LGBT - The Great Whore of Babylon

  

Modernities are amongst other things characterized by what people from other periods would term moral depravation. Seen in a long term perspective this is the result of the revolt against and breaking down of the high levels of control from forms and norms, levels of control which it had taken centuries to build up. We see this revolt in many fields; the arts free themselves from forms and naturalism, peoples want freedom from oppression, wars liberate themselves from restraint, sexuality becomes unbounded. But what started as a welcome liberation from external and internal suppression and control ends by being part of what breaks civilizations down. At the end of a moderlity we see what looks like barbarism. In politics wish for power becomes dominant and diplomacy is forgotten. Hatred or even violence prevails between people, between politicians and between countries.

 

Here though I will focus on sexuality. In modernities sexuality is liberated from norms and rules and marriage. Despite constant conservative resistance this process proceeds until we see conditions which were unthinkable at the start of modernities. Typically this continues for decades after the end of a moderlity. Just look at Messalina. At the same time we see a counter-movement to end perceived sexual promiscuity and perversions. Augustus who ended the Greco-Roman moderlity  tried this and for example sent the “immoral” poet Ovid to the Black Sea.

 

Today in the Western civilization we are perhaps seven decades from our Augustus, and we see the two sides both radicalizing, this coupled with the increasing political polarization. People with sexual LGBT-orientations are becoming a central battleground. In many leading and official circles such people are almost privileged and dominating. In other parts of society LGBT is viewed with great hostility as incomprehensible and unnatural.

 

This conservative hostility is a part of the beginning attempts at moral restoration. We see these conservative attempts all over the world. The radicalization and the dominance on the side of the LGBT-supporters make the opposite side more and more hostile. But the attempts at moral restoration come in many milder forms around the world, both in religious countries (United States, Middle East) and in secular countries (China), and it needs not be especially concerned with only LGBT.

 

 

 

A much more fundamental resistance to LGBT comes from East Europe with its presumed new civilization. Emerging civilizations begin with strong religious and/or moral feelings. This was the situation for the Oriental civilization two thousand years ago.  This civilization encompassed the whole Middle East, including Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians and later the Moslems. The Jews had experienced firstly the (second) Mesopotamian modernity during their stay in the “immoral” Big city of Babylon, hence  the expression Great Whore of Babylon. Later the Jews and the Christians experienced the Greco-Roman modernity in depraved Rome. No wonder that Rome was called Great Whore of Babylon. The present hate from Islamic terrorists against New York as illustrated by Bin Laden is a late expression of the same hatred, now directed against the Western civilization’s Babylon.

 

Today for many East Europeans parts of the Western civilization are seen as incomprehensible and immoral. LGBT has become the main focus point of these hostile feelings from Warsaw and Budapest to Vladivostok. In this part of the world LGBT is the Great Whore of Babylon. This explains the intensity of feelings against these sexual minorities. Such feelings are clear even in East European countries which otherwise still adhere to western liberal political forms and are thus deeply rooted and almost impossible to change. 

Taiwan, Kosovo and Ukraine

 The following should not be read as a support for any country or power!

 

Taiwan, Kosovo and Ukraine are three prominent examples of countries loosing provinces regarded as of crucial importance. Now, there is no law stating that such areas will or should be regained. Also the theory of the parallel but time-displaced  development of different civilizations does not predict this. But there is sufficient concrete precedence to predict that the loss of provinces having strong emotional importance often lead to strong bitterness and resurgent conflicts and wars. Just look at Alsace-Lorraine between Germany and France.

 

As described in earlier posts the Western civilization is in most of its lifetime strongly historically minded just like the Chinese civilizations and Old Egypt. But in the course of our present modernity we loose this sense more and more. This means that political leaders don’t learn from the past, and it means that they tend to underestimate the importance of history for other countries. The importance of Taiwan, Kosovo and Ukraine are examples of this. For the Chinese leadership Taiwan still symbolizes the century of humiliation by imperialist powers occupying and dominating territories. The emotional importance of this should not be overlooked. In long term Chinese history division has always been lamented. Even if division lasted centuries, it was always overcome inn the end. Even though much has changed with the westernization of the country, the reunification wishes remain a fact.

 

Kosovo and Ukraine are different cases. Both can be seen as the birth place of the mother countries, even though these, Serbia and Russia have since moved there centers. Their status as origins in itself gives the lost territories an enormous significance. Again, I must reiterate that this under no circumstances is meant as a defense of the ethnic cleansing by the Serbians in Kosovo.

 

What further aggravates the feelings in Serbia and Russia is that the primordial provinces Kosovo and Ukraine are seen as stolen by an alien civilization. Both Serbia and Russia are parts of what increasingly looks like an emerging East European civilization. Of course a membership of Ukraine in NATO or a direct military aid to Kiev would be an absurd provocation under such circumstances.

 

It is interesting to follow how on the level of foreign  politics and militarily the western powers (which in this case also mean the western civilization) seemingly unaware of what they are doing are moving eastwards into the areas of the East European civilization.

 

At the same time culturally and on the level of internal politics the East European civilization is moving westwards into areas hitherto firmly attached to western ideals. Poland and Hungary are only the most prominent examples of this. Ukraine is even more East European. Obviously a cultural embedding in the same civilization does not mean warm political relations  between countries in East Europe and Russia. As Said earlier the new civilization can even strengthen anti-Russian feelings despite increasing cultural and even political similarity.