Western culture

The West That Was

~ admin ~ 3 Comments

The West That Was Paul Rosenberg – A great tragedy of our era is that young people have no feeling of what Western civilization was like. In the government owned and operated schools where they sat for years, they were presented with a litany of the West’s failures, most of them exaggerated, or even imagined.

In this post, and in several that will follow, I’ll be ignoring anti-Western propaganda. To obsess on flaws is dishonest and destructive. The fact that the people of the West have been conditioned to require them is not something I’ll indulge. All civilizations have had their failures, and our Western civilization stands out, not as the worst, but as the least bad. Continue reading →

The Uniqueness of Western Civilization [Audio]

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Red Ice Radio  May 20 2014

Ricardo Duchesne teaches sociology and world history at The University of New Brunswick, Saint John, Canada. His publications include one book, 45 refereed articles, one chapter, 13 encyclopedia entries, and 18 non-refereed articles. His book, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization, a major work of 528 pages, was released in February 2011. 

[youtube=http://youtu.be/pRfCvgPuSZQ&w=500]

Currently he is doing research on multiculturalism and the identity crisis of the West. We’ll discuss how in recent decades, the field of world history has been relentless in its downgrading of the idea of Western uniqueness in pursuit of a multicultural point of view. Ricardo Duchesne calls into question much of the scholarly research seeking to justify an anti-Eurocentric spirit and counter-critiques the revisionist movement. Continue reading →

Descartes and Western Individualism

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

BATR  September 9 2013

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” – Rene Descartes

Cartesian doubtThe philosophical condemnation of the supremacy in individual liberty versus the reigning doctrine of collective dominance, is a primary cause for the destruction of Western Civilization principles. Rene Descartes preferred to do his radical doubt thinking in solitude. In today’s society, thinking is about as foreign as rational behavior. In order to understand the timeless values and precepts that fostered the underpinnings of our Western thought and heritage, the significance of Descartes needs a close examination.

Jorn K. Bramann, PhD in The Educating Rita Workbook is the source reference for the Descartes: The Solitary Self essay. This excellent treatise deserves your full attention.

“There are two cultural legacies of lasting importance that Descartes’ radical separation of the mind from the physical world has left—two philosophical conceptions of reality that found expression in how Europeans related to their environment, and how they perceived their over-all existence in the world.

The one legacy fastens on the absolute sovereignty of the mind vis-à-vis everything that is not mind. While the external world, including the thinker’s body, is subject to the laws of physics and other external contingencies, the mind is not. I, being pure mind, enjoy a supreme degree of independence from my body and everything physical.

The radical separation of mind and body–and of the mental and the physical in general–is known as “Cartesian Dualism.” And by attributing to the mind something like sovereignty over the external physical world, it has prepared the way for a distinctly modern conception and experience of reality, a conception which replaced older ways of seeing the world in drastic ways.

Continue reading →

Paul Rosenberg ~ Government Against The People: It Gets Worse In The Late Stages

~ admin ~ 1 Comment

freemansperspective June 6 2013

GovernmentAll governments – communist, capitalist, fascist, monarchy, theocracy, whatever – survive on the skim. They take money from productive people, by force or threat of force. However prettied-up or justified this fact may be, it remains the central fact of rulership.

It’s a simple but disturbing truth: A late-stage state’s modus operandi must always be “government against the people” – an MO that is inherently predatory. And it’s not because the participants are all sociopaths (though many are).

At most times, governments try very hard to skim quietly, as with payroll taxes, where the producer’s money is taken away before he or she ever holds it in their hands. That’s also why tariffs were a traditional tax – the average person never saw it, and didn’t feel violated.

But when governments are massively over-extended, they lose the luxury of the quiet skim and become more aggressive. This is simply what happens in long-established, monopolistic institutions, like governments. They spend wildly to make themselves look good, then find they need more money. Not willing to cut their spending, they have two choices:

  1. Debasement of the currency, which they always do first. But this trick never works for very long, since people do engage their minds when conducting commerce and adjust their prices to counteract the debasement.
  2. Squeeze the producers dry, any way they can.

The Problem of Legitimacy

Continue reading →

How Psychology Undermined Western Civilization

~ admin ~ 7 Comments

After the Sandy Hook murders, psychology and psychiatry have taken another leap forward in expanding their influence throughout society. “More mental-health services” is the catch-all phrase our leaders use in “solving” these massacres—along with gun control.

But just as grabbing guns won’t reduce the bulk of gun violence in America, the vague mental-health dictum won’t work, either.

This article focuses on psychology, which is branch of false knowledge different from the false knowledge of psychiatry.

A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who has received special training in diagnosing and prescribing drugs for “mental disorders,” none of which disorders can be confirmed to exist by any test.

A psychologist doesn’t need to be a medical doctor. With an advanced degree and a license, he can do therapy with patients and try to resolve “mental and emotional issues,” for which no diagnostic tests exist.

From the beginning of the history of psychology, it was really a simple trick. Establish a loose category called “mental problem,” pour money and research into solving it, and enroll patients.

This approach has become so pervasive that most people can’t conceive of an alternative. A person is acting strange, he has a problem, and a mental-health practitioner can help him solve it. What else do we need to know?

Well, for starters, we need to know why the category of “mental problem” is necessary. Why should we assume it means anything?

Instead, for example: what about people making an inventory of their own deeply held convictions, followed by a self-assessment, to see how well or badly they’re living up to those convictions?

Why did that approach go out the window?

Because it’s based on some sense of responsibility, which is now verboten in a society where “intervening” and “fulfilling needs” are paramount.

Continue reading →