Western civilisation was built on freedom
Identity through values
Historical atrocities and oppression in the West have occurred despite the fundamental Western value of freedom; not because such value wasn’t upheld. It is because the West values freedom that the Westerner quite vividly acknowledges, admits, and despises these despicable acts conducted in his name by some his ancestors. It is because the Westerner values freedom that he derives some kind of twisted pleasure out of ceremoniously punishing himself in gleeful self-loathing, as a coping mechanism for failing to abide by his deeply embedded value of freedom. The Westerner would not torment himself with guilt for the dark pages of his history had he not fundamentally valued freedom. Show me other cultures that treat the horrid atrocities of their past the same way.
It is because the Westerner values freedom that he feels the desperate need to virtue-signal by self-righteously apologising for all the world’s problems… to flamboyantly guilt-brag as he wages his valiant “Crusade” to intervene and free his pet noble savages from their self-inflicted misery.
It is because the Westerner values freedom that he dares criticise and satirise his rulers… that he so nobly punishes himself with self-righteous guilt for the sins of his forefathers… that he takes the dark pages in his history with shame rather than the gleeful pride in which others so shamelessly revel over theirs.
It is because the Westerner values freedom that he must be so relentlessly propagandised and gaslighted with illusions of freedom - such as “democracy” - if he is to tolerate his tyrannical governments: emperors whose non-existent clothes claim to “serve” the people or “bring freedom” to all).
It is because the Westerner values freedom that his rulers must resort to maintaining his illusion of freedom, if they are to sustain their rule over him.
For example, if the American people would rally behind and submit to their newly formed tyrannical state of 1776, they would need to delude themselves that it was “the land of the free.” Similarly, the British ruling class of the time felt the need to institute a “parliamentary monarchy” to grant them the illusion of free self-governance. The Soviets, the Chinese, the Hindus, the Arabs, and most African ethnicities didn’t need to be propagandised thus in order to accept their shackles; individual freedom was not their priority.
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labour in freedom.
- Albert Einstein
Note: Before you give me trouble for quoting Einstein, yes, I understand that he was a self-announced socialist, which means he was completely clueless with regards to economics. What do you expect? He was an academic. Academics must kiss the hand of the state; the left hand that feeds them while the other squeezes them by the balls. Yet, state funding granted Einstein the privilege to labour in freedom, so he witnessed firsthand how freedom of body and mind unlocks human potential.
Western freedom
Striking historical instances of Western values of freedom?
The free Hellenic cities, before Hellenism died at the hands of Eastern theology (both Christian and Islamic). Free cities were largely decentralized for their time, although not fully free from perceived “authority,” albeit small and local.
The American Revolution was fought on the ideals of statelessness, even though its leaders would establish yet another state to replace British rule. And that new American state has grown even more tyrannical since.
The French and Russian revolutions were hypocritically fought on ideals of freedom, even though they ended up switching one brand of tyranny with another (with a lot of needless slaughtering in the process).
The 19th century abolition of slavery by the British, and the subsequent suppression of the African slave trade, were a reflection of this collective value of freedom, ironically expressed by the tyranny of the state. Yes, even the monopoly of violence of the state must keep the people somewhat content, otherwise it faces destabilization - now imagine how well we’d be under stateless self-governance.
The voluntary withdrawal of the British from their colonies, even though they still had the means to keep them. While colonials were largely tolerant of their colonised status, the British people were not as tolerant of their rulers colonising others in the British people’s name. It was harder for the British ruling class to control their own disgruntled populations than to control the colonials. Yes, even the monopoly of violence of the state fears the collapse of its house-of-cards bluff of “authority.”
The free-trade free-thought era of the Renaissance, which lifted Europe from the dark ages, gave birth to an explosion of art, philosophy, science, and technology. It was when the Europeans rediscovered their values that they realised that the faux “authority” of church and state were not as holy as their forefathers presumed it to be. And they saw firsthand how freedom, even a slight amount, means progress.
Medieval Irish Celtic tribes, self-governed in a stateless and decentralised manner, were the main reason why the mighty English - who would go on to conquer the world almost - had such a hard time conquering their tiny hopeless neighboring island. It’s hard to conquer a region with no local “authority” structures already in place to control the masses in the name of conquerors. All conquering becomes feasible with the complicity and compliance of the local leaders - ever single time. For example, the Orthodox churches played an incremental role in keeping their flocks compliant and submissive to the Arab and Ottoman Turkish empires. The priests were rewarded for keeping their people humble and submissive to their overlords. Whenever a local revolt broke out, the priests were held responsible.
