Enjoying the Flight

History books, as we know, are mostly written by the victors. They contain only a small, variable percentage of truth; the rest is narrative in line with the cultural hegemony of the moment. Today, that hegemony is Enlightenment-minded and progressive, and so it cannot see the natural cyclical pattern (birth, growth, decline, destruction) that every civilisation of every age goes through, none excepted.

“Young” civilisations have a communal sense, a spirit of sacrifice, a sense of something that surpasses and towers over the individual. Declining ones have always been marked by falling birth rates, ethical and moral corruption, a loss of values (nihilism) and the glorification of comfort.

The cycle cannot be reversed: it is part of the natural process that All follows and directs. Yet there is a heroic sense of beauty in resisting decadence, in doing everything possible to remain standing amid the cultural rubble, in holding on to an ethical sense regardless of what surrounds us, and in safeguarding the preciousness of the spirit in an age of grim materialism.

During the fall, then, we can enjoy the flight!

m.m.