Category Archives: Anthropology

Anthropology

What the Sicilian Mafia has in common with the Traditionalist Movement

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

I am a Catholic, a Roman Catholic. And that means I hold fast to all Divine, Sacred and immemorial tradition. I love the ancient and perennial rites of the Church, and I do not believe that the Novus Ordo is either of God or within the powers of even the Pope to promulgate. I think rather that what has come from Tradition must be kept, not jettisoned, and it cannot be recast according to modernistic principles. I also believe that one day, we shall have a Pope who complete nixes the Novus Ordo and Vatican II.

I say this as a preface, so that no one misunderstands what I am about to say: namely, that the Sicilian Mafia has a lot in common with the Traditionalist Movement in practice, not in theory.

That is to say, in they way they approach religion, not in the things they believe.

My expertise to make this comparison is that I have attended the Ancient Mass, both at independent chapels and with the Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Society of Saint Pius X. I lived four months with the Capuchins of Morgon, France, and have attended a priests only conference with Mons. Fellay at Albano. I am not an expert on the Traditionalist Movement, but I have seen enough as an anthropologist over about 10 years of personal experience.

I have also lived in Sicily for 3 years and have met several members of the Sicilian Mafia and talked to them about their beliefs. I am also half Sicilian by blood, and thus have many relatives who have told me about them.

So to explain, let me list the things which they share and explain why they are similar or identical.

Traditional Loyalties

The Sicilian Mafia traces its origin to elements of organized criminality in the Spanish Empire. Spain once ruled Sicily. These traditions of secret societies and criminality were inherited by the Spanish Kingdom through its reconquest of Muslim Spain. They are Moorish in origin.

But for the Sicilian Mafia these traditions are important. There are generations and lineages of Mafia. These are so well known, that in Italy everyone is required to get a Mafia background check if they are to head a public corporation. Such a check looks at all relatives down to 4 degrees of affinity, if I understand it correctly.

Love for the Ancient Mass

Consequently the Sicilian Mafia and the Traditionalist Movement agree that the Ancient Mass is the true mass.

I was surprised to learn this. But I learned it from a Mafioso in person.

You see, when I lived at Noto as a hermit, I used to hitchhike the 120 KM each Sunday Morning, to attend the Latin Mass at the Church of Saint Anthony, in Acireale. And as of necessity, I accepted every ride which was offered me, as I stood with my thumb out asking for a ride.

One morning, I got a ride on the Autostrada near Siracusa from a Mafioso. He wore a black suit and white shirt and a black tie and pants. He was heading to Catania for an important meeting, but when in conversation I divulged that I was heading to the Old Latin Mass, he told me it was the true Mass, and that he would delay his meeting to drop me off directly in front of the Church. The detour cost him at least 90 minutes of a delay.

I was very impressed by his piety and that led me to do some research. Indeed, in all my years of living in Sicily, I never met a Traditionalist who was so obliging to me in my necessity to get to the Traditional Latin Mass on Sunday.

It was even more impressive, because the meeting he was going to was a mob meeting.

The Sicilian Mafia puts great important in maintaining the public reputation for decency and respectability. And one thing they do is patronize the Church. Some of their sons even become priests.

They love the ancient rituals and pomp of the Old Mass. They consider it an aestetic travesty that Paul VI introduced the New Mass. They detest banality. You cannot promote yourself on the basis of a public image associated with banality.

Anomianism

But the Sicilian Mafia do not see their religious practices in public as anything which binds them to stop their criminal activity. They see the laws of the Italian Republic as optional, and consider whats they do to be legitimate. Its a state of necessity, they would say.

So they keep the laws they need to keep but do not observe the laws they need to not observe.  They mostly keep to themselves and are involved in importing products to Italy so as to evade customs laws and tariffs. The are libertarians of a sort.

The Traditionalist Movement is also very anomian. They do not care to violate scores and scores of canons of Church Law when they decide to set up shop in a local diocese. They consider that a state of necessity gives them license to do most anything, even annul marriages. — I am obviously speaking of those groups which do not have faculties.

