Another Perspective
Loss and Remembrance
The loss of national sovereignty, the loss of our history and the loss of national exceptionalism.
(Page 3 of 4)
If the Hodgson thesis has any meaning, it is as an exemplar of a new genre of historiography called “American Declinism.” Rather than admire American accomplishments, the revisionists like Hodgson emphasize the flaws. Rather than see national greatness, Hodgson sees only arrogance. Rather than fulfill The Promise of American Life, to borrow a title from Herbert Croly, the declinists see delusions.
Should the Hodgson thesis gain traction it will be yet another nail in the national coffin by those convinced that history must pass into an era of transnational loyalties. Somehow I don’t see how that vision can inspire Americans. I may be wrong, but either we come to appreciate American exceptionalism or we end up with American mediocrity.
In thinking about this Spenglerian impulse now so evident in the U.S., I recently came across a speech by Lavrenti Beria.
4. Why Is This the Case?
Here are excerpts from a speech by Lavrenti Beria, the head of the NKVD, who made the following argument to a group of U.S. communist students at Lenin University in 1953:
Degradation and conquest are companions. To be conquered, a nation must be degraded… degradation can be accomplished insidiously… and effectively by consistent and continual defamation… continued and constant degradation of national leaders, national institutions, national practices and national heroes must be systematically carried out.
By attacking the character and morals… by bringing about, through contamination of youth, a general degraded feeling, command of the populace is facilitated to a very marked degree. The attack on the mind of a nation involves changing loyalties, we must have a command of their values. In the animal, the first loyalty is to himself. This is destroyed by demonstrating to him… showing that he does not remember, cannot act or does not trust himself.
The second loyalty is to his family unit… this is destroyed by lessening the value of marriage, by making easiness of divorce. The next loyalty is to his friends and local environment… this is destroyed by lowering his trust. The next is to the state…and this is the only loyalty (once the State is founded as a Communist State…)
In re-arranging loyalties we must have a command of their values… supporting the propaganda to destroy (all trust in established institutions) will in the end create the chaos necessary to communism. By making readily available drugs of various kinds, by praising (a teenager’s) wildness…by stimulating him with sex literature and advertising… the psychological operator can create the necessary attitude of chaos, idleness and worthlessness into which can then be cast the solution… if we can effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation we will have won that country… therefore there must be continual propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of the citizens.
By perverting the institutions of a nation and bringing about a general degradation… a population can be brought psychologically to heel…
4. What Do We Do to Restore Our Precious Liberty
Culture counts. Toynbee noted that civilizations die by suicide not murder. Cite Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, the most popular textbook in the nation, teaches the smearing and degrading picture of the U.S. despite the unprecedented sacrifice, courage and achievement of this nation. Zinn ignores the obvious condition that civilization is the answer to barbarism even if the barbarians are flourishing at the moment.
We must reclaim the culture in our schools and universities. We must teach the romance and achievement of our civilization. We must deliver the wisdom and consolation of the Western tradition despite the widespread arrogance and cynicism. And we must do so recognizing that this is an uphill struggle that requires dedication and patience.
Despite all it blemishes and imperfections, this is the greatest nation on the globe, the one that has contributed more to liberty and prosperity than any other. This is nothing to apologize for. We should honor our national tradition of self criticism, but never, ever engage in anti-American sentiment that degrades our heritage.
We must reinstitute patriotic fervor, not out of contemporary jingoism, but because we have an obligation to tell the truth about our nation and our past. America is not only a nation “becoming,” it is a nation that “has been.” It has been to the future; it has been on a quest for liberty and it has been a model for freedom loving people everywhere.
About the Author
Herbert London is president emeritus of the Hudson Institute and the author of America’s Secular Challenge: The Rise of a New National Religion (Encounter Books).
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Melvin| 7.16.09 @ 8:18AM
The United States has been the burr in the saddle of every dictator, despot, tyrannical regime since our beginning.
Europe, EU or whatever the hell they call themselves now has been jealous, angry, and resentful to the fact that those American Cowboys had to come across an entire ocean to bail their sorry backsides out twice and defend them from themselves after WW2 ended, and fight a war in the Pacific to boot.
Well, the despots, dictators, and future tyrannical regimes in training joined forces and created the United Nations that was designed to keep US exceptionalism in check and to crack the wall of American unity from within by indocrinating future generations of young skulls full of mush into the kinder and gentile ways of Euro snobbery that created two world wars.
So like Europe, we will become a nation of babbling whiners that expect government to wipe our noses and give everyone one of us a wheel chair parking permit at the local market.
Thinking back, one European that was interviewed shortly after 9/11, and his remarks are burned into my memory. "It's about time the Untited States felt war upon it's shores to know what it feels like from the Europeon perspective of having to have suffered through two wars."
My arrogant American response to that my European friend, "You can kiss my American backside and the next time your European elite decide to get themselves into trouble and call us to bail them out. Go and take a flying leap into the Atlantic beause your pleas will fall deaf upon these American ears."
Oh, excuse my my opinion isn't being very multicultural is it?
Barack Obama| 7.16.09 @ 9:04AM
I still haven't figured out which war that "Saving Private Ryan" movie was supposed to be about.
Steve| 7.16.09 @ 10:07AM
Hello, Melvin: as to the idiocy of your European *friend*, have the fool take a tour of the Southland and count the battlefields. America has most assuredly felt war upon its shores -- that's why we fight abroad now. And yes, your opinion was most decidedly not multicultural. Thank you.
