Those Who Ignore History... The Importance of History in a Changing World

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 The problem with history isn't that history itself is boring, but the way it's taught is. History is taught as an ad nauseum timeline- a series of what's. In August of 1759 this happened. Then in Sept. of 1801 something else happened... Never anywhere in the mix is there a why. In real life people want to know why... why is what makes history interesting. As relevant as this is, it doesn't underscore the importance of learning history- as the quotes tell us, we are in danger of repeating some things that do not bode well for the future of mankind and most people are uneducated as to what, and more importantly why. 

 When I refer to history, I'm not talking necessarily about the history of governments as much as the history of cultures- western culture in particular- the history of art, music and how societies evolved learning from experience, the mistakes of the past. The reason this is so important right now is that the Left is demanding in no uncertain terms that we scrap thousands of years of experience and buy their multiculturalist Socialist pig in a poke... claiming that western culture is responsible for all of the ills of the world. I read an interesting perspective piece by author Tim Jones in the American Thinker and his take offers some interesting food for thought. 

 The article begins discussing Tommy, the 1960s rock opera performed by the Who and how the musical piece, like many other things, is timeless. 

  The story validates how the best things in life are always timeless, whether it's a rock, jazz, or classical music album, a piece of antique furniture or an 800-year-old cathedral in Paris. But timelessness not only applies to material things or music for that matter, but to ideas and principles as well. And this gets to the crux of the differences between conservatism and liberalism.  

 The 800 year-old Paris cathedral of course is Notre Dame, recently devastated by fire. I read afterward that the commission in charge of the rebuild is considering a swimming pool on the roof among other "improvements" that are decidedly un-Catholic, although given the current state of the Church, that too is debatable. Thankfully, clearer heads prevailed, but the point is that most things are often better left as they are. Notre Dame is an incredible piece of Gothic architecture and should be restored as it was lest we lose another icon of western culture. 

 The ideas and principles of conservatism have always been timeless, beginning with the father of conservatism, Anglo-Irish statesman and political theorist Edmund Burke, who wrote in "Reflections on Revolution in France" about the destructive consequences of the French Revolution and that by 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater,' you are inviting nothing but trouble when the tried and true are dispensed with and replaced only by reason and ideas devoid of a transcendent morality that in turn unleash all kinds of negative consequences.

   Worse yet, when you lose the capacity for reason and try to replace the "tried and true" with the lunacy of the Left, the catastrophic results make the French Revolution pale by comparison. Yet onwards they march with their Sesame Street understanding of world culture making the world a utopia for everyone- as long as they agree with the prevailing orthodoxy. Those who wish to preserve history and culture are met with derision, censorship and often violence. Feeling good at the moment is of paramount importance to the everyone gets a trophy crowd. 

  His [Burke's] thought is boiled down to two words: tradition and obligation. Without these, life will devolve into the anarchy and nihilism of pure selfishness and the viciousness of a competitive dog-eat-dog world. The anarchy of the French Revolution was the perfect manifestation of these unintended consequences that we continue to see reflected in today's liberalism. Liberalism is essentially an ideology of myopia that lives only for the moment -- of instant gratification -- which is why it's strayed so far from its classical roots.  

 This showcases the importance of understanding history and the Left's rejection of it. To those on the Left that have even heard of the French Revolution, it was some kind of revolution of the proletariat- a resounding victory for Socialism (which wouldn't come into existence for at least several decades). The truth of the matter is much different than the Leftist rhetoric and slogans about the proletarian roots of the upheaval. If you remember from posts about Sabbateanism/Frankism, the Rothschilds and the tripartite agreement between Jacob Frank, Mayer Amschel Rothschild and Adam Weishaupt you can understand that the Ashkenazi Jews and Freemasons were the ones behind the French Revolution. At the time, the Ashkenazi money lenders were despised, not only in France, but throughout Europe. 

  “It is important,” writes Nesta Webster, “to distinguish between these two races of Jews [the Ashkenazi and the Sephardim] in discussing the question of Jewish emancipation at the time of the Revolution. For whilst the Sephardim had shown themselves good citizens and were therefore subject to no persecutions, the Ashkenazim by their extortionate usury and oppressions had made themselves detested by the people, so that rigorous laws were enforced to restrain their rapacity. The discussions that raged in the National Assembly on the subject of the Jewish question related therefore mainly to the Jews of Alsace.  

 As for the Freemasons: 

 The first stage of the Revolution, from 1789 to 1791, was dominated by the Masons, whose numbers had grown at an astonishing rate in the pre-revolutionary years. Adam Zamoyski writes that “there were 104 lodges in France in 1772, 198 by 1776, and a staggering 629 by 1789. Their membership included virtually every grandee, writer, artist, lawyer, soldier or other professional in the country, as well as notable foreigners such as Franklin and Jefferson – some 30,000 people.”[11] “Between 800 and 900 Masonic lodges,” writes Doyle, “were founded in France between 1732 and 1793, two-thirds of them after 1760. Between 1773 and 1779 well over 20,000 members were recruited. Few towns of any consequence were without one or more lodges by the 1780s and, despite several papal condemnations of a deistic cult that had originated in Protestant England, the élite of society flocked to join. Voltaire was drafted in on his last visit to Paris, and it was before the assembled brethren of the Nine Sisters Lodge that he exchanged symbolic embraces with Franklin.  

