Dare To Win

I skim history.

That means that I know a lot more than most people, who never bother with it at all.

That also means I don't know hardly a thing compared to people who really study history.

So it will be left to that second group to tell me if I'm completely wrong...

It occurs to me that watching Western Civ fail to even slow its decline in the face of just about any confrontation from outside Western Civ that the critical factor is brutality.

Being all civilized about it is an incentive to our fellow Westerners and is perceived as weakness to other cultures.

Perceived weakness is an invitation to further confrontations.

Now, I mentioned I skim history.  I know that Western Civ is just as capable of brutality as any other culture.  It's just we appear to have given it up for an extended Lent.

I wonder which will happen first if our cultural conflicts become undeniably existential: Our opponents become civilized and play by our rule set or we rediscover brutality.

I'm betting on the latter and I'm hedging with "too late".