Both The Radical Left And White Nationalists Have False Visions Of Western Civilization

The white supremacist pose towards cultural ‘defense’ is a shame and a sham, while the project of defending civilization against ignorance and decadence is well worth pursuing.

When the white supremacists assembled on the pleasant greens of Charlottesville were not spluttering racial invective and inciting violence, they occasionally tried to explain their ideology—which, admittedly, does not differ greatly from spluttering racial invective and inciting violence. Yet there is a sliver of argument amid all that hate.
Some have taken to wearing T-shirts urging us to “Defend Europe” or “Defend the West.” These statements imitate conservative arguments about preserving Western civilization against decline, while contradicting the meaning of those arguments and tarnishing them with racist associations. The insights of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emily Dickinson, Sappho and Leo Tolstoy are not valuable because of their association with an identity. They are valuable because they represent the mind discerning Truth.
The white supremacist pose towards cultural “defense” is a shame and a sham, while the project of defending Western, Eastern, and African civilization against ignorance and decadence is well worth pursuing. By yoking the idea of civilization to racial collectivism, white supremacists do immense violence to the very idea of culture.

http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/25/radical-left-white-nationalists-false-visions-western-civilization/