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To: Borges

I've heard it said that there are two world-views resulting from the Enlightenment upon which social systems and governance have been established. One is the Anglo-American model. We had a war, however bloody. The other is the Franco-Prussian model, from which we have the French Revolution, Marxism, fascism. Freedom and liberty versus violence and totalitarianism. Voila la difference.
Whaddayathink?


122 posted on 01/18/2005 12:01:26 PM PST by ArmyTeach (Pray daily for our troops.)
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To: ArmyTeach
I've heard it said that there are two world-views resulting from the Enlightenment upon which social systems and governance have been established. One is the Anglo-American model. We had a war, however bloody. The other is the Franco-Prussian model, from which we have the French Revolution, Marxism, fascism. Freedom and liberty versus violence and totalitarianism. Voila la difference. Whaddayathink

Hitler et al. were consciously and even explicitly anti-Enlightenment from an ideological perspective. The natural rights of men were considered a mere emotional obstacle in the path towards the heroic future of the Germanic race. Nazis considered the classical liberalism of the Anglo-American model as big an enemy as Marxism, which truth to be told, is a bastard child of the Enlightenment.

A better identification of the source of many problems in Western societies would be utopian ideologies. The key problem with them, such as fascism, communism and nazism, is that there is always an inherit need for violent change for the so-called heroic individual, race or class to emerge. The unique value of classical Anglo-American liberalism is the emphasis it places on peaceful economic activity and civilized co-operation. The world has had enough of "heroic" mad-men and ideological jihads of all stripes which have without exception led to ruin in one form or another. In the (hopefully bygone era) era of Western Utopianism the free nations have always had to pick up the pieces so that there would be food on the table for children after the latest plan "to prepare the transition to communism" or "to secure a heroic future for the Aryan race" had eventually made living hell of life for the common man.

Another interesting thing is that many of the concepts of the Enlightenment, such as invidualism and value for peaceful co-operation, are inherited from Christianity through a secular filter. Contemporary European far-rightists are quite conscious about the liberal component inherit in Christianity (unique value of the individual human being etc.) and have often a virulent attitude towards the traditional faith of Europe. The ironic thing that this also makes them explicitly anti-Western like their far-left counterparts.

141 posted on 01/18/2005 12:57:15 PM PST by Truthsayer20
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