The Roots of Revolution

In the opening article to this series, “Marxist Revolution of the West”, I explained that the revolution that has all but destroyed Western civilization, and is in its final stages in every aspect of Western society and culture, though explicitly planned and initiated by avowed Marxists, it was contributions of other individuals, movements, and institutions that made it possible for the revolution to be so spectacularly pulled off. The interrelationships between these various contributors to the revolution is very complex. There are six major threads of influence which I have identified and in terms of which all the complexity of that revolution can be explained.

Six Anti-Western Anti-civlizing Threads

The six threads are: 1. Cultural Marxism; 2. Post Modernism; 3. Psychology; 4. Sociology; 5. Education; and 6. Humanism.

Cultural Marxism is the movement initiated by the avowed Marxists, Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukacs, Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer and others of the Frankfurt School. These men made it clear in their writing, teaching, speeches, and lectures that a complete revolution of Western society and the eventual establishment of a one-world socialist order was and is their intention.

Post Modernism is a philosophy primarily epistemological (study of knowledge) which has its roots in the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. Though many of the positivists were also socialists, there was never any overtly stated intention to foment revolution, though the results of their influence on society and culture has certainly resulted in one. Most important, the result of this philosophical movement produced the fertile anti-intellectual soil in which cultural Marxism has thrived.

Psychology is the pseudo-science which began with the conflation of physiology (a legitimate science) and philosophy of mind (a legitimate branch of philosophy) by Wilhelm Wundt in the early 1900s. By combining both “philosophical introspection” (subjectivity) and laboratory technique (objectivity), “psychology” provided the means to put over any wild speculation about the nature of human consciousness in the name of “science.” It was perfectly suited to the purposes of the cultural Marxists, two of whom, Wilhelm Reich and Erich Fromm, were influential “psychologists”whose marxist ideas have, through the medium of psychology, infiltrated every aspect of Western culture and thought.

Sociology is another pseudo-science, the invention of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) which he called the greatest of sciences that would subsume all others (which in a very real sense it has—think environmentalism and the subordination of science to political agendas). Sociology is “dressed-up” collectivism; it’s fundamental premise is that society is the ultimate end or purpose of values and actions and that individuals are subordinate to and derive their values and purpose from their relationship to or membership in society. Comte coined the word altruism to refer to the moral obligation of individuals to serve others and place the interests of society above their own. He is the father of positivism, which he regarded as “human religion”; both the logical positivists (Vienna Circle) and Secular Humanism have their origins in Comte. If Sociology is a science, its application is “social engineering.”

Education is a social-engineering method of implementing control, based on “principles” derived from sociology and psychology. The educational system that dominates America, and virtually all the West had its origins in Prussia, the brain-child of the collectivist philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who said, “The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.”

In the 1800’s there were no Phd programs in America and more than 10,000 of America’s wealthiest families sent their sons to Prussian universities to obtain a Phd There they learned the Prussian education system. America’s first Phd was Edward Everett, who, as Governor of Massachusetts, together with another Phd, Horace Mann, who is considered the father of American education, established the Prussian system of education in 1852 in Massachusetts. Under the influence of these men, the Prussian system was set up in New York shortly after, and subsequently throughout the entire country.

Humanism is an ideology meant to take the place of religion, particularly Christianity, which is why it is usually referred to as “Secular Humanism.” Humanism is an eclectic pseudo-philosophy containing elements from all the other threads, especially sociology and psychology, and under its banner every possible form of statism and collectivism is promoted.

A Single Origin

These threads are like separate streams of influence, at times operating independently, but more often than not are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. I have identified them because their relationship is so poorly understood, and almost all attempts to understand the collapse of Western Civilization only identify one or two of these influences, if any at all, which always leaves inexplicable gaps in a full understanding of the principles all these have been aligned against—because it is those principles which were the basis and foundation of Western Civilization and it is the loss of those principles that is reason for the West’s collapse. To a very large extent, most attempts to understand the disintegration of Western culture and society addresses symptoms, such as the growing threat of Islam in Europe. Islam is like an opportunistic parasitic disease that thrives on the “flesh” of dying societies—Islam is no threat to healthy civilized societies because it has no appeal to people of such societies or power to influence them.

