The Big Blank Out of '08

So cities around the world are going dark for an hour as a sign of "solidarity" with the earth/environment and to highlight the "threat" of human caused global climate change (in one direction or another since it seems that any "change" from whatever is "normal" is caused by us)? Why stop for an hour? Why not keep them all off all the time, every day, every month, every year? We can join those prophets of a couple hundred years ago, the Luddites, and smash all the lights. We can even devote whole days to the task (obviously not the nights) of destroying these "threats" to our and, more importantly, our planet's survival; these horribly insidious coils of tungsten and tubes full of gas.

Millions of people have already given up the benefits of hundreds of years of scientific knowledge and research and achievement in their food (for all of those "organic" consumers out there, I'm referring to you), why not go another step? A few "brave" prophets have even willingly given up the advances of medical science, the car, and the house. We can return to candles, or even better, live in pitch darkness as people did before candles were made cheaply available. Granted, there won't be much of a night life, but then again, night lives only consume energy, and energy consumption "hurts" our beloved planet and environment. What better way to prove our "solidarity" and "concern" than this, a minor sacrifice of our enjoyment of life? Life itself, in the exhalation of carbon dioxide is harmful, and the methane produced by the animals we use to support our continued existence in large numbers has been pointed to as a leading culprit in harming our "pristine" globe. Something must obviously be done.

The world is going mad in its attempts to undo civilization and its greatest achievements. We are so far removed (in the Western world anyway) from the horribly tragic and meagre material existence of only a few centuries ago that we can, without the slightest bit of thought, throw it all away without even looking back (or thinking we should even have to look back at all). That the governments in allegedly free countries around the world can actually forcibly deny power to those who would otherwise be willing and able (that is to pay) to use it is a travesty and a bleak sign of the state of things.

It's hard to imagine why Bin Laden and his cronies hate the West so much and want to destroy it right this very moment. The West, by and large, hates itself and given a few more years will willingly destroy itself and everything that made it great. Few western intellectuals defend western technology and science. In fact, the case is quite the opposite, they excoriate both as mere fronts for power and imperialism, clever masks for racism and ultimately "arbitrary" anyway, no better than "alternative" ways of dealing with reality like "magic" and other forms of mystical denials of reality practiced by primitives around the world in the past as well as now. Even more, Western science and technology are far worse because they assert an intellectual superiority which is illusory (according to these learned thinkers) and which have caused the subjugation of the entire world, its people and environment, under the pillage of their evil parent: capitalism.

Western intellectuals will not stand up and combat their foes around the world largely because they agree with them and do not see them as foes. Obviously they, for the most part, disdain Bin Laden's religious fervor, but they do not disdain his hate for the West, because they also hate it. Ever since Rousseau and Kant declared war on the Enlightenment and all that it had set in motion (every achievement of the West, in science, art, government, etc. can be traced back to that movement or the Renaissance which slightly preceded it) it has become the default position of nearly every Western intellectual to lament the achievements of the west, to fret, to whine, to wring their hands and contemplate some alternate "Utopia." Unfortunately, politicians and large numbers of people (who ignored these intellectuals for the most part, which in turn contributed greatly to their whining) are now jumping on the bandwagon of taking western achievement out of its historical and necessary context.

Now we can apparently have free governments without respect for individual rights. We can have all the material benefits of western civilization while we destroy the very foundation of their production. We can have the west without the west. Of course, all of this is a horrendous contradiction and quite impossible. Giving up Western civilization and not lifting a hand or a mind in its defense will not lead to a paradise of all the material benefits of the west minus all those western ideas that are apparently so despised by western leaders, intellectuals, and growing segments of the people. It will lead to North Korea, a country far "ahead" of the west in killing those evil lights. Just look at the satellite photos of that country at night, it exists in darkness amid a sea of electricity. They are certainly in solidarity with their environment. If that is our goal as peoples and as a civilization then we must stop kidding ourselves about having our cake and eating it too.

We will have the benefits of the intellectual achievements of our illustrious forefathers, which requires us to acknowledge what those benefits require; which requires that we stop apologizing to everyone for our alleged faults and misdeeds and actually proclaim the superiority of our way of life to in the face of competing alternatives. Or, alternatively, we will try the impossible and fail. Our affluence and abundance is currently so great, so unbelievably vast, that the idea of it vanishing seems impossible and absurd. It would certainly mark the greatest collapse of any civilization in the history of the world, but it is not, regrettably, impossible. Ideas and actions have consequences in reality. To persist in the irrational folly of the savages, which is what I will now refer to environmentalists as because that is clearly what they are intellectually, will lead us to the very state of existence which they desire. A state of existence almost too horrible to contemplate and a state of existence which will make the murderous designs of history's most evil tyrants seem like slaps on the hand in terms of death and destruction.

Bin Laden need only wait. At it's current rate of decline, the West will do the job for him. It may take a little longer than he would like, but the job will get done all the same and more fundamentally and lastingly than his crude methods could ever hope to achieve. This big blank out of '08, in ways poignantly symbolized by the hour long blackout, is a troubling sign indeed for everyone who unabashedly loves Western civilization and all that it means. Let it be a call to action. If we do not point out the cause and effect of ideas and actions, defend our greatness against all-comers, at home as well as abroad, then this will be only the first of increasingly longer and more devastating blackouts and blank outs in our near future. Where it will lead should be incentive enough to get started.