Countless examples of European lore, and even political propaganda as pretexts for war, all signifying freedom as the highest ideal. Freedom, not conquest, nor submission to an imaginary god promising sex slaves in an disgusting meaningless afterlife; just freedom. Even today, the Western value of tolerance comes from accepting the freedom of others to be themselves. Again, tolerance is yet another Western value twisted by state propaganda to essentially mean submission, or tolerance of your enslavement. See? It is because the Westerner holds these values that propaganda must be tailored to them.
“Give me liberty, or give me death!
- Patrick Henry
The standard of freedom
Other cultures - in general - don’t feel guilty for their dark history, and they don’t need to be propagandized into imagining that their dictatorships are somehow free; they accept tyranny, no problem. This is why their governments don’t bother propagandising their populations with illusions of freedom, or the delusion of
democracy” - civil uncivility.
In contrast, Western democratic dictatorships waste vast resources in trying to indoctrinate their populations to believe that, even though they are actually oppressed, they are somehow “free.” Democratic dictatorships would otherwise be unsustainable.
Authority is a bluff, and so it cannot exist unless populations fall for it, and believe it to be morally justifiable. Each population has a different threshold for what it tolerates. Thus, each culture’s brand of “authority” is an expression of the ethical tolerances of its general population. Indeed, we do get what we collectively deserve…
Let’s look at how non-Western cultures perceive their dark history.
Arabs call their blood-soaked era of butchery and conquest “the golden era.” They admit that they spread Islam by the sword, yet they justify it as “the conquest of conquering empires,” as if the mass slaughtering, raiding, slave trading, and pillaging of the Arab conquest are somehow pardoned. They conveniently sanctify war as “holy Jihad,” while the Westerner still apologizes for the Crusades - a half-assed response to centuries of Islamic expansionism, raids, slavery, and genocide against the West. The Westerner still apologizes for only some Western ethnicities colonizing regions for whom - in many case - brutal colonization was an upgrade. Yes, I was raised in an ex-British colony; still today people lament the departure of the British. Things got much worse the second the British decided to voluntarily leave, even though they didn’t have to. Has any Eastern empire voluntarily relinquished its conquered regions despite being able to still hold them?
The Turks still honour the janissary armies of their genocidal Ottoman empire, even though they understand that janissaries were in fact child slave-soldiers taken by force from their conquered families; to be raised in total brainwashing and abuse, and to serve as nothing but brutal, braindead, obedient pawns. The ‘Unsullied’ army of eunuchs from Game of Thrones was specifically inspired by this despicable child-soldier atrocity that actually occurred in our guilt-ridden history. Yet most modern Turks feel zero guilt for their past; quite the contrary, they take pride in it. And the Turks’ ethnic cousins, the Mongols? Well, they still honour their Genghis Khan, the greatest butcher and rapist in recorded human history.
Other Eastern cultures? Well, the Russian (yes, today’s Russians mostly have an Easter culture) don’t seem to feel any guilt or shame for the horrors that the Soviet Union introduced to the world in their name. The Chinese seem to make every excuse in the book for their socialist state-worshipping tyranny, not to mention their blood-soaked history books of Maoist butchery and Tiananmen-square nightmares.
And southern cultures, like Africans and south Americans? Where is their movement to reflect on and learn from the atrocities of their history?
It seems that pathological - yet noble - guilt over one’s historical dark pages is exclusively a Western trait. This is both a curse and an honour. Regardless, it is the result of a fundamental Western value: freedom.
So, by comparison, you see that the Westerner’s inclination to feel guilty for the dark pages of his past - and present - prove that he, in general, values freedom, and does not value violent conquest.
Violent conquest is not a Western value, despite what the Western-revivalist moralists of Twit-stack would have you believe; the moralist grifters masturbating over a cheap Hollywood-version of the Roman empire, conflating the achievements of the Roman era with the socialist-in-everything-but-name Roman state… the closet-gay worshippers of militarism and of submitting people through force, rather than winning them over voluntarily through incentive.
No… tribal conquest is not a Western value. If it were, it would have brought satisfaction to the Westerners in general; he would flood the streets and squeal “God is great!” with every child-incinerating bomb dropped by NATO. Instead, the false notion of “Western conquest” satisfies only the sleazy history-nerd closet-gay incels, the eager submissives following those online “Western revivalist” grifters. Yet, these collectivists have more in common with Marxist and Islamic collectivism than anything Western.
