Rule Britannia!

"Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves."

The UK has voted to leave the EU. Thank God. Thank also: Nigel Farage of the UKIP. In a perverted way, thank Angela Merkel. I could think of little that's better at ensuring Brexit than the images of millions of unwashed invaders flooding the continent, with pictures of ISIS flags and beheadings on their phones. If things stay the course, and if history books are still written in a thousand years from now, I imagine that Merkel will get little better plaudits than the little Austrian Corporal.

Nigel Farage

I was thoroughly delighted when I heard the news, especially in light of my earlier pessimism that I expressed here. But my joy is tempered by the unpleasant reality. Brexit is not some magic button that will automatically save Britain's sovereignty. The UK is still facing existential defeat. 

I speak of one issue: immigration.

Firstly, let us look at two sets of numbers in the UK.
1. How much of the current population growth is from immigration or the children of immigrants? The answer(LINK) is staggeringly high. The UK population growth from immigrants or the spawn of immigrants, in the years 2001-2012 is approximately 83-85 percent. Shocking! 
2. Here is the headline (Link) of this article: "Immigrants Will Comprise 68% of UK's Population Growth Over Next 25 Years". According to the projection, the UK will add some 9.7 million souls over the coming 25 years, and some 68 percent of that will be migrants and their children. Keep in mind this 68% figure does not include the children born to immigrants who are already in the UK.

Basically the UK will add precious few English souls to the general population growth. I think one out of ten is aiming high. Even if Farage becomes the Prime Minister and puts a stop to all immigration, there is little cause for optimism. Like I wrote yesterday, it seems increasingly inevitable that we are on the road to a reality where Englishmen becoming a minority in England. Bu much before that happens, Londoners will become a minority in London. Before that, there will be more fighting-aged foreigners in london that natives. 

But shutting down the immigration system is better than not shutting it down. It astonishes me that the Far Left is holding firm on not shutting down immigration. Even if they disagree with the people who claim that is the end of the world--or of the UK specifically, don't they at least recognize that those people are claiming that it is the end of the UK! If those people are right, then stopping immigration will go some distance to avoiding the destruction of the UK. If immigration is shut down and the alarmists are wrong, what great harm has the UK suffered? It seems that if one is unsure if immigration will destroy the UK, prudence, caution, and some healthy xenophobia would dictate we pull the brakes until we can be sure.   


In the past the English were marked by prudence and caution--and xenophobia. A story that demonstrates this is the story of Garnet Wolseley, Field Marshall and 1st Viscount Wolseley, and the Channel Tunnel. (He is, incidentally, the inspiration for the excellent patter song, "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" (LINK).) Wolseley was strongly opposed to the proposed Channel Tunnel, warning "No matter what fortifications and defences were built, there would always be the peril of some continental army seizing the tunnel exit by surprise." The construction of the tunnel was delayed. Regardless if he was ultimately correct or incorrect, or whether his fears were well founded or not (although no conventional army has used the Channel Tunnel to invade England, many an illegal migrant has slipped into England by use of the tunnel), we ought to learn a lesson from one of England's hero's. That is that evincing prudence, caution and Xenophobia is warranted, especially when it is question of National Security. For a nation which has in the past perfected the art of "Splendid Isolation", these virtues can be well said to be part of their DNA. 

Rule Britannia! Hopefully Britons will act like Britons. 

Brexit Vote in Britain: The Future of Britain

Writing at Nine PM EST:

The United Kingdom is currently voting to decide if it should leave or stay in the European Union. This is important, but, as I intend to outline here, not as transformative as people might think in the long run. Before I explain further, let me digress for a moment.

I am writing these words before the vote has been fully tallied. So far, approximately a million votes have been counted, and the Leave Campaign has some 15,100 more votes. It is anybody's guess which will win. Reportedly, Nigel Farage, that UKIP stalwart that has been screaming bloody murder at the European Union for years, is pessimistic. Being that I don't know which side will win, I have to write up this post considering both eventualities. I am reminded of a different time, when something similar took place. General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, and in overall command of Operation Overlord, or D-Day as it is called today, did not know if his planned invasion of Normandy, with the ultimate goal the destruction of Nazi Germany, would succeed. He wrote two letters: one letter was in the event the invasion was successful and a bridgehead was secured, and a second letter in case the attack was defeated. Luckily, for him and everyone else, the invasion was successful, all the beachheads were secured, and the European war was to be over before a year had passed. He never needed to use his second letter.

