Category Archives: History

Collapse of Western Civilization—Why It’s Accelerating Now

Interview with Doug Casey.

Excerpt:

Let me list a few things that are basically—indeed almost entirely—unique to Western Civ. Some other cultures have adopted elements of them and have prospered as a result. But it’s often just a veneer. If the West falls as a culture, as a civilization, most other parts of the world will likely degenerate radically.

  • Free thought. Free thinkers are unique to the West. They’re being overwhelmed by political correctness and fear of thought crimes.
  • Free speech. Everywhere in the West, the language is being corrupted. There are notions and even words that you dare not utter for fear of being prosecuted and jailed.
  • Free markets. Free markets allow free thinkers, inventors, businessmen and industrialists to put their thoughts into practice, to the benefit of all. But the public fears them and wants more regulation and protections.
  • Limited government. Everywhere, the hoi polloi are clamoring for more government, bigger government, socialism, and even communism.
  • Individualism. Every other culture in the world has tried to quash this essential aspect of the West. It’s being replaced by identity politics wherein you are no more than a member of a group.
  • Rationality. It’s said that this is a white vice. Science and logic are thought to be destroying the world. They’re being replaced by superstition.
  • Liberty. This concept wouldn’t even exist without the West. It’s now seen as a danger where we need to hide in Safe Spaces.
  • Concept of progress. Many now prefer a static society where everybody is maintained by a guaranteed annual income. Progress is dangerous because it leads to inequality where some are left behind.
  • Privacy. In the primitive pre-Western world, everyone knew what everyone else was doing. We’re reverting to that with omnipresent Flock cameras and the surveillance state.
  • Property rights. They’re being replaced by the concept of “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”
  • Rule of Law. In other societies, law was what the king, the emperor, or the sultan said it was. Justice is being washed away in the West, delegitimized by millions of Kafkaesque laws and regulations.
  • Industry and enterprise. People have been taught to hate these Western virtues, thinking that they endanger Mother Earth and lead to inequality. Entrepreneurs are to be feared. Everybody should become an employee.

Do Not Touch: Theos, the Open Society and the Licensing of Christianity

Article by Marian Halcombe.

Excerpt:

Theos half understands this. In its advice on how to talk to the Committed Separatists, it raises what it calls the Progressive’s Dilemma, asking whether “high levels of taxation and redistribution” can be sustained “without commensurate levels of national loyalty”. It also asks whether a country with a thin sense of itself can stand up to “nationalistically-inclined powers on the world stage”, before quoting Alasdair MacIntyre’s remark that being asked to die for the modern state would be “like being asked to die for the telephone company” (pp. 109–10). So it accepts that a thick national identity is needed after all. It is needed so that people will pay their taxes and fight in wars. What is not wanted is enough national feeling for the people to object to who governs them and how. There, in two paragraphs, is the whole political theory of the managerial class.

Healer of Nations – extracts

From the book with that title by Gary North (published 1987). Free download (PDF) here.

[Editor’s introduction, by Gary North:]

Page ix:

There is virtually nobody of material on Christian international relations and foreign policy, and what little that does parade as Christian is simply warmed-over humanism, and intellectually lightweight humanism at that.

Page xi:

Foreign policy in the United States is controlled by a tightly knit “old boy” network of dedicated humanists, who quite properly regard their control over foreign policy as the linchpin in their overall control of the United States government. They do not want outsiders criticizing their little monopoly. They have devoted millions of dollars since World War II to finance books, journals, and studies on American foreign policy, all of which conclude that we must be firm with the Communists until we join with them in a one-world humanistic order. We must be visibly tough negotiators while we are capitulating to the vast bulk of their demands. Most important, the West must not try to roll back Communism.

Page xii:

Christians today are blissfully unaware of the need for an explicitly Biblical view of international relations, just as they are unaware of the need for an explicitly Biblical view of every other real-world problem. Sleepwalking Christians are the heart of the crisis of Western civilization in our day. They are unwilling or unable to offer explicitly Biblical alternatives to the collapsing humanist order. Until about 1980, they fervently believed that the humanists possessed some legitimate title to the seats of power in
this world, and they still believe that common natural law moral and legal principles are sufficient to hold the world system together until Jesus comes back in glory. So they sit on the side lines of life, waiting for Jesus to bail them out, or up, literally. Just as He bailed out Israel when the Assyrians arrived? Just as He
bailed out Judah when the Babylonians arrived? Just as He bailed out Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania when the Soviet troops arrived?

