Background Image

...

Western Societies From Ancient Athens To Imperial Rome To The French Republic Rarely Collapsed Because Of A Shortage Of Resources Or Because Foreign Enemies Proved Too Numerous Or Formidable In Arms - Even When Those Enemies Were Grim Macedonians Or Germans. Rather, In Times Of Peace And Prosperity There Arose An Unreal View Of The World Beyond Their Borders, One That Was The Product Of Insularity Brought About By Success, And An Intellectual Arrogance That For Some Can Be The Unfortunate Byproduct Of An Enlightened Society.

-Victor Davis Hanson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Western Societies From Ancient

Victor Davis Hanson

...

Western Societies From Ancient Athens To Imperial Rome To The French Republic Rarely Collapsed Because Of A Shortage Of Resources Or Because Foreign Enemies Proved Too Numerous Or Formidable In Arms - Even When Those Enemies Were Grim Macedonians Or Germans. Rather, In Times Of Peace And Prosperity There Arose An Unreal View Of The World Beyond Their Borders, One That Was The Product Of Insularity Brought About By Success, And An Intellectual Arrogance That For Some Can Be The Unfortunate Byproduct Of An Enlightened Society.

Views: 12

Topic

Intellectual Arrogance

More From Victor Davis Hanson

Did Either The Nonexistent Or The Measured Response After A Series Of Attacks On Americans The Past Decade - In Lebanon, Africa, Saudi Arabia, New York, And Yemen - Suggest To Our Terrorist Enemies That It Was Wrong And Unwise To Kill Reasonable And Affable People, Or Did The Easy Killing Imply That Self-absorbed And Pampered Lotus-eaters Would Not Much Care Who Or How Many Were Butchered As Long As It Was Within Reasonable Numbers And Spread Out Over Time?

Behind Every American Soldier, Dozens Of Their Countrymen Tonight Sleep Soundly — And Hundreds More In Their Shadow Abroad Will Wake Up Alive And Safe.

Taking On All At Once Germany, Japan, And Italy - Diverse Enemies All - Did Not Require The Weeding Out Of All The Fascists And Their Supporters In Mexico, Argentina, Eastern Europe, And The Arab World. Instead, Those In Jackboots And Armbands Worldwide Quietly Stowed All Their Emblems Away As Organized Fascism Died On The Vine Once The Roots Were Torn Out In Berlin, Rome, And Tokyo. So Too Will The Terrorists, Once Their Sanctuaries And Capital Shrivel Up - As Is Happening As We Speak.

If I Talk To Rural People Where I Live - Mostly Hispanic But Also Poor White - They're Not Sympathetic To The Black Lives Matter Movement.

Donald Trump, He Didn't Dismantle Eastern European Missile Defense. He Didn't Go To Geneva And Press A Plastic Red Button. He Didn't Make Fun Of Romney For Saying Russia Was An Existential Enemy. He Didn't Have A Hot Mic Exchange With A Russian President Saying That He Would Be More Flexible With The Russians After The Elections.

Western Societies From Ancient Athens To Imperial Rome To The French Republic Rarely Collapsed Because Of A Shortage Of Resources Or Because Foreign Enemies Proved Too Numerous Or Formidable In Arms - Even When Those Enemies Were Grim Macedonians Or Germans. Rather, In Times Of Peace And Prosperity There Arose An Unreal View Of The World Beyond Their Borders, One That Was The Product Of Insularity Brought About By Success, And An Intellectual Arrogance That For Some Can Be The Unfortunate Byproduct Of An Enlightened Society.

Intellectual Arrogance

Our Institutions, If They Do Not Erode Entirely, Can Survive Periods Of Decadence Brought On By Our Material Success, Eras When The Whole Notion Of Civic Militarism Seems Bothersome, And In Which Free Speech Is Used To Focus On Our Own Imperfections Without Concern For The Ghastly Nature Of Our Enemies.

