Playing the Jenga Game with Western Civilization

And risking everything

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Why I write: 

In 2020, my understanding of philosophy and its implication for Western Civilization could take up the side of a kid's cereal box with as much nutritional value as its contents. For my then high schooler, it was bad enough that I didn't know any Continental philosophers, nor the theories of the Frankfurt School members, but never even heard of either group was incomprehensible - after all, hadn't I gone to law school? Both embarrassment and curiosity put me on my quest. It has been an arduous journey, but I’ve come to realize that even in advanced middle-aged, old dogs can learn new tricks - and in this case, it is the tricks of those who make the current rules.

You may judge my analysis and conclusions as oversimplifications or plain wrong, which is fine. Pushback sharpens my thinking, not dulls it. My hope is to encourage others to learn new tricks as well so they don’t feel they have been run over by a cultural steamroller.  If you start to grasp the concepts, like me, with snippets here and there, you will recognize their operation in the World and maybe skirt the perpetual steamroller coming at you. You may even reach the point where you appreciate Sufi Scholar Hamza Yusuf's joke that some critical theories can be a useful lens to critique society, but, unfortunately, their adherents always demand a corneal transplant.

(My apologies for the length of this essay.)

Our foundational building blocks

When locked in our homes for the collective good, a few churches, notably the Protestant Churches, pushed back, claiming that the spiritual needs of their members superseded government calls for 'safety.' At the time, I wasn't the most sympathetic to their rallying cries. The government's response was madness, but surely, all we needed was a reinvigoration of the principles of Enlightenment rooted in rational thought.

Here is a definition of the Enlightenment. It was a movement arising out of the Scientific Revolution that called for scientific methods of inquiry and discovery to be applied to the fields of law, religion, economics, and politics. Enlightenment scholars believed that [scientific principles] could free the masses from religious superstitions, creating more equitable and just societies (Council of Foreign Relations).

During the lockdowns, I thought we only needed to resurrect these mechanisms to resurrect our liberties. I was utterly wrong, and the religious folk were right. I did not understand then, but do now, that the seeds of Western Civilization were planted in the fertile soil of Judeo-Christian ethics. The Enlightenment is but one outgrowth of that flourishing (and one, in hindsight, that brought bloodshed in later centuries as it placed man as gods. With Transhumanism arguably its latest iteration.)

Re-interpreting the flourishing of Western Civilization from an Enlightenment perspective ignores its deeper roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Without these roots, we hollow out of our foundation, bringing us to the verge of collapse. Wrecking crews hasten to expedite the demolition with promises that a better and more equitable edifice will emerge. Such promises are hollow as their building materials are shoddy, often made of revenge, envy, and pride.

The danger of removing foundational support has re-awakened this truth in unlikely places.  Most notably, Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and founding member of the New Atheists, who now proclaims he is a cultural Christian; political intellectual and former New Atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who converted to Christianity; and James Lindsay, who, while presumably still an Atheist, speaks regularly to Christian audiences about the importance of their faith in holding the line against what he views as a new religion formed by Neo-Marxists/Post Modernists. (NM/PM.)

Taking cues from the NM/PM, I will assess our civilization using theories. In this case, the works of economist F.A. Hayek and literary and philosophical anthropologist Rene Girard.¹ I apply their theories to two well-known stories from scripture and describe their influence on Western Civilization. While their travels begin at different points, both seemingly converge at a similar endpoint—our moral traditions created the foundation for our Western Civilization. They were the cause of our success and not, as the NM/PM argue, a hindrance to overcome.

(This is not to say that similar traditions did not arise elsewhere. It is simply a discussion of their development in the West)

Moral Traditions and the Creation of Western Civilization

To understand our civilisation, one must appreciate that the extended order resulted not from human design or intention but spontaneously: it arose from unintentionally conforming to certain traditional and largely moral practices, many of which men tend to dislike, whose significance they usually failed to understand, whose validity they cannot prove, and which have nonetheless fairly rapidly spread by means of an evolutionary selection.