The cure for the Islamic threat is the same as the cure for all other apparent threats to civilization, the establishment of the principles of civilization in individual minds. The alternatives that are always proposed are social or political solutions—which is exactly what has been the cause of the anti-civilizing revolution of the West.

Though they diverge in many places, both historically and philosophically, all these threads have a common source and the nature of that source can be traced through every thread. It is also the reason why they ultimately reinforce each other because they all have the same philosophical foundation. That philosophical foundation is the philosophy of a single man, David Hume (1711-1776).

The two men whom Hume influenced directly who were ultimately responsible for both cultural Marxism and postmodernism were Immanuel Kant and Auguste Comte. While Kant’s philosophy is mistakenly thought to have been a refutation of Hume’s skepticism, it is actually a reinforcement of the worst of Hume’s ideas, because Kant accepted Hume’s premises. Comte, on the other hand, thoroughly embraced Hume’s radical empiricism, (which is itself a misnomer).

The following briefly illustrates the streams of influence that trace all the threads back to Hume.

The Civilizing Principles

I have made the point as strongly as I can, that what makes a society civilized is not the kind of government it has, not its economic or technological achievements, not it’s dominant culture or even ideology, but the kind of people a society is comprised of. There are governments that preclude civilization, of course, by suppressing the kind of people required for a civilized society, and where people are free and civilized, a very high level of culture and prosperity is inevitable. Ultimately, though, it is the people themselves that determined a society’s level of civilization.

Always, civilized people embrace certain principles, if not explicitly, then implicitly demonstrated by the choices they make and the lives they live. The principles are not always held consistently, but these principles are dominant in civilized societies, because without them, civilization is impossible and savagery and barbarity dominate.

The Principles of Civilization

Historically, many of these civilizing principles have been associated with religion, particularly religions of Judeao-Christian origin. Though it is not the religion itself (in the context of which some of the least civilized periods of history prevailed) but the philosophical principles held within the context of religion that were the civilizing influence; in the West, the abandonment of religion, unfortunately, has also meant an abandonment of the civilizing principles as well.

I’ve alluded to these principles in the second article in this series. Though the principles are philosophical in nature, most men are not philosophers, so I am going to describe those principles here in the language most men understand them, or at least, did understand them in more civilized times.

Perhaps the best way to introduce what those principles are is by means of illustration. In this case the illustration is what men who hold and live by such principles do.

Between 1785 and 1958 (just 173 years) the following discoveries and inventions were made, more or less, in the order listed: the use of foxglove (digitalis) for treating heart arrhythmias; Lavoisier’s law of conservation of mass; Volta’s electric battery; Dalton’s atomic theory; refrigeration; steam locomotive; stethoscope; faraday’s electric motor; photography; internal combustion engine; Ohm’s law (electricity); Avogadro’s (gas) law; Faraday’s electrical generator; first enzyme, diastase, isolated; refrigerator; all plants are made of cells proven; Goodyear’s’ vulcanization of rubber; chemical fertilizer; anaesthesia; Helmholtz law of conservation of energy (first law of thermodynamics); absolute zero defined; Bessemer steel making process; oil drill; lead acid battery; Pasteurization; vaccination; Mendel’s basis for genetics; dynamite; periodic table; Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism; electric lights; telephone; Tesla’s induction motor; Edison’s phonograph; Boltzmann’s statistical definition of entropy; Röntgen’s x-rays; Thomson’s electron in cathode rays; cathode ray tube (oscilloscopes, TV); automobile; Tesla’s radio; diesel engine; magnetic tape recorder; air conditioner; neon lamp; Arthur D. Little’s rayon cellulose ester; electrocardiograph (EKG); heavier-than-air powered flight; triode amplifier; washing machine; cellophane; bakelite: cracking process for gasoline; Bohr model of the atom; helical structure of DNA; stainless steel; neoprene, nylon; microwave radar; jet engine; computer; transistor; Shannon’s information theory; nuclear power reactor; laser; integrated circuit; communications satellite.

