Who Are The Real Barbarians??

Over the past few weeks, I have taken a time of abstinence from cable television (something all thinking people should do, honestly) to catch up on watching some DVD's in my library that I have accumulated over the past couple of years.  Some of these - actually, most! - are documentaries, while others are actual movies.  It has been an educational experience doing this, as a lot of times the garbage we watch on TV is totally devoid of any intellectual stimulation and too many waste their time watching it.  Think about it - with cable TV, most of what is offered is deviant sex, radical politics, and anti-Christian bias, all of which I find both repulsive and alarming.   The more "sophisticated" we think we are, in reality the more stupid and barbaric our society is getting.  That being said, it's an ancilliary supporting point to the premise of this article.

Of what I have recently watched, one included a History Channel documentary series entitled Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire, which deals almost exclusively with the declining centuries of Roman imperial power in impressively extensive detail.  One thing I noted with great interest was how barbaric the supposedly "civilized" Romans were in contrast to those they labeled "Barbarians."  The example that really stood out to me as I watched this series was Stilicho, the half-Vandal general and advisor to the Roman emperor in the 4th century.  Stilicho, devoutly Christian and with a characteristic humility and sense of honor that many of us would do good to emulate, was executed unjustly and barbarically by full-blooded "civilized" Romans because he was simply that, a "Barbarian."  Yet, Caligula, another Roman Emperor from a couple of centuries earlier, was in reality more barbaric than Stilicho ever was.  Caligula, as a matter of fact, was one of the most brutal, perverted, and barbaric individuals ever to exist - he was, next to Hitler, perhaps the most wicked man ever to lead a nation.   Lest you think this was limited to ancient Rome, I would advise you take a closer look at 21st-century America today.  We West Virginians, for instance, have become the modern-day Stilichos in many cases - despite the fact many of our people are hard-working, decent people and we have produced a high caliber of intellectuals, we are still called "backward hillbillies" who are supposedly products of "inbreeding" and other such media-perpetrated lies.  Yet, our detractors - the media elite of New York and other places in many cases - have been documented to live debauched lifestyles and have indulged in such sick pasttimes that even Caligula would blush.   And, many of these "intellectual elite" are so clueless that they cannot even carry on an intellectual conversation.   At the office I work at in downtown Tampa, I see this all the time - there are some people in my office who, at lunch, sit around the table espousing radical politics, and discussing more of what Justin Bieber's hair looks like or the recent  'wisdom' of Charlie Sheen or Oprah rather than discussing real issues, and most of them are clueless when it comes to Shakespeare or Stravinsky (Ironically, when I was in grade school in small-town WV, we learned more about classical literature than most high-schoolers in Tampa learn in four years, if that says anything.  In high school, I had Latin and German; here, kids learn how to speak "gangsta").  Yet, the Sheenistas claim to be "sophisticated" due to what they read in a local liberal rag published here called tbt, a paper noted for showcasing sex perverts, acceptance of illicit drugs, and radical left-wing politics.   Popular culture today is scary, and personally I only keep informed enough about it so that I can accurately observe how absurd most of it is. 

I also managed to watch for the first time in many years Herman Wouk's The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.  These two movies came out as mini-series in the mid-1980's, and personally I consider them two of the best films ever made.  Both films are based in World War II, and deal with the lives of the Henry family, an American military household headed by the battle-hardened Navy captain Victor "Pug" Henry (portrayed by legendary actor Robert Mitchum, who fit the role brilliantly) and a Polish-Jewish family, the Jastrows, represented by the elderly author/scholar Dr. Aron Jastrow (portrayed first by John Houseman, and later in the second movie by Sir John Gielgud, both of whom did an outstanding job in the role).  Henry's son Byron, the bohemian adventurer, lands a job with Dr. Jastrow in Italy as a researcher, and later falls for and eventually marries Jastrow's beautiful niece, Natalie (portrayed first by Ali McGraw, and later by Jane Seymour).  As WWII breaks out, the Henrys are plunged into Naval service while the Jastrows become increasingly endangered by the approaching Gestapo, and in the end Aaron ends up in the gas chamber at Auschwitz while Natalie survives the camp.  One thing that really struck me personally was how Aaron Jastrow, supposedly a secular Jew and intellectual, eventually finds the God of his fathers as the Nazis plot his destruction, and as he breathes his last in the hellish gas chamber in Auschwitz, the eternal words of Psalm 23 are on his lips as he goes to his eternal reward.  That was a powerful scene, and just seeing that adds to this point - the "civilized" Germans, demonically possessed by the racist hatred of the Nazis, become barbarians as they debase and destroy a man of brilliant mind and great prestige like Dr. Aaron Jastrow.  Yet, today in America we see this stuff repeating itself - people of brilliant intellect and noble bearing are often persecuted and despised because they are people of faith.   And, our respect for life and decency in this nation has waned considerably since we allowed certain elements to shove sexual deviancy, evolutionary philosophy, and cultural illiteracy down our throats just because some airheads in Hollywood or some self-serving politician in Washington thinks Marxism, evolution, and eugenics are "sophisticated."   We abort millions of babies in cold blood, and some for stupid reasons - we consider them "subhuman" because they may have Down's Syndrome, cerebral palsy, or may be autistic.  Not only that, but respect for elders has waned as well as Obamacare wants to kill off the elderly too.  Not much these days separates us from the Nazis, to be honest.  A return to solid values, common decency, and intellectual encouragement would easily eliminate the barbaric "culture of death" we are sinking into, and unless we turn it around, we will end up following Rome into decline.  So, maybe Rome's example should be an example to us.

That is my humble opinion, despite some stones that may be cast at me for it, this week, and we'll see you again soon.