Dear Dennis,
To err is to be human. But tweeting — so sorry. When in June I decided to delete my Twitter account, I was kind of guided by that, although I can’t avoid the first, I, at least, can prevent the second. Not all thoughts that come to mind smart person, really smart. Therefore, you should think twice before sharing them with other people.
“Word — silver, silence — gold”. I’m sure you know this proverb.
That is why I read your tweet published on July 14, with a certain degree of skepticism.
“The Western media are a much more serious threat to Western civilization than Russia,” wrote Dennis Prager (Dennis Prager) on Twitter. [Prager is a conservative radio host and columnist.]
Honestly, it seemed to be a kind of involuntary mental burp which many of us suffer moments of political irritation — for example, conservatives often come across it while reading the editorial columns of the New York Times.
At first, I thought that you just can’t seem to think so. But it turns out that can.
On Tuesday, July 18, you again repeated this thought in his article for the online publication Townhall. “The real threat to Western civilization is the loss of Western civilization’s faith in itself — you write. And in this sense Russia is no threat, while the media and the universities dominated by liberals, turn into an existential threat.”
You clever man, Dennis, this is your column really deserves attention. “To criticize the actions of the media is not the same as to criticize the very existence of the media” — you write. It’s true. “Putin is indeed a murderous quasi-dictator” —acknowledge you. You only need to remove the prefix “quasi”, and then all will be right. “Civilization involves a certain set of ideas and values,” you add, emphasizing that nuclear weapons Russia can’t destroy Western civilization. What is your understanding of civilization.
At the end of your article you provide a list of various threats to Western civilization arising in connection with the promotion of multiculturalism, critical attitude to the achievements of “dead white males” and so on, noting that Putin did not have these threats irrelevant. Many of these threats are really quite serious, although I’m not sure that the statement of Justin Trudeau (Justin Trudeau) that “Canada is no core identity, no mainstream” is to consider spenglerism moment in the history of the decline of the West.
Yes, higher education institutions and the media many shortcomings. They should criticize, but not to be afraid. Stupid conservatives often think that there is any defect in their work symptom of cancer of civilization. Wise conservatives like Adam Smith, you know that “in every nation incorporated a lot of grains of death”.
Wiser conservatives — and I count you among them — also know that when we talk about “the West”, we mean a very specific concept. In the end, Marx and Lenin, too, was part of the Western tradition, as Heidegger with Hitler.
For us “West” is a liberal-democratic tradition, which is most concisely and accurately formulated in the Declaration of independence. “All men are created equal”. “Consent of the governed”. “The laws of nature and of its Creator.” “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Everything else — from “Exodus” to the Gettysburg address is the comments.
So we formed a conservative no time for anti-liberalism, typical of the right, on relativism, typical of the left. And this is why the wise conservatives perceive the threat posed by Vladimir Putin seriously. He is a defender and the most insidious as representative of anti-liberalism, and relativism.
Developing crypto ideology, combining ferocious ethnic chauvinism and revanchism, economic corporatism, some of the features of religious traditionalism and the cult of personality, he became a role model for aspiring autocrats around the world, from Hungary and Turkey to the Philippines.
With the help of RT and other tools of Kremlin propaganda Putin teams up with his old comrades of the far-right wing. The goal is to weaken the West any way from the publication of military and diplomatic secrets by WikiLeaks, and interference in democratic processes and undermine their legitimacy before the formation of the image of a “state within a state”, which suppresses the will of the people.
It is not surprising that the best book about Putin’s Russia was called “Nothing is true and everything is possible.” It was written by Peter Pomerantsev (Peter Pomerantsev). Relativism is the lubricant necessary for the operation of the mechanisms of anti-liberalism. That is why we, representatives of the movement NeverTrumpers, the perceived relationship between the uncontrolled lies, and his undisguised sympathy for Putin — a relationship that goes far beyond who said what at last year’s meeting at trump tower. This relationship is philosophical.
To remain indifferent to the truth and facts — that the highest expression of power. This means to say, nothing holding us back — not what I promised yesterday, nor what I’m saying or what I can do tomorrow. So does Putin in Russia. This is trump in the United States. Worse still, many conservatives who should be wiser, justify one President and unanimously supports the other.
Dennis, your wish has been granted: Hillary Clinton was not President and never will be. However, the task of the public intellectual, such as you, is not to over the next few years trying to justify their choice. It is how to see things as they are. The assertion that Putin is just a minor obstacle and Maggie Haberman (Maggie Haberman) and David Sanger (David Sanger) — is an existential threat to our civilization, can hardly be called an attempt to see things as they are.
First, conservatives believed that liberals are wrong and liberals think conservatives are evil. Trump led to the decline of the conservative movement, turning us into a mirror reflection of what we first blamed liberals. He turned us into haters.
Don’t be a hater, Dennis. Think again about your stupid tweet.
