Orthodoxy vs. Modernity: Defending A Common Heritage

Further evidence of how libertarians and "paleo"-conservatives start with different premises and wind up with the same conclusions. From Dr. Srdja Trifkovic

"The modern world, called "Western" because its genesis lay in the "emancipation" of the West from traditional religious restraints through the rationalism, humanism and secularism of the Enlightenment, has created a culture whose values are dominated by a rationalist-humanist-secularist world-view that alienates mind from heart, and gives priority to mind over heart. The Orthodox world, by contrast, is not shaped by the values and patterns of modernity, much less post-modernity, but rather by traditional cultures that resist rationalistic humanism. That resistance is perceived, by the Western elite class, as subversive and dangerous. They hate Orthodoxy because it has at least the potential of fanning the dormant embers of revival and resistance in their own societies, which must not be allowed.

That sentiment can explain the reluctance of American and West European officialdom, even in these post-9-11 times, to call Chechen child-murdering terrorists just that, terrorists. It is along these tracks that the decision-makers in Western capitals have acquired a bias in Balkan affairs that by now goes way beyond any one piece of policy, and falls totally outside the parameters of rational debate. That is why in Serbia five years ago they carried out a premeditated aggression on par with anything engineered from Berlin in 1939 or 1941, and in Kosovo they criminally aided and abetted destruction of Orthodox Christian shrines, and the illegal secession by a lawless minority that, once completed, will render many European borders tentative. That is why in Croatia they assisted the most monumental ethnic cleansing operation in post-1945 Europe, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina they opened the floodgates of Jihad to the heart of Europe.

"Rational" reasons are insufficient to explain such premeditatedly duplicitous policy. The answer is in the desire of the ruling elite to use the Balkans as a testing ground for the emerging global empire."