Economist F.A. Hayek,  "The Fatal Conceit:  The Errors of Socialism"

Every day, you follow rules, which, if left to your “baser self,” you would prefer not to, from stopping at a stop sign to wearing clothes to not stealing items even when no one is looking. Like a Monday morning quarterback, some rules make perfect sense, but only in hindsight. While an atheist or agnostic at best, Hayek believed that there was a type of designing intelligence guiding the selection of moral traditions that allowed for a greater flourishing of civilization. While Hayek hesitated to admit it because of academic ridicule, he concluded that religious beliefs, particularly monotheistic ones, provided moral traditions or practices that allowed for an extended order of human cooperation and flourishing that transcended tribalism.

Hayek defined moral practices as those that lie between instinct and reason. Instinct is not the instinctive recoil a child has when placing their hand on a hot stove; rather, it is the attitudes and emotions that created cohesive bonds for the small groups humans lived in for thousands of years. Concrete, common aims created these bonds, providing a shared sense of both dangers and opportunities. While such instincts promoted intra-trust, they restricted inter-trust with others outside the group. Hayek believed that through a type of unconscious intelligent design, moral practices evolved to suppress this instinctual behavior. The process selected successful traditions that allowed for collaboration among different groups, creating widespread civilizations.

Thus, moral practices were like tools, but unlike a tool such as a hammer or a wheel, the usefulness of moral practices would not readily be understood and, in fact, often ran against humans' instinctual nature.

Below, I apply this theory to the following well-known parable. I may be wrong in my application, but as Hayek was a non-believer, he cannot curse me from heaven. Unless he made it to heaven, in which case, I assume grace prevents him from doing so.

'Love your neighbor as yourself.' The implication of the Good Samaritan Parable to transcend tribalism

A follower asked Jesus to define who his neighbor was in the above teaching. He replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan who helped a stranger in need, while others, including a supposed holy man, ignored his plight. While its simplicity has a Sunday school vibe, its implications are foundational and seemingly in line with Hayek’s proposition of a moral practice transcending tribalism. It is a call to overcome an instinctive nature to help or trust only those within your tribe. It is the recognition in the stranger of the shared humanity. And it is that shared humanity that is more important than tribal allegiance.

To label a person a Good Samaritan is to understand that they transcended human propensity towards tribalism. Claims that you cannot understand another's plight because you have not lived their experience runs contrary to this teaching. We all feel pain, sorrow and loss. That they occur differently is a truth, as is a desire to alleviate the pain of another when there is a shared humanity.

When a shorter version of this essay was posted, a reader questioned whether this was a call for a global citizenry. It gave me something to ponder, and I concluded no, it did not. In the parable, neither the Samaritan nor the victim yields his identity. They do not merge into one, and in fact, the Samaritan drops him off at an inn, instructing the proprietor to look after him as he resumes his travels with a promise to pay upon his return. Thus, the parable is the embodiment of the golden rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

What better embodiment of principles to overcome tribalism than the US Constitution?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

During his presidential run, Vivek Ramaswamy, a devout Hindu, spoke with ease about these principles with farmers and ranchers and with a clear sense of unity. I, as the great-granddaughter of impoverished East European immigrants and Irish grandparents, have the same sense of unity. Borrowing a term from critical theorists, those words provide our meta-narrative, which is a foundational building block to be shared by all - not a narrow tribe.

That we have not lived up to the words does not diminish their truths. As Martin Luther King proclaimed:

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men, as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It was the failure to make good on the promissory note that MLK objected to - not the words. When we ensure the principles are upheld, we remove the grime and dust that dim its promises.

I now turn to Renee Girard, known for his mimetic desire theory, which holds that competition arises among humans who desire the same object. While competition can lead to positive outcomes, if there is no way to resolve escalating tension, violence ensues.

Using his mimetic theory, Girard looked at historical cultural myths involving punishment or sacrifice. He concluded myths embodying the killing of a victim were based on actual events that later became part of a culture's mythology. Girard viewed them as acts of scapegoating which arose as a tool to reduce intra-tensions arising within a society. (His theory was referenced by a study of Austronesian cultures, evidence that as societies become hierarchical, ritualistic killings emerge) Victims, often outsiders or from lower classes, were selected for breaching a taboo or custom.

For Girard, this process underwent a significant transformation under the Judeo-Christian rubric. Such transformations were fundamental to the development of Western civilization, from science to the belief in humans' intrinsic value. I apply my rudimentary understanding of his theory below.