Eisenhower

At this point it can be reasonably asked if it's fair to compare D-Day with Brexit. How can the threat of Nazism be compared to the threat of meddling bureaucrats in Brussels? There is a long answer to that question, and it involves the understanding of soft tyranny, and how it as malicious and dangerous as hard tyranny, even if it is less recognizable and less painful at first. But that is the subject of a different post. For now, let us simply acknowledge that Western Europe today, as then, is in grave danger. It is deteriorating before our eyes, and it is being overrun by foreign invaders. The European Union is at best dithering about, not addressing the major concerns, and at worst abetting the decline of the West. If Britain were to leave the European Union that would go some distance in arresting the decline.

Let us return to our Eisenhower comparison for a moment. There is little doubt that, had the D-Day invasion of Normandy failed, Naziism would still have been defeated. The overall European situation was favorable to the Allies. This was, after all, June of 1944. Italy was mostly under Allied control, Rome having fallen a couple of days before D-Day. Russia was delivering mighty blows on the Eastern Front. The skies of Europe filled night and day with allied aircraft pummeling the Nazis with a vengeance. The American atom bomb, which had been intended for Europe, was near completion. The actual invasion could have been repeated at a time and place of Allied choosing, what with Allied air and naval superiority. It was just a matter of time before the war was won.

Not so, I think, with Brexit. Conventional wisdom has it that should the vote be to stay in the EU it would forever be sealed as such. I tend to think this to be correct. A vote to stay would be seen as an endorsement of the EU and all it stands for. Heck, it will probably be an endorsement for whatever hairbrained scheme the madmen in Brussels come up with next, be it forming an EU army, or admitting Turkey into the EU.

Even with all that, why then did I write at the beginning of this post that a vote to leave the EU might not at all be transformative. It's because, to a great degree, the damage has been done. Even if the United Kingdom is outside the EU it will not abruptly change its (on the whole) liberal, multicultural outlook. Foreign invaders will continue to flood in--through legal immigration. I don't wish to make precise predictions, and there are various ways to crunch the numbers, but how long before Englishmen become a minority in their own country? Not terribly long. When will the English fighting-aged men become the minority of all fighting-aged men? Sooner still. When will English fighting-aged men become the minority of all fighting-aged, in the major cities? Even sooner still. The future is bleak. (I speak of the English because Britain, the Kingdom, the Empire...it was all about England, as Churchill, correctly in my view, saw it. Which is not to mention the probability, that, should Brexit happen, Scotland will be clamouring for another independence referendum in the hopes of applying separately to the EU)

A miracle can happen and the United Kingdom can decide to put a halt to all immigration. When that happens, we will pop the champagne. Let us be honest though: of course, the future will be less perilous then, but it will still plenty dangerous. But if a halt is placed, we have to re-crunch all the numbers.

Rule Britannia!
      

Great Western people; English Queens

A few additional early points about this blog, Learning Western Civilization. 

Hello.

We now have a   Twitter account for this blog here, https://twitter.com/learningwestciv.

Caesar

Newton

1. Western Civilization: people. There are personalities that dominate the study of Western Civilization like great giant statues amidst lead toy soldiers. We will study the individuals and the times they shaped and were shaped by. There are military men: some of the greatest are Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon. There are philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are three of the greats. There are theologians, who may have also philosophized, such Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. There are scientists who changed our understanding of the physical world: Newton, Copernicus, and Galileo come to mind. There are great kings and emperors like Charlemagne, Augustus, and Louis XIV. There are many others to speak of. Of course men don't always fit into such neat categories. There were theologians who were philosophers, there are kings who were philosophers and jurists. There were scientists who were philosophers and even theologians. We will try to explain these personalities in a fulsome enough manner that includes their secondary interests.

Summa Theologica

2. All the people on the aforementioned list are men. So they are. If a woman had conquered much of the known world with a small group of Companions and hoplites, or had used a telescope to figure out that the moon has holes (craters) thus upending long-held beliefs, or had written a book Summa Theologica of 1.5 million words, then she would make the aforementioned list, without a second glance. As we mentioned earlier, we will be discussing matters that I consider important, meaningful or interesting in the study of Western Civilization. That will probably include some women, such as Queen Victoria who ruled the British Empire for sixty four years during which the empire dominated the globe. Elizabeth I, also from England, is another fascinating personality who will have to be studied. Elizabeth II who presides (scarcely rules) over the United Kingdom today is another subject of study, but for an entirely different reason. However little power she has, she must be faulted for presiding over the empire and kingdom during the greatest weakening and enfeeblement it has ever known. Indeed, the downward trajectory of the country is one that is perhaps unrivaled in the annals of history. We will study it with great interest, and with a measure sadness. That some of the downward movement could have easily been avoided makes it all the more disconcerting. In the final analysis we will learn about Western Civilization and that will require studying the people who I feel impacted it in ways that require study. I may attempt to make some guidelines about who gets in and out, but it is and will be subjective. If you, the reader, want to see more women included, then you will have to write your own blog.  

