Foundation Myths
The importance of good foundation myths
Foundations like anything in life must be good. Much like a house, a bad foundation will eventually collapse the house very quickly. People are taught foundations; values; as they age throughout life. Creating those foundations is crucial before and even during a person’s teenage years. As they tend to solidify into your adulthood and only a shattering amount of force is needed to change such foundation.
Nations are much the same, they are the macro scale of what the people of those societies value and hold as foundations. A few examples of the past include Germany and Austria-Hungary’s values in frugality, a sense of duty, and diligence. Great Britain and The United States value in self-reliance, an entrepreneurial spirit, and the civilizing mission. So how do you recognize a foundation myth? It fulfills three functions.
1) It explains the origin and structure of the world (and society).
2) It defines ultimate good and evil (and from those definitions are derived the values that are used to justify the holding of power).
3) lt determines what is held sacred in that society.
For the 19th-century Europeans, their foundation myth was reborn. A wide range of factors but at its core was the aftermath of nearly a decade of fighting the Napoleonic wars and the Congress of Vienna set the stage for peace and prosperity in Europe.
They lived in the post-Napolean world, everything from how the military was structured to the distribution of men's material and banking was done.
Its ultimate good was that Tradition and Order were still the correct and just way to run a society. While it varied from country to country, the fundamentals each had built over centuries remained intact. Britain’s Parliament, Prussian Militarism, Austrian Tradition, etc. Yet a new force was born across Europe Nationalism. Liberalism and Democracy were, for the most part except for Britain, shunned in favor of Strong Monarchs and Diplomats
Order and stability can be defined as the guiding forces with a strong Christian backing.
With a foundation set across Europe, the entire continent was able to focus on strong internal matters with some flare-ups that were solved mostly diplomatically or without a high body count. The Victorian Era was filled to the brim with great men of this period from influential diplomats like Bismark and Venizelos, to men of Industry Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. All the way to WWI men of this stature and skill were born and prospered all across Europe. Europeans dominated wherever they went. From a British East India Company conquering a subcontinent. The French Subdueing Algeria. Bismark’s plans for a Unified Germany. Venizelos nearly realized the plan for a Megali Greece. Every great power taking bites the Qing dynasty.
It is not without reason that people call it the Belle Époque” in Europe or “the Gilded Age” in America, where a deluge of innovation and strong leaders were able to propel the continent forward at a rapid pace even compared to the nations of North Africa and the Ottomans where, in theory, technological osmosis should have occurred across the Mediterranean were instead conquered by the nations of Europe.
This brings us to WW1 and WW2, these two wars destroyed the old foundation myth by the death of millions of good men who believed in the old mythos. However, the old mythos held out battered but still held. WW2 shattered the foundation, over 50 million men bled out across the fields of Europe and Asia and with the Napoleonic mythos turned to rubble two new mythos emerged to prop up over 100 nations’ across the world.
For the Modern European, the story of WWII is that main foundation myth. It fulfils all 3 functions!
We live in the 'Post-War World'. The lines on the map, the institutions, and the sense of what era we live in, all arise from the starting point of WWII.
The ultimate evil is Nazis. The ultimate good is opposing Nazis. The values derived from these definitions are anti-racism, equality, diversity, anti-nationalism, and so on:
The only thing that is held sacred, that cannot be denied or mocked in Europe, is the Holocaust.
For the Former Colonies of Europe, it can be described as Such
The former colonies lived in the post-independence. The lines on the map, the institutions(upkept or not), and the sense of what era they live in, all arise from the various points at which they were given (Tunisia, Uganda, etc) or violently acquired (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Mozambique, etc), their independence.
The ‘Ultimate Good’ can be described as removing the shackles from their colonial oppressors and taking control of their own destinies. These values derived from them are a sense of Nationalism(Ethnic or not), Supremacy of one group over another, and sometimes the destruction of what was perceived as too European
What is held ‘Sacred’ is their view on independence, it is a good thing, and we should do everything we can to preserve it. Those who say otherwise are horrible people (Some more successful than others at this)
These two foundations have been at the core of at least 100 nations for the last 60-80 years. Each one of these foundations has produced drastically different results over time. We see this in the culture and even in the population demographics. The most important note between what is the European mythos, is how antithetical it is to their former colonies.
