You are the West

...and you're not dead yet

This is gonna be a quick one, because it’s the 4th of July and I need to go workout to support my long-term resilience and then drink and be merry.

Today I’m thinking of a most unfortunate and weak mindset I’ve seen echoed in a few places, including here on Substack. It boils down to this: The West has fallen.

Ah, but this pitiful statement is…

How do I know? Because America is an idea. An idea many are still willing to defend to their end.

I credit my husband with one of the funniest responses I’ve heard to the defeatist claim that the West is fallen and/or doomed. Consider skill at math as a proxy for the concept of the West. “You see, lots of people suck at math. Covid left in its wake a generation of kids who are much worse at math than their predecessors. Many can’t perform basic arithmetic after years of mass forced schooling. Therefore, math has fallen.”

This is of course ridiculous because math exists and has the potential to be used whether people suck at it or not. Indeed, there are still plenty of people who would die before capitulating that the sum of two and two is five. As long as these noble souls draw breath, math (and the West) will never be truly fallen.

Our duty as Westerners yearning to breathe the sweet air of liberty is to keep and perpetuate ideas that support freedom, peace, and resilience. Yesterday’s “be the change you want to see in the world” is today’s “be your own white pill.” Imagine if yesterday, if leading up to July 4th, 1776, they’d said, “this is hard so, game over.”

Things are dark around Mount Doom, but that doesn’t mean all light has gone out. Hope is an essential part of inner strength. And strong people are free people. Anyone who tells you there is no hope for the West is, frankly, the enemy.

I hope you get to see some fireworks tonight!

Thanks for rucking with me. Please enjoy the music as you exit.