When you enter the Danish Parliament, you feel the weight of history. Portraits and busts decorate the corridor with memories, whispering in the corners. Consider one bust in particular: that of Viggo Hørup. As one of the founders of the liberal daily, Politiken, he brought liberal ideas of the individual to Denmark. However, Hørup hated his contemporary morals and culture; he hated patriarchal society and its associated values. But nevertheless, as a conservative of today, I cannot help but admit to sharing one feeling with him. In his memoires from 1881, he wrote about his struggles against the national liberals. They were the main force of society back then; the main opposition to Hørup. “It was a war not with a party, but with an entire culture”, he wrote. And he is still right. The battle between reformists and the national liberals was really a war of existence. One had to prevail and the other to die.
Hørup’s radicalism won, and conservatism vanished. Yet, where national liberalism stood in the 1880s, Hørup’s radicalism stands today, where all over the West, the ideology of individualism and internationalism has become synonymous with public morality. Today, it is conservatives who must repeat Hørup’s words: “we are at war with a culture more than a party”. Namely, a culture that has a depraved fascination with socialism, that has spread into society and constitutes the basic core of what could be described as “public opinion”.
Even though many European countries are led by parties calling themselves conservative (as in Germany), there is no doubt that many of them follow variations of the ideology of individualism, leading into violating the beauty of tradition in everyday life and distrusting the mystery of faith. They pay homage to the internationalism that, as a political dogma, has misled an entire continent, and betray the essence of our lives that are to be lived in concrete responsibility with our next, not in theoretic emancipation, fleeing from the given duty of life. The individual and its instant sense of need is protected at the expense of the conscientious sense of responsibility for others – our family, our people and our nations, all inherited as gifts from one generation to the next. It is a dogma that always seeks to differentiate and separate individuals rather than seeking to unite or find common ground. Therefore, as conservatives, we must do something unexpected; we must declare war.
We must follow the example of Hørup and declare war on a social order that asks, “what can society do for me?”, rather than “what can I do for my people and my country?” Instead of looking after the neighbour’s hedge, we call the authorities to complain when weeds spread too far. Genuine concern for other people used to be a natural part of life, but is diminishing as the membership of churches, scout unions, homeowner associations and sports clubs, which once represented the strength of civil society, has eroded away. This concern has been replaced by a narcissistic righteous culture where everyone anxiously awaits the next “like” on social media. A society where we feel saluted for our latest purchase, our latest meal, or latest “added friend” – as we call them, even though we often never meet. We don’t know the sound of their voices, their dreams or interests. And we don’t care. Because they are nothing but spectators in the reality show, which today is called life. With this social order, we are at war.
We are at war with the culture of business greed, where respected companies, once owned by us the people and once forming the backbone of our society, are sold to the highest bidders. From transport infrastructure to energy, a vulture culture under the umbrellas of the international economy and the “politics of necessity” has believed themselves “justified” in flogging our common goods and values. And with these sold to foreign companies, the bonus party begins, with inflated wages and dividends pumped out, draining the natural sense of cohesion that ties a society together. The feeling, despite differences, of being a people; a historical community, where we share our destiny and therefore treat each other fairly and in solidarity – because we belong together. With this culture of greed, we are at war.
We are at war with an unchristian church, where the congregation has been put in the background by a clerical supremacy that has turned themselves into media stars and their pulpits into speaker chairs. Scripture replaced with a cheerful tale of whatever movie the priest has recently seen, whatever Jan Guillou novel she has recently read or which holiday he has recently been on. Churches become a Christ-free zone where; bishops and priests endlessly moralise about worldly values rather than biblical truths and unscrupulously conduct politics on the backs of their congregations, who have gradually learnt to stay home. With a church that is only of this fallen world, we are at war.
