Western Civilization is undeniably in decline and indeed its very existence is in doubt. Yet these thoughts ought not to drag conservatives down into a morass of defeatism. Though the hour is late, a remnant must run to the barricades and shield itself and whatever is left of Western Civilization from the barbarians at the gates.
Conservative intellectuals tend to be a dismal sort. By natural disposition we are pessimistic people. We cannot really be blamed for this, when one considers the history of mankind and particularly the sorry history of human governance. From starting unnecessary wars, to enslaving whole peoples, to reducing the masses to poverty through excessive taxation, man, when clothed with the right to rule others, has shown himself to be a tyrant-in-waiting.
Moreover, we conservatives realize that human nature is intrinsically inclined to do evil, that utopias are unachievable and their pursuit dangerous, and that we are apt, over time, to lose our moorings to the commandments of God and His laws of nature. We thus tend to hold out little hope for the future.
As justification for our inherent pessimism we need only to look at the peculiar and sorry times in which we live: an era in which the Founding Fathers are considered “dead white men,” but in which the Constitution they made is held to be living; a time in which political compromise is valued as a priority but commitment to principle is reviled as naïve, quixotic; an age in which any kind of perverse speech or lifestyle is celebrated in the name of freedom, but in which free enterprise is stifled in the names of equality and compassion; a time in which information reigns supreme, but in which logical thinking is scarce; an era in which we have attained the greatest technological know-how but in which we have the least understanding of beauty, goodness, and truth.
Added to all this is our conservative tendency to revel in the nobility of lost causes. This in itself is not a bad thing at all—quite the opposite in fact. As T.S. Eliot said:
We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph.
J.R.R. Tolkien agreed with Eliot’s sentiments: “I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic,” Tolkien wrote, “so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’— though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.”
But we have not taken Tolkien’s and Eliot’s words to heart. We mistakenly look for permanent victories, political and cultural, and when they do not come, we despair. We seem not to realize that it is not permanent victories that we should seek but rather the preservation of “the permanent things,” which is victory enough.
Keeping alive the flame, however, does not mean hiding its light. After all, a flame that is not open to the air will be snuffed out. Like Isaiah we are under the Divine injunction to be “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind.” This means that conservative thinkers should not talk exclusively amongst themselves, as we are prone to do. (One might recall that perennial philosophical question: “If an intellectual presents a paper at an academic conference, does it make a sound?”) Instead, we need to shine forth the light of truth, goodness, and beauty through the best available means that can reach the masses; today that means the internet, and specifically online journals like The Imaginative Conservative.
As Sam Gamgee says in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: “There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
In fighting our worthy battle, American conservatives can position their forces on the ramparts of certain premises: that the Founding Fathers, despite their flaws, still have much to teach us today; that the Constitution is actually dead, in the sense that its actual written words need to be taken seriously; that free enterprise is inextricably linked to political freedom and ordered liberty; that inquiry, to be free, must be grounded in reason and must be directed to the ascertainment of truth; and that information and technology are not goods in themselves unless they serve the good and the beautiful.
Yes, our enemy is strong, but we must remember that temporary victories are indeed possible if we keep sharp our Kirkian Sword of Imagination. As the composer Richard Wagner said, “Imagination creates reality.” Who, for example, would have thought that Ronald Reagan’s vision of the early 1980s of American victory over communism would become a reality less than a decade later? Of course, since the collapse of “the Evil Empire,” new terrors have arisen in the world— abroad and at home—to threaten Western Civilization, but we conservatives should have expected that.
This should not be interpreted to mean I advocate engaging in crusades to right wrongs across the globe; to the contrary, we should heed the sage advice of John Quincy Adams and not “go abroad looking for monsters to destroy.” Yet there indeed are dragons in the world, and some are rising in the East, and they may find us soon enough. The most fearsome ones, however, are already amongst us, inhabiting our very souls, twisting them toward evil, falsehood, and ugliness, and causing them to decay. But we can take comfort in Chesterton’s assurance that such dragons can be killed.