Freedom is a Western value, not collectivism, nor the denial of self-ownership that comes with a collectivist mindset. The fact that, in Western cultures, we see protests against Western governments’ foreign interventions goes to show that the Westerner does indeed value freedom, and not violent conquest. It shows that, despite the Westerner having little to no power over what his tyrannical governments do, the Western ideal still remains that of freedom for everyone, even though ‘freedom’ is hard to define universally. And the fact that Western tyrannical governments allow the freedom to protest goes to show that that’s a line even they don’t dare cross. Even during the COVID exaggerated pandemic, when protests were banned (unless they were riots for overdosing career criminals), Westerners still protested. In contrast, the Hong Kong protests of 2019 to 2020 were quietly quelled by the tyranny of fear of an exaggerated pathogen. Did you hear of any large-scale anti-lockdown protests in, say, an Islamic country?
“That government is best which governs least.”
- Henry David Thoreau
Tribal conquest is a collectivist/Marxist value. Conquest is anti-Western. Conquest and foreign intervention by Western tyrannies occurs despite the Western value of freedom. This is why Western tyrannies need to massage the narrative, to propagandise their populations into believing that foreign interventions is for freedom, and justice, and security. When other tyrannies engage in war, they admit it’s for conquest, ethnic cleansing, and national or religious pride.
Western values
Philosophy, ideals, ethos, art, and logos - the elements of a cultural identity - emerge spontaneously, not BECAUSE of overarching tyrannical states, but IN SPITE of the state. We do not attribute the glimpses of good of this world to the evil of the state. If anything, the evil of statism is responsible for the good that was never allowed to exist. The state is evil making evil. The state suppresses the will by eroding our dignity through its demand for submission. The state pits us all against each other in an arena with the threat of “oppress or be oppressed!” - “kill or die!” Isn’t that what voting is?
“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control, not whiskered men with bombs)—or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy.”
- JRR Tolkien
When William Blake touched on ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,’ and when John Milton played devil’s advocate with his epic ‘Paradise Lost,’ they were inspired by their need for freedom from the time’s religious dogmatism that had plunged the West into the dark ages. They expressed the time’s public sentiment of defiance of authority, which, at the time, was sanctified by religious institutions. They weren’t devil worshipers.
For example, caricature satanism is not really devil worship. There are no real satanists: there are either degenerate masochists who fetishize the twisted and forbidden in the taboo-fantasy of devil worship, and there are those who personify their defiance of authority in an allegorical Luciferian revolt, as described in the Great English epic Paradise Lost. Rebellious teens express their desperate need to escape the shackles of their patriarchal or matriarchal families, and the compulsion of child-prison force-feeding schooling. Satanism was never about actually worshiping the devil. Who would want to worship their eternal tormentor, anyway?
Even the first conceptualisation of Ancient Athenian democracy was predicated on the premise of anarchy (an-arche = absence of authority), and the realisation that people could decide for themselves what they would do, in a decentralised manner. (Do not confuse anarchy with the ghastly Antifa faux-anarchists - it’s sad that I have to say this.)
Although original direct democracy still accepted the “authority” of the majority (or the largest minority) over the rest, it was still a first step toward freedom, away from the insane presumption that a feudal lord, king, or emperor had any moral or otherwise rule over others.
Yes, the fact that the Westerner opposes - even though only verbally - the oppressions of his ruling class shows that he is predisposed towards liberty. And even if he does support hir rulers’ decadent oppression, he must first be propagandised with elaborate false flags like 9/11, or with relentless media gaslighting propaganda. He must be brainwashed to think that the initiation of aggression in his name is somehow defence. Non-Western cultures don’t even have to use elaborate propaganda and brainwashing to get their people’s support for war or oppression (fiscal or otherwise). Other civilisations eagerly obey their authority without question, and feel pride for the power projections of their ancestors, instead of self-reflecting. They get pleasure out of their submission, because they feel strong in their collective mindset, and weak as individuals.
Again, the Mongols revere their Genghis Khan, the greatest butcher-rapist of history. The Turks pride themselves over their history’s atrocities, like the Armenian and Greek genocides, and even before that, the blood-soaked Ottoman history filled with savage slaughter, and the brutal practice of child slavery (janissaries). The Arabs gleefully label their violent conquests “the golden era,” without any sense of reflection on what that actually meant for the people being conquered into enslavement. Not a hint of criticism can be found for the Arab slave trade from Africa. Hindus, although they do criticize their caste system, don’t seem to be actively protesting or acting too much to change it - for them, it’s part of their culture, and they tolerate it (which is the problem). Africans seem to be more concerned about the very brief Western colonisation of their continent than the brutal cultural authoritarianism - and all the atrocities that come from it - that still plagues most of their people. And don’t even get me started on the Russians and Chinese who cannot dare criticize their rulers, whatever stupid nonsense decision is made at the cost of their morality and dignity.