Sectarian

The Sicilian Mafia are also a very tight knit group. You cannot knock on their door and join. Its more by invitation. They check you out. They have rituals of initiation. They have core beliefs that you have to accept to be a member.

They keep to themselves. You cannot just ask them for an interview. And if you want to know which families are Mafia in the local area, it is difficult to find out, because no one wants to mention their name.

But if you want to start a business where they claim control, then you need their approval. If you try to do it without their approval you will be burned out, but only after several friendly visits. You have to show omertà and pay the pizzo they ask. Omertà is respect. And a pizzo is a monthly payment to insure you wont suffer the misfortunes which they say happen to those who are not insured.

A lot of traditionalists are also very sectarian. If you show up at their Mass they wont even talk to you, or they will ask you questions like an Inquisitor to find out who you are. And you cannot do anything without their permission, like follow the Lord as a religious.

In their places of worship they do not advertise or promote anything but themselves and they expect as the price of attending their Masses that you commit to their organization 100%. If not, you are not to be trusted.  Also, they do not exist to serve you as men of God, you exist to serve them.

A Society of the Club

In addition, both the Sicilian Mafia and most Trad groups exhibit characteristics of the Club. They are all male societies and its invitation only. No amount of merit gets you in. And no amount of demerit gets you kicked out.

Also, you are expect to serve the club. It is a no-no to talk to the police, whether about crimes committed by the Club, or boys raped by members. Though I do admit that as faar as I know the Sicilian Mafia on the score of pedophilia are much more intollerant. They do in those of their own who rape boys, because they have strong family values of loyalty. Wherase in all the Trad groups of which I have read reports, they all act just like the Lavender Mafia, and require that members not report to the police, or else you are out of there.

I could cite some concrete cases, but my sources would be persecuted.

A Private Agenda

Finally, the Sicilian Mafia and nearly all Trad groups I know of, do nto exist for the good of Society, but for the good of themselves. They are not about promoting virtue, they are about making their own members have more power, influence and reputation and respectibility. When the State of the Church crumble, is not their concern. Not in the least. And you will never see them take any risk to help the State or the Church.

Conclusion

Therefore, as an anthropologist I would conclude that both the Sicilian Mafia and the Traditionalist Movement have a lot in common. They are both counter-cultural, sectarian, traditionalist, anomian, self-serving, closed club like societies. They both do not care about Canon Law in the least and they both recognize without question that Bergoglio is the pope. In fact, in 2010, another Mafioso told me, that they controlled the Vatican and it would soon become clear that they control it. He told me more truth than I ever read at LifeSite News or in the reports of Edward Pentin.

For public disclosure: none of my relatives are Mafia
and all of them either fear it or speak against it.

________

CREDITS:  The Featured Image is a screen shot of Google Image Search results for the movie, The GodFather: a romantic vision of the Sicilian Mafia in New York City, which depicted many aspects of the Mafia which I mention in this article. Which image is used here in accord with fair use standards for editorial commentary and to show how effective Google Image search can be.

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Anthropology, Faith, Philosophy

Evolution is an error, a myth and a heresy

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Br. Alexis Bugnolo

As a graduate of the University of Florida, at Gainesville, with a Baccalaurate in Cultural Anthropology, I perhaps know more than the common man about the theory of human evolution. But you won’t see me talk about it much, because I recognize that the theory of evolution is an absurd philosophical error, a unscientific myth, and a heresy regarding the truths revealed by God concerning Creation. — I use, “Creation”, here as the proper name for all which God has brought into being out of nothing.

Evolution: the philosophical error

Evolutionism is in the first place, and historically, not a scientific theory about biology, but a philosophical position of the insane. Its founder or author is Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903), a philosopher who followed in the footsteps of John Locke, the British philosopher, who in his work, An Essay concerning human understanding, in 1689, insisted that all human knowledge was a posteriori, that is had after the fact of observing things. He therefore denied that there as in the real world an order of causality which not only explained how A caused B to produce C, but by which every A which caused B to produce C does not even exist.

