Recommended Read: Victor Davis Hanson

Submitted by Michel C. Zala (Switzerland), May 21, 2012 at 10:50

In my writings you will often see references and content similar to what VDH outlines in "Why The West Has Won". Find below a copy/paste from Wikipedia.

I can strongly recommend the book, as it derives fundamental superiority of the Western World from deeply penetrated citizenship and discours.

Carnage and Culture (Why The West Has Won)

Hanson is perhaps best known for his 2001 book Carnage and Culture, published in some nations (e.g. Australia) as Why the West Has Won, in which he argued that the military dominance of Western Civilization, beginning with the ancient Greeks, is the result of certain fundamental aspects of Western culture, such as consensual government and individualism. Hanson rejects racial explanations for this military preeminence, and disagrees as well with environmental or geographical explanations such as put forth by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel.^[18]

According to Hanson, Western values such as political freedom, capitalism, individualism, democracy, scientific inquiry, rationalism, and open debate form an especially lethal combination when applied to warfare. Non-Western societies can win the occasional victory when warring against a society with these Western values, writes Hanson, but the "Western way of war" will prevail in the long run. Hanson emphasizes that Western warfare is not necessarily more (or less) moral than war as practiced by other cultures; his argument is simply that the "Western way of war" is unequalled in its devastation and decisiveness.

Carnage and Culture examines nine battles throughout history, each of which is used to illustrate a particular aspect of Western culture that Hanson believes contributes to the dominance of Western warfare. The battles or campaigns recounted (with themes in parenthesis) are the Battle of Salamis (480 BC; free citizens), the Battle of Gaugamela (331 BC; the decisive battle of annihilation), the Battle of Cannae (216 BC; civic militarism), the Battle of Tours/Poitiers (732; infantry), the Battle of Tenochtitlan (1521; technology and reason), the Battle of Lepanto (1571; capitalism), the Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879; discipline), the Battle of Midway (1942; individualism), and the Tet Offensive (1968; dissent).

Though Carnage and Culture appeared before the September 11, 2001 attacks, its message that the "Western way of war" will ultimately prevail made the book a best-seller in the wake of those events. Immediately after 9/11, Carnage and Culture was re-issued with a new afterword by Hanson in which he explicitly stated that the United States government would win its "War on Terror" for the reasons stated in the book.

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The book is about so much more than just military warfare - it is about a comparison of cultures, whereas so many other aspects and dimensions we oftentimes mention when comparing the muslim world to the west, are explained as well. Warfare is in fact one key outlet for technology development and the superiority of societies. But so is philosophy, science, theology, sociology, political science and the development of law ad order. We oftentimes mention, that the muslim world has stagnated, if not regressed at times. The lack of nobel prize winners from that culture, innovation, invention, development on so many levels. The book explains that by making warfare, represented by several key battles throughout history, the red line and derinving wide-ranging conclusions from it.

For me, it was an eye opener.

However, there is one huge caveat. Great civilizations, such as the Romans, with all their accomplishments and technology can falter and implode in the face of barbary, if they lose their will and discipline. If they degenerate and infight. If they reward bad behaviour, due to their unwillingness to face any threat head-on. If they begin to appease the enemy or even deny its existence.

E.G. During so many debates in Germany I heard people talk about the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion, an anarchist terror group operating during 1970 to 1990) arguing the point that terror was certainly not just a muslim phenomenon. "We have had our extremists too", is the argument they and so many Gutmenschen in Europe make, utterly neglecting the tiny detail, that the entire body count of the RAF during 20 years was 34 people. Just about as much as one single medium size suicide attack nowadays. They talk about Islam being a historical part of European culture, utterly neglecting the fact that any muslim invasion to European core lands was halted at Poiters 1300 years ago and muslim immigration is basically a 20th century phenomenon.

In the USA I have seen the Kumbayahs compare muslim terrorism with actions taken by anti-abortion activists, just to make the point that terror is not a muslim dominated topic. Even Obama himself avoids any muslim reference, eliminating the term terrorists or jihadists from the public vocabulary. One Timothy McVeigh equals 1000 muslim terror attacks, at least as the media coverage is concerned.

This kind of ignorance, denial and Gutmenschentum, infighting and repression of brutal and clear facts does indeed remind me strongly of the weakness of empires prior to their (self-) destruction. The barbarians are at the gate, my friends, yet we embrace them with kindness, tolerance and efforts to assimilate them. I call that underestimating the enemy's will and determination. I call it complacency in the face of adversity.

Yes, I still believe that Western Culture is fundamentally superior in all regards. But it is under attack by autocratic and authoritarian forces, one secular (Ru and CHI's oligarchies, the other sectarian (islam) in nature. It is unfortunately human nature to be corrupted by power and seek dominance over others, which is why only democracy, government of the many can be the answer to true societal development.

But we are not yet, probably many generations away from final victory of our system over brute evil force, which is why, if we do not want to go the way of the many failed civilizations, we must remain vigilant, willful and strong. As much, as the many Gutmenschen wish to see Utopia now, this is not the time for unilateral disarmament, as even the superior system must defend itself in order to survive.

It is ugly, nasty and sad, but it is reality.

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