Michael Knowles – Celebrating Columbus
An evening pause: On this day when all should be celebrating Christopher Columbus and his willingness “sail beyond the sunset,” to use a phrase from Tennyson, this short video give us an accurate picture of the man, his times, and his achievements. It also puts the lie to the bigoted, hateful, leftist slanders that have been used in recent years to poison his legacy.
Note that I got this video from Rumble. I ask all who wish to suggest evening pauses to consider searching on Rumble and Vimeo, so that we are less dependent on YouTube. The Google company needs to feel some competitive pressure.
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Christopher Columbus: the one immigrant liberals hate.
James-
Good stuff.
“Your Welcome”
Michael Malice (10-11-2021)
Dissecting National Review’s Article Against National Divorce
https://youtu.be/qb4iiPsC304
41:35
Debunking the Lies About Christopher Columbus One by One
Michael Knowles
The Rubin Report (10-11-21)
https://youtu.be/FiqIbPrXv3o
20:39
Completely unbiased stated: Modern Americas were not founded by immigrants, but by conquerors.
I penned this article almost 30 years ago when local demonstrations began to erupt here in Denver,
HONORING COLUMBUS
Here in Denver, as well as in other cities throughout America, Columbus is under attack. This on-going attack, manifested by the furor now being created by various citizens (“hyphenated” Americans as many consider themselves to be).
It manifests in criticisms of the celebrations annually conducted surrounding the numerous Columbus Day parades/festivities, as a thinly disguised attempt to intellectually and culturally assault America. More importantly, it represents an attack on the value and values of Western civilization.
What is it that these people are actually attacking, and is this attack, often cloaked in the name of combating “cultural bias,” somehow appropriate, or is it fundamentally evil? I think I know the answers……..
From the perspective of intellectual and cultural content, Western civilization represents an understanding and acceptance of the following:
The laws of logic; the concept of causality and, consequently, of a universe ruled by natural laws intelligible to man (on these foundations rests the whole known body of physical laws surrounding mathematics and science);
Further, the individual’s self-responsibility based on his free will to choose between good and evil; the value of man above all other species on the basis of his unique possession of the power of reason; the value and competence of the individual human being and his corollary possession of individual rights – among them the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
The need for limited government and for the individual’s freedom from the state (on this foundation, rests the validity of capitalism, with its unprecedented and continuing economic development in terms of the division of labor, technological progress, capital accumulation, and rising living standards).
Finally, Western civilization represents the importance of visual arts and literature depicting man as capable of facing the world with confidence in his power to succeed; and in music featuring harmony and melody.
Synthesized from endless alternative or opposing values, values that more often than not are irreconcilably in conflict with those embodied by “Western” culture, Western values fundamentally represent intellectual and cultural achievements “chosen” from all manner of civilizations, past and present. These values are not the product or property of any particular race, gender, tribe, or ethnicity.
Furthermore, Western civilization did not originate in the West. It stands on the intellectual/cultural shoulders of Greece and Rome that in turn derived much of their knowledge of science, for example, from Egypt and Babylon. When, during what are referred to as “The Dark Ages,” as much, if not all, of Western Europe reverted to fear, superstition, and virtual barbarism, people living in the Middle East and China made far greater contributions to what we now call Western civilization than did anyone living in Western Europe.
It was not until the Renaissance that the center of Western civilization migrated to what we now consider Western Europe. Then, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Western civilization migrated west to America, where it reached its zenith.
With the recent emergence of the Far East, triggered by its embrace of elements of reason, freedom, science, and capitalism, (clearly “Western” values) history may one day demonstrate that Western civilization in fact became centered in Hong Kong, Singapore, or some as yet-to-be created culture/society.
The truth is that just as one does not have to be from France, for instance, to like French-Fried potatoes or from New York to like a New York steak, one does not have to have been born in Western Europe or be of West European decent to admire Western civilization, or, indeed, even to help build it. Western civilization is not a product of geography or ethnicity. It is a body of knowledge and values. It is not “Eurocentric” to embrace these values, as is now frequently asserted. That assertion is, on its face, blatantly racist.
Therefore it is on the basis of the preceding perspective that I honor the discoverer of the Western hemisphere as being Columbus, rather than the very first human beings to arrive on the North American continent (probably across a land bridge from Asia), and rather than the Norwegian Leif Ericson. I consider Columbus to be the discoverer not because of any such absurd reason as my preference for Europeans over Asiatic, Latin, African, American Indian, or some other group, but because it was Columbus who opened the Western hemisphere to the civilization I have chosen to value above all others. Columbus brought with him to these shores a set of values that in great measure I consider to be of superior merit (not all the values he brought to be sure but certainly elements of those identified earlier in my article – and most certainly ALL, when taken as a whole in comparison to the whole of those of any other civilization at that time or at present).
