Civilization's three powers

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Civilization's three powers

2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Civilization is made up of three powers. These

are state, church and culture. The state exists for
defense. The church exists to nurture the spirit.
The culture, in its turn, is the realm of artistic
expression and economic production.
If one of these three powers begins to dominate
the civilization, the other powers may be
blocked from performing their essential
function. If a civilization is to remain healthy,
each power must keep to its appointed sphere.
If the state becomes too powerful, the resulting
dictatorship brings in its train spiritual
degradation and economic collapse. This is what
happened to Russia after 1917. The Communist
state crushed the Church, eventually turning it
into an extension of the state espionage system.
The Communist state also crushed the economy
-- destroying farmers, business men and the
market. Art and literature became expressions
of state propaganda, while science served the
interests of a huge military machine.

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If the church becomes too powerful, the result is

theocracy. In this situation the state itself
becomes colonized by the church. The culture, in
its turn, is also colonized and controlled. The
economy suffers from both state and church
interference. Religious conflict and war become
leading themes. Death and martyrdom become
perverted expressions of a corrupt spirituality.
If culture becomes too powerful within a
civilization, the result is rampant hedonism. In
this situation the state becomes the creature of
cultural forces, including large corporations and
various special interest groups. This results in a
condition known as "culture war." Under such
conditions, control of the culture means control
of the state and the church. Under cultural
domination, state officials think mainly of the
economy, of extending prosperity and
facilitating the hedonistic enjoyment of the
people. A state of this type loses its sense of
self-preservation. It gradually ceases to perform
its defensive function. Meanwhile, the culture
colonizes the churches, turning them into
business enterprises. Under a dominant culture,
traditional church music is replaced by
contemporary popular music; the clergy begins
to prefer psychological counseling instead of
moral teaching; people begin to shop for the
church that best fits their "needs"; religion
therefore becomes weakened, along with the
overall spiritual state of the civilization.
Many Americans today feel that the state has
become too dominant, that we are at a situation
of virtual dictatorship. But this is a
misunderstanding. Russia and China are
dictatorships. In America, the state has been
captured by dominant cultural forces, those
which are victorious in the "culture war." This
arrangement is very different from totalitarian
state control. Here we find the chief
determinants are cultural institutions -- big
business, universities, cultural foundations,
major media and the entertainment industry.
Whatever abuses appear within the U.S. state
machinery, the abuses stem from the logic of

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Civilization's three powers

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hedonism and consumerism rather than the

logic of a police state. The most repressive
agency in the government, therefore, becomes
the IRS. Collecting taxes and redistributing the
means of consumption is the most basic function
of all. To facilitate consumption and "the pursuit
of happiness," religion must be strictly limited in
its anti-hedonistic effects. If the state crushes the
Branch Davidians, for example, this is not
because the state demands the elimination of a
threat to its power, but that the culture no
longer tolerates those who oppose the values of
a shopping mall regime. Such people are
"weirdos" who await a future nuclear war. Such
people are, by nature, hostile to the culture more
than they are hostile to the state.
The greatest sin under a regime of
pleasure-seeking is to speak against pleasure.
That is why the more traditional churches in the
country are more likely to suffer from state
harassment and interference. If a church leader
says that God wants you to be rich, or that God
is not about strict rules or obligations, then there
is no threat -- no attempt to check the hedonistic
impulses of the dominant culture. In this
interpretation, the church that preaches political
correctness and "getting rich" has joined the
culture and no longer serves its spiritualizing
function. Such a church is merely a social
function which offers various entertainments.
One often finds that "worshippers" in such
churches clap their hands in applause after
someone sings or plays an instrument. The
purpose of the music is no longer to please God,
but to please an audience. The change here is
palpable.
In further describing a civilization dominated by
culture, it is necessary to mention the enemy
within. This enemy gains new power and
prestige under a shopping mall regime because
nothing exists to prevent the organizing of
subversion. In fact, any attempt to stop internal
subversion would be contrary to the culture.
The socialists and leftists who seek to overthrow
capitalism and change our civilization join
forces with the culture in opposing religion.