The US grants special privileges to indigenous Americans, while Western countries collectively feel the need to provide aid to their ex colonies. The concept of “reparations” is exclusively a Western concept - imagine asking for reparations from the Arabs and Mongol-Turks who have ravaged Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for centuries. Show me a single non-Western culture that feels the need to provide reparations for the countless populations it has enslaved in its history. Arabs and Turks would laugh in the your face if you brought up the concept of them owing reparations to the indigenous populations of the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa, whom they have brutally enslaved and brutalized for centuries. In reality, the indigenous Copts in Egypt are still bring systematically brutalised by their Arab conquerors, and so are the Kurds in modern Turkey.
The West is about freedom. It might still not get it right, but by comparison, it’s the closest we get to the value of freedom. The West’s progress relies on freedom of trade, thought, expression. This is why Western cultures cultures flourished despite residing in regions mostly bereft of industrial resources. Despite the cancer of statism infecting the West - despite all the government atrocities that occur in the name of Western governments - the Westerner still values the concept of freedom, although he imagines himself powerless against the state that tramples it. Government atrocities didn’t occur because of Western values of freedom, but despite them. At least the Westerner has it in his culture to satirise and criticise the state and all its atrocities - are Eastern cultures just as critical, or do they tend to take pride in their governments’ atrocities? Where are the concepts of anarchy (not anarcho-socialism) or even minarchy in the East? Even the concept of democracy, as deceptive as it is, is still based on values of liberty and an-archy (no authority).
Western civilisation is about freedom. Western antiquity brought us the concept of democracy, which was a good first step; the idea that no authority exists in individuals, but rather, people can directly take part in public policies. Yes, the Ancient Athenian direct democracy was far from actual freedom, but it was a first step in the right direction - that of freedom.
Greco-Roman philosophy is about critical thinking, the epitome of freedom. There is nothing more critical than criticising perceived “authority.”
Western satire and sarcasm are subtle forms of defiance, and of speaking truth to power, while maintaining plausible deniability in case you are called out on your conceit. The dramatic thespian and the court jester are representation of criticism of authority, and even, theodicy. So committed is western civilisation to freedom that it dares even criticise the divine, which is why western civilisations were the first to largely abandon their religions - even though abandoning religion has backfired on them. They rejected their religion, and the values they attached to it. And now, having no substitute for a value system, they have paved the way for political Islam to fill the void - Islam, one of the more uncriticisable doctrines.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Objection
“But what about all those Hellenic philosophers, like Sophocles, Aristotle, and Plato who advocated for state authority?”
Professional philosophers will not bite the hand that feeds them, just like modern state-funded academia will never go against the interests of the state - especially not when the state grants them syndicalistic exclusivity of accreditation.
Again, the philosophers’ state apologism occurred not because of Western values, but despite them.
If you want to look to ancient Hellenic philosophers, look at Zenon of Citium, the father of Stoicism, and what he had to say about the unnecessary evil of the state. Surprisingly, his original works haven’t survived - all we know of him are second-hand accounts. I wonder why…
Oh, and by the way, Aristotle was an open advocate of slavery. This fact makes him less of an “authority” on the moral justification of authority.
“Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.”
- Demosthenes
From freedom to individualism
Individualism is not selfishness, despite what selfish Marxists would have you believe. If anything, the true selfish are the socialist collectivists who demand that you renounce your sovereignty of self for their benefit. Socialism is the true evil selfishness in that it presumes the individual owes to the arbitrarily defined group.
Individualism is anti-selfishness in that it allows individuals the freedom to own their body, mind, spirit, and will, with no busybodies pontificating what you should or should not be doing. Only good things can come from a society that upholds freedom, and by extension, individuality. If you allow me to be free, then I will allow you to be free, and so we can engage in free, voluntary, win-win interactions. Only through win-win interactions can the general value in society be increased and maximised.
Yes, the moral subjectivists will ask “but how do you define what constitutes freedom? Can someone be free to murder? <insert more straw man noises here>.”
But this is a dishonest and deliberately misinterpreted “argument.” Freedom has no conflict of interpretation. The infringements that matter as universal: murder, rape, theft, abuse. If they were voluntary, then they’d be suicide, lovemaking, charity, or masochism, respectively. And for the rest? It doesn’t matter if we can’t all agree always on what we are allowed to do - how short a woman’s skirt can be in public, or what the speed limit should be: the free market is the great balancing force that accurately reflects what society wants, and how much it wants it.
