Amerika

Watching a regime die is sweaty work, but so is watching the ongoing collapse of Western Civilization. It was clear by 1914 that things were bad, and WW1 was basically an extension of the French Revolution, followed by another devastating war.

Since that time, people have dedicated themselves to pluralism, pacifism, and utilitarian individualism as a means of avoiding conflicts like those. We are all afraid to be Hitler, although we should also be afraid of being Caligula or Stalin, or perhaps even Charlemagne.

The world wars have left humanity too afraid to do anything but keep going in the direction of the propaganda of the victors. With each generation, the West goes further Left as a result, since every generation must one-up the previous.

As a result, the situation seems hopeless: our society cannot admit that the core of its belief, equality, has failed. It keeps trying to prove equality by applying it. As it gets more unrealistic, it becomes more dependent on symbolism and loyalty, ensuring that it will not change direction.

We are like captives on a ship steaming full speed toward an iceberg with a captain who does not believe that icebergs exist, and a crew which will not follow instructions to stop or turn course. To prove the iceberg is not real, they will hit the iceberg just to make a point.

In times like this, hope seems far off, but it helps to remember that life is far vaster than human illusions. Humans decide to avoid their fears, become mentally disordered as a result, pursue symbols that lead them over cliffs, and then only those who avoid the delusions remain.

But consider, for a moment, that life tends to run in cycles because whatever we do prompts a reaction from the greater reality beyond us. Step on a rake, it whaps you in the face; when this happens enough, you start trying to stop leaving the rake in the grass.

Searching the soul, one finds a different spirit of the age. We have known since the world wars if not the end of the civil war that things were going very badly, no matter what side we were on, because order was so fragile and the costs of gambling with it so high.

However, all of the illusions have died. Democracy is in worldwide gridlock, paralyzed by the socialist programs it adopted and cannot afford. The Ukraine war has upended the New World Order, since now the “peace dividend” is over and we have to go back to managing our own countries.

This means less of the system where labor and raw materials are outsourced to the third world, products shipped around in large containers, and everything runs off the government socialist programs shaping the economy. Nature is reasserting itself.

In my view, this time should have a name, and in addition to the ascendancy toward which we aspire, this time deserves a sense of what happens when the illusions fall and we can finally bravely face reality again, finding it in the beauty of function instead of human moralizing.

The term for this age is esperance, which means a type of hope based in knowledge that this is a beautiful world which tends toward beauty if we let it:

esperance, noun
the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.

We are seeing the failure of human manipulation everywhere. Scientific management, social engineering, language control, subsidy bribes, and the threats of totalitarian rage are all failing. Even theocracy is fading away. All that is left is rediscovering the nature within and the order of it all.

This can be a blesséd age, since when we stop doing all these manipulative things and get back to functional normal life, we can cease to chase after symbols that are little more than phantoms, and start focusing on what works, how to improve its quality, and how to make beauty.

The best of our people, and even our species, thrive on such a challenge. They need this sense of grounding and purpose. We can undo the past by ceasing to pursue the illusions, and although this way does not lead to Utopia, it leads to the best life, and with it, the clearest minds.

Tags: ascendancy, esperance, fall of illusions