Western Civilization and its Discontents: Part 2 By Stephen W. Browne

"“Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours?”
G K Chesterton

Every country and every culture has a role of founders, historical or mythological, that to a great degree defines the sense of identity of the group. A living, written language generally has writers who are recognized as the founders of its literature, religious sects have their founding prophets, preachers or demigods and a nation has historical or mythological founders who are recognized for the establishment of a dynasty, their country’s borders or of its political institutions.

If the new order proves stable, if the language settles into a form that is comprehensible to subsequent generations, if a religion maintains a consistent central dogma over time or the political institutions of a country keep operating in a tolerably smooth manner, succeeding generations have reason to be grateful. Founders are revered because they create islands of stability in the turbulent sea of history, lengths of time in which generations can raise their children reasonably secure from the worst that history can throw at them."

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