A NIETZSCHEAN LOOK AT THE EUROPEAN DISEASE

Chirol at Coming Anarchy has an analytical post up drawing a historical analogy between the spread of Christianity in the late Roman empire and the effect of Socialism on continental European civilization. You should read the whole thing but here are some excerpts from ” The Sick Man IS Europe”:

“With the Edict of Milan in 313AD, the Roman Empire officially became a Christian empire. While the empire lasted until 476, it was clearly already in decline. According to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the root cause was neither the Germanic hordes nor anything as direct as war or political instability but instead something much more sinister: Christianity…

…While discussing value rivalry which threatens explicit rule sets by promoting implicit rules or values that encourage destructive behavior, Mark Safranski notes that “such a conflict is typical of a dysfunctional rule set that characterizes a system at risk of decline.”(Rule Set Journal Feb 05.) One of the most important and overlooked questions with regard to Christianity is its roots. Christianity, unlike other religions such as Islam, has its roots in the disenfranchised slave classes. Who were the first Christians? The weak, the outcasts, the powerless. This much is indisputable. However, how did a simple belief system, founded by a “traitor” and propagated amongst the lower classes end up conquering the entire empire all the way up to the emperors? Nietzsche thought it was possibly spread intentionally by St. Paul to undermine the Roman system.

Without getting into too much historical depth on this, Nietzsche essentially theorized that Rome was the target of an ideological insurgency bent on undermining Rome. Perhaps one of the first and most famous fourth generation wars? (Dan?) While many more direct factors led to the actual fall of Rome, it was this disease from within which continued to weaken it and make it more and more susceptible to outside attacks just as AIDS destroys your immune system from within leaving some minor external disease to ultimately kill the victim. What does this have to do with me you ask? The parallels between Christianity, the geneology of its morals and present day Leftism/Socialism is quite interesting.

…Thus, as people climb the ladder of wealth and development, they slowly discard weaker values and adopt new ones. Keep in mind a person may still call himself Christian, but it’s the practice we’re worried about, not the label. What are the ramifications of this for the US and Europe? The disease of Communism, also an ideology of the weak, rose quickly in Russia in the early 1900s and spread like a plague across the globe ultimately destroying its host states. Socialism is merely a weaker varient thereof yet Europe has long since succumbed to it and its values that favor the weak. Is the United States going to face such a battle in the future? Could it undermine our American values as it has done to other countries past and present? Maybe.”

Dan of tdaxp has already posted on Christianity as the 4GW movement of the Roman world, complete with his usual excellent, open-source graphics. I will take that as a sign that my part of the division of labor will be the other half of Chirol’s analogy, the question of European modernity and its value-rivalry with the United States.

Page 1 of 2 | Next page