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."

As Jesus was dying on the cross, scriptures write that he uttered the above words. Scholars, such as Joseph Campbell, point to Jesus's life, death, and return as representative of the Hero's Journey, which is documented in many cultural myths. Rene Girard agreed in part but added an important twist. Girard asserted that the victims in these myths were innocent of the accusations. However, both the masses (mob) and the victim were unaware of the innocence, believing in the guilt and the need for punishment. The ruling elites may have been aware of the innocence. In fact, they may have orchestrated the scapegoating using the sacrifice to display and retain their authority while embedding it within the rubric of supernatural circumstances.

In the second twist, Girard asserted the Old Testament introduced the concept of the wrongfully accused person who is aware of their innocence. The story of Job illustrates this. The concept of an innocent victim wrongly punished, and who knows that they are being wrongfully punished, is brought to its fullest vision in Jesus.

The Passion is Jesus’s full awareness of the coming punishment and willingness to submit to it, though he is innocent. While a devout Catholic, Girard argued that it was not necessary to be a Christian to understand the cultural implications of both the Old and New Testaments. For him, the recognition of a wrongfully persecuted victim allowed for the questioning of circumstances - that a victim was innocent of mob mentality. While this mechanism did not stop scapegoating, as witnessed throughout Western history, it provided the ability to pull back the curtain at some point, revealing its true nature. This, in turn, allowed the wrongly persecuted victims to be recognized and rehabilitated, even if only in the pages of history. In an interview, Girard surmised that we did not stop burning witches because of science. We invented science because we stopped burning witches, meaning at some point, someone realized they were burning an innocent person. Girard argued that scholars were reluctant to treat the scriptures with the same respect as other historical bodies of work, fearing that doing so would seem to endorse Christianity.

Returning to the words of the Constitution cited above. It is a call to protect individuals from scapegoating by either powerful elites or mob mentality. Undeniably, such protections have been grossly denied to many in the past. Such outcomes are not the result of a poorly designed system, as the Neo-Marxists argue. Instead, they point to human nature, which will trend towards tribalism that seeks to override unifying principles.

Rational Thinking/Reverse Outcomes

Descartes's "I think therefore I am" is a fun, pithy statement. But reflect upon it, and you will understand mechanical thinking - rational thinking - Enlightenment thinking. Referring back to the definition of the Enlightenment, which is a belief that the scientific method can produce a better world, like engineering the perfect society or, as has become so common, dissecting oneself into smaller and smaller pieces using new or repurposed words to create identities. So, thought makes the essence instead of the essence being reflected by thoughts and observations. “I think this, this, and this, so I am that, that, and that.” Believing one can will self-invention cuts off greater unity and leads to tribalism.

Psychiatrist, philosopher, and scientist Dr. McGilchrist's work on the difference between the left and right brain hemispheres reflects this issue. The left hemisphere categorizes things; thus, it will categorize people without the right hemisphere, which takes note of nuances, subtlety, and connections. He argues we have been living in a world of the ‘left’ brain for quite some time, which I assume he means the scientific mechanics produced by the Enlightenment.

‘Our talent for division, for seeing the parts, is of staggering importance – second only to our capacity to transcend it, in order to see the whole’

Iain McGilchrist

Lots of crazy ideas result from idleness and privileges. (From my friend “M”)

Why do we feel that in today’s world, not only would the loafers take Henny Penny’s bread, but they would fry her up for the main course because she was individualistic and selfish?

While Marxists and Fascists may proclaim to be bitter enemies, they share a common father, German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Both believe that an authoritarian, all-knowing ruling entity can create the zenith for man - not individually but collectively. In the early 20th century, with Hegel, if you went Right, you got Hitler, and if you went Left, you got Stalin. (YT at 39:00) The Judeo-Christian divinity was not the inspiration for their theories; it was an obstacle to be destroyed.

