It is nothing more than a form of government derived from the mentality of the majority. It can confer powers to enlightened liberals like William Gladstone and Thomas Masaryk, strong public leaders like Churchill, Reagan and Thatcher, or to some mediocrity and even worse - to Erdogan, Hugo Chavez, Hamas, "Muslim Brotherhood", not to mention Hitler.
In the name of what will the new generation of Postmodern civilization fight? For the right of protests against global warming and demonstrations in the nude? In the name of “Positive Thinking”, public nudity, atheism, pornography, free sex, "Pride Parade", gay marriage, "Black Friday", smoking marijuana?People don't fight and don't die in name of such `ideals'. And, of course, they don't win, especially if they deal with religious fanatics.
The West opposes not the ISIS. It opposes Islam as a religious-political doctrine, no matter in what form it is presented - the ISIS, "Muslim brothers", "al-Qaeda", Salafis, “Hizb ut-Tahrir”, Shiite Iran and "Hezbollah".In the absence of the priority of own values, or even the values themselves, there will be no victory. Moreover, there will be no war. It will be a surrender.
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About the Book
Democracy: From Triumph to Suicide
What type of society most corresponds to the ideals of justice and rule of law? The answer seemed obvious: democracy. Today it seems a paradox, but ancient thought, humanism, as well as rational thinking with undisguised skepticism are related to democracy. They knew how easy and quickly it transformed into ochlocracy.
However, founding fathers of Liberal Democracy, like de Tocqueville, thought that rationalism, combined with a compulsory educational system, improvement of living standards, and an advanced legal system, would become a guarantee of democratic development. Unfortunately, these supporting columns are fatally destroyed today.
The idea of equal opportunities was changed by unrestrained craving for consumption and hedonism. We see people completely disconnected from their culture, their own country, or the world. The Principle of “the art of goodness and fairness” by Celsus the Younger, the Principle of “pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety” of The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, and the Principle of Utility by Bentham and Mill have been perverted and emasculated to the extent that they have just stopped working.
The growing “Red-Green-Brown Alliance” threatens not only Democracy, but states of the West.
But the most sinister metamorphosis has occurred to the concept of “human rights.” Human rights organizations have become the "new church," following own ideological orientation and financial interests. It canonizes "human rights," but despises the “human” as a creature that is creative, intelligent, and responsible for its own destiny. It has a distinct racist odor and shows contempt toward minorities—religious and sexual.
Astonishingly, having lost its internal stability, democracy seeks for an unrestrained expansion. We observe the silliness worthy of new Moliere's pen: "democratic elections" between tribes practicing a ritual cannibalism, as in Papua New Guinea; between tribal clans like in Pakistan; between religious zealots, as this happened in Egypt.
Wasn't it a cruel mockery of History that the EU that was on the verge of collapse virtually awarded itself the Nobel Peace Prize, as it was done by senile Soviet leaders; that the President of USA got the same prize just for empty slogans, like Leonid Brezhnev?
As it often happens in History, the most pure and noble idea degenerates into its opposite, turning into a parody of itself.
About the Author
He is stranger in this country and doomed to be stranger till the end of his life. He is traveler from the past, from Terra incognito, which lay on the other side of the Iron Curtain from Democracy.
It was an odious, twilight world isolated and immersed in itself—a world of gray cities, gray streets, gray squares, glum men, and exhausted women; a world of censorship and uniformity, where most natural things were banned and those that were not were subject to strict limitations.
He got lucky. He left the Evil Empire forever, and his meeting with the new world dazed and besotted him.
But he can't conceal a strange forgotten feeling. What strange reminiscences. Is it chimera, delusion, self-hypnosis, an echo of the past? Maybe. He watched the system collapsing, its foundation eroding, its fastenings cracking, its rods bursting at the joints; he watched the monumental decorative structures fall, burying millions of lives under a cloud of dust. It is not from the history books that he learned how flame leaps up from smoldering conflicts, and ugly, dark hatred erupts, and how long-festering wounds begin to bleed. But how can he explain this instinctive feeling of a deadly threat here, in the realm of freedom, universal contentment, and emancipation?
Are there answers to these questions? Any civilization—the Roman Empire, Christianity, communism, or liberal democracy—can be assessed and understood only in its original coordinate system, retrospectively, and through the prism of the initial idea. Alexander suggests joining his exciting and at same time frightening study that he made.