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Because the state apparatus is weak in America,

and dictatorial power is difficult if not
impossible to come by, socialists and other
malcontents are forced to operate through the
medium of our cultural institutions. Realizing
this necessity, they have sought to transform the
country through education and the media. This
is the "culture war" which rages all around us. In
a dictatorship one merely has to take control of
the state. In a civilization dominated by culture
one must take control of the schools, the
publishing houses, the newspapers and
television stations. The objective is to capture
the state through the back door of culture. Over
time, if you can change the equation so that a
dictatorship becomes possible, then you can use
the state to crush all opposition -- cultural and
religious. Then you would have a socialist
dictatorship where the state dominates.
It is difficult, however, to overthrow a republic
where power is widely distributed among many
players. On the other hand, since culture
dominates the state you will notice a decided
atrophy of the state's defensive function. In
other words, such a society has no efficient
organ of defense from foreign enemies and
domestic subversion. Consider the following
statement of the Department of Energy's new
Counterintelligence Director, made in
November 1998:
The counterintelligence program at DOE
does not even meet minimal standards ...
there is not a counterintelligence
(program), nor has there been one at DOE
for many, many years.
The collapse of counterintelligence at DOE
allowed the Chinese to steal the secrets of our
most advanced nuclear weapons.
This atrophy of the protective function can be
seen in other areas as well. In 1998, for example,
an unknown man walked into State Department
headquarters. He went to the office of the
executive secretary (not far from the office of the
secretary of state) and picked up some classified
documents. He then walked out of the building

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without being stopped. Nobody knows where

the classified documents went.
On Jan. 17 the Washington Post ran an article
entitled "State Dept. Security Has Been Lax,
Audit Finds." According to this story the State
Department inspector general reported major
lapses in security, especially in the area of
sensitive compartmented information (SCI).
According to the inspector general's report, 140
State Department offices handling sensitive
information had never been swept for electronic
bugging devices. Worse yet, in a two-day period
in September 1998, the inspector general
discovered that 1,726 visitors were roaming
about in State Department headquarters,
including 326 foreign government officials, and
most of them were moving "about the building
unescorted."
A true police state or dictatorship would not
allow such a situation to develop. When the
state is dominant over culture, its secrets are
carefully guarded and its agents are all
powerful. America's present government is
incapable of keeping its secrets, or of protecting
its own interests. In fact, the penetration of the
United States government by foreign agents of
influence, and by domestic malcontents and
subversives, is not a matter of conjecture. It is a
well known fact which most people simply
ignore.
The United States government is oriented
toward economic prosperity, consumerism,
hedonism and liberal culture. In opposition to
this, the state's defensive function verges on
fascism in its demand to shoot traitors and
liquidate enemies. This would not be tolerated
under the present regime. Today we find
traitors raised to high office, foreign spies
wandering leisurely through rooms filled with
classified documents, and enemies stealing
whatever nuclear secrets the DOE has at hand.
Chairman Mao noted that political power flows
from the barrel of a gun. But in America
everyone assumes that money is the source of all
power. Russia and China are considered to be

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weak because they are poor. In a country

dominated by its culture, in which the state
function has atrophied, political power is
thought to flow from a large bank account.
Today we imagine that money is the foundation
of all things. Whenever we encounter a problem
there is but one solution -- we throw money at
it. But money is not the answer to most of our
problems today.
Our education problem would be better solved
by discipline in the schools rather than by
money. But we will not try the path of
discipline. Our crime problem can only be
solved by restoring harsh punishments. But
criminals continue to be coddled. Our political
corruption problem requires moral and spiritual
improvement and a rejection of that narcissism
which now characterizes America's shopping
mall regime. But we're all too busy having fun
to bother with moral and spiritual
improvement.
We now live in a civilization with a diminished
state and church function. We are losing the
ability to defend ourselves while our spirituality
is in decline. The consequences of the imbalance
within our civilization are clear. Money, fashion
and fun have overcome spiritual values,
authority and discipline.
How can the balance be restored?

J.R. Nyquist is a WorldNetDaily contributing editor

and author of 'Origins of the Fourth World War.'

   

 

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