My understanding of modern philosophy remains shallow, but perhaps it is my ignorance that has pointed me to a common thread among the giants in the 20th century. Many of the most influential, such as Herbert Marcuse², were of European Jewish heritage. I wonder if the shock of what happened in Europe pushed them to build frameworks to ensure it never happened again.Unfortunately, like a perverse mirror image, much of what they postulated has led to inverse results.³

They wrongly believed it was the moral traditions that propelled the World into nationalistic madness, but it was the inverse. Hegel was a developmental pantheist who saw human history as a magnificent progression, with God self-unfolding in the temporal world by the ‘Absolute Spirit.’ Spirit lived in a nation, and war advanced this becoming. Add to Hegel’s beliefs a Neitzchesque desire to create a nation of ubermensch untethered by limitations imposed by a Judeo-Christian framework, then Nazism becomes understandable - if not inevitable.

Considering that Stalin’s murder rate dwarfs Hitler and Mao’s dwarfs Stalin, it has always been puzzling why Hitler is cited for his murderous regime but not the other two. Before delving into Hegel through Karl Popper, I assumed it was how efficient it was or that Germany had been considered the most progressive of governments in the early 20th century, with its descent into madness a cautionary tale. While I believe those are factors, I now think it was the mystical element that continues to cast a spell. Using Girard’s framework, what happened to Jews and all the other deplorables had the earmarks of ritualistic sacrifices. Cries of innocence and unjust punishment were lost in a mysticism that promised to bring forth a new technology - the perfect Aryan race.⁴ In contrast, Stalin and others sought to rid themselves of mythical references. Utopia would be created in the Material World, not in a spiritual fantasy.

Final Thoughts

The Covid madness revealed an authoritarian culture that is the offspring of an incestuous marriage between the extreme Hegelian Right and Left. We are in a time that demands the sacrifice of scapegoats to demonstrate the power of those who run it. Who better to sacrifice than those of the working classes, particularly those of European descent? Turning again to Girard, elites seem complicit or are orchestrating the sacrifice and hypnotizing the mob with their misdeeds. Could this possibly explain how so many truly believe that segments of the population, particularly white males, must be punished and perhaps purged from society? The victims are presumed guilty and must be punished. Cries of innocence pointing to history are quashed. A comment by an upper income non-white and non-Christian woman to a 10-year-old interview of J.D. Vance illustrates this point. She wrote how glad she was to have read the book on his grim childhood because she had no idea that such history existed. If someone does not know about the grim slums that greeted immigrants in the late 1800s, the dangerous factories and mines, or the failed farms of the 1930s, one understandably is swayed by the theories of white privilege. They will not know that, like Henny Penny, about all the previously enforced grueling work.

My hope for the future rests upon the understanding that the US Constitution is founded on recognizing the intrinsic value of the individual. Our intrinsic value comes from a creator, not the state. We have deviated from this with the grotesque additions added by the right (Patriot Act) and the left (everything else.) I hope that they are cut away like diseased branches that threaten the whole tree.

1. The Road to Serfdom is Hayek’s most well-known book. Astonishingly, Reader's Digest introduced it to American readers in 1945. It took me weeks to digest the ideas in his book. (The Road to Serfdom. By Friedrich A. Hayek. Chicago: University of. Chicago Press. 1944.) Rene Girard was a professor at Stanford, where he taught luminaries such as Peter Thiel. It has been argued that because he was a devout Catholic, his work was overlooked by other academics.

2. Herbert Marcuse was part of the Frankfurt School, which created the Marxist critical theory. He and other members were recruited by the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, to analyze Nazism to defeat it. Marcuse would become the rock star of the 1960s radical left. He wrote the essay ‘Repressive Tolerance,’ which is a seeming blueprint for the intolerance of anything standing in the way of advancing dedicated political aims. Being a Marxist, Marcuse would be part of the new Hegelians and thus surely approve of this sentiment by Hegel: “If faced with subversive opinions,’the state must protect objective truth’ which it alone knows. (Popper, K., Soros, G., Ryan, A., & Gombrich, E. (1994). The Open Society and its enemies. Princeton University Press. p. 256.

3. This is also a result of Hegel’s dialectic process. Briefly, it is a term used to describe a method of philosophical argument that involves some sort of contradictory process between opposing sides. Again citing Karl Popper, Hegel used this process in an attempt to validate what the authorities wanted and often resulted in terms meaning the inverse of their traditional usage. I side with Popper on this.

4. As discussed in a previous essay, Eugenics policies started in Germany in the 1920s funded by wealthy progressive elites in the US and advised by such activists as Margaret Sanger.