It Won't Go On Forever

I had my say on today's anniversary yesterday at Empire Must Fall, so I will not repeat myself here. Similarly, the many tributes to the late Dr. Jerry Pournelle have been quite moving. If you haven't seen any, start with Superversive's and branch out from there.

Together, what I'm getting at here today is that everything about Man and Civilization is not to be taken lightly- or for granted. It can all be gone in an instant, and that is because Civilization--being the result of Man's use and cultivation of tools and the knowledge thereof--is a machine. Like all machines, all tools, it must be maintained if it is to performance as desired. That means that the knowledge behind the tools has to be passed on properly.

We are not doing that now. Too few comprehend properly what is necessary for Civilization to exist and function as intended, and too few possess this knowledge and wisdom because our predecessors have not seen fit to maintain the most fundamental function of the very machine that is Civilization: the deliberate yoking of Adversity to harden the succeeding generations and prepare them to receive this very wisdom necessary to sustain Civilization.

In short, every generation has to ensure that their successors have skin in the game. We are NOT doing that, have not since at least the second World War, and we are now suffering the consequences of those derelictions of duty. All of the dys-civic problems we face not only in the West proper, but in globally-extended Western Civilization, stems from this abandonment of ensuring that those who come after us have a stake in maintaining this Civilization as we received it from our predecessors.

It is NOT theirs, so they don't care about it. Until they do, the problem will persist. It's that simple.

Which is why fixing it will be a pain in the ass. The government mechanisms put in place to protect people from their own stupidity, or that of their parents--while well-intentioned--has had nothing but deleterious effects and need to be demolished if Civilization is to endure. Why? Because those same mechanisms impose a mentality of a child, and children have no stake in the matter so they cannot even begin to think in the long terms necessary for Civilization to function as intended.

In short: Progressivism Was a Mistake.

And yes, what we're getting now--the SJWs, the terrorism, the Muslim invasions, the perpetual wars perpetually pissed up, the cultural degradation, the hatred of Christianity--all stems from that rotten root. It's the results of Rabbit-think, and it will stop one way or the other. Either it ends with the barbarians ransacking a ruined Civilization, or it ends with hard--but civilized--men doing what is required to burn out the rot and restore the engine of Civilization to proper function.

For my part, I'm ready for the helicopter rides.