(c) Copyright 1998: Graham L. Strachan
9th October 1998
There is a false notion around the place, particularly among the media, that people can behave how they like yet still enjoy the benefits of civilisation.
Under the pretence of ‘promoting tolerance’ people have been browbeaten into turning a blind eye to behaviour which was once regarded as just plain wrong because it was individually and socially destructive. People now are being tricked into believing that disapproving of such behaviour is ‘discrimination’, and that civilisation can prevail with everybody behaving pretty much how they please, and achieving their ends without regard to the means by which they go about it. It’s a hoax. The very concept ‘civilisation’ implies certain standards of behaviour.
Civilisation has two aspects: institutions (government, law courts, universities, media), and civilised behaviour. Both are necessary. Take away the civilised behaviour and what remains is a jungle with buildings, a dog-eat-dog existence in which social cooperation is not only impossible but positively dangerous. Once civilised behaviour is abandoned as ‘arbitrary’ or ‘outmoded’, it is only a matter of time before the institutions of civilisation cease to function too. They can only function while the people who operate them behave in a civilised manner.
What is meant by ‘a civilised manner’? Historically, Western civilisation was built on the Judeo-Christian code of ethics. The ‘Judeo’ part was basically the Ten Commandments (thou shalt not kill, lie, or steal), while the Christian part was to be found in the teachings of Christ (treat others as you would have them treat you). But all that has gone out the window. Nietzsche (an authority on dieties) proclaimed that ‘God is dead!’. Then the father of progressive education John Dewey declared that if God was dead there was no further reason to observe moral rules. The rules must only have been ‘arbitrary constructs’, methods of ‘social control’ under the dreaded ‘bourgeois capitalist system’. The way was now open for a new bourgeois socialist system under which man would be free....free to behave as he liked, to make up his own rules situation by situation, to have his own way by ‘whatever it takes’: like children when mummy goes out.
All this was based on the lie that people only abided by moral rules because God said they had to, not
because it made good sense, or had something to do with civilisation, something from which they themselves could benefit. In fact the rules originated in patterns of behaviour that predated both Judaism and Christianity, patterns of behaviour which enabled man to come down out of the trees and form communities in the first place. They appear in the law Code of Lipit Ishtar of ancient Sumer, at least 2000 years before Moses and the burning bush.
Much is made today by so-called ‘moral relativists’ of ‘other systems’ which allegedly tolerate killing, assaulting, lying, cheating and stealing within the group. They are a myth.
All communities discourage these things. Communal living is impossible unless they are minimised. There are more similarities between the moral rules of different races and communities than there are differences, and that is so for a very simple reason: those communities that failed to adopt certain basic rules never survived to tell their story.
What are the basic rules? Civilisation is impossible without bans on the use of force except in self-defence, the honouring of promises (without which commercial contracts are worthless), and the preparedness of people to tell the truth, without which personal relationships are impossible. Which brings us to the Media, one of the institutions of so-called civilisation in Australia.
What happens when one of the institutions of civilisation ceases to act honestly, and begins instead to withhold, distort, and deliberately disseminate false information in order to shore up the power of an entrenched oligarchy in government? What happens when the media come to regard themselves as the protectors of vested interests, assisting to destroy rival political movements, and to subvert the democratic process by defaming and smearing people, and even deliberately disrupting political meetings? What happens when journalists come to regard themselves as political activists armed with cameras, recorders and notebooks, who see their role as propagandising, putting the correct ‘spin’ on things, and ridiculing, discrediting and intimidating people who challenge the monopoly on power of their bosses’ political cronies?
The answer is that civilisation is to that extent destroyed, and it is only a matter of time before the other institutions of civilisation, including government, go the same way if they have not already done so. So that while the Australian media might be gloating over having successfully killed the Hanson cow, the price has been high. Not only have the actions of the Media and the entrenched oligarchy spelled the end of true
democracy in Australia, they mark the end of civilised society in Australia too. The public can now expect the relationships between government and the community, and relationships between groups and individuals within the community to deteriorate further, and for Australian society to become increasingly dangerous and ultimately impossible.
If any of the journalists who have participated in this assault on civilisation have children, they should spare a thought for the fact that, unless they have made arrangements for their children to go elsewhere, they are going to have to live among the ruins of the social order their parents are helping to destroy. If today’s journalists believe that once Hanson is laid to rest everybody will revert to telling the truth, respecting democracy, the rule of law, and the other institutions of society, then they are even more immature and impressionable than they appear to be. If they think the methods they are using against others could never be turned against them or their loved ones (presuming they bother with loved ones), then they are naive in the extreme.
There was an old saying known to civilisations both East and West; ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap’. Those allegedly ‘simplistic’, ‘jingoistic’, ‘anachronistic’, ‘good ol’ boys’ of One Nation the media hate so much might have another name for it: shitting in your own bed. Welcome to the shit, Australia.