Written by Frederica
The word ‘Civilisation’ is used very often. Everybody knows what ‘civilisation’ means. Or do we? I thought I would look it up to see if my interpretation ‘tallied’ with the official meaning.
My dictionary lists several options:
(A) A human society that has highly developed spiritual resources and a complex cultural, political and legal organisation.
(B) The total culture and way of life of a particular people, nation, region or period – classical
(C) Intellectual, cultural and moral refinement
Then I looked under ‘To civilise’:
To bring out of savagery or barbarism into a state characteristic of civilisation.
On the face of it we would appear to fit the bill of (A) but thinking somewhat more deeply, I would question if we actually do.
Spiritual resources could mean religious spiritual resources. These used to exist in abundance in Britain and largely across the western world. Growing up, I was accustomed to a dependence upon the spiritual guidance that the Church offered to the then largely Christian State of Great Britain. That guidance existed both in places of worship and also in schools where religious observance was a staple part of the school day.
Spiritual resource could also be taken to mean the spiritual reserves of strength felt in our everyday lives. The sort of spiritual strength that enabled the Country to resist and repel the threat to our existence during the two World Wars.
I have been watching a film called the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Based on truth it gives an insight into the sheer barbarism and deprivation that the residents of that island suffered during the German occupation of the Channel Islands. They were completely at the mercy of the invading German army and were very hardly used. They suffered near starvation as the Germans confiscated all but the bare minimum of food.
However, they found within themselves a spiritual resource to enable them to rise above the privations and petty cruelties. For example, the Germans had stopped all postal connections. There was no radio and the telegraph wires were cut.
They said that what they missed most was ‘connection’. The communication and association with their fellow men. This was denied to them as there was a strict watch kept and a night time curfew enforced.
So, according to the film they formed a book reading society which was only allowed under strict monitoring by a German guard.
A quotation is given in the film: “Society is concern for other people. When that goes out of the window, the gates of hell are surely opened and ignorance is king!” How apt that quotation is today?
We, after all, have been cut off from communication and association with our fellow men for the better part of 18 months (with possibly more to follow). With the impositions that are threatened such as ‘mandatory vaccinations’ and ‘domestic passports’ the gates of hell beckon because ignorance as well as tyranny is once again king!
I suggest that for us in this day and age, both the ‘spiritual’ meanings I listed at the beginning of this essay have very largely been lost during the last several decades. Why is that?
Perhaps it can be once again laid against the door of ‘education’ – or lack of it. Since the 1960s the education that has been offered to the growing generations has been progressively reduced in terms of the breadth and standards of the subjects on offer. Also there has been a subtle and gradual but wholly noticeable reduction in the way in which religious observance and National history has been ‘taught’.
We were taught to revere our history and our Country. We were taught to acknowledge and accept that there were things about our history that were reprehensible and that we should learn from the ‘history’ in order that such things should not recur. After all, is that not how we should view history? To be able to tell the good from the not so good and to learn from the message it sends?
Today our young generations are taught to feel such a burden of ‘shame’ that they must always be ‘apologetic’, as if they were personally to blame for the ‘sins of the Fathers’!
Thus when we consider (B) in the context of today’s settings it seems that we are no longer entitled to own a ‘culture’. Instead we are told that our ‘culture’ must now be set aside and that we must assimilate the ‘cultures’ and ‘customs’ of all those who enter this land to live amongst us.
Moral refinement as designated in (C) has slipped away ever more completely year on year. The political and legal stance of the Country has become degraded beyond the belief of those of us who remember the days when the law meant what it said and was upheld without guile. Politics was a recognisable system of governance with a suitable ‘checks and balances’ arrangement that kept most politicians relatively ‘honest’ for fear of losing their ‘seat’ in the (once named) ‘Mother of Parliaments’. Now, any politician found indulging in underhand practice more often than not feels that an ‘apology’, given with a mealy mouth, will save them from having to resign or face the consequences in law.
In considering the term ‘to civilise’ I would suggest that our state of being ‘civilised’ is slipping away at a frightening speed year on year. We are becoming accepting of the barbaric acts that have been perpetrated upon our streets by those to whom human life means little in terms of moral or humanity connection.
Looking back over the millennia, we read of other ancient ‘civilisations’ that have sunk without trace save for the archaeological remnants which have been pored over by interested people who have dedicated themselves to endeavouring to interpret the ‘whys and wherefores’ of those who have vanished so completely from the earth.
I find myself wondering whether the World with which we have all been so familiar is about to vanish in the same way that those previous ‘civilisations’ have departed. Did they lose the spiritual resource and the moral courage to resist the evil ways that may well have caused their demise? Is it too late for those of us who can see the trajectory upon which those who seem bent on sending us through their evil intent, can be halted in time to save our ‘Civilisation’?
I am not the only one that is extremely worried about the future of Britain and its people, our once cohesive functioning structures are being systematically dismantled by the leaders of previously trustworthy public organisations, I am starting to feel marginalised by these organisations at all levels and it is getting worse by the day.
The government have think tanks, consultants, consultations, statistics on every conceivable subject including the demographics but consistently fail to address any of the unwanted changes and instead facilitate them and side with minority sects.
There seems little doubt that the situation is being engineered with all educated concerns dismissed at every turn.
“They said that what they missed most was ‘connection’.”
and
“Society is concern for other people. When that goes out of the window, the gates of ..”
These were two phases that caused me to respond. This regime that Frederica has described is similar, in my mind, to that which has just been imposed on us by our own government via their ‘tactics’ which they have tried to hide behind using the ‘Public Health’ banner.
