A Montréal Update

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Clarissa

January 7, 2015

The weather forecast informs me there is a 50% chance of snow while the snow is falling in a thick stream.

I tried entering a coffee shop, but the moment I touched the door, a huge mound of snow fell on my head. I came into the shop with a fluffy snow crown on my head but the unflappable Canadians in the shop didn’t even break a smile.

In the coffee shop, I saw quotes from Obama ‘ s statement on the terror attack in France broadcast on a huge TV screen. The statement disappointed. Obama mentioned “the universal values” which is obvious crap. There are no universal values. The attack is precisely about the values of free speech and freedom of religion not being universal. Until we find the courage to squeeze the words “our Western values” out of our PC mouths, we’ll remain massively screwed. Or are we ready to sacrifice all of our hard-won civilizational advances in order to hang on to the dubious skill of exercising this mumbly and pathetic politically correct approach?

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2 responses to “A Montréal Update”

J. Otto Pohl

January 7, 2015

What exactly constitutes the West in the days of the nation state collapsing. I suppose we can say it includes the US, France, Canada, a number of European states, Australia, and New Zealand. But, where does one put the rest of a very differentiated world? Where do former European colonies like Ghana and Zimbabwe go? Did the British leave a deep enough influence to talk about western values in Ghana? If not do states like Nigeria and Kenya then also condemn terrorism not in terms of universal values, but African values which are completely different from Western ones despite a common opposition to Boko Haram and Al Shabaab?

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 7, 2015
  
  That’s a very important question! I recently read an article by a Ukrainian journalist on how “the West” has long stopped being a geographical category. It is now a civilizational category. If you accept the Enlightened values and strive to promote them, you are Western irrespective of where you are located. Location means nothing in today’s world. You are a perfect example of that. No matter where you go, you will never lose your identity as an heir to the great Enlightened thinkers.
  
  Ukrainians are at war today, defending their right to be part of the symbolic West and geography is never a concern for them on their journey towards that goal.
  
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