Bad Foundations of Modern Europe
The problem for Europe is that all 3 functions are backward or negative. While the post-colonial nations are neutral at worst.
Instead of the origin event being one of fertility and new life, World War 2 was a conflagration of death and destruction. A horror brought upon the world that echos so hard you see it in population pyramids.
Instead of ultimate good taking the central position in the story that slot is occupied by ultimate evil. Everyone knows that Hitler, the personification of evil, holds the center point of the WWII story. No man of our age holds that much contempt in our culture.
Instead of that which is held sacred being something mysterious and sublime, it (the Holocaust) is an obscenity.
Having a negative foundation myth means the tree of life for Europeans and by extension those who fought in WW2 is poisoned. Everything we as a society believe is set against the backdrop of this awful past. This tree is no tree, it is a strangler fig.
So what has the World War 2 mythos brought about for the modern European? It can be said it gutted the religious narrative, Which is a massive factor in reproduction. in the Bible and Quran, there are variations of “Be Fruitful and Multiply”. But once you look at fertility rates around the 60s and 70s the new mythos would have grown up in those young children born during WW2. this is when the crash of fertility rates began occurring across Europe. Some point to contraceptives just being invented, which probably didn’t help the matter. In post-colonial countries, this same demographic shift just is not seen, and in the places that had seen something like it, notably in South Africa it was only the white population that had a birthrate collapse down below replacement.
Then there is anti-nationalism, a very strange phenomenon not seen elsewhere in human history. Everyone has a tribe, a group of people they prefer. Europe seems to be a negative kneejerk reaction to suddenly having a preference for your own kind. It reminds those in power of the horrors of WW2. There is the ever-strange disconnect that it’s okay for them to be proud of their culture and heritage, but for the Europeans it’s seen as shameful to around half the population. Those on the Communist side of the Iron Curtain retained the nationalistic values as a way to rebel against the Soviet system placed upon them. Other than those there is a pervasive “The West is evil.” mentality in our institutions and we must atone for the sins of our past. Etc but never do we examine the pre-colonial histories and find just how barbaric it was back then. Before the European conquest of North Africa and the Arab world. The Arabs were huge movers of slaves, why do we not see the effects of their slave trade? Cause unlike Europeans the Arabs castrated their slaves.
Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Equality are intertwined. Racism is almost non-existent and in many studies, only White Europeans are for the most part color blind, and it’s not difficult to see why. The men of WW2 across the colonial empires came across some intelligent men of different creeds. Leading lives of wealth and intelligence just as the white man. So how could it be wrong? From Post-Apartheid South Africa, and Zimbabwe, American inner cities of major metropolis, and now increasingly across European inner metropolis, we see the disintegration of the industry and infrastructure that has held these cities together, crime is rampant and is increasingly undealt in all 3 continents and any attempts to enforce the law is met with loud outrage. The infrastructure is collapsing as the people who know how to maintain it leave and the replacement workers either don’t know or care to keep maintenance properly.
So how would one go about trying to make a new foundation? The answer has two routes. Gut the old wounds which entails gutting the Elites of our nations. That is the slow and painful way to do it. We see this response all the time as people every so often see what the mythos do to society.
The other solution is, unfortunately, a widescale war to destroy the old WW2 mythos. We see the potential in this with the various Ethnic clashes across immigrant communities across Europe and the United States. Old tribal relations are being rebuilt without the old Elite class that sold everyone out in the 1960s. There is still a chance that we can reclaim what was taken. It may take 50, 100 or even 500 years. The might of the European was forged in the ice of mother Europa. No one has ever brought Europeans to their knees but other Europeans.
In conclusion, the importance of a good foundation mythos is so vitally important that without it, you risk running into a death spiral as those with stronger foundations will destroy it inside and out.
I encourage discussion as I may have missed something! I may have many ramblings in the future so feel free to subscribe!
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”You will know you're reborn tonight
Must be rough but I'll stay by your side
Even if my body is beat to the bones
I don't want to go through that ever again”
Call of Silence ~ Hiroyuki Sawano