With the exception of the helical structure of DNA, the transistor, and the Wright Brothers, of course, these discoveries and inventions were all accomplished by individuals, often in the face of great collective and popular opposition. Every one of these are ideas that make the world we take for granted in the West what it is. Not only is every convenience and luxury we enjoy the direct result of these discoveries and inventions, our very health and longevity would be impossible without them.

Much more significant than the particular discoveries, the technological developments, and inventions made by these individuals are the ideas that not only these men, but most men of that era understood and lived by—ideas that made that whole age possible—ideas that produced the highest levels of civilized society in history, societies comprised of men of individual integrity, ingenuity, ambition, self-reliance, an exuberant love of life and its possibilities and an almost universal sense of hope and happiness.

The Philosophical Brilliance that was “Common Sense”

The basis of the concepts were philosophical, but for the men of that civilized era they were, “common sense,” and they primarily concerned two things men had come to understand: the nature of the world they lived in and nature of human beings themselves.

In as non-technical terms as I can describe them, what men knew about the world was, (1) that what one saw and heard and directly experienced is real. (2) The real world and all the things in it have specific natures, the attributes that make things what they are, and (3) whether men knew what those natures were or not, things are what they are, independently of what anyone thinks, believes, or knows about them. (4) The events of the world are not disconnected random events; things happened for a reason, and there are connections between the nature of things and nature of events. (5) Whether they called them the, “laws of nature,” or the “laws of physics,” or “God’s order of the universe,“it is by means of the principles that describe the attributes of things and events that the nature of this world is understood, and (6) it is that knowledge by which this world becomes the object of man’s use and benefit—it is that knowledge that made the most incredible 173 years in history possible.

More important than what they knew about the world is what they knew about their own natures, particularly about their own consciousness—the uniqueness of man is that (7) he not only can, but must consciously choose all he does (volition), and he is (8) endowed with the means of making those choices, which is his capacity to think (reason). It is these two attributes of man that determine all that is appropriate for men living in this world. To choose correctly, (9) men must have knowledge of how this world works, else there would be no way to predict the consequences of one’s choices.

But men who can understand the world and make choices have another attribute that lies at the very heart of human nature— (10) a being that must consciously choose every thought and action and is capable of understanding the consequences of his choices is responsible for all his actions. This, perhaps was the most important concept of that entire age and, whether it was called ethics or morality, it means every individual is responsible for every choice and act. It is that concept of individual responsibility, combined with the recognition of the absolute nature of reality that determined the kind of people that comprised that society and culture—a people of integrity, self-reliance, and a sense of personal dignity; people who understood that every individual succeeds or fails because of his own thoughts, choices, and efforts.

It is the kind of world one lives in (objectively real) and one’s own nature (volitional) that determine what one must do to live happily and successfully in this world. Since all values are principle of the, “to achieve this end, this is what you must do,” and since (11) moral values assume the happiness of man as the ultimate end, all moral values in essence, say, “to live happily and successfully in this world, this is what you must do, this is how you must live.”

These twelve values and principles are what (12) philosophy should supply all men, though most men find these things in their religions. The religion that is least contradictory in providing these concepts is Christianity—thus its close association with Western Civilization.

Hume’s Attack On the Foundations of Western Civilization

These were the concepts that distinguished Western Civilization from all other societies and cultures in history and were the basis for the freest most prosperous country that has ever existed, yet in the very year of that country’s inception, the man responsible for the ideas that would come to dominate European philosophy, and eventually the intellectual influences of the world, ideas that would undermine, corrupt, and ultimately destroy every one of the civilizing principles had reached the end of his productive life. That man was David Hume. [Ironically, the beginning most civilized nation in history occurred concurrently with the death of the man who had spent his life producing the philosophy that would ultimately end Western Civilization.]

