Alvino-Mario Fantini, a grduate student currently studying in Holland, has what I believe to be the best diagnosis of what has been going wrong there for at least the last twenty years or so.
I think that he hits the nail square on the head when he says:
The national identity has been hollowed out over the years; traditional Dutch beliefs have been forsaken; and the past has been extirpated. Nihilism of this sort, regardless of the number of tulips that garland it, is an insufficient foundation on which to base liberal, democratic values or a vibrant, civil society.
Holland used to have a culture of devout religious belief, a belief that was almost unique in that it allowed a great deal of tolerance to varying creeds while maintaining it's central core. As Fantini point out in his article, that was not to say that the various groups, say Catholics and Protestants for the sake of the argument, walked hand in hand singing Kum-Ba-Yah and all was Tulips and Bier.
The groups relied on their fellows within their group for their support, not interacting with other groups except in the most general terms. BUT all of the groups allowed the others the freedom to practice as they pleased without interference or prejudice.
Once that core belief base is stripped away, there is nothing left to guide a society. Add in overwrought PC codes and the rewriting of a society's history, and you have a recipe for disaster.
People, Holland is acting as the canary in the mine, and judging by the canary's condition, the mine is filled with methane, and I fear that the effects may soon prove fatal.
The U.S. Left is following in the footsteps of that canary, and the results will be the same. There is still time to turn on the exhaust fans in the U.S. mine and clear the air, but we have to wake up to the fact that the air is polluted, and we'd best do it soon.
Posted by Delftsman3 at June 7, 2006 06:28 PM | TrackBack