Taki Magazine

Mama M.I.A.!

by Mike Payne on October 28, 2009

Regarding Nina Kouprianova’s “Motherland” piece, it has long seemed to me that most thriving civilizations have been undergirded by two tenets:

1) A recognition of something greater than itself (i.e., a God or gods)
2) A recognition of something lower than itself (the animal kingdom and natural habitat).

Most Western nations have largely forsaken both premises. They have become much more secular (adios “something greater”) and now fret more about the environment and its suitability for the local frog population than they do about having progeny of their own. Some even recommend foregoing children to ensure greater frog comfort (effectively demoting themselves to the “something lower”). 

What’s more, many Westerners see the spread of religious skepticism and the growth of environmentalism as signs of progress. What they do not seem to compute is that for all of their advances, what they are ultimately doing is progressing themselves out of existence. Naively, they appear confident that they’ve won the debate about whether one should still believe in the Divine and in man’s place atop the food chain.

Well, it all depends on how you define winning. Looking at the numbers, I wouldn’t even call these Pyrrhic victories. All that folks on Team Progress have to show for their triumph is their replacement by those sticking to the something greater/something lower model. The debates’ “winners” are simply being exchanged for people who didn’t hear the ref blow the whistle.

My instincts are to laugh at government sloganeering. Still, at the very least it is refreshing to see a campaign that equates patriotism with living for your country rather than dying for it.

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