Western Civilization: A Tale of Kings, Generals, and Philosophers; Interpreting History; Studying Philosophy from an Historical Perspective

The School of Athens

Welcome to the blog.

A general word or two about the blog.

Western Civilization Montage

1. The title of the blog is Learning Western Civilization. The blog will be devoted to learning about Western Civilization, a very broad topic. Particularly, we will be learning about what made Western Civilization what it is (and importantly, also, what it used to be, and what it may be in the future). We will learn about the empires and kingdoms, wars and battles, kings and princes, philosophers and theologians, scientists and inventors. They all make up the study of Western Civilization. Already, by delineating the above list, we have begun the instruction. Because, by listing these ten categories, we have automatically ascribed to them an importance in our study above poets and actors, slaves and peasants, magicians and necromancers, farmers and craftsmen, theaters and plays. This is deliberate. This is brings us to a point best discussed early on. That is, that although knowledge generally and history specifically is about facts, or more precisely, the pursuit, accumulation and presentation of facts, the decision about which of the facts is relevant and which are not may be arbitrary, Before one gets to the part about interpreting facts, which is obviously subjective, one must decide which facts to report on, and which to ignore. It thus behooves me to say from the start that this blog will make no pretense at being a comprehensive history of anything. Rather it is a narrow study of Western Civilization, or the West, and which parts of it I consider to be important, meaningful, or interesting. Notwithstanding that, an effort will be make to convey to the reader a sense of what is fact and what is the writer's opinion.

2. This blog will cover Western Civilization. Western Civilization has various components and facets, and we will in the future discuss exactly how Western Civilization is to be analyzed to gain a proper understanding of it. The major tool is history. The view of history can be applied to other fundamental aspects of Western Civilization. One example of that is philosophy. The West has studied the major branches of philosophies, in a manner that is so broad and deep, that it is mind-boggling. In the future we discuss why the West's advancement of philosophy, like its advancements in science and liberal humanism (among other things) is unique in the world. Nothing comes close. Generally, we will attempt to model our discussion of philosophy on Bertrand Russell's famous book The History of Western Philosophy (which we will also discuss later). That is: we will speak about how philosophy developed from one era and school of thought to another, and what were the local conditions that impacted it were.

4. We discussed in section one of this short piece about the difficulty in ascertaining which facts are important and which are not. We also briefly touched upon the question of how to interpret history. The question of how to interpret history is an interesting one, and one that we will hopefully discuss further on. We could begin our learning of Western Civilization without having an exact methodology for this, provided we make an effort not to pigeonhole ourselves too badly. But for the purpose of getting some understanding about what manner of issues are raised regarding the question of interpreting history, let us very briefly speak about some of the discussion on this. On the macro level, there could the question of how to view the changes in society. Marx gives one answer. Another popular answer is the Whig view of history. There are others. There is much discussion about if a specific era is a progression or regression from the era before it. A prime example of this is what is commonly called the Dark Ages. Many object to it being called the Dark Ages. Rodney Stark, who has written the most splendid book on Western Civilization (which we will discuss in the future) makes a convincing argument that the Dark ages was a time of development, progress, philosophy, and invention. For now, until we can shed more clarity on it, we shall continue to refer to the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages. Speaking of the Dark Ages brings us to another aspect of historical interpretation: that of dating. Historians are constantly trying to date things, ranging from specific events such as battles and births to general eras. So, for example, when did the Dark Ages begin, and when did it end? Did  it start with the sack of Rome (which one?)? Did it end with the sack of Constantinople? Or is it just simpler to say that the Dark Ages lasted from 500-1500 AD? We will not settle this matter at this early stage, if ever. There are also questions of historical causes. What caused certain things. A classic example of this is the question of what was the primary cause (or causes) of the American Civil War. Was it because of: slavery; states rights; union tariffs and other economic policy; or cultural differences? In the future I intend to write on this, and hopefully convince the reader that it was in fact slavery that was the primary cause of the Civil War. A final type of historical interpretation is that of Moral interpretation. Judging the morality of a certain country waging war, enslaving a population or assassinating a foreign leader is something that inflames passions like no other historical matter. We shall address this as well.

5. We will discuss similar introductory matters in the next few posts.