cont'd ...

If more and more nuclear weapons are built, and if
more sophisticated means of delivering them are devised,
and if more nations get control of these vile devices
then we surely risk our own destruction. Not only the
destruction of our civilization, but our planet.

The Western civilisation ?
Not perfect yet but better than any alternative.
Let the people decide.
How to decide that, well, which way is the migration going.
The catch 22 is that immigration may well end the west.
If those who come from a different culture want to change the west to
the culture they left, we need to ask them why did they come ?

The catch 22 is that immigration may well end the west.
Bazz,
You're on the money there ! The migrants/refugees from WW2 were workers, the new wave are nowhere near of that mentality !

Very interesting comments... sadly I'll need to think before contributing fully. It's good that there seems to be general agreement. As others have said most people agree on the problems but disagree on the solutions.

My feeling on the concept of "The Expert" is that everybody needs to think for themselves as to what is in their own best interest. While it's ok to use experts as tools it's not ok to have a "dictatorship of experts".

Experts are as fallible to human sins as any other group. James Burnham talked of Managerialism which seems similar to a dictatorship of experts. He seems to believe that Managerialism is the basis of Evolutionary Communism in the modern age.

Anyway thanks for the stimulating ideas.

What a fascinating topic.

First of all, I have always viewed myself as 'human' before anything else. In other words, there is good and bad in every human being, weather that person be from the 'west' the 'east' or wherever. It therefore follows that there are positive and negative aspects of all cultures, religions or idiologies. The major failings in all of them have been the inability to recognise and acknowledge the shortcomings and extend the positive aspects in both ourselves and others.

Two quick examples of this here in Australia are:
1) The general failure of white Australians to recognise or accept the knowledge indigenous Australians could contribute towards land management and bush fire mitigation.
2) A Sth. Sudanese migrant after living in Australia for several years, said that she was financially much better off than before, but spiritually much poorer.

So to say that one culture is better than the other is, I think, inaccurate.

What does the future hold for western civilization? Equally good question.

When the ‘leading lights’ of western civilisation invade other countries, imposing ‘peace and democracy’ upon them at the point of a gun, they are inviting completely justified scorn and mockery upon their actions

Continued ...

I'm drawn to a French economist (whose name I have forgotten) whose general thesis goes something like: After the 2 world wars in the early 20th century, the aristocrats and elites were forced to relinquish certain rights (i.e. working conditions and pay, equality of opportunity etc.) in order to rebuild. The subsequent growth of the middle classes is a historical blimp, and now that everything has been rebuilt, we are witnessing a return to the traditional situation of the very rich and the very poor.

This is glaringly evident in the current divide with the top 1% owning 90% of the world's resources. Equality of justice has also gone missing resulting in the growth of the movements such as BLM. When people like Hasbeen claim "...These clowns don't realise it is hard work, not noisy protests & destruction that get results, but this would not suit them with not a single working bone in their body..." they are being wilfully ignorant of other people's reality.

With the arrival of COVID-19 and its disruption to both the physical wellbeing of the population and the interruption to current economic norms, anything is possible. Personally I hope that we don’t return to the immediate past, reimagining the world as clones of Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher, but rather grasp the opportunity to positively restructure and reorganise, just as we did in the early part of last century