Hume’s was not a philosophy but an anti-philosophy. Hume systematically cut down every concept of sound philosophy; because, Hume was not a philosopher, he was a Sophist, and every “anti-philosophy” including nihilism, existentialism, and all forms of skepticism have their roots in sophism. I will not burden you with the details of that philosophy here (or anywhere else, though some aspects of Hume’s philosophy will be expanded on as the foundation of the anti-civilizing revolution of the West in subsequent articles). If you wish to research Hume yourself, the following will be useful:

A biographical note with links to some of his works from The University of Adelaide, Australia; most of his works online at Gutenberg Press; and links to various works and letters at The Online Book Page.

Unless you are a mental sadist and don’t mind slogging it out with David Hume himself (not recommended), this discussion of Hume’s work from the Stanford Encycopedia of Philosophy, with bibliography and links, and even the shorter entry in Wikipedia are good summaries.

What you will discover, if you do the research, is that Hume essentially denies everything “common sense” knows is true, even if the philosophical principles behind those principles are not understood. Like all good sophists, Hume’s arguments are not for anything in particular, but plausible questions of the nature, “you may believe in an objective reality, but if there is one, how can you know the one you perceive is it?” This is the style of Hume’s argument (not his actual one), by which he denies reality itself. The specific denials include:

• A denial of an objective external world, or at least, being able to know it.
• A denial of abstract ideas or principles, supposedly based on empiricism.
• A denial of “causation,” mistakenly called “cause and effect.”
• A denial of the identity of existents in terms of their characteristics (by denying his version of induction).
• A denial of the individual conscious self.
• A denial of volition (wrongly called “free will”).
• A denial of ethical values (his so-called “is/ought” problem).

All of these assaults on philosophy are based on Hume’s view of knowledge (epistemology), which is so incredibly naive (or ignorant or intentionally evil), nothing like it will be found except in very young children or the most primitive of men, though it is smuggled into almost all subsequent philosophy in some more plausible form. I will discuss the epistemology in the next article in which I will show that everyone one of Hume’s ideas are both self-contradictory and logically meaningless. I will conclude this article with a brief summary of how his influence on Western philosophy has corrupted every one of the twelve civilizing principles discussed above.

Hume, Father of the Uncivilization of the West

Since Hume explicitly denied (1) we can know the world and the things in it we directly experience are what we believe they are, (2) the reality we are conscious of cannot be directly known (Kant), because the characteristics of things are not absolute but “contingent.” Therefore all our (3) presumed knowledge of it is a “construct.” (social or cultural) and the presumed nature of things is what we feel, think, or believe it is—it is not independent of the mind; so, (4) the connections between things and events are merely conventional ways of looking at things, causes are social, psychological, and political, not physical (cultural Marxism). (5) There are no absolute principles, only conventions and cultural viewpoints, (multiculturalism); not (6) knowledge. (7) “Free will,” (their mistaken term for volition) is an illusion; men’s choices are determined by their cultural, psychological, and social influences, education, heredity, and economic condition. (8&9) All of men’s reasoning is determined by their society, culture, language, and the constructs they have learned (called cultural hegemony, by Gramsci and cultural Marxists, or the influence of language by the Logical Positivists/Linguistic Analysists, or ones literature and arts by the postmodernists). (10) Individuals are, therefore, not responsible for their actions because their behavior is determined by their culture, society, etc.; and there are (11) no absolute ethical values, there are only desires, feelings, and “whatever makes one happy.” (12) Objective philosophy and religion, particularly Christianity, are authoritative and absolute (just like reality) and must be eliminated to “free” mens minds to question all authority, all values, all “conventions,” and all absolutes. (I speak as a Humean postmodernist cultural Marxist).