What matters is intent: if you want the freedom to do something, then you should allow others to do that, even if they don’t want it. Allowing people the freedoms you want is the best way to ensure that you receive those freedoms. The same goes for them. This is the closest and most efficient way we can get to defining an objective morality - definitely better than arbitrary government mandates dictated by their bribing lobbyist.
An arbitrary state dictating what you should and should not do - a centralised power for sale to the highest bidder - is an archaic barbaric way to structure society. If we want to call ourselves civilised, then we must replace government with decentralised systems of self-governance that are voluntary - in other words, laws without government.
The bottom line
Ethnic identity is more about shared historical values than about locale, borders, or petty politics.
Westerners need to reconnect with their cultural values by upholding their generational responsibility for the values passed on to them. If anything, Westerners must reaffirm their value of freedom out of self-interest; not only because freedom is truly productive and civilised, nor even due to a debt owed to our ancestors.
You must reaffirm and reclaim your historical values of freedom because consistently adhering to your values grants your identity, purpose, and therefore meaning. Without values, you have no identity, and you feel as if you don’t exist; you might as well be dead.
Say ‘yes’ to your life… stay true to what makes you you.
“The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.”
- Thucydides
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Useful reading
‘Conceived in Liberty’ by Murray Rothbard
‘Conceived in Liberty’ is Murray Rothbard’s comprehensive four-volume history of Colonial America up to the American Revolution.
The work follows the development of the American colonies from their founding through the American Revolution, with a particular focus on the struggle between what Rothbard terms “Liberty” and “Power.”
Key themes and insights:
Colonial Development
The colonies developed as largely self-governing entities with significant individual freedoms
Local governance and decentralized power structures emerged organically
Private property rights and free market principles were fundamental to colonial success
Religious freedom and pluralism emerged despite initial religious motivations for some colonies
Resistance to Authority
Colonists consistently resisted attempts at centralized control from both Britain and colonial governments
Local communities often functioned effectively with minimal formal governance
Tax resistance and civil disobedience were common tools used by colonists
The development of American libertarian thought emerged from practical experience
Economic Development
Free market principles drove colonial prosperity
Private property rights and voluntary exchange were central to economic growth
Government intervention and mercantilism typically hindered rather than helped development
Monetary freedom and private currencies played important roles before government monopolization
Major conclusions:
The American Revolution wasn’t just a sudden uprising but the culmination of a long tradition of resistance to authority and defense of individual liberty
The colonial period demonstrated the viability of highly decentralized political and economic systems
Liberty tends to emerge naturally when people are left to their own devices, while centralized power must be imposed
The success of the colonies came largely from their degree of freedom from imperial control
The American experience showed that complex society can function effectively with minimal central authority
‘Freedom in the making of Western culture’ by Guy McLean Rogers
‘Freedom in the Making of Western Culture’ by Guy MacLean Rogers, published in Arethusa (Winter 1995), explores the foundational role of freedom in shaping Western cultural ideals and values. Rogers argues that the concept of freedom was not only central to political systems but also deeply embedded in the philosophical, social, and artistic developments of Western civilization. Tracing its origins from ancient Greece and Rome, he shows how freedom was conceptualized and practiced differently across time periods and regions. Rogers examines how these early notions of freedom influenced later Western thought, contributing to ideals of individual rights, autonomy, and democratic governance. The article suggests that understanding these historical interpretations of freedom is key to grasping the cultural evolution of Western societies and their contemporary emphasis on liberty.
Lastly, consider ‘The Ethics of Liberty’ by Murray N. Rothbard.
Useful reading on stateless voluntaryism
‘Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy’ by Robert P. Murphy
‘No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority’ by Lysander Spooner
‘For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto’ by Murray N. Rothbard
‘Power and Market: Government and the Economy’ by Murray N. Rothbard
‘Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market’ by Murray N. Rothbard
Voluntaryism essays on ‘Bonds of Prometheus’ by Sotiris Rex
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Good job. Thanks again.
No it wasn’t, it was built just like Ancient Greece and Rome on the divine right of kings and freedom for those that could afford it. Its power and freedom to act on the world stage were secured through slavery and resource extraction.
The concept of personal freedom was introduced to Europeans by the people around the Great Lakes during the contact era. These ideas filtered back and sparked the thinking of the Enlightenment. Some of the structures of power fell, but many remained, particularly England. The personal freedom learned from the North American indigenous was not extended to the full population until well into 20th century. Some of those freedoms are under threat now, as the current Barons are securing their power and preventing popular uprising demanding the distribution of power and restoration of freedoms again.