“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
Since that quote was first published in 2017 by G. Michael Hopf in Those Who Remain, it has become one of the most oft-quoted phrases in the conservative universe. (I’ve quoted it a number of times.) That’s because it perfectly captures the current state of Western civilization.
I’ve experienced a good bit of that Western civilization. I’ve had the good fortune to have lived over a quarter of my life outside of the United States. I’ve lived in Cuba—albeit on a rather well-known American base rather than in the Communist part—Italy, Germany, and France. I do not say good fortune because I think living in America is bad. On the contrary, living outside of the United States has given me a perspective on America that I’m most certain I wouldn’t have had I not lived outside her borders for as long as I did.
I spent most of my time outside of America in Europe. The thing that most attracted and attracts me to Europe is the history, or, more accurately, the physical manifestations of history. From the Colosseum and the Vatican in Rome to the Louvre and Mont-Saint-Michel in France to the Heidelberg Castle and the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, I simply can’t get enough. Europe is covered with countless such monuments, most of which long predate the United States.
Many of what I call monuments to history aren’t actual monuments at all. Most are structures built for a function, and most of them were created to either celebrate Christ or were created by men impelled by Christianity. Of course, Christianity is, like everything crafted by man, imperfect. Still, overall, the civilizations grounded in Christianity have created more freedom, technological advances, and prosperity than any civilization in human history.
As it relates to America, as much as leftists want to argue that America was not founded as a Christian country, they’re simply wrong. Christianity infused virtually every element of life in what became the United States and the Europe from which its founders came. While one can make the argument that men like Franklin or Madison may have been “deists,” the reality is that they were very much part of the penumbra of Christianity that infused the colonies.
240 years on from America’s founding is where Hopf’s good times / hard times construct comes in. As Western civilization gets farther away from Christianity, the worse it becomes.
To repurpose a Winston Churchill line, Christianity is the worst form of religion except for all the others which have been tried. At its zenith, Christianity accomplished much. The Christian world ended slavery around the world. It brought us functional manifestations of individual liberty and democratic institutions. It freed men from the farm and sent us to the moon. It’s done much more, from the mundane to the magnificent, and driven prosperity across the globe.At the same time, whether it’s Al Sharpton, televangelists, or the anti-western Communist currently running the Catholic Church, Christianity has, and has had, its share of charlatans, hypocrites, and grifters. But so, too, has every aspect of human life.
This is where Hopf meets Voltaire. Voltaire said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” That is exactly what has happened to Western civilization. As a Christian-powered prosperity has flourished in the West, the belief in Christ has collapsed, and many of those weak men of whom Hopf writes have invented their own gods.
In this case, the gods they’ve created are communism, environmentalism, and victimization, usually in concert with one another. Of course, the only reason the adherents of those philosophies have had the luxury to pursue them in the first place is because of that very prosperity Christianity and its world created.
Just as the Communist Manifesto was written by a despicable grifter who lived off the labor of others, today’s leftists argue that everyone has a “right” to healthcare, housing, and food, among other things. Unlike the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, however, every one of those things requires someone else to work with pay for others to provide those “rights.”
Today’s environmentalists have the luxury of pushing for “green” energy only because actual, functional sources of energy exist to allow the grift to continue. They can pretend their preferred energy sources are “green” only because leftist governments and media ignore reality. Like leaders of other cults, they command their followers to ignore what’s right in front of them. Whether it be child slaves in the Congo, trillions of wasted dollars, “green” equipment that can’t be recycled, or infrastructure that doesn’t provide the promised energy, nothing can move them from their green mantras.
At the same time, the victim mindset that has taken hold because leftists have no more understanding of human nature than communist philosophers do. Life is unfair. There always was and always will be inequality. It doesn’t matter if it was the Roman Empire, the Han Dynasty, the Soviet Union, or America today; inequality has always existed, and different groups were/are disproportionately represented in the various classes.
Unlike most civilizations, Western civilization, in general, and America, in particular, offers everyone the opportunity to succeed and improve their lot. However, creating a victim narrative/grift is far easier than recognizing that reality and doing the hard work necessary to overcome challenges and succeed.
These three ideologies can generally be encapsulated in the larger anti-Western, anti-white religion that has infected the left. That is why the borders have been open, and tens of millions of invaders from third-world countries have flooded into America and Europe.
While the Hispanics who are flooding across American borders are said to be more Christian than Americans, they have almost zero connection with or adherence to the mores and values that Christianity infused America with. In Europe, the invaders are almost all Muslims. In both cases, at the same time that Christian culture evaporates, the people whose forebearers created Western are overwhelmed by invaders who don’t appreciate or share the culture in the first place.
That’s a recipe for disaster. Even famed atheist Richard Dawkins, who calls himself a “Cultural Christian“ recognizes that. “I call myself a cultural Christian, and I think it would be truly dreadful if we substituted any alternative religion.” Christianity built the modern world, and for all its imperfections, its successes far outweigh its failures.
There is simply no other religion, political philosophy, or human framework that has brought more freedom and more prosperity to more people than Christianity. As Christianity collapses throughout the West, civilization will necessarily follow. We already see it. From economic freedom to freedom of speech and much in between, the religious fictions embodied in the anti-western and anti-white philosophy are sowing social and economic ruin across the West.
As we celebrate this Christmas season with a glimmer of hope on the horizon, we would do well to remember that while a Christian West may not be perfect, it’s far superior to anything else yet created. If the West does not resurrect and respect Christianity and the society it produced, it will find itself reverting to the mean of human history, one characterized by scarcity, violence, and tyranny. Weak men rarely thrive in such a world.