Western Civilization is undeniably in decline and indeed its very existence is in doubt. Yet these thoughts ought not to drag us down into a morass of defeatism. Sadly, though, some conservatives are indeed calling for retreat. They say that the hour is too late, that a remnant must run to the barricades and shield itself and whatever is left of Western Civilization from the barbarians at the gates. Like Tolkien’s King Theoden, they seek a Helm’s Deep in a desperate attempt to preserve the world of men from the hour of the Orc. But I call on conservatives to refuse to cede the current hour to darkness, and I join with the Aragorn of Tolkien and Peter Jackson in declaring:
A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship; but it is not this day! An hour of woe, and shattered shields, when the Age of Men comes crashing down; but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”
This essay originally appeared in The Imaginative Conservative in December 2013.
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Awesome! Been down sick all day, and this is a truly inspiring pick-me-up!!
As a conservative, I don’t get this reverence for “the Founders”: they were largely Enlightenment radicals, and I see very little evidence their war made things better than if they had obeyed their king.
Mr Callaghan, you need to read Russell Kirk on this. A wise Anglophile, he still discerned among America’s founders a drive to preserve ancient rights of Englishmen taken away by London.
Mr. Callahan, for clarity, it is not about the reverence of a person or persons. It is their commitment for ALL; to inalienable rights, liberties, and ideas which founded a Great Nation, my friend.
A once great nation.
As conservatives who believe in the fall, we could also note that these times may not necessarily be more “peculiar and so or” than most others; that a remnant always returns, and that if the West goes Christianity will start up and prosper someplace else.
“Added to all this is our conservative tendency to revel in the nobility of lost causes.”
We aren’t the ones with an expectation of creating Utopia (or Heaven) here on earth. But aside from that, I thought you did a very reasonable job of speaking on our behalf .
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I keep the following words by Chesterton beside my desk at work: “The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God’s paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle–and not lose it.” I don’t recall the specific source, but Chesterton’s sentiment lifts my spirits in difficult times. As Tolkien might say, the Third age passes, and the Fourth Age begins; what will survive the change?
Thanks! I needed this.
From that article:
“Western Civilization is undeniably in decline and indeed its very existence is in doubt. ”
I HATE this kind of pessimistic “Conservatism”! This line of “Thinking” will rally no one to any cause, and more likely convince people to just give up. One thing that separates Americans from most other peoples is we DON’T have a tragic outlook on life. We are optimists by nature. It is the left wingers who are the true pessimists. They believe people can’t handle freedom, thus they require Big Government to rule us. Their demands for material equality would stifle all creativity and innovation and send us back to the level of cave men, or worse, insects. Their view of the future is gloomy and terrifying, surely we can offer something much better!
Oswald Spengler was wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about two: Civilizations have lifespans, and ours is near the end of its. What comes after, what rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born? I don’t know, but I’m not optimistic 🙂
I think Tolkien was profoundly “liberal” in a lot of ways. He valued nature over industry and empathy over coercion. His ethics were rooted in Catholicism and so are conservative by today’s standards, but much of his concern for the “simple folk” of the world (the weak, the small) and the weight he assigned to kindness, forgiveness, understanding, pity, and mercy lend themselves to many contemporary “liberal” causes. And I think the good professor would liken many of America’s conservatives to the Orcs of Saruman rather than the Men of the West who so boldly defied the individualistic, militaristic, industrial, and nihilistic person of Sauron.
You hit the mark with your comments, Mr. Markey. Usage of the word “conservatism” is more contorted than that of any other political term, and it is a shame that Americans with even a shade of conservative sentiment have only the protean Republican party as their choice of affiliation if they hope to have anyone in Washington to represent even a modicum of their moral code. The Libertarians, the only viable alternatives, seem more radical than conservative, and they froth at the mouth with their extremism, which contrasts in spirit with the patient thoughtfulness of the Tolkiens, Lewises, and Buckleys of the world.
The waning Holiday Season provides two categories by which to identify today’s main camps of American conservatives. First, we have the Black Friday Conservatives, who use Christmas to empty their stores and fill their wallets regardless of the Season’s meaning; and then we have the Christmas Conservatives, for whom Tolkien’s values of love, mercy, and tenderness are not liberal buzzwords but rather, if joined with faith and courage, signs of “the better angels of our nature.”
We need a new party–perhaps the Humane Party.
Perfect.
Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect, and whistle a happy tune, so no one can suspect, I’m afraid.
And, what is the happy tune?
