A Lonely Outpost of Civilization posted by Richard Seymour

This frontiersman holds a lonely vigil. Gazing wistfully across the terrain from a desolate watchtower, he sees the barbarians gather their forces. Illiberal. Despotic. Pre-Enlightened. Irrational. And, most terrible of all, utterly incapable of appreciating the lofty ends to which he has dedicated himself. It is perfectly maddening. In a manly fashion he gathers his nerve, holds his chin aloft, and presses the button marked 'civilization'. In seconds, a cruise missile whizzes noiselessly past the reinforced windows, streaks across the barren land, and slams into the hordes of ingrates. His satisfaction at the pacific effect this has is despoiled, however, by the thought of treachery within. He thinks of those who are "ready to undermine our struggle and support our deadly enemies in all these places". He reaches for the education pamphlet and directs his attention to the 'squared circle'. How, he wonders, could anyone fail to be impressed by its pedagogic simplicity?



In its minimalist beauty it draws out a multitude of relations, distills thousands of concepts into their essentials, and throws the most obscure dimensions of global politics into sharp relief. It bears the magisterial authority of Renan, Spengler, Schmitt, Strauss and Huntington. Who could refuse it? Only cynics, naysayers and nihilists. Only the enemies of reason and Enlightenment! His reverie is interrupted by a ferocious din - some of the more restless natives are being interrogated in a chamber below his station. They can wail like banshees, call down curses, fret, weep, imprecate, invoke the authority of the Almighty - but they usually quieten down as they dangle from the strappado and the pressure gathers on their chest. The agonised howling goes on. He smiles as he hears a familiar crackle: the modern miracle of electricity!

His grin fades as he reflects on what a grim business it all is, and he resumes his meditations on the troubling domestic treachery. The Lord Wellington Society has published several articles of his on this very topic. The problem of active subversion is itself the most manageable problem. Essentially, they can be eliminated in much the same way as the unfortunate captives in the floor below. Even more worrisome are idle critics who, from the comfort of homes protected by he and his Rough Riders Militia, give all manner of comfort to the subversives and, in so doing, provide the best aid to an implacable foe. There will have to be a purge, he resolves. When this territory is at last settled and cultivated with the values of liberal modernity, the Riders will reconquer the homeland. A healthy society cannot long stomach these illiberal, intolerant elements. In the meantime, he spots another battalion of deceptively unarmed Islamofascists sweeping in from the slum quarters of the city, bearing portraits of their riff-raff leader. Some appear to be carrying miniature coffins. "Sorry chaps," he mutters sternly, "but this is an unauthorised manifestation of anti-liberal chauvinism." Within moments, he has called in the helicopters. The ground reddens, the sky blackens, and a depuratory fire consumes the terrorists before discharging them in splendid atramentous pulses into the atmosphere. From all directions the elegant copters converge, circle above in an elegaic dance and discharge round after round of liberal democratic values. Amid the Wagnerian glory of this Gotterdammerung, our frontiersman pauses to transcribe the lapidary thought: "There is No Left or Right; There Is Only Us and Them; If You Are Not With Us, You Are With Them. Exterminate All The Brutes!"

Labels: after the cataclysm, clash of civilisations, friend/enemy distinction, huntington, imperial ideology, leo strauss, neoconservatism, orientalism, renan, schmitt, spengler, west