Posted on 10/24/2003 12:32:15 PM PDT by Chapita
The 21st century seems likely to be shaped by the collision of two titanic forces: the forces of Fourth Generation war, currently led by Islam, and those of Brave New World, which regrettably are headed by the American Establishment. There are other elements, including one that has my allegiance, namely the remnants (it is not more) of Christian civilization. But Brave New World and the post-state Fourth Generation are so dominant that the rest of us can do little but watch, comment and pray that Christ comes again soon.
Brave New World appears to have so many advantages - wealth, power, technology, "lifestyle" - as to be unstoppable. But a comment in a recent article in Newsday revealed what is perhaps its central weakness, a weakness that is likely to result in its defeat. It has no understanding whatsoever of its enemy.
The article, by Craig Gordon and Knut Royce, was titled "Iraqi Business Ties Raise Questions." It quotes a partner in a Washington firm called New Bridge Strategies, which it says "was created by a group of influential Republicans with close ties to the Bush family," as stating:
Baghdad has "not one single recognizable brand name, not one single oasis of quality, no brass, glass and steel office building, or a retail store you're familiar with... One well-stocked 7-Eleven would put 30 Iraqi shops out of business."
That statement is true, within the definitions established by Brave New World. It is also why the forces of Fourth Generation war are determined to stop Brave New World, whatever the cost.
The Baghdad at which the unnamed member of the Washington Establishment sneers represents much of the world, not only today but throughout history. It also represents Gemeinschaft, or community. In that world, relationships among people are not merely functional (you hand him a dime, he hands you a newspaper). They are multifaceted, deep and sustaining. Gemeinschaft is human nature's antidote to the isolation, anomie and cultural pessimism Brave New World engenders, and which it seeks to counter through materialism, consumerism, hedonism and solipsism. It is probably true that one well-stocked 7-Eleven would put 30 Iraqi shops out of business. But in doing so, it would tear apart the lives of hundreds of Iraqis, not just the store owners and their families, but the families who have shopped in those stores, sometimes for generations, and who know the store owners and their families as neighbors and friends.
Brave New World cannot understand these complaints. Nor can it understand why Iraqis, and other people, however poor, who continue to live in Gemeinschaft affirm life far more powerfully than the inhabitants of Brave New World's rich but empty Gesellschaft (which translates, poorly, as "society"). Nothing shows the difference better than birth rates. It is safe to say that the Iraqi birth rate is considerably higher than that of the partners in New Bridge Strategies.
While Brave New World cannot understand Gemeinschaft and the Fourth Generation forces fighting to defend it, those Fourth Generation forces understand Brave New World very well. They look at its MTV, listen to its rap music, see its clothes and manners, and know its love for this world and contempt for the next, and they understand what they are looking at: Hell.
Now Hell is something worth fighting against, just as Gemeinschaft is worth fighting for. Not only fighting, but also killing, dying and breeding, in large numbers. Fourth Generation forces do all those things enthusiastically, while the militaries of Brave New World are reluctant to do any of them. Hell, it seems, has a problem with motivation.
A friend of mine recently telephoned to say that he had found the perfect way to win the war in Iraq. "Just buy every Iraqi family a wide-screen TV and a satellite dish, and they will be hooked. They will all want to become like us instead of fighting us." I told him that, as a Christian, I could not ally myself with Brave New World. But he is correct. Nothing would be a more powerful blow against the forces of religion, culture and tradition in Iraq, or elsewhere.
And that is why they fight.
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