The absurdity or madness of the position is self-evident: you throw a jar at a stone wall and it breaks. It breaks because it hits the wall, and it hits the wall because you threw it. Even if John does not see these things happen, they still happen. Locke denied all of this.

This philosophical error is called Empiricism, and in its application to living things, Herbert Spencer denied that there is purpose in biology. He set forth his ideas initially in an essay entitled, Progress: Its Law and Cause, published in the Westminster Review in 1857.

Thus, according to Spencer animals do not eat because they are hungry, and hunger as a feeling does not exist to make you eat, and the stomach does not have the function of digesting, that is just what happens when you put food into it.  The eye does not exist to enable an animal see, nor the ear to enable it to hear, nor the foot to enable it to walk. That is just what all of these things do, without any purpose whatsoever.

That such a theory as Spencer’s would ever gain traction is the consequence of a lot of bad will. Because such a theory is on the level of what a drunk might tell you on a city bus, but no sane man would embrace it as it denies the very rationality of the world.

That everything has a purpose, or telos, is a fundamental truth of being. Because for anything to be it has to be of a certain origin, be of a certain form, be by a certain thing and be for a certain end or purpose. These are the four causes of a created being. The first is called the material cause, the second the formal cause, the third the efficient cause and the fourth the final cause, or telos. These philosophical truths were first enunciated coherently by Aristotle, in his work De Anima, and embraced by Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bonaventure all all the subsequent Catholic philosophers and theologians, because they form the very architecture of reality.

If one denied that things have a purpose, then there would be no explanation why they were of a certain form, made out of a certain matter, or why they were made by a certain cause. The whole rationality and reason for everyone would crumble.

It should be obvious that the human mind which embraces Evolutionism or Empiricism has renounced reason itself. Because Reason is the faculty of the human intellect where by we give an explanation, a ratio, an account, for that of which we speak. It is the second highest degree of intellectual act possible, and those who cannot exercise such an act are either imbeciles or too young yet to think, or are so old that their brains have weakened to no longer allow their intellects to express themselves.

Evolution, the biologic myth

Evolution as a theory of development for the species of living things was proposed by Charles Darwin, who wanting to remove God from Biology (his words), took a trip to the Galapogos Islands in the Pacific and having returned to England wrote a book called, The Origin of Species, in which he proposed that the cause of the speciation of living things is natural selection. He published it on Nov. 24, 1859.

Like the philosophical error there are fundamental problems with Darwin’s theory. First of all, he attributed the differences in several species of birds he observed in his voyage to natural selection. But the birds he observed were not of the same species as he thought, so he radically misinterpreted the evidence he gathered. Second, his theory of natural selection presupposes by its very name that something is doing the selecting. He appeals to the concept of “the survival of the fittest”, but never says fit for what.

Moreover, he founds his theory on the very unscientific concept of what a species is, in biology. The concept of species in biology is a population of organisms which are able to interbreed and produce offspring of the same kind. But if that is the case, how can it ever come to pass that some of their descendants cannot breed with others of their descendants — a thing which is most necessary if one is to theorize the origin of new species from previous species. It is a self contradiction.

When you attempt to define species with the modern science of genetics, you do not solve the problem. Because according to the science of genetics, every species shares the same genetic code to about 99.99999999% as each of its members. The variations in the code which arise out of mistakes caused in the replication of DNA in the cells are errors which cause malfunctions nearly 99.99999999999999% time — I am using numbers illustratively here, that is not the precise percentage.

So, if it happens that a replication of the genetic code actually is beneficial, what is the cause of it being beneficial? Various answers can be given, depending on whether those responding want to be rational or not. But the rational explanation is that there is a conformity between the new characteristic and the whole ensemble of characteristics of the biosphere in which the living thing lives. And such a conformity implies a correspondence, which in turn implies a rational cause. Because if a created intellect attempted to ideate or think of such a solution, it would take intelligences far beyond what humans are capable of, thinking for eons of ages, because you would have to know every possible cause and agent in the biosphere to know what exact new characteristic would be advantageous. And that would take near infinite information and the processing speed of a near infinite computer to simply manage let alone comprehend.

