Notre Dame: Symbol of a Failing Culture

Like many I was horrified on so many levels by the news of the fire which engulfed the iconic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

The thing that makes me truly sad is that my first reaction to the news wasn’t basic human safety concerns. My first reaction was to jump to the political ramifications and ask cui bono?

Who benefits from this?

In this hyper-politicized world every act has an agenda. And with so many false flags, failing governments, simmering (or actually boiling) culture wars and rampant ideological insanity it is nearly impossible to dismiss them.

Meanwhile, one of the great symbols and repositories of human achievement was nearly destroyed by either carelessness, neglect, malicious intent or a sinister combination of all three.

And people were cheering this. Notre-Dame de Paris: T... Charles River Editors Best Price: $7.38 Buy New $6.99 (as of 06:35 UTC - Details)

While I’m lamenting my cynical initial reaction there were people all across the globe cheering the destruction of an integral part of human history.

That should frighten you.

It shows just how deeply ingrained the current divides are.

It shows how fallen and corrupt of spirit the culture has become.

It’s religious significance is secondary to this. If it was just an expression of the rivalry between Islam and Christianity that would be regrettable if understandable.

What’s worse to me is descendants of those that built Notre Dame cheering this event because they’ve been inculcated to hate religion of all forms by their Marxist education.

They’ve been effectively immunized against feeling anything but contempt for themselves and their history.

History is history. It doesn’t have an agenda. It exists, for better or worse, to remind us that who we are today is the sum total of who we were then.

Marxists fundamentally believe in creating a man without a history, without connection to his past to mold him into the New Soviet Man.

Argue with me about this all you want Bernie Bros, Corbynites and Richard Wolff acolytes, this is the point of this French post-modernist “life is an absurd simulation” nonsense. It’s simply an excuse to justify the inherent envy at the core of all Marxist thought.

And yet, for as much as I despise Marxism in all its forms, if instead of Notre Dame the Gulag History State Museum in Moscow burned up I would feel just as sad.

I no more want to see statues of Confederate Generals removed or the Stars and Bars wiped from our collective memory than I want to see anyone ever be sold into chattel slavery.

Because a people without a past, incapable of facing the evil they’ve done, is a people on a path to self-righteous crusades that far exceed any horrors previously committed.

Think about the insane atrocities of the 20th century and then remember it was done in the name of creating a better human.

People without history have no context. They are unstuck in time having to relearn lessons which our ancestors built monuments to remind us of what we’re capable of for better or worse.

While the French government took years to raise €12 million to renovate Notre Dame despite having the highest tax rate in the world, private donations to rebuild it topped $1 billion in the first 48 hours after the fire was put out.

This is gratifying in a way that is almost beyond words. And it makes a mockery of the statist arguments for government to replace private charity and private property.

If the French, themselves to birthplace of this post-modern and most sinister form of Marxism, had left even a smidge of capital for their people to enjoy maybe we wouldn’t be mourning/cheering Notre Dame today.

Reprinted with permission from Gold Goats ‘n Guns.