Western Elites - The Beneficiaries Of 60 Years Of Peace And Prosperity Achieved By The Sacrifices To Defeat Fascism And Communism - Are Unhappy In Their Late Middle Age, And Show Little Gratitude For, Or Any Idea About, What Gave Them Such Latitude. If They Cannot Find Perfection In History, They See No Good At All.

Even In Its Third Century, America Is Still The Most Meritocratic Nation In The World.

In The Case Of [donald] Trump, He Was Able To Tell People That Elites Live In Gated Communities, Where They Have Walls Around Their Home.

War Seems To Come Out Of Nowhere, Like Rust That Suddenly Pops Up On Iron After A Storm.

There's Just No - Nothing Like This Country, Which Is The Only, Really, Multiracial Country That's Tried To Share In A Common Culture In The History Of Civilization That's Pulled It Off. A Lot Of The Times, We Want Perfection. If We're Not Perfect, We're Not Good.

What Is About Palin That Drives The Elite, Especially Elite Women, Crazy? Great Looks? That Middle-america Accent? The 5 Kids And He-man Husband? The Lack Of A Powerful Father Or Spouse Who Could Jump-start Her 'feminist' Career With Money, Contacts, And Influence? That Idaho Ba? The Wink? The Charisma And, Indeed, Sensuality So Lacking In Her Angry Critics?

I Think There's A Group Of Students - Whether It's The Micro-aggression Or The Safe Space Or The Trigger Warning That Garner A Lot Of Attention - But That The Fundamental Issues That They're More Interested In Are - And I'll Be Very Frank Here - How Much Money Do I Pay For A Unit? And What Is That Unit Going To Do For Me When I'm Graduating?and Even Though This Is Mostly In A Progressive Landscape, They're Asking Questions That Have Not Been Asked Of The University. And The University Can't Supply Answers To Them.

Asking Questions

In History, One Gathers Clues Like A Detective, Tries To Present An Honest Account Of What Most Likely Happened, And Writes A Narrative According To What We Know And, Where We Aren't Absolutely Sure, What Might Be Most Likely To Have Happened, Within The Generally Accepted Rules Of Evidence And Sources.

The Easily Ridiculed, So-so Status Quo Often Hides Herculean Efforts By Those Whom We Take For Granted, And Who, Working In The Shadows, Guarantee Civilization Instead Of Chaos.

Racial Inequality Has Gotten Worse In The Last Years Because Any Time You Have A Moribund Economy, The People Who Historically Have Had More Problems Getting Jobs Have Suffered. And That, I Think, Is Triggering A Lot Of The Animosity.

For All The Criticism About Warlords, It Is Now Likely That Afghanistan Will Never Again Be Turned Over To Al Qaeda To Train Thousands To Conduct The Type Of Murder We Saw On September 11. For All Real Problems With Ambushes And Sabotage, There Will Be No More Gassings, Mass Murdering, Invading Neighbors, Sending Guided Missiles Across Borders Or No-fly Zones In Iraq, But Rather The Hard Work Of Consensual Government - A Difficult Process Easily Caricatured, But When Completed Universally Admired.

Americans Spend More Money On Botox, Face Lifts And Tummy Tucks Than On The Age-old Scourges Of Polio, Small Pox And Malaria.

Behind Every Liberal Philanthropist Fortune Is A Huge Capitalist Score. Bill Gates And Warren Buffett Can Afford Now To Be Liberal - An Expensive Indulgence - Because In Their Early Incarnations They Were No-holds-barred Capitalists Who Made Lots Of Enemies Conducting Business Without Mercy And In Search Of Pure Profit.

It's Very Difficult, Historically, To Define What An Elite Is. But Whatever It Is, People Are Very Angry At That Idea, I Think, Not So Much Because Of Wealth Or Privilege As Much As Attitude That The Populous Masses, If I Could Use That Overused Term, Feel That A Particular Government Or Cultural Group Is Not Subject To The Ramifications Of Their Own Ideology.

