Nathan Giede's celebration of the end of modernity has all the fire of Revelations with its predictions of a switchover "from a time of order to a time of chaos, from globalization to nativism, from legislative supremacy to oligarchic maneuvering, from materialism to religious resurgence, from peace to violence," all because modernity has gone against "the Judeo-Christian concept of ultimate truth."
Of course Giede's prophecy demands considerable interpretation, largely because politicians, philosophers and theologians from the apostles through Emperor Constantine, St. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, to Conrad Black (see his National Post article about his recent conversion from atheism to Catholicism) have debated what this concept of ultimate truth is.
Giede alludes to a counter-reformist patron saint who has helped him to his specific interpretation, but declines to specify who this is.
However, some specific errors of modernism are mentioned: the establishment of nation states, the idea of free trade and commerce, the trust in democracy over tyrants, the elimination of slavery, the increasing of wages and the invention and use of technology that has destroyed "basic human tasks from farming to family-making."
I think that Giede might look beyond the counter-reformation for guidance and hope.
Surely Islamic extremists, with their emphasis on family and tribe over nation, their preference for kings and theocracies, their sturdy rejection of relativism, their anti-materialism, their suppression of the Internet and press, and their strict legal code, provide a model for us. Admittedly they have accepted some Western technology, like nuclear weapons and guns, but that has likely been only for defense of their values against the forces of Western modernity. Whether they use tractors or chemical fertilizers in farming I do not know, but in family making they have eliminated technology in the form of contraceptives and hospital abortions and rigorously fought to keep women in their place. It could be said that the leaders of Islam from Mohammed to Suleiman have for centuries fought to save their Christian brethren from themselves.
Another, perhaps more practical, source of guidance in the future might be China. Their one-party, communal system is close to the early Christian feudalism that Giede has great hopes for. The Chinese have happily been taking Western technology off our hands, and would be glad to replace us as leaders in trade and as the world's greatest military force.
John Harris
Prince George
