-Caveat Lector- John OâSullivan brilliantly points out difference between being civilized and over-civilized, and the dangers to peace and security the latter encourages.
Yet 40 years ago hostage-taking seemed a concept from the distant past -- something like slavery and piracy that Victorian imperialists had stopped in their old-fashioned self-righteous way. Like hostage-taking, however, piracy and slavery are making a comeback. Piracy flourishes in parts of southeast Asia, slavery in parts of Africa such as Sudan, and hostage-taking in the Middle East and Latin America. In general they advance where terrorism has blazed the way by revealing the impotence of law and government when they are not backed by the self-confident application of lawful force. The post-modern world lacks self-confidence and shrinks from using force. It places its trust in treaties and conventions that it enforces only against those who agree in advance to be bound by them. Thus, in the week that its citizens were pleading for their lives in Iraq, the European Union was mainly concerned to prevent Turkey from making adultery a criminal offense -- a droll illustration of "European values" But as Bacon pointed out: "Revenge is a kind of wild justice." It will inevitably -- and arguably rightly -- become the resort of decent people when law and government fail to deliver justice. Post-modern governments fail in just that way. Humanitarian bodies such as Amnesty International are even worse: They practice a sort of unilateral civil libertarianism that holds governments to account for the smallest infraction of civil liberty but treats terrorism as a natural disaster. Transnational bodies like the U.N. and the EU are worse -- they seek to take the weapons of war and capital punishment from us in our struggles against terrorism, slavery, piracy and hostage-taking and to force us to rely instead on their own paper resolutions and elevated principles. All these responses -- from the critical reactions to "Man on Fire" to the E.U.âs prohibition of capital punishment -- are overcivilized. That sounds almost like a compliment, as if it meant more civilized. In fact, to be overcivilized is to be less civilized because genuine civilization includes a robust willingness to enforce its order and truths on anarchy, violence, murder and superstition. Civilization always requires that a robust defense be put up against barbarians. Because, in a very real sense, what we think of as barbarism is nothing more than mankind in its natural state: the strong lead, the weak are forced to serve. Civilization is in many ways a reversal of that natural order, and it must be carefully maintained. We are always no more than a generation away from barbarism, because the threats to civilization come not just from without, but from within. Each generation of children, it has been said, is a vertical invasion of barbarians, who must be taught the rules and fundamentals of civilization. Civilization, therefore is not only precious, but very fragile, and it is never more than a veneer over our nature. Like the skin of an apple, it may be polished very, very bright, but it is so very thin. And the pull of barbarism is so strong. As P.J. OâRourke once wrote, it will always be more fun to run around in the hills with guns and sleep with ideology-addled college girls than it is to get up at 6:00 am every day, and drive off to work, building your little bit of civilization. All of which makes it imperative that civilizations be willing to robustly defend themselves. Rome didnât collapse because the barbarians were too strong for Roman legions to defeat. Rome collapsed because its citizens no longer regarded the defense of Rome as either a duty or an honor, and entrusted it to mercenaries who, being mainly barbarians themselves, were unwilling to defend it against barbarism. Todayâs overcivilization, however, is even more dangerous than the type that leveled Rome. Today, the overcivilized portion of the citizenry shies away from any defense of civilization at all They worry that our use of force will be illegal unless we can get the UN to sign on. They quail at the thought of quagmires. They deride the goal of democratization as arrogance. They refuse to "judge" other cultures for fear of seeming bigoted. Nor will they ever attempt to assert the superiority of our civilization, despite the fact that it eliminated chattel slavery throughout the world, healed a multitude of diseases, and put men on the moon. No doubt such moral vanity makes the overcivilized think well of themselves. But the barbarians regard such moral preening with smiles as keen as the blade of a dagger. __________________________________________________________________ Switch to Netscape Internet Service. As low as $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Netscape. Just the Net You Need. New! Netscape Toolbar for Internet Explorer Search from anywhere on the Web and block those annoying pop-ups. Download now at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/install.jsp www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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