But we’re different, of course. We’re Americans. No need to worry. And if1.5 million babies are aborted here each year, it isn’t the Christians’ fault. Jesus is coming soon. Sit tight. Pray. And don’t miss the Superbowl next Sunday.
The Communists, who are our mortal enemies, are self-conscious in their hatred of Christianity and Western society that was built originally by Christian principles. They wish to destroy all traces of Christianity. So do the weak-willed humanists of the West. These humanists are also in agreement with the world retreating Christians of the West in their unified hostility to any suggestion that Christians should provide the world’s intellectual and cultural leadership because Christians alone have access to the Bible through the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Communists do not face any concerted opposition. World satanic empire is expanding without any significant organized opposition from the West. This has been Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s complaint long before the day that the Soviets expelled him in 1974.

[Introduction by R. J. Rushdoony:]

The purpose of Biblical history is to trace the victory of Jesus Christ. That victory is not merely spiritual; it is also historical.

Had Christ merely arisen as a spirit from the grave, it would have signified His lordship over the world of spirit but His surrender of matter and history. But by His physical resurrection, by His rising again in the same body with which He was crucified, He set forth His lordship over creation and over history. The world of history will see Christ’s triumph and the triumph of His saints, His church, and His kingdom. History will not end in tribulation and disaster: it will see the triumph of the people of God and the manifestation of Christian order from pole to pole before Christ comes again. The doctrine of resurrection is thus a cornerstone of the Biblical dimension of victory. . . .
There is thus a dimension of victory in history, Jesus Christ. The alternative plan of victory is social science, and history as a social science. This means the totalitarian socialist state, the world of 1984. For the Christian this is rather the dimension of hell, not of victory; for the believer, “this is the victory that over
cometh the world, even our faith” (I John 5:4).

(Introduction by Gary North) Page 3:

Christians do not know what the Bible says about social, economic, and political issues. They are going to have to learn very rapidly if the West is to be salvaged.

Page 4:

One of modem humanism’s most dangerous presuppositions: that the State *1 is the central institution in every area of life. It was also a major presupposition of ancient humanism. *2 It is a demonic belief.

*1 I capitalize the word “State” when I am referring to the covenantal institution of civil government; I do not capitalize it when I am referring to a regional political unit called a state.

*2 R. J. Rushdoony, The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy (Fairfax, Virginia: Thoburn Press, [1971] 1978), chaps. 3-5.

Every Great Civilization Collapsed the Same Way

Due to diminishing returns on complexity

Video by ‘The Archivist’s Journal’ (7 minutes)

From the transcript:

Joseph Tainter is a historian who’s pretty much spent his whole career trying to identify how all this went down. And he landed on what he calls diminishing returns on complexity.

Every problem Rome faced, they solved by adding something. More soldiers, more administrators, more subsidies, more regulations. Each solution worked, but each one also added a permanent cost. And once you build those systems, you can’t really walk them back. You can’t cancel grain subsidies without riots. You can’t cut the army without losing territory. So, the machine just keeps getting bigger and more expensive every year. And eventually, the cost of maintaining it outpaces what it can produce. 

Gary North disagrees.

5 Reasons Why the Renaissance Began in Italy

Article by Lily Johnson.

Note in particular point 3: ‘Its city-states allowed art and new ideas to flourish’

Quote: ‘The Medici family had a huge hand in the explosion of arts and culture that occurred in their city, leading Florence to be widely considered the home of the Renaissance itself. Founding the eminent Medici Bank in 1397, the family became valuable patrons to some of the country’s greatest artists.’

That’s just a few decades after the Black Death, which made individuals (those who had survived) much more valuable, thus starting ‘individualism’.

BTW here’s the AI answer:

The Renaissance began in Italy primarily due to the region’s unprecedented wealth from Mediterranean trade, its direct physical connection to the legacy of Ancient Rome, and a competitive political structure of independent city-states.

  • Economic Prosperity: Italy’s strategic location made it a hub for commerce with Asia and the Byzantine Empire, creating a wealthy merchant class capable of funding the arts.
  • Classical Heritage: As the heart of the former Roman Empire, Italy was filled with ancient ruins and texts, sparking a revival of classical ideals known as humanism.
  • Political Competition: Independent city-states like Florence, Venice, and Rome fiercely competed for prestige, while powerful families like the Medici and the Vatican acted as major patrons of artists and scholars.
  • Intellectual Influx: The fall of Constantinople in 1453 brought Greek scholars and classical manuscripts to Italy, further accelerating intellectual and artistic innovation. 

The Intersection of the Enlightenment, Freemasonry, Illuminism, and the Religion of Humanity Represents a Profound Shift in European Thought During the 18th and 19th Centuries

Article by Charles Burris. Here it is:

The intersection of the Enlightenment, Freemasonry, Illuminism, and the Religion of Humanity represents a profound shift in European thought during the 18th and 19th centuries.

