Lived with for millennia, first climbed in 1865: the Matterhorn
2,657 words
“I was using the mountain to measure myself. The mountain is the means, the man is the end.” — Walter Bonatti (1930-2011)
People who climb mountains are like people who ride motorbikes or take illegal drugs. They tend to have a lot of friends who die young — or they die young themselves. (more…)
1,366 words
Andrew Roberts is a renowned conservative, Visiting Fellow at Stanford University, and Visiting Professor at King’s College London, who believes that everyone in the world can be educated to love the democratic values of Western civilization. If only blacks and immigrants were taught to appreciate the immense value of Greek (more…)
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Kevin MacDonald introduces the ideas behind his latest book, Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, in his talk at the recent Scandza Forum conference in Oslo. (more…)
1,592 words
Conserving the white race – more specifically, the people who hail from Europe – should be the highest goal of conservatism, for without a strong white race, nothing else so-called conservatives want to conserve is even remotely possible.
Western civilization is synonymous with white civilization. The two are inextricably linked and inseparable. Grecian thought, Roman statecraft, German Idealism, English law – these pillars of humanity rest squarely on the shoulders of the European peoples. (more…)
Oil painting of Heraclitus by Etienne Parrocel (1696-1775)
6,037 words
To understand why Europeans were the progenitors of the highest accomplishments in history – close to one hundred percent of the great ideas in philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, economics, geography, geology, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, technology, dance, and music – you must understand the Presocratic self-conscious separation of the knowing “I” from the “not-I.” (more…)
Georg Friedrich Kersting, Faust in his Study
5,530 words
Part 4 of 4 (Part 3 here)
Definition of “Axial thought”
The Axial Age idea is the most concerted effort to retain aspects of the idea of progress while disallowing Western civilization from claiming to be the most progressive in the sciences, technology, cultural creativity, and forms of state organization. This idea has historical merits. (more…)
The Mask of Agamemnon
4,700 words
Part 3 of 4 (Part 2 here, Part 4 here)
Rituals in simple mythic cultures
According to Bellah, humans express their highest values and cultural practices in those activities we define as “play” and “ritual,” because these activities are performed when humans are in a “relaxed” state away from evolutionary pressures. (more…)
Robert N. Bellah, theorist of the Axial Age
3,787 words
Part 1 of 4
Only European peoples have made history and discovered the idea of time, and this is why the idea of progress is uniquely European: Only European history has been characterized by progress, and there can be no conception of historical time and no history without progression or without man becoming conscious of his role in the making of history, as well as the realization that only the mind can be the adjudicator of the truth. (more…)
Niall Ferguson
7,568 words
In 2011 there appeared two major scholarly works that attempted to investigate the sources of Western supremacy in the modern world, especially in view of the recent rise of China as a potential threat to this supremacy. These are the Puerto Rican-Canadian social historian Ricardo Duchesne’s The Uniqueness of Western Civilization[1] and the British economic historian Niall Ferguson’s Civilization: The West and the Rest.[2] (more…)
An idol of the Celtic god of thunder, Taranis, a common deity in the Indo-European pantheons
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Part 2 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)
Grégoire Canlorbe: Western civilization, originating from the Indo-European heroic ethos, turned out to be both the most creative and Faustian civilization and the most war-ridden and war-dominated one. Islamic civilization has been equally militaristic and expansionist; yet it quickly became frozen and hostile towards innovation and individual genius, despite the fact that praising Muhammad’s heroic lifetime has permeated Islamic societies to this day. How do you explain this duality?
