ONE COLUMN A WEEK FROM NOW ON. WEDNESDAYS ONLY
This is a column I wrote 20 years ago, and I still think it’s just fine. Dated? Maybe a bit, but it only shows the state we’re in, and were in 20 years ago, with no noticeable improvement. It’s titled, “The Decline Of A Civilization.” Try it on for size. I have changed not a word of it.
I often wonder if the Romans knew they were going down the drain. As their civilization declined, their debts grew, crime soared. people were unable to care for themselves, and bureaucracy proliferated. If the ancient Romans had television and movies, they would have been watching the same junk the world sees now. I can only speak for America, but it must be the same everywhere, to a greater or lesser degree. I just finished watching, for perhaps the 30th time, “The Greatest Show On Earth.” In that 1952 film, the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and the film is loaded with sheer romanticism that was common in films of yore. Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, Jimmy Stewart, Cornell Wilde, and that greatest of clowns, Emmett Kelly, with Cecil B. DeMille narrating, producing and directing. A spectacular train wreck, blazing color, and stirring music, all combine to make a wonderful entertainment experience. Rent it or buy it.
Decades of John Wayne movies have been replaced by the sicko stuff that now does excellent business, such as the recently released “Unforgiven,” a creation of Clint Eastwood. In “Unforgiven,” the age of the anti-hero blossoms forth in full panoply. Gone are the wonderful westerns of old, with heroes, bad guys, and spectacular scenery, many times directed by John Ford in Monument Valley, Arizona. Today’s westerns are full of long haired creeps, grossness, obscenities, and glamorization, not of the upright and moral, but the sleazes. Music has degenerated into such a hideous state, that ear shattering distortions, indecency, and ugliness are par for the course. The old pop music dealing with moonlit nights, soft caresses, and love, not sex, are laughable to today’s youth. Equally futile, is the search for good workmanship in any field, which used to be the normal course of manufacturing and fabrication.
Contemporary governments, suck the productive sector dry, to feed clothe, house, and preserve the scum, stupid, and lazy, who further destroy the preservers of their worthless lives. The weak, diseased, deformed, and useless, are glorified, while formerly, the achievers, inventors, and successful were idolized. It is a rare person, who appreciates the entrepreneur, thinker, innovator, or true artist in 1992. Animals are deemed to be equal to humans in many sick minds. Reading is becoming a lost practice, while the world’s eyes are glued to the boob tube night after night, absorbing trite, shallow, sit-coms and other drivel. Public schools teach little, and the average graduate of a big city high school, may well be a functional illiterate, having been passed on each year, till they “graduate.”
Our civilization is degenerating, and is probably beyond repair. Will we descend into another “Dark Age?” How long can we print valueless paper ’money’ around the world, ignoring the most basic of economic fundamentals, and expect to survive? I don’t know how to arrest a civilization’s decline. I honestly don’t. I only know what is responsible for it, not how to stop it. A few reasons, among many, are handouts from public treasuries, (welfare of all types), bastard politicians buying every election, support of the weak, destruction of the strong, poor education, a lack of responsibility, lousy parenting, illiteracy, absence of values, lack of taste, and the list might well be endless.
Were I going to name one single act, which might put us on the way to an upward movement, it would be to slash any part of any government which does anything other than to administer justice and protection. This would make everyone stand on their own two feet, depend on themselves, and no one else. Of course, hundreds of millions of weaklings would die. They would starve to death, kill each other, or in some way die, because of their feeble-mindedness. Then, civilization might have a chance. Suppose all the weak, diseased, stupid, and lazy ants were forced to be cared for by the rest, rather than being eaten, killed, or dying? Suppose all the industrious, hard working, smart ants, were made to give most of the results of their work to feed and care for the worthless, sick, lazy, and diseased ants? Would the ant civilization survive? Hardly!
Getting rid of the weaklings and leeches, would help us economically, but it wouldn’t revive wholesomeness, morality, and honesty, nor would it reverse the entire crumbling of civilization. At least, I don’t think so. I am glad I have my set of values and principles, and I think I have transmitted them to my kids, for the most part. How many generations will it take before we crash into a morass of seething, useless, fighting, violence, bankrupt, valueless, humanity? It doesn’t seem to be too far into the future, but hopefully, after I am gone.