By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--February 6, 2023
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Call it the Culture War, protecting what the Founders created, or just plain national survival, we are in a war that must be won. On one side are the Marxist critical theory people in their many variations. They seek to weaken and undermine the West. They find imperfections, most of them corrected long ago, and use them to characterize the Western way of life as fatally flawed and requiring destruction. They shriek that Western society is racist and homophobic and hegemonic and stifling. They condemn and cancel any counterargument as racist and homophobic. The latest weapon is to declare anything they don’t like as ‘white supremacy’. In their world a differing opinion, whether informed or not, cannot be tolerated. They want to win at all costs. We must make sure they do not.
The alternative is to lose. If we lose, we will return to the darkest period in human history, the charnel house totalitarian cultures of the 20th Century. That’s exactly what the critical theory people who are on the other side are pushing. They want to destroy the Western heritage. If we let them win we will descend to a worse level of hell than in the 20th Century because this time we know better. It isn’t enough to know better, however. Those who know better must take the action necessary to stop the wreckers from advancing their destructive, nihilistic agenda.
What, exactly, IS the Western heritage? What is Western Civilization? What of its components make it special? What makes it worth saving?
As late as the 1950s, courses in Western Civilization were foundations for academic study. Back in those benighted days, it was assumed in institutions of higher learning that we should understand what it was that had gotten us to this point. Are we carriers of a philosophy of goodness and virtue and improvement in the human condition, or are we just barbarians, plundering and looting other cultures for our own gain and nothing else? Does it matter? Oh, yes. It matters.
Quality courses about Western Civilization usually begin with the Biblical origins of the West. In the first five books of the Old Testament we learn of the ways God developed a relationship with believers. Reading these principles should warm your heart. The principles are epic. They’re meaningful. They’re instructive. They’re laudatory. They’re the original blueprint for what we in the West have aspired to be ever since.
Primary among the founding principles is monotheism. There is only one God, not a pantheon of gods. God insists on this. The Bible lays out the relationship between God and his people. One basis for this relationship is a covenant. God asked Abraham to do as God told him. If Abraham would do this, God promised to bless him and his children. Abraham entered into the covenant voluntarily, in freedom instead of being compelled to do so. So we have free will and may act for good purposes or bad ones. We must take the responsibility for our choices and our actions. Abraham upheld his covenant with God, leaving his home in Ur and traveling to Hebron, where he took up land.
Second, God created the universe, so we are not here by accident. Man was created in the image of God. Because God is good and because it isn’t right to destroy what God has created, LIFE IS SACRED. In the West, we believe that life is sacred, that it must be preserved, that it must not be destroyed needlessly. Life is cheap in some cultures, but not in the West. God created man, so God is a creator and so is man.
Third, because we believe that life is sacred, it follows that we value the individual, because every life is sacred. Every life has value. Individuals have rights, groups do not. Equal means it applies to everyone the same way. As a result, we have the concept of equality. This doesn’t mean we are the same, but that we are to be treated the same under law.
Fourth, God is a moral creature who, immediately after creating man and woman, defined right and wrong, good and evil. This moral dimension is crucial to the West. There are standards. We are not allowed to make up rules according to our whims. We should try to live up to these standards. Anyone who flaunts the standards must be viewed with suspicion and hostility. The Torah brims with moral tales and stories to instruct the people. Many of these stories portray women in a positive light, using their intellectual and emotional strength to set an example for everyone. This made for a noteworthy difference from other cultures of the day.
Fifth, God is present with us and has a keen interest in the details. God often leaves careful instructions, as when Abraham got his itinerary and Noah saw the blueprint and was told how to take the animals into the ark.
Sixth, God is a disciplinarian and seeks justice. We are to follow his lead and seek justice also. From the beginning we have had the gift of knowledge so we know right and wrong, justice and injustice. If we will walk the narrow path, we will seek justice, as God does.
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Finally, because Abraham’s covenant and the laws go back so very far, and because they have come down to us over thousands of years, we honor tradition and continuity, not upheaval and chaos. Western culture is part of a long tradition. No part of it may be overthrown lightly or without consideration of the consequences. This is an inherently conservative concept. We must preserve the permanent things.
These ideas permeate our culture for very good reasons. They are the basis for our journey from Ur across the centuries to the present day.
Because they’re foundational, these ideas must be taught and passed on to each new generation. Education must lead the way in reinforcing belief in and understanding of these principles. When the educational system begins to neglect teaching these principles, there is a decay, a weakening that begins to spread. When it deliberately teaches untruths and lies about our Western culture, it must be seen as a mortal danger.
We must work to save the Western tradition. We must save it or be buried under its rubble for all time. Without any doubt whatsoever, it is worth saving.
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Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.