I picked up this article at Instapundit and when I went to the link it turned out to be an article from Quadrant, an article that is of the utmost importance in our world. The Quadrant title is Ideologies Have Consequences which explains nothing about what follows after since anyone can say that. But the article, written by John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is far far more than that. What the article is about is what I have called progressive internationalism (discussed here, here, here and here), while he has used the phrase “transnational progressivism”. Both, however, come to the same thing. It is the desire to do away with the nation state and replace it with a world of itinerant and floating individuals, detached from any kind of historic homeland, a post-post-modernism of world citizenship in which everyone is alienated from their roots, disembodied from any traditional way of life or system of belief. It is an impossibility, since no one can live like that, but that is the aim. A community will re-establish itself, but it will be nothing like what we have previously known. And when it really comes down to it, only our Western civilisation is under threat, since nowhere else has modernity even begun to determine how things are done, never mind even post-modernity, which has been at the centre of our own cultural chaos for the past half century.

The article is long, and follows many rabbits down many burrows – in itself a problem – and never seems to define what is meant by transnational progressivism. This seems to be about as close as he gets, coming in two parts. First this:

Western Leftists promote (in varying degrees and where politically possible) what they call “global governance”, meaning the building of supranational institutions and policies that diminish the role of the nation-state, including the democratic nation-state. The ultimate goal of this grand ideological project is the creation of an increasingly integrated global order with laws and institutions that are superior to those of the nation-state.

That’s the “transnational” part. In relation to “progressivism”, there is this:

Progressives focus on promoting what they call “marginalised” groups, such as women, LGBT people, racial minorities, linguistic minorities, immigrants, particularly Muslims. For example, the Western Left calls for “gender parity” (imposed proportional representation) across the board in all institutions of civic life, by fiat if necessary (violating the tenets of a free society). They tout an adversarial multiculturalism or identity politics that problematises national patriotic cultures, traditional institutions (religion, family), the concepts of free speech, individual citizenship and equality under the law (because the marginalised groups are awarded special rights). . . . The general trajectory of today’s Western Left is away from class conflict and towards new antagonisms. These new (post-1960s) fault lines are based on ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, language, religion, globalism and other issues that are even more divisive for national cohesion than traditional class struggle.

A world of endless grievances in which the centre will not hold. This is my version, which I called progressive internationalism in the article linked above:

The nation state has to go, or at least the nation states of the first world. No more Australia, at least no more than say an Italy within the EU. It is a kind of World Government idiocy. . . . Once we have been overwhelmed by migration, nothing of what we built will remain, other than some of those technologies we were able to develop. The rest will be utterly swept away in a sea of blended barbarism. The only part I have never understood – other than through envy and hatred (including self-hatred) – is why would anyone wish to see these changes taking place.

Not all cultures are the same, and what is undeniable and absolutely true is that not all national histories are the same. I don’t live in an economy, I live in a society that has its own past and traditions. It is where I call home. There is, however, an international elite doing all it can to undermine these nationalities of ours, who see economic advantage in wiping out our homelands, traditions, cultural values and histories. And they are going to do it, have no doubt about it, since it is almost impossible for most people to see what is going on, and it is even harder to get most people at the elite level either to see why it matters or think through what to do.

Read the article with these thoughts in mind and you will see what he is getting at. Also read the comments at Instapundit, which are depressing since few who read even there thought the article worth commenting on, and even then, only a small proportion of the handful who have commented seem to have any idea what the article is trying to say.

Fonte has written a book, Sovereignty or Submission?, which spells it out in more detail. There is little any of us can do about any of it, but at least you will be able to follow events with a deeper understanding of what is being done.

The background:

Published on Mar 14, 2016

A talk by Alan Charles Kors, co-founder of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Universities once believed themselves to be sacred enclaves, where students and professors could debate the issues of the day and arrive at a better understanding of the human condition. Today, sadly, this ideal of the university is being quietly betrayed from within. Universities still set themselves apart from American society, but now they do so by enforcing their own politically correct worldview through censorship, double standards and a judicial system without due process. Faculty and students who threaten the prevailing norms may be forced to undergo “thought reform.” In a surreptitious about-face, universities have become the enemy of a free society, and the time has come to hold these institutions to account.

This talk is a stinging indictment of the covert system of justice on college campuses, exposing the widespread reliance of on kangaroo courts and arbitrary punishment to coerce students and faculty into conformity.

Dr. Kors lays bare the totalitarian mindset that undergirds speech codes, conduct codes, and “campus life” bureaucracies, through which a cadre of deans and counselors indoctrinate students and faculty in an ideology that favors group rights over individual rights, sacrificing free speech and academic freedom to spare the sensitivities of currently favored groups.

[Via Instapundit]

Here is the question, posed in the title: Does Immigration Mean The End Of Western Civilization?

Once you get beyond the handwringing about racism and fascism, Raspail’s polemical—at times frantic—novel is really about this collective loss of soul. A culture is in the end a way of life, even an identity. When one grows to love all the particular customs and traditions of one’s culture, it can be very much like loving a person. It is something unique in the world, and it belongs to you.

And soon the territory will belong to others of an alien culture. Little of what we once knew will survive. Why it will matter less than it might have is that the generation to come are already barbarous, so will meet the invaders half way and eventually split the difference. As for Mozart and Shakespeare, where are they now anyway?

We were talking on the weekend about which of the following attributes we would choose if we could choose only one while the other two were in the normal range: intelligence, good looks or wealth. Most of us chose intelligence, which shows the kind of people I typically hang out with. Nor do I think a review of this book on The Curse of High IQ would have made any of us change our minds.

The book makes the point that high IQ people have a harder time in the world since much of society is set up for the average. Those with a high IQ end up wasting a lot of time because the average person wants to buy lottery tickets with a check or doesn’t seem to mind standing in line or wasting time. Because of this, a high IQ person’s time is wasted since they spend much of it waiting or being annoyed by those who are average. Friends are hard to make because high IQ people have fewer people statistically to choose from. And marriage or partnership? Clarey says it is difficult. For example, abnormally intelligent men face two unique problems when it comes to dating:

1. Very few equally-intelligent women to choose from
2. Not caring because their hormones are rendering their massive IQs completely useless.

These men end up choosing a “hot, crazy matrix” until they are 30 and more experienced.

But this ends with a lot of pain and difficulty. Had the man been average, he might have had more choices and partners to choose from–and not suffered from as much angst and difficulty.

Not that, in my experience, most people of high intelligence are any the happier for it, whereas wealth and beauty can do many things that make for a very nice life. Yet each can also be a curse. But possibly the most intriguing part about having high intelligence is that unless you are recognised as such – you are an Einstein, say – most other people will think you’re an idiot, while no matter how smart you are or you aren’t, you will think your intelligence is superior to everyone else around you.