On top of this problem is an even more fundamental error, namely, that the so-called theory of evolution is not scientific. Because to be a scientific theory it has to be able to be tested and it has to be able to predict in specific circumstances a future outcome, which can be observed. So far no one has ever observed the origin of a species. There is no evidence that any single species had its origin in the population of another. And every species ever discovered is found it its perfect form right from the beginning.

As one can see, when reflecting on Darwin’s theory,  it cannot be tested nor can it be used to make a testable prediction of a future outcome.  It is not scientific at all. It is rather a presupposition of what happens and why it happens, attributing to Nature a quasi infinite intelligence produced out of a casual occurence for which it gives no explanation but a mistake.  This is not scientific, it is mythologizing. It is a creed which holds things are true without any proof, and which demands you believe it without any reason. — Those who believe in Evolution — they even use the word, “believe” — hold it because it absolves them from admitting there is purpose in biology and an Intelligence  of infinite power behind all which exists, on account of which our human intellects can observe things, explain them and make rational predictions of future outcomes in the observable world and in things biological.

Evolution, the heresy

It should be obvious, by now, that Evolution, inasmuch as it says all the species of life which exist today, are the product of natural causes and not of a Divine intervention, is a heresy. It is a heresy, because, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, every denial of the literal meaning of any passage in Sacred Scripture is a heresy. And in Scripture, in the Book of Genesis, first of all, it says God is the author of every species of living thing, including mankind.

Here Saint Thomas is using, “heresy” in the theological sense. The Church has the authority to condemn all heresy, because She has the duty to uphold the truth of everything which God has revealed, and because She teaches that of every book of Scripture, God the Holy Spirit is the author, and there is no error of any kind contained, therein.

Not every such heresy, however, is subject to a canonical penalty, because the Church would need more canons than there are sentences in the Bible to penalize them all explicitly, and the purpose of Holy Mother Church is to tolerate ignorance, be patient with passion, and to forgive sin, since She seeks the salvation of all, more than the punishment of every sin — God will take care of that.

But the heresy of Evolution is a very dangerous and noxious heresy, because those who accept it deny the truth of Scripture and thus begin to destroy their own adhesion to the Deposit of Faith.  Also, as Saint Alphonsus says, every denial of a truth which one knows God has revealed, causes the one denying it to lose the supernatural habit of Faith, after which it becomes impossible for that person to ever repent and return to the state of grace, unless they confront that sin directly, because without Faith it is impossible to please God or arrive at the salvation he has promised.

I have seen the same thing in my work of apologetics over the decades. Every Catholic who has accepted the error of Evolution finds it impossible to repent of sin, because for them they do not really believe we have immortal souls, which shall be judged by our Creator according to our moral choices. They are imprisoned in the flesh and cannot conceive a world of the spirit. They look no further than death, because they believe life itself cannot transcend it. And they doubt the truth of the Resurrection as a divine action.

From these observations, I hope you can see, that Evolution is the refuge of the mad, the embraced of the immoral and the superstition of fools, who say, there is no God (Psalm 13:1 in the Clementine Vulgate, 14:1 in other versions)

_________

CREDITS: The Featured Image is a photograph of Charles Darwin in 1854, and is in the public domain. For more information about it, see here.

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Anthropology

The War of 2 Tongues

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1280px-Disputa_con_los_doctores_(El_Veronés)_grande
The Child Jesus preaching in the Temple.

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The purpose of human language is to communicate truth.

This is saying which is agreed upon by nearly every member of humanity. But we often forget how profound its implications are.

Saint Thomas says, that the truth of which we speak here, is the right relation between the human mind and reality as it is.  The discovery of truth, then, is the discovery of the right way to understand the reality which is around us or inside us.

But we often forget the other word in this universal definition of human language: communicate.  “Communicate” is word which comes from the Latin verb meaning “to build up together” or to “to share gifts with one another”.  In the definition of human language we see the profound social aspect of speaking and its goals on the level of society: sharing and the promotion of the perfection of one another.  The communication of truth therefore is the fulfillment of the inherent goals both of communication and of truth.