Illegal Immigration Is Praised Only By Those Who Benefit Directly From It, Whether In The Familial Sense Of Inexpensive Nannies, Cooks, Or Gardeners; Or In The Corporate Interest Of Cheap Labor In The Hospitality Industries, Agriculture, And Construction; Or In The Political Sense Of New Liberal Constituents; Or In The Tribal Sense Of Expanding The So-called La Raza Base. But The Vast Majority Of Americans Accept That When Federal Law Is Ignored, Chaos Ensues.

In Iraq #1 We Stayed Within U.n. Mandates, Limited Our Response, Went Home After Kuwait Was Freed - And Were Censured For Allowing Shiites And Kurds To Be Butchered And Not Going To Baghdad When The Road Was Open And The Dictator Tottering. In Iraq #2 We Removed The Tyrant At Less Cost Than The Liberation Of Kuwait During The Earlier War, Stayed On To Ensure Freedom And Fair Representation For Various Groups - And Are Being Castigated For Either Using Too Little Force To Ensure Needed Order Or Too Much Power That Stifles Indigenous Aspirations And Turns Popular Opinion Against Us.

A Country That Cannot Count Its Own Illegal Aliens - Estimates Range From 8-12 Million - With A Porous 2,000 Mile Border Is Not Secure Despite Twelve Carrier Battle Groups. We Must Accept That It Is A Cornerstone Of Mexican Foreign Policy To Export Illegally Each Year A Million Of Its Own To The United States To Avoid Needed Reform At Home And To Influence American Domestic Policy.

Stalin And Mao Killed Over 80 Million And Did Not Make Omelets Despite The Broken Eggs.

The Shutdown May Have Temporarily Sidetracked The Republicans, Yet Obamacare Threatens Much Worse For The Democrats. By 2014 The Former Will Be Ancient History, While The Latter Will Be An Ongoing Mess.

Obama's Immigration Legacy Will Be The Juxtaposition Of His Serial Insistence That He Was Not A King Or An Emperor, And Could Not Contravene The Constitution By Granting A Blanket Amnesty, With His Efforts To Do Just That When It Was No Longer Politically Inexpedient. I Don't Think A President Has Ever Quite So Habitually Warned The Country Of The Dangers That Would Soon Emanate From Himself.

It Is Rather The Nature Of America - Our Freewheeling, Outspoken, Prosperous, Liberty-loving Citizens Extend Equality To Women, Homosexuals, Minorities, And Almost Anyone Who Comes To Our Shores, And Thereby Create Desire And With It Shame For That Desire. Indeed, It Is Worse Still Than That: Precisely Because We Worry Publicly That We Are Insensitive, Our Enemies Scoff Privately That We In Fact Are Too Sensitive - What We Think Is Liberality And Magnanimity They See As License And Decadence. If We Don't Have Confidence In Who We Are, Why Should They?

I Saw More Stupid People In Graduate School And Three Decades In Academia Than I Ever Did Who Ran 100 Acres Without Going Broke.

Can-do Americans Courageously Go About Their Duty In Iraq - Mostly Unafraid That A Culture Of 2,000 Years, The Reality Of Geography, The Sheer Forces Of Language And Religion, The Propaganda Of State-run Arab Media And The Cynicism Of The Liberal West Are All Stacked Against Them.

Even Hollywood Millionaires Are Now Clamoring For Legal Protections For Their Illegal-alien Nannies And Gardeners, Though Such Elites Would Hardly Countenance A Similar Legal Laxity That Would Allow Foreign Film Technicians, Screenwriters, And Actors To Flood Southern California To Work In Their Industry For A Fourth Of Their Own Pay.

The Fact Is That We Have Been Consistent In A Predictable 60-year Commitment To National Security, While Our Friends And Former Enemies - By Intent Or Default - Have Followed Different Paths Since 1989. We Stayed Mostly The Same As They Became Hypopowers That, To Take A Small Example, Would And Could Do Nothing Should A Madman In Korea Wish To Kill Millions.

