BRICS AND THE WESTERN PLAGUE

How comfortable are you in these fast-changing times in the West? Are you at one with the seemingly inexorable trend from traditional values toward anarchy or are you increasingly alienated by it?

If you live in what is loosely called the western world and are under approximately forty years of age it is quite possible that you will find this commentary quite odd. If so you will also no doubt feel that any complaint about how things are in these times is misguided. You will most probably consider we are all far better off than we have ever been before and that the ever greater freedom to be what we like, do what we like, identify as we like, look as we like and act as we like, with no restriction to our freedoms except those imposed by criminal law. Your attitude will be thoroughly liberal and you will consider yourself a progressive person who tolerates almost any behavior as an individual choice. You may even feel that the more eccentric behavior is the better, you enjoy the wild, colorful spectrum of what you consider to be a joyful anarchy. Those seeking good order, good manners, correct dress and a disciplined approach to life you will find rather objectionable and troublesome, perhaps even loathsome, people to be protested against and undermined until they are removed from any position of power.

We can see the most extreme form of this new way of being in the USA. There, in much of the society sexual preferences and identity are fluid. Modes of dress and behavior, attitude and interaction with others are in noticeable degree equally fluid. Overindulgence in alcohol and open-air drug-taking in these areas are largely seen as out of control due to policing of them having become almost impossible. Incidents of these are so common that the justice system can hardly cope. U.S. jails are the most populated worldwide. Incidents of drink driving and refusal to respect the authority of law officers to any degree, are rapidly increasing. U.S. cities, once clean and well ordered are now filthy, graffiti-infested with areas in the centre looking more like suburban ghettos where aggressive beggars room and the homeless or drug-addicted can be found slumped in doorways or lying sprawled on the sidewalk. Common courtesies and taking pride in one’s appearance are largely things of the past. Behaviors now are totally random with almost no predictability to them, encouraging fear of contact and avoidance of interaction. For those under forty none of this is of much concern. For them it may even be the milieu they feel comfortable in, one they find normal, even vital, exciting their interest. They may well feel at home.

For the vast majority who are over forty and who have experienced a relatively ordered upbringing I suspect none of the above feels at all right or comfortable. They will mostly feel these choices and forms of being are off-putting, perhaps even stomach-churningly unpleasant and dangerous. They have experienced the predictability of good behavior to some degree, they have known the benefits of orderliness, of the trust that builds when interactions with others have some commonality and agreement. They have grown to respect authority figures, fathers who taught them the behavior they knew would best serve them well in the world. (That is, in the world that is now passing in the western world.) Those over forty who experienced a traditional upbringing will most be feeling a strong sense of becoming an alien in their own land, something considered out of date and no longer wanted. They may well feel they must curb their wish for good, normal behavior as they see it, dress less well, be more slovenly, swear a bit more often, not shave quite as much, all to try to fit in with the new, anarchic norm.

The USA is descending ever deeper into a pit of chaos. Even a cursory glance reveals this across a spectrum of factors. Its society is in the midst of unstoppable decay. Though centres of order such as the Christian community, the well-heeled gated-community dwellers, the various sects such as the Amish, and those employed within mainstream occupations bemoan what is going on, they are powerless to reverse this inexorable trend downward. The USA is coming apart at the seams and the dark days of today portend far darker ones still to come.

Compare the USA whose influence has now become deeply embedded in the UK and is fast spreading across Europe, to any nation outside of this western sphere. There you will still find good order and traditional ways of life still valued, indeed unquestioned. In many of these lands there recent history has been one of relative poverty. They know without a shadow of a doubt what happens when you step out of the traditions that bind their societies together. The step into the darkness brought about by obstinate individualism in those societies leads to disaster, social isolation and a descent into abject poverty. It is the holding to family, community and the hard won disciplines of predictable manners and mores that have kept families just above the poverty line in solidarity for generations. These societies cannot afford anarchy, neither individually nor communally. Their survival depends on a hierarchy of authority which is respect. Though it may be unrelenting, and where necessary harsh, this predictable authority remains overwhelmingly respected due to the knowledge that without it the very structure of their common bond risks collapse.

If you are reading this in the West and can identify both what is wrong within the West and the trend toward an ever worsening situation, and can see also that only outside the West is there any escape from the insane decadence going on then I would urge support of those building BRICS toward maintaining cooperation through traditional foundations. Only if the polycentric world of BRICS expands and gains a secure foothold, defending the nations within its grouping from the western anarchy can we maintain hope fo the future. Without BRICS expansion the western societal plague will spread, ultimately, over time engulfing the entire planet. This is why it is absolutely imperative that the two primary builders of stability and upholders of traditional ways of living, China and Russia be supported at all costs. Only through them and those standing alongside them in BRICS will escape from the western plague be possible.