What I have just written could be called the philosophical or anthropological principles of human language. Not just of any one particular human language, but of all human language.

The other tongue

An individual human language is also called a “tongue” from the fact that each language requires for its proper enunciation a way of enunciation which is habitual and requires the tongue which speaks it to adapt accordingly.

But there is another sense of the word, “tongue”, which I want to employ here: this is the sense in which the word means not one kind of human speech, but an entire different philosophy or definition of human language.

Because just as human language according to its natural or proper definition is a set of spoken sounds, which can be recorded in written forms, for the sake of communicating truth, so, if one changes the final purpose of human language, one, as it were, gives birth to an entirely different tongue, on account its altered purpose.

And such a tongue exists. And it has a name, not from its human author, but analogously from the first being which used communication for another purpose: Satan.

Satanic language is a system of communication for the purpose of sharing falsehood, and not for building up or the sharing of gifts, but for tearing down and theft and robbery, and ultimately for murder.  As Christ said of its author:  “Who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning” (cf. John chapter 8: read this whole chapter to see both Tongues at work)

This other tongue, since it is not creative except of deception — as it has no other reason for being — uses the words of human language and creates new words which serve to hide the lie under the appearance of truth.  We can easily recognize these lying words, because of their novelty, and not just any novelty, but a novelty used to overthrow the words which have been used from the beginning.

Every tongue gives birth to its own Culture

Now it is a fact of reality and a truth of anthropology that every unique tongue gives rise to  unique culture. This is because the language according to which we speak is the default form for our way of thinking and perceiving.  And hence every language gives birth to its own culture: every language, not only in the sense of modes of human speech, but also in the sense of which I speak here, of the two purposes of speech.

The summit and perfection, the culmination and fulfillment of every language finds itself and its salvation in Christ, and in particular, in the preaching of the Gospel, the good news, which is the greatest gift we can share verbally and the greatest truth we can communicate.

The characteristic of a human language which is thus baptized is that it means what it says and says what it means, and both in the most profound way. We see this in Sacred Scripture, where though the Hebrew Language was chosen by God to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah, it speaks in vagaries and in a dark and obscure manner, quite unlike the Koine Greek which the Apostles sanctified for the preaching of the Gospel, which reveals clearly and openly the Salvation which comes from the Incarnation of the Eternal Word of the Father. Shadow passes to light, figure and prophecy to reality and fulfillment.

This is true even on the historical level. Because in very many such cultures, it was the preaching of the Gospel which gave rise to the historical forms of their human languages or at least fixed them in written form as a monument to the ages, and provided a millennial bridge from one generation to the next for the preservation of meaning and signification.  We can see this especially in the Latin language, which once understood can grasp the meaning of what writers from the 5th century before Christ to the 19th century after the birth of Christ are saying.  We see this especially in languages which had their birth or genesis after the preaching of the Gospel, as for example, English, a language which in its present form knew not disbelief until disbelief was introduced from another land.

The tongue of Satan also gives rise to its own culture. We can see this in the way those who oppose the Gospel have ever acted: denying the plain meaning of words, denying that words have meaning, denying that words mean things different than other words.  This attack on human language is a necessary technique of that Tongue which serves to break down the other by the employment of deception.

This technique gave rise to a false and misleading way of reading the Old Testament, so as to convince all who read it to deny that Christ was its fulfillment. It created an entire commentary on the Old Testament filled with vain and false tales and strange and novel doctrines which aimed all with that same purpose.  This way of denying Scripture gave birth to a sect in which attacking the good and attacking Christianity was a practiced habit of mind and speech.

All peoples, however, who abandon Jesus Christ and all groups who reject Him, must follow in the same path, because you cannot reject Incarnate Truth without attacking the truth incarnate in every word and speech or thought of mind.

Thus we see this Other Tongue in action in the errors of Nominalism (the philosophical position which says that words do not name anything real), Modernism (the theological heresy which holds that everything in religion comes from sentiment, not God) and the global push for a new form of humanity, divorced from reality and wantonly joined to unnatural falsehoods.

