On Columbus And Conquest

Columbus Day has become a tedious online ritual. Every year progressives rush online to signal their virtue by talking about the evils of colonialism and Western civilization while conservatives talk about the need to preserve and honor history. Media outlets write their pieces on the controversy, inevitably championing the replacement of Columbus with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and we all move on waiting to do the same dance next year. This tired and hollow display is made possible by the fact that everyone views the issue at a certain distance. Conservatives have taken on board the liberal notion that we live at the End Of History. That most questions about civilization have been answered and the only thing left to do is negotiate the last few unsettled issues before moving forward together, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Columbus was a conqueror, or at the very least his voyages enabled a vast conquest. Conquest is an inescapable fact of the human condition. Some will conquer, some will have the power to resist conquest and stay independent for a time, and the hard fact is that most will live as a conquered people in some way. For most of history, cultures capable of conquest celebrated it. Today, most outwardly condemn it. This is why conservatives often seem so incoherent on the issue. They try to celebrate the heroic conquests of their ancestors while trying to square the act with the current popular morality by calling it something different or treating it as a relic of the past. But of course conquest is not some ancient barbaric practice of the past, it is an inescapable fact of the human condition, which means it is alive and well today.

In the United States and the wider Western world, history and culture are being erased. Statues are torn down, buildings and military bases are renamed, holidays are replaced. Children are taught to hate the story of the home nation, to hate their heritage, to hate the color of their own skin. This is conquest; the people trying to erase your history and transform your culture are attempting to conquer you. The weapons of a soft ideological conquest may look different but make no mistake, the battle for your civilization is happening all around you.

Progressives are not trying to return dignity to indigenous people, they are trying to destroy your dignity. They are not trying to restore a culture from the past, they are attempting to eradicate and replace the one that you hold dear. Conservatives have been easy to conquer in this way because they felt secure, they believed American values and culture were eternal. The Constitution and Bill of Rights would ultimately defend the liberties that defined America and ensure they be carried forward by future generations. The Left, on the other hand, understood that this absentee attitude meant that no one was watching the gates. They marched relentlessly through America’s institutions, seeking to shape the country’s culture and thereby shape its future. And because their conquest came in the form of bookish professors and slickly produced Hollywood films instead of conquistadors brandishing steel, conservatives hardly noticed. The right wanted to be left alone to enjoy the material abundance of post World War Two America and they were willing to ignore the cultural revolution happening around, but the team that wants to win always beats the team that wants to be left alone.

A society can celebrate conquest or condemn it, but it should never delude itself into believing that it has progressed beyond it. Conquest will continue to remain a fact of the human condition, and treating it as a relic of the past makes a civilization blind to important realities about the world around them. Conservatives must be willing to defend the heritage of America and fight for preservation of their way of life against the cultural revolution of the Left, or they will suffer the same fate as so many civilizations who faded into obscurity after defeat at the hands of their enemies.