I Wish I Could Attribute The Absence Of Any Conventional Arab Offensive In The Last 20 Years To A Change Of Political Climate Or A Willingness To Abide By Past Accords. But Unfortunately It Is More Likely That The Egyptians Or Syrians Concluded That The Next Time Their Tanks Headed To Tel Aviv, There Was Nothing Stopping The Counterassaults From Ending Up In Downtown Cairo Or Damascus.

Any Time The Western Way Of War Can Be Unleashed On An Enemy Stupid Enough To Enter Its Arena, Victory Is Assured.

I Think People Are Beating Each Other Up In The Halls Of Congress, As They Did In The Late 1850s.

Ignorance And Arrogance Are A Lethal Combination. Nowhere Do We See That More Clearly Among Writers And Performers Who Pontificate As Historians When They Know Nothing About History.

I'm Kind Of Old-fashioned Because I Was Born And Live In The Same House For Six Generations.

It Is A Hard Thing For Intellectuals To Acknowledge Benefits From Their Rich Moral Inferiors Who Never So Intended It.

Victory May Now Require A Level Of Force Deemed Objectionable By Civilized Peoples, Meaning That Some, For Justifiable Reasons, May Be Reluctant To Pursue It. But Victory Has Not Become An Ossified Concept Altogether.

Entertainers Wrongly Assume That Their Fame, Money, And Influence Arise From Broad Knowledge Rather Than Natural Talent, Looks, Or Mastery Of A Narrow Skill.

Nor Did Americans Believe That Republicans Had Been Waging War On Minorities, Women, Or Gays - Especially Given That Republicans Have Held The House Only Since 2011 And Have Been Out Of Power In The Senate And Presidency Since 2009.

The Problem With Deterrence - Apparently Sometimes Forgotten By Our Former Presidents - Is That It Is Not Static, But A Creature Of The Moment, Captive To Impression, And Nursed On Action, Not Talk. It Must Be Maintained Hourly And Can Erode Or Be Lost With A Single Act Of Failed Nerve, Despite All The Braggadocio Of Threatened Measures. And, Once Gone, The Remedies Needed For Its Restoration Are Always More Expensive, Deadly - And Controversial - Than Would Have Been Its Simple Maintenance.

The Wisdom And Spirit Of Churchill Not Only Saved Britain From The Third Reich But Saved Western Civilization From A Nazi Dark Ages When No Other Nation Was Willing To Take Up That Defense. Churchill Was The Greatest Military, Political And Spiritual Leader Of The 20th Century.

Westernization, Coupled With Globalization, Has Created An Affluent And Leisured Elite That Now Gravitates To Universities, The Media, Bureaucracies, And World Organizations, All Places Where Wealth Is Not Created, But Analyzed, Critiqued, And Lavishly Spent.

Popular Culture Is Simply A Reflection Of What The Majority Seems To Want.

We Have Had Raucous Moments In Our History. And I Think We're In One Now. But It's Not Going To Endanger The Future Of Democracy.

History Has Shown That A Government's Redistribution Of Shrinking Wealth, In Preference To A Private Sector's Creation Of New Sources Of It, Can Prove More Destructive Than Even The Most Deadly Enemy.

Unhappy Voters Thought The Anemic Economy, Obamacare, The Collapse Of U.s. Foreign Policy, The Scandals In Government, And The Incompetent Handling Of Everything From The Islamic State To Ebola Were The Only Real Issues. Democrats' Refusal To Acknowledge Them Did Not Make These Failures Go Away.

Trump Is A Symptom Of Widespread Disgust, Not The Head Of A Carefully Crafted Ideological Movement With A Checklist Of Issues.

The United States Military Is Now Evolving Geometrically As It Gains Experience From Near-constant Fighting And Grafts New Technology Daily. Indeed, It Seems To Be Doubling, Tripling, And Even Quadrupling Its Lethality Every Few Years. And The Result Is That We Are Outdistancing Not Merely The Capabilities Of Our Enemies But Our Allies As Well - Many Of Whom Who Have Not Fought In Decades - At Such A Dizzying Pace That Our Sheer Destructive Power Makes It Hard To Work With Others In Joint Operations.

