Colin Rawle: The Decline of Western Consciousness - in NZ (how the West was lost)

"You are free and that is why you are lost"
- Franz Kafka.

Whatever lives in the hearts and minds of human beings sooner or later comes to expression in outer reality. Or, as an old aphorism has it, " The thought precedes the deed".

History demonstrates that in the case of New Zealand's relatively short civilised history, the aggregate content of what lived in the hearts and minds of the early explorers, missionaries, and settlers, was of sufficient worth to eventually pacify the Maoris and to establish the beginnings of a civilised society of great promise. None of the ills of the old countries were to be transplanted into these brave new Elysian fields - Oh no!

Just like the Pilgrim fathers of America the New Zealand settlers would not make those mistakes again, and indeed, right into the 1960's this country was, with some justification, widely referred to as "God's own". Not any more.

It is not, I think, rose tinted nostalgia to suggest that by and large everyone, including Maoris, were a lot more content prior to the 1960's than they are now. Only look at pre 1960's photographs and news footage. The story can be read in the faces of the people. The list of indicators pointing unmistakably to ever increasing social malaise dating from this period is long indeed. The simple fact is, that while there still remained in the souls of the people a sufficient measure of the "old" values, (which, one day in bitter hindsight will be seen as right and true), this country made slow but steady social progress.

This being true, it must equally be true that the state of New Zealand today is a veritable reflection of the content of our collective hearts and minds since the sad demise of the "God's own" years. In other words - it's all our own work. Call the above mentioned values, "Christian", "traditional", or "old" - as you will, but by any name they are the values which have always been attacked by those whom, due to their lack of ethical individualism, fall prey to their exact opposite.

The much vaunted age of "freedom" which was the professed fruit of the Western worlds 1960's psycho / social revolution, (described as "The Great Disruption" by The Japanese / American social analyst Francis Fukyama), rapidly and predictably degenerated into outright licence with regard to those aspects of human nature which, if given completely free reign, will unfailingly degrade us.

"However, in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because Man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred, or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his

instincts or whims".

Alexander Solzenitsyn

A very great evil hides behind the noble name of "liberalism"...

Everywhere we hear the same wail regarding moral decline - "It's society's fault". Society however, (in the buck-passing sense meant here), is a myth. For society is comprised of individuals who collectively determine its quality - the same individuals who given the requisite moral fibre and regardless of all social conditioning and pressures, can be free in their thinking and feeling, (i.e. in their inner life). Thus a moment's honest thought immediately dismisses the - "it's society's fault" excuse, and redirects us back to the unpalatable matter of our own individual responsibility.

NOW - THE CRUX OF THE MATTER FOR NEW ZEALAND.

While European culture in New Zealand has, (as an inescapable evolutionary necessity) supplanted the old Maori culture outwardly, the general fall of Euro New Zealander's* consciousness into a narrow, soul shrivelling materialistic atheism, (instance neo-Marxist Socialism), has left it highly vulnerable to inner invasion by anachronistic Maori tribal consciousness.

Hence, the entire inner soul life of many present day Euro New Zealanders - already seriously lamed by its own failings, has allowed itself to be further retarded by an incompatible tribal mentality. The increasingly immoral and bizarre behaviour of many Europeans these days, destructive and humiliating as this is, both to themselves and their civilisation, is a true product of this psycho / spiritual / intellectual failure. Notwithstanding the many admirable qualities of the New Zealand character, its widely lamented negative aspects ("sheeple") can largely be attributed to the above phenomenon.

Ideally, the better part of European consciousness would have combined with the better part of Maori consciousness to produce a proper modern New Zealander. Rather the opposite is closer to the truth - i.e. one sided European materialistic intellectualism, (which includes anti-Western politically correct grovelling) has combined with backward tribal attitudes - with consequences that are only too obvious. Here, in this grave failure is the explanation for the otherwise inexplicable antipathy many Euro New Zealanders subconsciously feel towards their own endlessly rich cultural heritage and colonial / settler history - which in many cases means their personal forebears.

Many modern Euro-New Zealanders, having rejected their ageless spiritual / cultural roots, no longer have any anchor or firm centre upon which to orient themselves in this tumultuous time in history - when all hope of a civilised future turns upon a clear sense of who and what they are, emotional maturity, and certainty of direction.

Obviously this is just one source of our social ills. The human psyche is endlessly complex and a multiplicity of other influences also bear upon it. Nevertheless a careful appraisal of many social trends which have been active in this country during the last 5-6 decades is likely to bear out what has been said.

