In this post I am speaking only of American Protestantism, not all Protestantism. Whether all Protestantism suffers from this disease is not the point of this post.
So many complain about how America is gone and how there was once the ‘good old days’. The fact is, in America, there was never any ‘good old days’. This nation has been, since its inception, the engine of Liberalism. America is the heart and soul of Liberalism, Leftism, Modernism, or whatever –ism you wish to call it. Our supposed Conservatives of yesteryear were far from being Conservative. We look at past times as better than today and assume this means they were Traditionalist. They were not; America of the 1950s was just as anti-Traditionalist as the America of today.
I am just being anti-American; surely that is what you are thinking. Only a fool could chalk up all the disorders, pathologies, and causes of modern disorder on one nation; especially if that nation is the “shining city on the hill” or “one nation, under God”. It is with no reservations that I make this claim – Americanism is the disease eating away at Western civilization; nothing more, nothing less. Those hopeful optimists who point back into the past saying, “they would never have supported X and Y back then”. Yes, well ask a Liberal of today if he will support the inevitable legalization of pedophilia in the near future; does that make him a Traditionalist?
“But earlier generations were Christian, they attended church and prayed,” and my response is, so what? Have you ever spent much time looking at what the churches of old advocated? They were the hotbeds of each successive generations Liberalism, only slightly held back by the slowly “progressing” interpretation of scripture. The Protestant churches, with each successive ‘Great Awakening’, were the proponents of the Liberal values for their time.
Now let me be clear on this. Liberalism is not Socialism, but Socialism is a form of Liberalism. (I intend to write a thread explaining the difference at a later time.) America has always been the proponent, the engine, the blood of Liberalism. Without America Liberalism quite likely would have died long ago.
During the mid-19th century the heated debates were over Catholicism, Irish immigration, and abolitionism. The Know-Nothing Party developed in the 1840s to combat the spread of Roman Catholicism in America, especially since Catholic immigrants established parochial schools to preserve their culture from Protestantism. The American disdain for Irish immigrants was because of their Catholicism. It is that simple. Great Britain, and by extension America, despised the Irish, considering them an inferior race, because they were Catholic. In America if you look at who was and was not considered White during the 19th century, it becomes pretty clear White equaled Protestant. Immigrants from Netherlands, Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Germany (usually) were considered Whites. What makes Ireland, the only northern European country, not White? There is only one factor which sets them apart – their Roman Catholicism. American Protestants believed only Protestants were White.
This was the reason for such stringent immigration policies and an obsession over who classified as White. American Protestants believed themselves to be the superior race, set apart by their religious identities from the rest of the European stock. It was this Protestantism which made them “enlightened” whereas the Catholics were backwards, ignorantly clinging to hierarchy, Medievalism, and the Pope. In America, Catholicism represented the past; fools incapable of advancement. The Catholics were perceived as violent, impulsive, and uncivilized, sitting just between the swarthy races and the enlightened Protestants. America had to remain a White Protestant nation in order to maintain the “enlightened” peoples.
The infamous White Supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan, was anti-Catholic for a reason. Catholicism was a threat to the Liberal order. Enlightenment had to always fight the encroaching Traditionalism of the Roman Church. But no people can live as a permanent outcast group in America. The natives always wanted to keep our numbers in check and eliminate our cultural enclave. American Protestant values quickly spread into the Catholic Church where by 1889 Pope Leo XIII had to directly confront this threat in his ‘Testem Benevolentiae Nostrea’,
“The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point: “For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.” -Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv.
From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some “Americanism.” But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name. But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world.”
We know man is, by nature, a social and political animal. Most men are largely practical. American Catholics knew that to be accepted required shedding the most confrontational parts of their faith. Over time this practicality came to rule, overtaking the faith in terms of discourse and general thought. Many Catholics became largely Protestant, thus becoming Americanized. It was this Americanization that Pope Leo XIII warned us about, knowing that the Liberal spirit was spreading even into Europe, and threatening the Church in America.
