We have lost our way - the West needs to reclaim its roots, urgently.

Hi ATS,

The pandemic is an artificially engineered crisis, and the effect has been to cut us away from the sketchy moorings which remained in the hearts & minds of all people across the Western world. We all hold moderately libertarian ideals, in that we all desire & believe in freedom - or at least, all sane people believe this. More & more it seems that we are being forced further away from the shores of rationality, divided hopelessly one against the other. We need stability, we need grounding in a sense, and in a world which is only ever held together by agreements based around core processes of our society (law - custom, trade, political ceremony & established culture, etc) we need moorings in the buoyant waters which represent the flow of forces through actions which shape our day to day lives. We do not necessarily absolutely need a fixed & strong ideological foundation (though that is for the best), but at the very least we must be securely moored to the shore, so that even if we are buffeted by the waters, we are still relatively stable, capable of reaching that shore as & when we need to, when tragedy strikes, for example, as we cling to our customs & traditions.

Or, when we must work together against a common foe.

In her book The Need for Roots, written in 1943, the French philosopher and reluctant mystic Simone Weil puts the case like this:

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations of the future.”

...

Her attachment was to the eternal things, and she could never be boxed in. She wrote in praise of God, tradition, roots, peoples and culture; but also of justice, freedom of speech and thought, honour and equality. She could be equally scathing about fascism, communism, established religion, liberal elites, capitalism and mass education.

The pandemic has ripped us away from our moorings, leaving us hopelessly flailing against the onsurge of the current, bailing out the waters which are overcoming us as the effects of this global catastrophe, a train wreck in slow motion (to mix analogies) shatters our society all around us. The article offers some excellent insights relevant to how we might regain a sense of our more general & proper station in life, as individuals & as members of the Western meta-culture.

It is my suggestion that one of the primary goals of those who have engineered this pseudo-pandemic (a matter I have addressed elsewhere) has been to cause this ripping away from what we used to know & trust as a secure & stable mooring, available to all Westerners, even if they deny the need of a strong spiritual foundation, on the land ashore, so to speak. I believe that we must begin to recognise our need of this mooring, even as we grapple with how to respond to the pandemic itself. We need our cultural & spiritual heritage reclaimed, so we can overcome the pernicious diabolisms of the enemy at the gates. Indeed, the enemy more or less seems to own those gates, and so we really must find a way to be inwardly strengthened even as we fight the tyranny which has brought us to this place.

I refer again, incidentally, to the need for a PROTOPIA, in which we are only ever searching after the ideas of incremental progress towards virtue & excellence in all forms, avoiding the trap of seeking out a pre-planned 'utopia', which can only ever be a fallen & imperfect model for a state which is assured to totter into totalitarianism, as people are forced to 'fit' the model by authorities which are invested in 'the vision'. Socialism & Fascism are both examples of a utopian vision gone awry, a closed system which becomes stagnant, as people (as people are ever wont to do) fall short of the perfection demanded of the model itself.. We are much rather to prefer a protopian vision, which is a vision based upon the very expression of an open system, where growth & freedom can prosper, just as in nature, virtue can circulate freely as change & progress are explored. In closed systems, that growth can only ever be forced to fit in a stunted, limited manner; all creativity dies, amidst an abject fear of failure - a fear of the authorities which measure just how well each person 'fits', or does not fit.

Have a read, and see what you think. Please share your thoughts, and please pass along any references, articles, videos (etc) which are in some way able to help us reach out for the safety lines which can tie us to shore once again. Thanks for your time & participation.

Regards,


FITO.

=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=38b11ac5e7&mc_eid=e14e7fd162]The West has lost its roots. The less moored our identities become, the louder we shout about them


NB - link looks screwy, but works fine. Because of a bracket halfway through the link string it can't be formatted properly, apologies that it looks a bit scrappy.

ETA - spelling, presentation

Wait till a new generation of brain dead are our leaders.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Great post FITO!

I think it started long before this pandemic. It began in our education system with the kids. The sense of "belonging" has been turned into a sense of individualism. While being an individual is not a bad thing, there also needs to be a sense of belonging to something that unites everyone.

There are a LOT of issues with a LOT of pieces of our society as a while, but educationally we have lowered the bar to a point where younger generations do not have the common sense and abilities to think critically about subjects. They simply have to study to pass a test or a class....there is no real interest in anything for the majority except for what they are told to care about. They have not been allowed to have discussions without being shouted down by a minority of others that seem to be the new generation of bullies.