The Fact Is, Beneath The Hype, Iraqis Will Soon Appreciate American Help And Idealism Far More Than French Perfidy. It Is Never Wrong To Be On The Side Of Freedom - Never.

So Why, After Prior Successes, Did Obama's Race/class/gender Attack Finally Sputter Out Like The French At Waterloo?

This Is Something That Donald Trump Has Been Very Effective At Exploiting Because Throughout Our History, One Of The Things That Was Important To Galvanize The Country Against A Perceived Threat Has Been Philology.

States Are Like People. They Do Not Question The Awful Status Quo Until Some Dramatic Event Overturns The Conventional And Lax Way Of Thinking.

It Is Never Wrong To Be On The Side Of Freedom...never .

Almost Every Key Indicator Of The Current Economy - Unemployment, Deficits, Housing, Energy - Argues That Obama's Reactionary All-powerful Statist Approach Has Only Made Things Far Worse.

A Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, George Soros, Or Al Gore Looks - No, Acts - Like He Either Came Out Of A Hairstylist's Salon Or Got Off A Gulfstream.

Of Course, The Clintons Are Not Only Corrupt But Cynical As Well. They Accept That The Progressive Media, The Foundations, The Universities, The Bureaucracies, Hollywood, And Silicon Valley Honor Power More Than Trendy Left-wing Politics; They Well Understand That Their Fans Will, For Them, Make The Necessary Adjustments To Contextualize Clinton Criminality Or Amorality.

We May Casually Talk Of All Sorts Of New Programs And 'stimulus,' But The Vast Trillion-dollar Collective National Debt And Rising Annual Deficits Will Insidiously Hamstring Almost Everything We Plan To Do.

The Columnist Like Myself Or People At Stanford University Don't Wake Up In The Morning And See Their Job Outsourced. Yet We Promote Free Markets. But We're Not Sensitive To What That Does To Other People Who Don't Have Our Privilege.

Stanford University

Gas Prices In Many Parts Of The Country Are Nearing $4 A Gallon; It Could Get Even Worse As Unrest Spreads Throughout The Oil-exporting Middle East. Yet The Obama Administration Once Again Seems To See No Crisis. It Has Curtailed New Leases For Offshore Oil Exploration For Seven Years And Exempted Thousands Of Acres In The West From New Drilling. It Will Not Reconsider Opening Up Small Areas Of Alaska With Known Large Oil Reserves.

If The Democrats Feel They Have Lost The Public's Confidence In Their Stewardship Of National Security, Then The Threat Of Iran Offers A Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Or John Kerry An Opportunity To Get Out Front Now And Pledge Support For A United Effort - Attacking Bush From The Right About Too Tepid A Stance Rather From The Predictable Left That We Are 'hegemonic' And 'imperialistic' Every Time We Use Force Abroad.

Most Authoritarians Do Not Surrender Power Voluntarily.

I Think The Democrat Party Is Taking Its Cue From The Media. When The Media Has A Narrative, Whether It's The Use Of Profanity, The Democratic Party Follows It.

Multiculturalism Is A Good Reminder That When Standards Are Relative, There Are No Standards At All.

Multiculturalism

Offering 'comprehensive' Reform Usually Means Years Of Arguing And Horse-trading Among Pressure Groups To Get Anything Done. By The Time All The Special Interests Are Appeased Or Bought Off, The Resulting Elephantine Legislation Typically Looks Nothing Like What Was Intended. In Short, Big-government Medicine Usually Doesn't Work On Big-government Sickness. If President Obama Wants 'comprehensive' Change, It Would Be Better Simply Not To Spend Any More Money We Don't Have.

If I Talk To Black Students On Campus, They're Not Sympathetic To The People Who Are Not Sympathetic With [black Lives Matter Movement]. The Fact That You Want To Argue Rather Than Find Some Common Ground, I Think, Has Gotten A Lot Worse In The Last Years.