When Woodrow Wilson went to war, his intent was to “make the world safe for democracy”. This meant eliminating the Habsburg Empire; a staunchly Reactionary, Catholic political-social force in Europe. Originally Wilson developed a 14 point plan which allowed for Habsburg control to continue but with greater sovereignty for the states within the empire. He quickly changed his mind, demanding complete sovereignty for every state. The Habsburgs had been the archenemy of Protestantism in the Middle Ages and the enlightenment’s Liberalism and Nationalism during the 19th century. For Liberals, including Fascists like Mussolini, their destruction was absolutely necessary for progress.
Prohibition was, again, another America Prot invention to attack Catholics. In the name of proper public morality the government enacted prohibition under Wilson (surprise) and was tirelessly enforced by the KKK, who then turned to hating Catholics even more than Blacks. Compulsory education also began as an effort, rising in the 1920s, with the intent of crushing Catholic parochial schools. This support for compulsory education started again after WWII as well thanks to Paul Blanshard, a Progressive at ‘The Nation’, stoking fears of the Church’s power. This led to the legal doctrine of ‘separation of church and state’ authored by an anti-Catholic Southern Democrat.
Because the Catholic population was steadily rising with large numbers of immigrants coming from Southern and Eastern Europe, in the 1920s immigration was halted. The intent was to make a “melting pot” whereby Catholics would be molded to fit the American Prot culture. By the 1950s this began to subside thanks to the Soviet Communist threat which united Catholics and Protestants in America. With leading anti-Communist voices such as Eugene McCarthy and William F. Buckley being Catholics, their feeling of acceptance was only made clear with the election of a Catholic President.
But not all of this has to do with Catholicism. It is an important point, however, yet not the only one. American culture was shaped by a particular brand of Protestantism, which itself had been created from a series of ‘Great Awakenings’ and a founding by radical rebellious Puritans. At the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention, in 1848, were gathered 300, primarily Quakers and Methodists, pushing for the right to vote among other things. The right to vote became centralized as the primary demand in 1851 at the National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The beginning of feminism in America was during the rise of the Second Great Awakening. Charles Grandison Finney taught “revival” style Calvinism and was one of the awakenings leaders. He became known for being the first to allow women to pray aloud in mixed sex settings in 1831. Feminist Paulina Wright Davis wrote that Finney’s decision began the feminist movement which took hold with the Second Great Awakening.
While Europe had many Liberals, it was incapable of firmly planting its feet in the continent. The Anglo world was particularly subject to its influence whereas the continent suffered from Socialism. France was in a constant struggle between on the one side, Socialism, and on the other, Catholicism. But this struggle was a serious one, where entire governments would be overthrown. In America Liberalism was firmly rooted. There were no reactionary revolts, only the slow march of “progress”. It held control over America in a subtle way, which is why most Traditionalists today cannot agree on when it went wrong here; it has always been wrong.
Liberalism began to explode with the invention of mass advertisement and the rise of popular culture. What had long been considered the extremes of Liberalism, concentrated largely among America’s upper middle class and non-industrialist elite, poured over into the general populace. Radio, film, and magazines ushered in this first wave of extreme Liberalism in the 1920s. People, as is always natural, wanted to replicate the social elite. New styles were being set by advertisers and what would become the Hollywood caste. The first great generational leap took place during the roaring ‘20s.
Traditionalists tend to ignore the ‘20s in favor of the ‘60s. While it makes sense because the ‘60s were more disastrous, to ignore their grandparents in the ‘20s is foolish. Flappers dressed promiscuous for their day, smoked, drank, developed slang, and had casual sex. What held back the Cultural Revolution from fully occurring was a combination of lack of scientific advancement (such as the pill) and the Great Depression. Liberalism was, and is, entirely dependent upon excessive wealth. The cultural upheavals of the ‘20s occurred simultaneously with a booming economy, and then died with the depression. The Cultural Revolution occurred during the greatest decade of prosperity in known history but failed to die because there was no immediate horrific crash.