This one…
To dream … the impossible dream …
To fight … the unbeatable foe …
To bear … with unbearable sorrow …
To run … where the brave dare not go …
To right … the unrightable wrong …
To love … pure and chaste from afar …
To try … when your arms are too weary …
To reach … the unreachable star …
This is my quest, to follow that star …
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far…
To fight for the right, without question or pause …
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause …
And I know if I’ll only be true, to this glorious quest,
That my heart will lie will lie peaceful and calm, when I’m laid to my rest …
And the world will be better for this:
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach … the unreachable star …
And, if, as in the musical, you can affect the life of only one person for the better, you have succeeded.
Ah! Don Quixote, I’m just rapping it up truly one of the greatest novels ever written, the musical and song you mention are of course noble and good in their own way (thoroughly different from the book but containing one theme of it). An excellent article particularly harmonizing Eliot and Tolkien.
The world, as we know it, is lost. It will however be restored – by God, not by us. All human attempts to save it will only add to the destruction. Utopianism is leftism.
Our immortal souls would be lost too, were it not for Grace. Rejoice!
We must leave the grand deeds to God and His Angels. They know what to do. We don’t.
Do small things instead. Raise a family. Start a blog. Help some one who is poor. Do not try to “help the poor” (as in politics) or even worse, “defeat poverty”. That is way way beyond our capacity and all such attempts will only corrupt us even more. History reeks of examples. Socialism, anyone?
Find a person in need (easy), and help him/her (not so easy). That is our miracle.
Psalm 127 tells us without God, we cant. Psalm 128 tells us without man, God won’t!
This seemed to me a contradiction until recently.
We can’t do anything without God. True enough. But He requires our PARTICIPATION. He’s a Father and yes He doesn’t need our “help”, true enough. But He’s trying to use us to make Him and His Kingdom visible to the world
The Incarnation make God both visible and present to us.
thank you for your support of Western Civ!
The barbarians aren’t at the gates. They are inside them. They want to bring down what is or has been, by an order of magnitude the most glitteringly successful Civilisation in history, judged by human flourishing.
What will replace it? They haven’t got a realistic notion. All they have is restless dissatisfaction with the status quo, instilled in them by ivory-tower ideologues who haven’t got a clue about how to create an industry and give employment to people, but do have highly suspect ideologies.
What these people also miss also is that their opponents are not going to stand idly by and watch it all happen Indefinitely. Force invites force, as it did in 1930’s Germany. Sooner or later there are going to be serious and violent repercussions.
I could pick out many other quotes from Tolkien and other Christian writers that express the same sentiments. Many are steeped in melancholy. I choose two from Belloc to share with you–one acknowledging (as all wise men do) the transitory nature of all earthly things: It is from the Preface to The Four Men and refers to the author’s beloved Sussex: “For I know very well in my mind that a day will come when the holy place shall perish and all the people of it and never more be what they were…” But, he also says in his essay “On Coming to an End: “Evil is also perishable, and bad men meet their judge. Be comforted.”
I am glad to see that older essays are republished from time to time. Much of what we think of as Classical Civilization would not have survived if scholars from the School of Athens shut down by Justinian had not found refuge in the universities established by the Sassanians in Persia. Our world is no less global now than it was then. We preserve the values of our civilization by examining their foundations in context with a spirit of openness and discernment.
Fine and strong words, thank you! As a child I heard people mention the far away year of 2000 as the Doomsday, the end of time, and never thought that I would actually and really have to stand and fight for the good, the truth and the beauty of our world.
This is also a very good and interesting site, thanks for that too.
The sun will always rise again. And for as long as it does the world or man has a chance to rise with it. Follow the light and be aware of the seasons! Dim or bright it is still alive flickering for growth in Love of Life. Jesus’s /Gods commandments gave us reasons to love. Christianity is a civilization still in development. MHO
Moreover, as Christians we know, or ought to know, that the world is already saved. There is nothing we as humans can do neither to stop nor facilitate that.
What we can do, is to let Heaven into our hearts, and good deeds will follow (not the other way around).
Do not despair. Aslan is on the move.
Stand. Indeed and in deed.
An interesting essay and discussion. Thanks, everyone.
Very nice article. I and maybe others must be reminded not to let negativity take over our lives.
There is “always some good out there”.
This was good. I got goosebumps reading it.
Wow. Thank you!