We are at war with a social order where the nation state is deemed evil and supranational organisations are morally superior. Even when constitutions are suppressed, we are told not to care about anything but wealth. Apparently, monetary gain and happiness go hand in hand, and virtues of freedom, independence and something as archaic as national pride and morality are inferior to the eternal cradle of welfare. Whether we live in an independent nation at all, has no meaning for supranationalists, to whom a nation is nothing more than a public limited company that must make a profit! With this supranationalism, we are at war.
We are at war with the humanist Pharisees, who have exchanged their view of people and history with an unidentified moralism, destroying the land and heritage we have been handed. From crime and economical costs to the destruction of national solidarity, we see the consequences of the ideology of open migration. The very foundations of our societies are gradually falling apart. We are at war with the culture that preaches openness to all peoples, and yet shuts out our own history and values – the home of our poets, the homes of our kings and histories; our countries which for thousands of years have been the home of our peoples. With this ideology of cultural relativism, we are at war.
We are at war with a culture that has transformed our schools from splendid educational institutions, where children gained knowledge, education and good manners, into a seminary mix of sentiment, cultural ignorance and social experimentation. Learning and knowing by heart is hated, so that young people know neither their geography, their literature, their language, nor their history. As such, they are taught to forget themselves. A culture of “tolerance” developing a specific set of social competences instead of critical and independent thought, or even real knowledge, where nothing besides Google is necessary. In “kindness”, we drain any natural respect for the knowledge and the authority of society, forming a generation of slander and whine, where you get sick at the sight of a syllabus and are frightened by an exam. With this “education”, we are at war.
From socialism to modern liberalism we hear the resounding echo through history: break down, tear away! All that is shared and in common must die on the altar of self-realism. And in this very dogma, modernity has found its soulmate in the ideology of socialism, both sharing the dream of breaking society down in order to build only groupthink, and eradicating everything else: the culture, the people, the family, the history. Everything that holds us together is seen as an anachronistic quagmire that is responsible for all our problems. These are the enemies that prevent the creation of a modern utopia.
But if this utopian dream is so amazing, then why do we have so many unhappy, sick and traumatized people in modern society? Maybe because the march of progressivism lost sight of what makes us human? Because careers don’t always have to take precedence over family. Because marriage is not always synonymous with eternal happiness, but it does carry responsibility. Because children deserve to have a father and a mother. Because a stranger might not be a friend you haven’t met. Or because gender, language, name and nationality are basic inviolable needs for us as humans to navigate and understand each other.
Our institutions such as marriage, our beliefs and churches, our countries and concepts of family are not oppressive constructions. They are bonding relationships, created from the experiences of the generations that have passed before us. They are redeeming communities of duty where we create true relationships that matter. In marriage, as Christian people, as family members. In these relationships we are tied to each other and thus free in our confident knowledge of who and what we are.
Yet, the liberals, which today are visible in both the left and right, desire only to see individuals separated by every single possible difference. This should be abhorrent by every measure of conservatism. And this is what we must fight. From the lie of the multicultural paradise to the grisly development of a European Union. From the praise of world citizenship, of complete freedom of movement to the disintegration of the family and nation state. It is an acid bath of emancipation, which today has become the highest tenet of political correctness, etching itself into the very spirit of the people.
It is the dystopia of any conservative mind, this ideological fire that divides us. A false equivalence of man with God, where only the individual counts: the sublime singularity. Not a friend, not a family member, not a part of a people, history or nation – but the crescendo of the very self. What you feel, is what you are. And what you are, demands recognition and respect.
With the 1968 generation, radical liberalism spread along the veins of society from layer to layer. Universities pumped this ideology out into even the widest circles of society. Its daily prayers: “do my will, as if I controlled heaven. Give me today everything I want and to hell with my enemies! Let me enjoy my temptations and deliver me from evil”.
But the liberals ignore that their ideology is the evil. The human being needs more than an individualised fantasy, sanitised literature and internationalist illusions. Liberals write their own decaying story as modern editions of Don Quixote, insistently charging forward when there is no danger. And as ridiculously as the knight from La Mancha, they will tilt at their windmills.