The Owl of Minerva
The German philosopher Hegel famously said of political history “The Owl of Minerva takes Flight at Dusk.”
From Greek mythology, this Owl represented Wisdom, Knowledge, Thought, the Ideology of a Social System. When that political order was finished, about to end, its Thought System had reached its zenith. The Ideology justifying an era reached full development just as that order collapsed.
The thought system of the seemingly predominant order of Liberalism, Globalism, Radicalism now seems predominant. It has just established total power in the government by means of manipulation and intrigue, corruption and censorship. But these are not methods of a young, strong, healthy regime, but of an old, weak, desperate, dying system. Medieval ideology and “show” reached its zenith just as feudalism, monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings collapsed and was supplanted by industry, trade, and republican government.
The triumph of Democratic Globalism and its Ideology of Diversity, Perversity, and Relativism ascends just as a new system of technology, living and working, more compatible with traditional American ideals of individualism with community, freedom, and rights (see my book, THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON) emerges.
As written on this site, “Trumpism: Old and New,” this Administration’s policies and ethos (family, faith, freedom, and country) are actually more “progressive” than the Left’s Centralism, Censorship, and Control (the 3 “C’s”). It would have been nice if a second term would have completed the change from One World-ism of USA/China/EU/Iran to the Newer World Order of USA/UK/India/Israel; but the technological, social, and human forces leading that way will not stop.
A recent article in American Greatness: “The Rise of Traditionalists in Network Society,” reveals this. Under the radar of Big Government, Regulation, Control, Crime, and Depravity, a world of freedom, real equality, alternative media, and traditional values emerges.
How this will all work out will be interesting to watch. I recommend reading the Conservative novelist Evelyn Waugh’s book HELENA, about the mother of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome. His conversion did not stop the decline of the Roman Empire into cruel domination, chaos, and immorality; but it set the stage for the expansion of the Church across Europe, which effectively saved Western Civilization. It would have been nice to live during the virtuous early Roman Republic, just as our lives would be easier under the earlier moral, law abiding, prosperous, free America. But as with Rome, God in His Mercy and Grace will preserve the best of Americanism with Natural Law, and will advance it in a newer system.
The Owl of Minerva has taken flight and it is Night in America; but there will be a New Dawn.
By: Professor Garrett Ward Sheldon
Image at top from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_of_Athena#/media/File:Tetradrachm_Athens_480-420BC_MBA_Lyon.jpg