This war of two tongues is most evident in the fight to defend the life of children in the womb and at birth. The entire maniacal and diabolic industry of death and genocide makes its every move on the turn of the meaning of an old word or the invention of a new word to conceal their murderous intent.

Another recent example of this war is the recent study by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, in which the destruction of Sodom is insisted to be a punishment for a lack of hospitality not for a lack of chastity. Still another, is seen in the verbal gymnastics used to insist that Benedict resignation were valid or conformable to the Code of Canon Law also gives rise to entirely new words (Bennyvacantism) used to conceal lies and entirely new ways of reading Canon Law (munus = ministerium), Catholic Doctrine (infallibility does not prevent a heretical pope), or the Bible (the Gates will not prevail means they can succeed some times), which are invented solely for one purpose, to deny the truth.

The war between Satan and Saint Michael the Archangel began with a war of communication with entirely two different tongues. The war of cultures among men also has its source in a war of Two Tongues. I hope, therefore, that this post enables you to discern these Two Tongues and these Two Cultures better. Of them Saint Augustine wrote eloquently in his Book on the City of God, in which he spoke of Two cities: one founded on the love of God unto the contempt of all other things, and the other founded upon the love of self unto the contempt of God.

 

 

Anthropology

How to eSquander your Civilization

In the Last 60 years, there has been a profusion of writers lamenting the collapse of Western Civilization. Whether measured by the statistics of increased crime, increased family problems, loss of virtues, political or economic or ecclesiastical instability, most Catholic and Christian thinkers are in agreement. Western Civilization is in decline.

A google search for “the Decline of Western Civilization” seems to bolster this observation: 147,000 search results for this exact phrase, and this, in English only.

Butler Shaffer expressed a common, popular conception of this decline when. in 2009, he observed

It is interesting — albeit not pleasant — to witness the collapse of Western civilization. A vibrant system that once was productive of the material and intangible values supportive of human well-being, has reached a terminal state. Civilizing principles and practices that found sufficient — albeit inconstant — expression in Western societies, have deteriorated into an acceptance of corruption — provided it is carried out in high places — and the celebration of violence — provided it is directed against plausible categories of wrongdoers. In such ways has the multi-trillion dollar looting of taxpayers on behalf of an entrenched corporate-state plutocracy combined with the ongoing conduct of endless wars against endless enemies to send a morally, intellectually, and economically bankrupt culture to an awaiting black hole.

The editor of the Rogue Government Blog, wrote in 2010, that the collapse of Western Civilization was a complex consequence of non-rational political and social actors. He founds his analysis upon the observation that civilization is based upon, what he calls, “rational self-interest”, and that when the general population fails to cultivate this, internal order in the society fails, and the civilization collapses:

If reasonable men can agree to these rules, then society can become prosperous and enjoyable. If they reject them, then man is locked into a constant political war for resources. These ideas and ideals can be categorized as “rational self-interest” and extended to imply not only political but also economic principles. Rational self-interest entails mutual cooperation and trade of the fruits of one’s freely chosen labor so that people in a just societal order can pursue happiness of their own accord and allow others to do likewise. The proper and dignified life for man is one of personal challenge and triumph over obstacles, and the laissez-faire economic order provides all but the most helpless, clueless, and lazy the opportunity to eventually succeed.

When the clueless, the lazy and indolent are rewarded for such behavior, entropy takes over, and the end of civilization is inevitable, especially when these disgregational forces are impelled by political networks, such as socialists, progressives, and communists.

However, the Evangelical writer, James B. Jordan, writing in 2007, went deeper into the problem regarding the whole notion of “Western Civilization”. In the first installment of seven part essay, he drew attention to the fundament relationship between religion, history, and founders of culture:

Once that tradition is gone, the culture cannot be put back together. Cultures are not like stones in a wall, which if it crumbles can be rebuilt. Rather, cultures are like Humpty Dumpty. When an egg and its yoke are broken, then all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put it back together again. When a culture is gone — and ours is — the only valid possibility for the future is to lay the foundations for a new culture. Within the history of a culture, a Josiah can rebuild it; but when a culture is gone, new Abrahams are needed. When things fall apart, and the center can no longer hold, we must be Abrahams. Otherwise the rough beast will take over Bethlehem.