This era marked a transition from traditional, divine-right Christian orthodoxies toward secularism, reason, and human-centered moral frameworks.

Here is a breakdown of how these four movements connected, interacted, and shaped modern intellectual history.

1. The Enlightenment: The Catalyst

The Enlightenment (17th–18th century) was the overarching intellectual framework that made the other movements possible.

Core Idea: Replaced blind faith, dogma, and absolute monarchy with reason, science, and individual liberty.

Religious Shift: Shifted the cultural focus from a God-centered universe to a human-centered universe.

Deism: Many Enlightenment thinkers (like Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson) embraced Deism—the belief in a “Clockmaker God” who created the universe but does not intervene in human affairs, rendering traditional church rituals obsolete.

The Enlightenment was the overarching intellectual movement of the 18th century that championed reason, science, and individual liberty over dogma and superstition.

Human reason, rather than divine revelation, is the primary source of authority and legitimacy. It reframed the universe as a rational machine governed by natural laws (Deism) rather than a stage for constant divine intervention. It provided the philosophical foundation for political revolutions and the restructuring of society around human rights.

2. Freemasonry: The Networking Hub

Freemasonry emerged in its modern form in the early 18th century, acting as a crucial institutional vehicle for spreading Enlightenment ideals.

The Lodge as a Microcosm: Masonic lodges functioned as rare spaces where men of different social classes, religions, and political backgrounds could meet as equals (“on the level”).

Secular Rituals: Freemasonry stripped away sectarian Christian dogmas, requiring members only to believe in a vague “Supreme Architect of the Universe.” This allowed Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Deists to fraternize.

Spread of Ideas: Lodges became experimental labs for democratic governance, meritocracy, and free speech, deeply influencing figures like Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington.

The Shared Space: Lodges became neutral grounds where aristocrats, merchants, and intellectuals met as equals (“on the level”).

The Shared Creed: Freemasonry required a belief in a Supreme Being (the “Great Architect of the Universe”) but banned sectarian religious debates.

The Impact: It institutionalized Enlightenment ideals like meritocracy, religious tolerance, and self-governance, acting as a blueprint for democratic societies.

3. Illuminism: The Radical Fringe

“Illuminism” refers to various mystical, esoteric, or radical secret societies of the late 18th century, most famously the Bavarian Illuminati (founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt).

Radical Enlightenment: Unlike mainstream Freemasonry, which generally respected civic authorities, the Illuminati aimed to actively infiltrate Masonic lodges to covertly overthrow monarchies and religious institutions.

The Goal: Weishaupt sought to achieve a utopian state of nature where mankind would be governed by reason alone, free from princes and priests.

Reactionary Backlash: Though the Bavarian Illuminati was banned and dismantled by 1785, its existence sparked widespread counter-Enlightenment conspiracy theories, blaming secret societies for the French Revolution.

4. The Religion of Humanity: The Secular Climax

Developed in the mid-19th century by French philosopher Auguste Comte (the father of sociology), the Religion of Humanity (Religion de l’Humanité) was the logical conclusion of the Enlightenment’s secularizing trajectory.

God is Replaced: Comte argued that society had outgrown both theological and metaphysical thinking. He proposed replacing the worship of God with the veneration of Humanity itself (the “Great Being”).

Secular Religion: It copied the structure, rituals, and hierarchy of the Catholic Church but stripped out the supernatural. It featured secular saints (like Newton, Galileo, and Shakespeare), a calendar of festivals, and moral sacraments.

The Legacy: While Comte’s specific church ultimately foundered, the core concept deeply influenced secular humanism, positivism, and the modern belief that human progress and ethics can exist entirely independent of religious dogma.

The Interconnected Thread

The Enlightenment provided the theory (Reason over Dogma).

Freemasonry provided the social infrastructure (The Lodges) where these ideas could cross borders.

Illuminism pushed these ideas to their absolute radical, underground political extremes.

The Religion of Humanity attempted to institutionalize this entire trajectory into a formal, post-Christian moral system for the modern secular world.

Gnosticism: The Enduring Heresy and Menace to Western Civilization

Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith, by James H. Billington

Heroes of the Enlightenment (Two Superb Documentaries)

Freemasonry (Book List)

Utopian Nightmares and Gnostic Political Religions

Explore utopian nightmares and gnostic political religions through essential books like Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium and The Black Book of Communism, revealing the dark history of ideological extremism.

Utopian Nightmares and Gnostic Political Religions II