Triumph of the Revolution

 

Progressive ideologies seem to be quite varied, but a common heritage can be established in the motto of the French revolutionaries, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité."  Each of the various progressive movements can be classified according to the way they prioritize these ideals.  Libertines, naturally enough, value liberty the most, socialists and their fellow travelers emphasize equality, while nationalists prefer fraternity, in civic or ethnic terms.  These ideologies are all truly revolutionary ideologies, and the regimes in which they are employed are revolutionary regimes.

This is not to say that anyone with any affinity for the three ideals are revolutionaries.  Many love liberty not merely as an abstraction to be forced upon atomistic individuals, but rather recognize its value to a happy and productive people.  Those who would advance ordered liberty are wary of license and do not seek to overturn those limitations placed on man by nature and propriety.  All right thinking people acknowledge some level of equality, and honor the dignity of all men made in the image and likeness of God.  However, a proper respect for the equality of man must be tempered by an appreciation for the natural inequality of man in ability, morals, and vocation.  Feelings of fraternal affections between people of a similar culture and heritage are natural and good, and are in fact necessarily opposed to revolutionary fraternity.  This latter conception of brotherhood reduces all men to citizens under a particular regime or members of a certain race, while sweeping away local traditions and those ties between diverse communities rooted in shared faith or sentiments.

The West today faces a crisis.  Some form of revolutionary, progressive regime rules Westerners across the world, not only in our halls of power but in our schools, our churches, and in our homes.  The Jacobins have conquered the world and we failed to notice, perhaps because the conspicuous guillotine has been replaced by the hidden slaughter of the unborn.  Opposition to the revolution is led most often not by principled defenders of God, family, and tradition, but rather by revolutionary alternatives to the party in power.  I do not mean to say that our leaders are necessarily a bunch of bloodthirsty scoundrels, but rather that they usually adhere at least somewhat to a revolutionary ideology, and as a a result make decisions based on false ideas about human nature.

What is to be done?  Frenchman could do their best to subvert the revolution while waiting for the British to appear, but His Majesty's Army is not coming to save us.  When all the world groans under the unnatural tyranny of revolution, to whom shall we look for salvation?  Edmund Burke, the great British statesman and critic of the French Revolution, recommends a gradual, incremental approach to social and governmental reform, but that formula was advanced in the context of a stable and sane order.  The same approach may still work in our revolutionary times, building upon the vestiges of a natural order that still remain below the politically correct surface of modern life.  People of all persuasions have a natural love for their families, their homes, and their communities.  It is our task to cultivate those natural affections and from them draw a commitment to a strong social order befitting a happy and virtuous people.  This is not the work of rhetoricians or legislators but of normal people living out their daily lives with hope, faith, and charity, in defiance of an anti-social society.  It will be a long and difficult journey up the cliff from which we have fallen, but we may yet return to solid ground.

Originally Posted on Button's Blog