All these views of society collapse are cogent and not to be discounted. A recent Russian author, Dmitry Orlov, writing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, has studied the phenomena of society collapse in this new book, The Five Stages of Collapse; recently reviewed by Carolyn Baker, in April of this year. Orlov has proposed 5 solutions to each of the 5 aspects of society collapse, though he limits himself to a merely material analysis.

My own views as a Cultural Anthropologist

The entire concept of “civilization” is a very complex one, which cannot be summarily explained by simply one methodology or analysis. We can look at aspects of culture or society organization and seek to discern the causes and forces which are molding and changing them. But hard and fast empirical rules/laws are not to be found in the human sciences, simply because man is a free agent, not a necessary agent. Moreso, when you admit, as Christians do, that man is God’s creation, called by Him to eternal life, and ever the subject and object of His merciful interventions into History.

One aspect, therefore, I’d like to remark upon, is what I call the eSquandering of Civilization. The proliferation of electronic devices and means of communication, their fascination for the weak minded and those inclined more to sentimentalism and experientialism that rational cognitive reflection or meditation, is leading the vast mass of mankind to reduce his societal relationships to artificial means.

This is only a trend, not an absolute factor, as obviously, we still have predominately human personal interactions. But the trend, however so small, is having a remarkable impact on several particular aspects of society, which I enumerate here:

  1. The first of which is the neglect of reading serious literature.
  2. The second of which is the neglect of writing about serious matters.
  3. The third of which is the neglect of listening to what others are in fact saying.
  4. The fourth of which is the neglect of refraining from making an immediate reaction or comment.
  5. The fifth is the neglect of reflection or reasoned meditation.

Each is having an impact on a different aspect of what it means to be a civilized human being.

Take for example the constant use of the Internet and TV-services. The annual cost alone per family is squandering financial resources which could be used to purchase books for a family library, and thus create a permanent heritage of useful and worthwhile information accessible to themselves and their descendents. Instead, they pay monthly fees for monthly services, the utility of which is momentary, the value of which is temporary, and the effect of which is merely utilitarian, based on pleasing the emotions or serving practical affairs of daily life. The resulting loss to the book industry, means that thinkers who are worth being read, cannot get published; and thus society as a whole loses the precious gift of their contribution to civilization, which is thus squandered by neglect.

The lack of writing about serious matters, is causing the loss of the ability to think in a reasoned manner, because you cannot express yourself in writing about a serious topic, in a manner worthy to be listened to, without using the tools of reason. This means the loss of the acquisition of skills for writing, and thus the loss of future writers who would have influence the betterment of civilization by their contributions. The squandering of talent.

The neglect of listening is the most serious problem. Because without listening there is no communication or social relations based on reasoned discourse. And that means the utter collapse of society organization. The squandering of human relationships.

The neglect to refrain from immediate reaction, is reducing individuals’ ability to act on a rational basis rather that on gut-feelings or suspicions. This is leading to the formation of a culture based on irrational impulses, and thus to the creation of a new barbarism for societal order. The squandering of humanity.

The neglect to take time out and think seriously about a problem before speaking or writing or acting about is, is the final blow to civilization. It is leading the next generation into a culture where decision making skills are woefully lacking or impaired, when the decisions regard long term planning, prudential discernment, and the selection between what is lasting and what is ephemeral. And that means the next generation will not be able to sustain the civilized order when it is put at risk by calamitous events or urgent or severe problems. The squandering of intelligence.

A Christian solution to eSquandering

We are seeing the collapse of Western Civilization for all of the above reasons. We need to return to Our Lord and Maker, Jesus Christ, and learn again from Him, what it means to be human, civilized and rational. This we can do only with faith, prayer, and repentance from a culture of sinful preoccupation with the ephemeral, which is merely the result of an age which is so forgetful of God, that it is becoming oblivious to being itself.