Stop Seeing Socialists And Anti-americans As Democrats. When A Michael Moore Compares Beheaders To Our Own Minutemen And Laments That Too Many Democrats Were In The World Trade Center, He Deserves No Platform Alongside Wesley Clark Or A Seat Next To Jimmy Carter Or Praise For His Pseudo-dramas From High Democrats.

Cheap Anti-americanism Will Eventually Have Consequences.

I Think Everybody Realizes Some Things Went Wrong In The Middle East And That Most Of The Terrorism Is Emanating From That Area.

California Is Now A Valuable Touchstone To The Country, A Warning Of What Not To Do. Rarely Has A Single Generation Inherited So Much Natural Wealth And Bounty From The Investment And Hard Work Of Those More Noble Now Resting In Our Cemeteries-and Squandered That Gift Within A Generation.

[people] Are Alike In A Sense That The Bernie Sanders Anger At Hillary Clinton Was That She Was A So-called Progressive And Yet Had Managed To Make $125 Million.

Apologizing For Our Past Sins May Reveal Character And For A Time Lessen Anti-americanism Abroad, But If It Is Done Without Acknowledging That The Sins Of America Are The Sins Of Mankind, And That Our Remedies Are So Often Exceptional, Then It Only Earns Transitory Applause—and A More Lasting Contempt That We Ourselves Do Not Believe In The Values We Profess.

Politicians In Their Hubris Who Believe They Can Ignore Debt Or Wish It Away Are Sorely Disappointed - As We See Now With The Plummeting Approval Ratings Of Both The Administration And Congress.

Approval Rating

We're In A Very Orwellian Situation Where When We - We've Slashed Defense. And We've Raised Taxes. And We Consider $600 Billion Annual Deficit Success Because It's Not $1 Trillion.

The American People Are Not Naifs Who Yearn For Isolationism, But They Are Starting To Ask Some Hard Questions About The Way We Have Been Doing Business For 50 Years, And It May Well Be Time To Grant The French, Canadians, Germans, Turks, South Koreans, And A Host Of Others Their Wishes For Independence From Us: Polite Friendship - But No Alliances, No Bases, No Money, No Trade Concessions, And No More Begging For The Privilege Of Protecting Them.

Often, The Pretexts For Starting A War Are Not Real Shortages Of Land, Food Or Fuel, But Rather Perceptions - Like Fear, Honor And Perceived Self-interest.

The President Who Is Most Slandered As Hitler Will Probably Prove To Be The Most Zealous Advocate Of Democratic Government Abroad, The Staunchest Friend Of Beleaguered Israel, And The Greatest Promoter Of Global Individual Freedom In Our Recent Memory.

After Three Elections, Voters Finally Caught On That Obama's Faults Were Not In The Stars, But In Himself. They Apparently Tired Of The Usual Distractions From A Dismal Presidential Record.

It's Radical Islamic Terrorism. And Yet, When You See The Last Eight Years, Something's Gone Wrong To Call It Violent Extremism Or Man-caused Disasters. It Would Be As If We Were Looking At [adolf] Hitler In The 1930s. And We Were Afraid To Say That He Was A Nazi.

Ancient Wisdom: Deal In Personal Trust; Your Word Is Your Bond; Avoid Extremes; Treat The Money You Invest For Others As Something Sacred; Don't Take Any More Perks Than You Would Wish Others To Take; Don't Borrow What You Couldn't Suddenly Pay Back; Imagine The Worse Case Financial Scenario And Expect It Very May Well Happen; The Wealthier You Become The More Humble You Should Act.

Globalization Has Enriched The Planet Beyond Belief, Leading To Ever-increased Demands Of Perfection. And Thanks To 24/7 Communications, We All Instantaneously Know When These Expectations Aren't Met.

I See A Continuation Of The Populist Outrage That Prompted The Brexit And Sparked The Bernie Sanders Campaign.

Trending Author

Nikos Kazantzakis

David LaChapelle

Category