Politics · Society

Western Culture Lacks Aim and Purpose

I recently read a book on the collapse of Nazi Germany. The content is not particularly relevant for this blog, but one comment by the author of that book is. He pointed out that the purpose of Hitler’s Germany was war. War was the chosen method of expanding the nation’s territory. Among people who romanticize Nazi Germany, the thought experiment of what could have been if Hitler hadn’t attacked Russia has a certain fascination as there is some reason to believe that this would have prevented World War II. Similarly, some wonder what would have happened had Hitler won World War II. That historian had an interesting view on that topic. According to him, war was such a driving force of the Nazis that they would simply have found another enemy to go after, had they defeated the Allied forces.

I reflected on the thought that the aim and purpose of the Nazi empire was war. Then I wondered what the aim and purpose of today’s Western world is and I concluded that there is a big vacuum. Probably the last time there was a genuine goal any big nation got behind was when the United States sent a man on the moon — that was made possible via Nazi scientists, by the way. Yet, the U.S. space program was merely a response to the so-called Sputnik shock. If you’ve slept through history class, or went to a shitty public school and don’t know about it: Sputnik is the name of the first satellite sent in orbit. The U.S. thought there were sleeping behind the wheel and ended up pumping untold amounts of money into NASA.

The moon landing took place in July 1969. That was half a century ago. What other grand goals have we pursued? I see absolutely nothing.

If you asked the average guy what his goal in life is, he’ll probably tell you about the stuff he likes to buy, the media he likes to consume, and the porn stars he likes jerking off, too. Quite frankly, I can’t blame them because your typical dead-end job hardly inspires you to greatness. Some people are in the very fortunate position that they have further hills to climb in their career, though. Yet, even many jobs that once required a significant amount of creativity and intelligence have been dumbed down. Nowadays, you can even do a lot of science by the numbers.

It could be the case that all the low-hanging fruit have been picked on a societal level. Yet, just like a man without a purpose likely ends up drifting, so does a nation. Sure, we could make it a goal to dramatically increase the standard of living in our own country, but that is probably too mundane a goal. The elites who run our societies live in great comfort already, so why bother about making out cities safe again and fixing our infrastructure — Hitler did that, by the way. Lacking any purpose and goal, our contemporary politicians thus seem to think that playing Good Samaritan is the only play left. Sadly, because they seem to live in a complete fantasy land, they make decisions that may well wreck a prosperous country. On that note, Germany is going down fast, accelerated by bringing in well over a million “doctors and engineers” from Africa and the Middle East.

There is some hope left, though, as chaos and disorder will give some men the motivation to rise up and fix the mess they find themselves in. Look no further than Austria and Italy. Yet, what will the great purpose be after restoring order?


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One thought on “Western Culture Lacks Aim and Purpose

  1. One great purposea society/nation could dedicate itself to could be reestablishing the Roman empire, eastern and western part together, as an institution of strength and inspiraton on its original historical and philosophical roots within our digital, technical age.
    But alas, this would inevitably entail conflict, hard decisions and even warfighting.

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