Thanks for bringing this info here.

Here's a gem of truth from the essay:

Our states and economic elites had to dispossess their own people before they could venture out to dispossess others. The ordinary folk of the “developed” West were the prototype; the guinea pigs in a giant global experiment. Now we find ourselves rootless, rudderless, unmoored in a great sea of chaos; angry, confused, shouting at the world and each other.


The link you provided on Paul Kingnorth's essay also led me to this. It looks like some great reading. Thanks again!

all part of the war on Christianity
much of what we see today, in politics and society, is anti-Christians trying to eliminate Christian values and eventually Christianity itself.
this would leave them free to pursue, even implement, their own moral code.

that's about it.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Reminded me again what America's roots actually are?

Do you mean European culture, hard line protestantism, the pioneering spirit, or post war capitalism?

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Isn't great how you can propel you message into the world through the Internet?

Interconnected indeed...

a reply to: AaarghZombies

North or South?

a reply to: AaarghZombies


All of the above.

Would you disagree?

originally posted by: abago71
a reply to: AaarghZombies

North or South?

Either would be good.

originally posted by: FlyInTheOintment
a reply to: AaarghZombies


All of the above.

Would you disagree?

My roots are probably very different from yours, the pandemic didn't remotely change my relationship with them as my situation is so different from my forebears that none of the changes were relevant. I expect my pandemic experience was different from your as well. We had a delta super spreader event. It was like something out of a 1980s movie.

originally posted by: ElGoobero
all part of the war on Christianity
much of what we see today, in politics and society, is anti-Christians trying to eliminate Christian values and eventually Christianity itself.
this would leave them free to pursue, even implement, their own moral code.

that's about it.

That's why they push evolutionary theory so vehemently. If you can convince the people they are mutant apes, then subconsciously and consciously they will begin to behave in such a manner

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

One cannot explore the vast ocean until one casts off from the moorings of the pier.

Everything that has roots casts pollen into the winds, one way or another, to spread its being beyond the confines of its native soil.

"Roots" only exist so that the pollen may be spread, finding new lands in which to root, grow, and cast off again.

a reply to: Mantiss2021

All part of a beautiful, whole & complete system through which life flows.

But we are being cut away from those roots, and our pollen is scattered aimlessly, so to speak, it's every man for himself instead of true community cooperation working towards that protopian vision. We've been divided by this pandemic in particular, and many negatives have infected what remains of our culture. There's a lot of misinformation now which is muddying the waters, so that truth seeking has become harder than ever - but if we persist, we prevail.

Muddy waters which are clogged with grime become stagnant, and stagnancy breeds a destruction of the 'elan vital' - the life stuff which is the perpetuation of our essence through the vehicle of our culture, science & commerce, via our family & communities at every level.

We need to find a standard of truth which we all can agree on, and hold to the good, dropping that which is worthless (such as crass materialism). Only when we share values can we truly bond as communities. The more people hold to the good, the greater the flow of the life force which animates our existence as rational, spiritual beings. We are not mere mutant apes, we a 'gods' in the grand order of things, and if we will awaken to that, with all the wonder & curiosity, the responsibility & the commandment which drives us to do good things in this universe we find ourselves in, then we will begin to understand how to 'overcome the world', how to subject the Creation to our will in line with the Master's call.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

It is a fool's mission to seek that which never truly existed in the hope of its return.

Your use of the concept "standards" is a hope for nothing more than a plea for a consensus that cannot exist in a population greater than one. The more you look back to regain sight, if not possession, of what you believe you once had, the less you will find yourself prepared to meet, and conquer, the present in which you cannot avoid.

Do not seek "leaders", "followers", or much less, "gods" to ease your journey by reminding you of where you've been; embrace the fact that each path is solitary in its uniqueness, and, though companions may come, they also must go, following their own paths.

You fear "deception", but as someone once said, "You can't cheat an honest man". As long as you are true to Your path, you will never be deceived by anyone else.

As long as you remain true To Yourself!, and do not fall victim to your own fears, prejudices, and self-deceptions - no matter how comforting and reassuring they may seem, you will never be lost.

Even when you don't know where you are, or in which direction you are heading.