Particularly damaging, in my view, has been the activities of the ultra Left-wing fifth columnists who, together with their international comrades-in-arms, have long made it their business, (particularly since 1884 - the founding of the international Fabian Society) to undermine the spiritual foundations of all that is true and good in western culture; and who right now, are administering what they hope will be the final kiss of death. The "coat of arms" of the Fabian Society consists of a depiction of Sydney Webb and George Bernard Shaw hammering a globe of the world. Above are the words "Shape it to thy heart's desire" together with a drawing of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Propaganda and indoctrination, employed in an endless variety of ways, is of course, the principal strategy, and in all colonised countries the "indigenous peoples" weapon has been used to great effect. It says a lot that those seduced by socialist / collectivist type ideologies are incapable of grasping the simple fact that humans are autonomous, spiritual / psycho / intellectual beings, and do not think, feel, or will, collectively - except in the case of brainwashing. Equally as blind to the dark aspects of non-progressive and naturally dying cultures as they are to the (once) enormous potential of their own, these same ideologues have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

Nowadays, increasing numbers of people are finally beginning to realise that the legendary 1960's were the time in history, when after more than a century of - "respectable intrigue" - (to borrow the phrase of the Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw), Left wing secular humanism finally gained the ideological ascendancy throughout the international western world.

Only the saints among us can claim to be entirely blameless for this sad state of affairs however, because it is now only too obvious that an insufficient percentage of the European peoples have been morally strong enough to withstand this psychological assault upon their civilisation - or even recognise its reality. 

To the same measure that Euro New Zealanders have progressively fallen into these ideological / social errors the Maoris have been given stones for bread in the moral / social sense. Herein lies the real, and unsuspected, source of their sense of grievance or betrayal, not in any real or imagined loss of land, resources, or "suppression" etc - these being simply opportunistic substitutions for the lack of a proper social example they had a right to expect from the last two or three generations of Euro New Zealanders.

Even allowing for the imperfections of the early colonists and the infinitely greater blunders of their current "holier than thou" critics, the many benefits which flowed to Maori from colonisation outshines its detrimental aspects as the sun outshines a candle. Rare indeed is any acknowledgement of the simple fact that the colonists and their immediate descendants rescued Maori from a dead end road of primitivism, total geographic and social isolation, and by means of that most priceless of gifts - education, offered them the world on a plate.

Obviously it is not a case here of unequivocally damning all tribal cultures, (for all things there is a season), or of an uncritical apologia of Western civilisation, which like all previous leading civilisations throughout world history is the best and worst of all possible things. Obviously the main weight of this critique properly falls upon the English speaking world of circa the last 3-4 generations, (i.e. since its near complete capture by atheistic / Marxist-type mentality)... 

At the present time in history a fatal combination of ideological extremism among the intelligentsia and some politicians, and a cleverly engineered ignorance and indifference (largely via the education system) among much of the general public, has come perilously close to completely destroying the foundations laid with blood, sweat, and tears, by our forebears, of a germinal cosmopolitan world, unified by universal education, language, suffrage, and values.

The fact must be squarely faced - the comparatively recent and catastrophic degradation of Western European consciousness, (irrespective of the contributing failure of other peoples), is the first cause of current world problems. Theirs the greatest responsibility, theirs the greatest culpability.

It is no ordinary war that we presently engaged in. Its nature is unprecedented in history. The theatre is not on the physical plane, nor is it fought with physical weapons. The battle is being fought in the psycho / spiritual arena with psycho /spiritual weapons. Nor is the prize limited to the usual territory, earthly power or "spoils of war". The contest is for nothing less than the human soul. We are fighting for our very soul - for civilisation itself. The stakes could not be higher.

New Zealand is no isolated aberration in this regard of course. If the concept is extended over the former British / European colonial world, (instance Africa), then light is thrown upon the principal cause of much current international chaos and suffering.

Human history is the story of the evolution of human consciousness. One important manifestation of this evolution is the journey from the earliest forms of tribalism, through priestly rule, monarchies, to democracy (beginning at the genesis of Western civilisation in ancient Greece); and on into the future when the sovereign individual must increasingly take his personal moral / social responsibility upon his own shoulders. All these forms of human society are transitory - inasmuch as they are expressions of the prevailing consciousness of a particular time in history - tribalism being the earliest and most primitive form.

Therefore it is clear that the unfolding tragedy of this country is not that the Maoris have lost (as an evolutionary inevitability), their spiritual / cultural heritage, but that Euro New Zealanders have lost theirs - and with it all sense of direction.

*New Zealanders of European ancestry.

Colin Rawle is a builder by trade but a writer and philosopher by inclination.