Consider if you will a small hamlet (you could call it a sheltered housing complex). The hamlet has several ‘areas’ where the commune can meet and intermix, common rooms, TV rooms, refectories etc. There is no need to use these ‘communal areas’ as each hamlet dweller is self contained with Bath/WC, kitchen, dining, lounge and bedroom areas. They can also interact with their neighbours for chats, teas and maybe card/board games if they want. Being somewhat feeble they do not, in the main, wander from the hamlet, only the fitter more agile residents explore beyond the hamlet bounds.
Now consider if the common rooms, TV rooms, refectories etc are ‘out of bounds’ and additionally you cannot meet or entertain your neighbours? Who would countenance such a directive imposing these living conditions?
I have a memory vision of a group down here in Kernow not long back, Standing well apart wearing facial coverings one minute and the next chatting away, drinking wine, even embracing in a back slapping sort of way.
Just a bad dream I suppose or is it a recurring nightmare that has gone on for months!
Butties, I tend to feel that is is the ‘recurring nightmare’ scenario! The wicked, evil ones who are imposing these restrictions upon our personal liberties are a reincarnation of those who have tried this form of ‘control’ before. I believe that it emanates from the same stable (the name Klaus Schwab being the giveaway!) as the ones who imposed such draconian measures on the people of the Channel Islands in that film. They just never give up! The film ‘The Odessa File’ has the key! They still exist!
Butties. You have described what happened to my friend. I suppose you could call him my best, or closest, friend. He lives in sheltered housing like you describe.
For month after month after month, he was ‘allowed out’ only, once a day and ONLY to drive to the nearest shop to get essential supplies. There were actually Covid Police checking car number plates (and occupants)!
With economic growth reaching the levels it has in the West comes decadence and a large middle class with the time and the means to indulge a fantasy view of the world. From Rousseau to Marx the liberal elite and their running dogs image they can socially engineer the world. And so convinced are they of their moral superiority that they excuse themselves, and expect and demand that we do also, when they are found. Resignations used to be a matter of honour but honour is no longer a character trait. To be an honourable person once meant something. No more.
That is so true! Honour seems to have been the first sacrifice made upon the altar of evil! It is time for all ‘good’ men to come to the aid of honour `and restore decency and goodness to the World!!
Education.Starting in reception. They do not need to know anything much. They play, They play with each other And teachers help them on a simple basic path. Stop being F******g clever.
Then continue. Simple, straightforward, kind, helpful,Basics Learning to learn, cause and effect I am not an expert but it seems to me that these are teaching proper.
By the time they’re six They should basically just be lovely kids. They’ll have picked up one or two nastinesses.from families and friends. Straightening these out is n ordinaly teachers job. Specialists always make things worse.
Most teachers agree but many cannot cope with simple, straightforward, kind.. Theyre mad and cannot teach whatever their qualifications Unfortunately Unions, bureaucracy and shortages take unhelpful views..
Should not every mother father and teacher know this ? Are they treated thisway or should we be putting our feet ( Foot’s ) far more heavily. down. We should not allow the fact that most teachers are good, but how much are they driven from doing their job?.
TGS I have strong views on education that I made known in an earlier article. Teachers may be good but…..they are being constrained by the Government agenda for ‘State Indoctrination’ rather than ‘education for learning about life skills’! There is a movement rising for the promotion of ‘home schooling’ of which I fully approve. We must break the State stranglehold on the minds of our children. The State means them no good at all!
I live in a rural area. We have a large garden
Apart from shopping once every three weeks instead of weekly, lockdown has made little difference to us.
Oh and the village fete was cancelled.
Some people, of course, are just not capable of realising how much they need ‘society’.
But maybe they should consider that, just possibly, ‘society’ doesn’t need them! If they have nothing to contribute what purpose do they serve! They are best left alone to stew in their own juice!
Harry You wouldn’t by any chance be one of those type of chaps who tucks his shirt in his underpants by any chance?
Frederica. The word that illustrates all that is wrong with our society is in your last line: “evil”.
Church so-called-leaders worldwide have abandoned their task. They seem quite at ease with the notion that GOD can be bent and twisted to suit the current “woke” fashions.
Once GOD is sidelined, Satan fills the void, and he is very happy that so many people say that he does not exist. It makes his work easier.
To recognise EVIL is a good start. Teaching others to recognise it is rather more difficult.
I agree with you Richard Mawdsley but there have always been many atheists around. (I was agnostic until my 60’s.)
So to make any headway in our fight to save our society, our civilisation, we probably need to avoid talking of God and Satan, we have to speak rather of moral codes. To insist that people examine what they think is right or wrong. I bet there is a surprising body of agreement even now.
Your comment reminded me strongly of C. S. Lewis’ ‘The Screwtape Letters’. You may have read them. He wrote them during WW2, to be read over the radio. Apparently he found writing them very depressing for himself but the black humour in them helped the listeners cope with war time conditions.
Richard you’re right about all that! But that’s what the Church used to be for! To teach the difference between God’s law and the evil that exists in the person of Satan. Throughout the ages there have been periods where the Churchmen with the most influence on society have been venal. This seems to be one of them!
Thank you for these reflections on the loss of standards that are so sadly very true.
Thanks Jake. It grieved me to have to write such a thing. I (like Neil Oliver) am in mourning for the World I once knew
Frederica. ‘In mourning for the world we once knew’. You are very good at analysing what we have done wrong, causing it to disappear.
I confess, I am really only concerned for MY country, not the whole ‘Western European Civilisation’.
I daresay many would object that puts me in the wrong!
I can see your point Pauline but….the World is now a very small place. Before extensive travel and communication, other parts of the World were simply names of places that people had heard but were never likely to see! Now, our inter-relationship with the World is almost inescapable and the influences of one part do tend to reflect quite heavily on others. What is it they say?…….’no man is an island!” The politicians would have us believe differently….. but only to suit their own agenda!