by Peter Mullen, TCW
IN HIS magnificently unreadable The French Revolution: A History, Thomas Carlyle tells us that when we cast around looking for signs of possible revolution, we are too late: it has happened already. The revolution comes as a thief in the night and, being asleep, we don’t notice. But when we wake up next morning our valuables have all gone.
This is precisely where we are now. There has taken place is what Friedrich Nietzsche described as ‘a revaluation of all values’. Only posthumously, as it were, do we notice the fact. Our history, which made us what we are, we now condemn and seek to obliterate. Forms of sexual coupling which were a cause for shame are now celebrated as a matter of Pride. Even the fundamental biological differences which identify the sexes have been set aside. The treasures of our classical art, music and literature are supplanted by fakery and trash. The institutions that were set up to protect and promote our civilisation – government and administration, universities and schools – have not merely been subverted by the iconoclasts but have joyfully joined the revolutionaries.
We are left rubbing our eyes and asking: ‘How could this have happened?’