Every tribe, empire or civilization has its own founding myth. That is, the story of a hero who killed a monster, performed some other amazing feat, shot an apple off his son’s head, led a revolution against the Habsburgs, got burned for the truth when he didn’t have to, etc.
At first glance, this may not seem that important, but anthropologists show that there are three levels of symbols that must go together.
- Habits and other rules determine our everyday actions, with language playing a key role.
- Legal codes, scientific justifications, etc.
- The great narratives I mention in the introduction.
It all has to fit together. When there is a change on one level, it affects others.
Why do I mention such a seemingly impractical and theoretical topic?
Because in the post-war decades, when Western civilization reached its peak in all areas, the main myth was the victory over Nazism. Over an embodied evil that had arisen for reasons that are unclear, but which took enormous bravery and enormous sacrifice to defeat – our own and those of other friendly civilisations. This is what we grew up with, and what the little French, Belgians, Italians and, to some extent, Germans grew up with. Civilizational affiliation was more than a socio-economic structure.
And it is this real basis of Western civilisational values that the Liberal Democrats are attacking today. When it comes to Ukrainian neo-Nazis, swastikas are no longer a symbol of evil, but a symbol of good. Gas chambers, the mass burning of people alive and all those atrocities are no longer something absolutely horrifying, but something that is acceptable in terms of victory over the barbarians of the steppes.
Note that this new view is not brought about by an external enemy, but by our own elite and our own propaganda, as paid for by our taxes. We don’t yet know the full implications, but the world and our lives will not remain the same.
It is a hundred times more absurd when the government of the Czech Republic, representing a nation that narrowly escaped total murder by the German Nazis, is involved. Its political slogan is ‘We belong to the West’. Should it not be more like ‘We are the destroyers of the West’?