Cultures/societies are not equal. If reason is your method and a successful life is your standard, the value and values of Western civilization are demonstrably OBJECTIVELY SUPERIOR to whatever other examples you may cite. It is no accident that the societies that embrace the values I listed earlier in my article, tend to become “Westernized.” By doing so they embark on the road to enjoyment of the greatest personal freedoms, the greatest standards of living, the longest life spans, the greatest security from hunger, disease, and the elements, they become compelled to abolish all manner of tyranny (such as slavery), while their citizens have open to them personal choices that the rest of the world RELENTLESSLY tries to emulate or adopt – either within their own cultures or by emigrating to somewhere thought to be representative of “The West.”
Attacking Columbus and the culture that extols his achievement, based on some fallacious conception of “Eurocentrism” – or for any other alleged racially or ethnically based perverted justification, is a reflection of bitter malice, woeful ignorance, or both.
With respect,
Dave Walden
Questioner is right: history is written by the victors.
Maybe, you may want to take a clue or two from success, and see how it’s done. No pressure, but if you’re tired of stagnation, maybe a peek at progress,
Yes, Its complicated. The tribal “immigrants” who flooded across the borders of the Roman Empire were looking for the economic and security advantages of western civilization and thus became the Germanic conquerors who brought imperial Rome down. Ironically the two major language groups spoken in the Americas today are English (a Germanic language) and Spanish (a Latin derivative from Imperial Rome). Today the immigrants flooding into Europeanized America speak mostly Spanish.
Dave Walden:
You have overlooked the following important thing: It is true that Western culture began with Greek philosophy and Roman statecraft. But that was just the beginning. The decisive basis of Western culture, however, is without a doubt the Christian religion, especially Roman Catholic Christianity, the actual successor of the Roman Empire. Greek philosophy (e.g. Platonism) and Roman law have been incorporated into Christianity.
The historical truth is: Columbus set sail on behalf of his Catholic majesties Ferdinand II and Isabella I to gain new lands and to make the local population into new Christian subjects. Pope Alexander VI confirmed in the Bull Inter caetera the right of Castile to discovered and to be discovered areas.
I agree, however, that cultures / societies are not equal.
I just want to add that Christianity has as its roots Jewish philosophy and the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church might have spread it far and wide, but the ideas came from Judaism.
What was was.
And no amount of retroactive wringing of ones hands will change any of it.
And that is what the Left proposes.
And anyone who climbs on board that train is hopelessly lost.
Steve:
However, the Germanic conquerors who overthrew the Western Roman Empire also wanted to continue it, which eventually led to the Frankish Empire (and Emperor Charlemagne for example) and later the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (and Staufer Emperor Frederick II foe example), both with a Roman Emperor at the Top of these realms. These empires were at the same time guarantors of Christianity and papacy. The latter came more and more into conflict with the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the course of the Middle Ages.
If and when this happens in America then we will know who will ultimately win:
https://youtu.be/neDZTTnzOIE
If not in the streets then OVERWHELIMINGLY at the ballot box.
One way or another.
QUESTIONER: “late” on this topic, nonetheless I wish to point out that until Aquinas discovered and translated the works of the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, “Christianity” and its Catholic version had presided over the squalor, misery, and injustice known as the “Dark Ages.”
Yes, there are a number of important moral tenets Western civilization shares with Christianity. I would argue, however, that the important component giving identity to what I argue is “Western civilization,” is its thread of “Reason” that continues through it throughout the ages – NOT, as Bob points out, its roots in Judaism, morphing into Catholicism, then through Luther and the Reformation, or any of its endless nuances and manifestations. Western civilization is a product of the dogged emergence of reason and the logical “products” reason inevitably will provide if allowed to do so!
Respecfully,
Dave
Dave Walden:
Thank you for bothering to reply.
I think we agree with what I am now writing: Plato’s philosophy influenced many Christian thinkers from late antiquity to modern times. The church father Augustine plays a special role in this, combining the Platonic conception of the soul with Christian teaching. Christianity would probably never have been successful if it had not started to cannibalize Platonic philosophy at an early stage. Because one must not forget that Jesus was an oriental in an oriental world. And Judaism was an ancient oriental religion. The Greeks had a completely different philosophy in the meantime, a philosophy of reason, a philosophy of logos, a philosophy of the abstract. Friedrich Nietzsche said: Christianity is Platonism for the masses.
But I will propose to you another reason why Christianity was the central element in the emergence of the West: It civilized the “barbaric” peoples and tribes of Europe (outside the Roman Empire), that is, those of the Germans, the Celts and the Slavs in the period from about 500 to 1000 AD. It was an unparalleled cultural achievement. Even if Christianity has lost much of its importance in Europe today, this achievement is visible today. There is still at least one church in the smallest European village.