Who is the guiltiest among us?

Here is Mark at Western Survival (via Vanishing American):

I think the catastrophe unfolding in Western civilization is, at root, a failure of white men. It is a failure born of the best of intentions; white men felt it was only fair to open the halls of power to non-whites and women. But it is a failure nonetheless because it is leading to our destruction. We began to care about the feelings of those who are not our people, and we became fat and prosperous and safe enough in our advanced nations that we felt we could afford to give the women a chance at the wheel….

The good news is this: the things inherent in our genes and our natures that made us the unsurpassed conquerors of the world are still there, waiting for us to pick them up again and say “enough.” I feel sorry for our competitors when that day arrives, when white men stand up say “we’ve been patient long enough. Playtime is over.” And the truth is that our competitors fear that day deep in their bones. That might be part of the reason they want to wipe us out while they can. They promised us that all they wanted was to be treated as equals. We gave them that, and now they are making it clear that they want special treatment. They don’t want equality, they want superiority. It is time that we say, no, you have had your chance and demonstrated your true motives. Enough.

LA writes:

Two thoughts. On one hand, I wouldn’t put the matter in the strictly racial, genetic terms that are used by this writer. While the white race is an indispensable element in the formation and preservation of Western civilization, it is obviously not a sufficient element. The racial genetic thinkers of today tend to believe that racial sameness and solidarity by themselves are enough to form and maintain a society. That is an illusion that can lead to the destruction of the moral experiences and values that are necessary for civilization.

On the other hand, if we remove the racial reductionism from the above passage, the author is saying something that is true. Things are the way they are now because white Western man has accepted liberalism and thus accepted his own destruction. If he rejects liberalism and starts standing up for himself, everything can change.

Josh writes:

Mark poses a scenario where white men have essentially given away the hard earned gains of their forefathers and sees this as a “failure born of the best of intentions.” What if an alternate theory were entertained that gives Mark’s seemingly contradictory stance a better grounding in reality? What if our declining status is not the personal failure of the white man, but an outright victory by those that oppose the white man like no other, i.e., radical homosexuals, particularly radical lesbians? This extremely influential demographic, IMHO, represents the heart and sole of modern liberalism and therefore represents the archenemy of American traditionalism.

I mainly disagree with Mark’s take because it claims we could win if we wanted but we choose self-destruction instead. This seems counterintuitive. The alternate theory is that we are losing to a formidable foe and we must fight in order to survive and fight even harder to restore American tradition. I think this represents your take.

LA replies:

Josh has written me a few e-mails making the above point about homosexuals being the real problem and I don’t think I posted the others, because I didn’t really understand what he was saying, or maybe he didn’t say it as clearly as he is saying it here. The notion that radical homosexuals, particularly radical lesbians, represent the heart and sole of modern liberalism strikes me as odd and I’d like to know what Josh’s basis is for saying it.

As for whether liberalism is “doing it to us” or whether we are “doing it to ourselves,” I think that’s a false choice. Both are true.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 17, 2007 02:01 PM | Send