Hello, Barack: Mr. President, I'm not surprised at your confusion. You were no doubt taught (Howard Zinn, perhaps - or your grandparents) during your Boshevik upbringing that all of America's wars have been of an imperialist nature, and it is soooo difficult to tell one imperialist adventure from another.
GSP| 7.16.09 @ 10:26AM
We have been screaming about teaching these very things in our schools for twenty years now....and no reversal is in sight.
Chris Matthews | 7.16.09 @ 10:26AM
I felt a thrill go up my leg reading that speech by Beria to the American Communists about how to subjugate a nation in one generation.
Melvin| 7.16.09 @ 10:43AM
This Euro snobbery seems to be a generational thing for the most part. But, for the sake of argument the succeeding generations of Europeans have to had learned this Euro attitude from someone and it wasn't us.
I suspect there always has been this jealously toward us because we are a younger country and able to project our power over vast expanses due to us being united and Europe once a world power has a certain attitude of, "Damn, that could have been us."
Europe still has this dream of being united, and this may have been the driving force of creating the European Union, but unfortunately for them old habits and arguments take precedence and that will be the single biggest reason in why Europe cannot emulate the United States.
I don't care what Europe does it will never ever be United under one banner. It hasn't worked the past and it sure as hell won't work in the future.
So to make themselves on par with us, they have to knock us down to their level and that is what is the driving force of all this Obama nationalization.
A person doesn't have to look far to find Euro-fingers in the mix.
Old Texican| 7.16.09 @ 11:42AM
Melvin
I certainly appreciate your thought here.
I shall caution us to remember that we should not project our own failure last November on to Europeans though.
We Americans have brought this calamity upon ourselves...by our votes...an by many of us failing to vote at all.
I am afraid it is going to have to get vey bad, before it can begin to get better.
We boomers are going to have to get off our dead arses, get busy mentoring our younger citizens, even if they do accuse us of "lecturing them", and get our arses out on the streets...right the hell now!
TennesseeVolunteer| 7.16.09 @ 11:59AM
Huzzah! Huzzah!
David Govett| 7.16.09 @ 12:48PM
Consider the number of people freed from tyranny by Americans. Now consider the number freed from tyranny by Europeans. Notice the difference?
Seek| 7.16.09 @ 1:06PM
Hey Barack,
"Saving Private Ryan" is about World War II. As much as "Black Hawk Down" is about Somalia.
rssg| 7.16.09 @ 2:15PM
It's already too late......the limp-wristed libs/progressives/socialists like Barry al Hussein (and much of the democrat party) have dreamed of this for decades.
They always whine and cry for "the other". They never loved the USA for what it was. They are obsessed with racism and "correcting" the sins of the past.
Well ladies and gentlemen, for most of the history of the USA, caucasians constituted about 90% of the population - that's the main reason why most politicians, business leaders, military leaders, scholars, etc. were............ caucasian.
Duh.
With Barry al Hussein in charge, kiss the United States good-bye. We're well on the way of becoming just another Euro-wimp, craddle to the grave, statist "utopia".
Al Adab| 7.16.09 @ 2:25PM
As I write across the street is a gathering of TEA party people in front of our Congrassman's office. All of us need to remember that it is we the citizens who are the government and that we police our govetrnment not it which controls or dictates to us.
While increasing taxation, including mandated costs for everything under the sun, represents one issue, the issues of sovereignty, Liberty and our individual rights all under increqasing assult by our own government are others.
What actions must we take to defend our Constitution against the attacks from our government? That is the issue of the day. Will free men find the will and the method to once again stand for their Liberty or will mankind face a long dark night of tyranny? Future ages will look to us and thisd moment whatever choice we make. Pray that we make the right one.
Conrad Spiracy| 7.16.09 @ 9:22PM
Mr. London,
If your point #1 is spot-on, then the "agreement" has no validity.
Per the Constitution (Article II, Section 2) the Senate must vote by 2/3rds majority to ratify any treaties entered into by the President.
Anyone who seeks to support or otherwise enact the agreement without satisfying the above is guilty of both Sediton and Treason.
Con Spiracy
Old Texican| 7.16.09 @ 11:05PM
RSSG...screw you!
We olde fartes may be crippled up...but we are sneaky...and our trigger fingers work splendidly.
We will take our country back.
GENE HAUBER| 7.19.09 @ 6:56PM
IT'S ME AGAIN FOLKS,
I DESPISE OBAMA AND EVERYTING HE IS TRYING TO DO TO THIS GREAT COUNTRY THAT HE AND HIS UNGRATEFUL WIFE HAD NO HAND IN FORMING.
HE IS AN UN-AMERICAN PIECE OF SHIT AS IS HIS WIFE. THEY WERE DOING FINE IN CHICAGO BUT, CHI TOWN IS NOT AMERICA.
THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT "LOVE" OBAMA ARE THE "MOST" STUPID AND UN-EDUCATED OF ALL AMERICANS....THERE IS NO OTHER EXPLANATION FOR HIS ELEVATION TO THE PRESIDENCY OF THE USA THAN THAT.
WE ARE, AT PRESENT, BEING GOVERNED BY IDIOTS....OBAMA, PELOSI, HARRY REID......ALL AMERICA HATERS AND CRIMINALS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH US AMERICA?
AMERICA DESERVES MUCH BETTER THAN THIS MUSLIM NIGGAR IS WILLING TO GIVE US.....HE HATES US
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