 The French Revolution was fomented by the Ashkenazi and Freemasons... the intelligencia, the forward-thinking "liberals" of their day in much the same way that college professors are the instigators of today's troubles. And, as always, the "proletarians" are merely the purported beneficiaries of the supposed largesse of the leftist elites who employ useful idiots (idealistic youths) to carry out the orders of those above. History does indeed make a difference- but not as much as an ignorance thereof. Ben Shapiro in his book  The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great,  makes much the same point. 

  We all grew up in a West formulated on the basis of thousands of years of history. History isn't merely happenstance; movements don't merely wink into existence. To explain our current notions of individual rights, we must look to foundational ideas. 

 The neo-Enlightenment attempts to disown Judeo-Christian values and Greek teleology rest in historical ignorance. Neo=Enlightenment advocates tend to attribute every ill of the past several centuries to religious superstitions and ancient mumbo-jumbo, failing to acknowledge that the values they hold so dear rest on ancient foundations.  

  In this quote neo-Enlightenment and contemporary liberalism are essentially interchangeable, the problem being that thousands of years of experience are being ignored and the results of this "enlightenment" would drive society into an intellectual dark ages based solely on feelings and emotions. And as usual it's those at the very top- the 1%, Rothschild/Rockefeller diaspora behind it employing the useful idiots as the foot soldiers of the damned. It really isn't their fault, for decades if not longer the Rockefellers and their allies have been manipulating educational policy in America through their funding mechanisms, the Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, etc. using money to control entities such as the NEA (the teacher's union).

 With liberalism, everything is about all about the moment, which is why it no longer has any foundational principles. Nothing about contemporary liberalism stands the test of time and therefore everything about it is mired in myopia, the tunnel vision of living for the moment by playing on their supporters’ emotions and pandering to their immediate wants. As a thought experiment, if the Democrats were to provide the perfect equality of identity politics and universal entitlements for all their constituents, what then? The party would collapse out of a lack of ideas. 

 It's tantamount to living in a world controlled by petulant children with a never-ending list of demands that get more obtuse by the day... the "culture of youth" taken to its most ridiculous extreme. Immature, self-absorbed celebrities lead the way, the vanguard of the insane. Long ago I wrote about rational vs irrational self-interest. Some of the things we've learned over thousands of years of civilization building are manifested in a couple of very important aspects of human nature. People cooperate in society because it's in their best interest to do so- that's rational self-interest. The Left is driven by irrational self-interest- a myopic selfishness- a form of malignant narcissism. Unfortunately, it's people driven by this myopic selfishness that are drawn to positions of power... this explains why democracies inevitable devolve into tyrannies. The Democrat Party in America has been consumed by this sort- the "end justifies the means" crowd- and it's resulted in almost unparalleled corruption and malfeasance.... and it hasn't gone unnoticed. 

  To a large degree that is what is happening today. Obama was given eight years to implement those ideas and they turned out to nothing but shallow rhetoric that ignored huge numbers of the working and middle class, which is why millions of them crossed over from the Democrats to the Republicans in 2016. 

  This liberal relativism -- always changing ideas for the moment -- essentially makes them disposable, no different from always-changing styles of fashion. Whether it’s cars, smartphones, clothing, or shoes, newness eventually becomes old and therefore something different always has to be introduced in order to keep customers coming back for more. For anyone who can see through this strategy, it's no different then the one used by liberals, who always foist upon a gullible public a 'new and improved' governing style that will make life better for them. Buyer beware. Who hasn't experienced the letdown and the rush of getting something new and eventually the novelty wears out and many times leads to 'buyer’s remorse.' Is that progress or is it an illusion? I would say it's the latter. The ideas and principles of conservatism stand the test of time, therefore transcending time by being applicable at any point in history. This is why the discerning public should be in favor of them. 

 What the Left fails to understand is that they're not offering anything new, it's just the same undesirable aspects of human nature that have been with us since the dawn of time... what I call The Asshole Quotient. The only things that are different are the packaging and the audience... the rest is just the same zealous, albeit transparent, power-grab that's been repeated ad nauseum by charlatans and would-be dictators throughout history. But without the benefit of history, nobody would know to see through the smokescreen. People who wish to design the perfect society have one thing in mind- that they should be the ones in charge. Seeing that we began this with the Who, I think it's appropriate to end the same way... "Meet the new boss- same as the old boss." I for one, "won't get fooled again." 

 https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/the_disposability_of_liberalism.html  

  http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/336/-jews,-masons-french-revolution/