And:We have so little respect for civilisation these days that we decry as uncivilised the discipline necessary to instil it.
These reminded me to post this essay on Hilaire Belloc by the late Frederick Wilhelmsen. This is the passage that the fewtrils called to mind:When one speaks of social decline or decadence, one is referring to the prevalence of people who are corrupt or decadent; and thus, it is not unlikely that the further a society declines, the fewer people there are who can speak of its decline, since those who are corrupt or decadent do not see it that way.
The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is ever marvelling that civilization should have offended him with priests and soldiers .... In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this, that he cannot make: that he can befog and destroy but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true.Then Fritz (I took his classes, so I can call him that) remarks:
Belloc is describing just about everyone you met at your last cocktail party or faculty meeting.