Many also overlook the influence of advertisement and mass forms of entertainment as contributors to the spread of Liberalism. Those Hippies were the first generation to be raised with television in their homes. The ‘60s were a disaster waiting to happen. It had all the right ingredients. Excessive wealth, social justice issues (discrimination and war), popular new forms of mass transmission of advertising and popular culture (television and FM radio), and highly populated college campuses. All of this allowed for an explosion of youthful bourgeois Liberalism.
The Americanization of Western Europe accompanying the continent’s development allowed for our cultural ideas to spread among the newly empowered elite backed by America. Even the Roman Catholic Church succumbed to Americanization after allying with us during the Cold War. Vatican II was the liberalizing of the Church. Hedonism could now run the developed world unchecked. The sexual revolution had no single prominent force to break it. What followed was an attempt at rebuking many aspects of the new Liberalism known as the Culture Wars, waged between Evangelical Protestants and the Left. But slowly Protestantism absorbed Liberalism, just as it always has in America.
So many “great Conservatives” in our history were anything but great Conservatives. Thomas Jefferson was a radical Liberal and a deist. Abraham Lincoln was irreligious, worked within a party founded by Socialists and feminists, and waged an unnecessary war against the South. Barry Goldwater, the man who began the modern Conservative movement later led by Reagan, was a Libertarian who came out in support of homosexual marriage. President Gerald Ford, a Republican, also supported homosexual marriage. President Ronald Reagan was an early supporter of Harry Truman (a New Deal Democrat) who would overturn none of the New Deal and gave amnesty to illegal aliens.
We must understand that American politics is incredibly Liberal today, both on the Left and “Right”, but this is nothing new. American political tradition is that of Liberalism. From our creation we have been a Liberal country continuously fighting all Traditionalist forces. What happens to be Traditionalist in America is just holding on as a mere relic of the past awaiting a popular movement to eradicate it. The eternal movement of this nation has been “forward”. Strengthened by corporations and the media, Liberalism will continue to grow and expand until America finally collapses.
“The Gospels and the Communist Manifesto are on the wane; the world’s future lies in the power of Coca-Cola and pornography.” – Don Colacho
“Americanization in Europe is widespread and evident. In Italy it is a phenomenon which is rapidly developing in these post-war years and is considered by most people, if not enthusiastically, at least as something natural. Some time ago I wrote that of the two great dangers confronting Europe – Americanism and Communism – the first is the more insidious. Communism cannot be a danger other than in the brutal and catastrophic form of a direct seizure of power by communists. On the other hand Americanization gains ground by a process of gradual infiltration, effecting modifications of mentalities and customs which seem inoffensive in themselves but which end in a fundamental perversion and degradation against which it is impossible to fight other than within oneself.
It is precisely with respect to such internal opposition that most Italians seem weak. Forgetting their own cultural inheritance they readily turn to the United States as something akin to the parent guide of the world. Whoever wants to be modern has to measure himself according to the American standard. It is pitiable to witness a European country so debase itself. Veneration for America has nothing to do with a cultured interest in the way other people live. On the contrary, servility towards the United States leads one to think that there is no other way of life worth considering on the same level as the American one.
Our radio service is Americanized. Without any criterion of superior and inferior it just follows the fashionable themes of the moment and markets what is considered ‘acceptable’ – acceptable, that is, to the most Americanized section of the public, which is to say the most degenerate. The rest of us are dragged along in its wake. Even the style of presentation on radio has become Americanized. “Who, after listening to an American radio program, can suppress a shudder when he considers that the only way of escaping communism is by becoming Americanized?” Those are not the words of an outsider but of an American sociologist, James Burnham, professor at University of Princeton. Such a judgment from an American should make Italian radio programmers blush for shame.
The consequence of the ‘do your own thing’ democracy is the intoxication of the greater part of the population which is not capable of discriminating for itself, which, when not guided by a power and an ideal, all too easily loses sense of its own identity.” – Julius Evola