Leftists expressed disapproval that President Trump threatened to destroy Iranian cultural sites, pointing out that such acts are considered war crimes, according to international and federal law. Such acts, if carried out, would indeed be reprehensible. But Trump, I doubt, would ever actually do what he threatened, as his pattern of exaggerated threats followed by measured—if somewhat unpredictable—actions ought to demonstrate to those who are paying attention.
But the criticism is interesting coming from those who, for decades, perhaps even centuries, depending on how you reckon it, have been engaged in destroying, if not the physical buildings of our civilization’s heritage, but the culture that produced those sites and that through them is embodied and preserved for future generations.
Such cultural destruction is far worse a deed than material destruction. Which is more important: a glorious church built to worship God, or the worship itself, of which the church is only the first fruits? And which is a greater sin: the destruction of a beautiful old building, or the destruction of the faith that should have filled that building with praise of the Creator.
The building is important, as an incarnation of the culture that made it, as a reminder of what has come before, and as a tether connecting past, present, and future generations across time.
But a beautiful building that no longer means anything to anyone is a husk, a mere curio. Nice to look at and wonder what sort of people built it. But little more.
We are now living in a civilization filled with such curios, where every day the monuments, both material and immaterial, that our ancestors built mean less and less to their inheritors. Churches stand largely empty, especially in Europe; universities teach students not the tradition that is their birthright, but deconstructionist Marxist propaganda; popular culture is rife with vulgarity and degradation that undermine traditional values, and corrupt rather than edify; even the Catholic Church is filled with Judases more interested in conforming to progressivism and the spirit of the age, than in handing on the faith that they themselves received.
As a result, even when we build, that which we build is ugly and mean, because the culture that trained the builders, and artists, and thinkers is ugly and mean.
How rare and wonderful it is when someone somewhere produces something truly beautiful!
Instead we are confronted daily with ugliness in art, architecture, literature, entertainment, and inexhaustible mediocre consumerism—all in the pursuit of a progressive, modern world.
The left is guilty, by their persistent and systematic efforts to undermine and denature our civilization, of decimating our cultural heritage. The right is guilty of letting it happen, of not mounting a strong enough defense of that which is noble and sacred in our inheritance, and of appeasing decade after decade the destroyers.
Of course, no one is likely to be held accountable for such crimes. Killing a culture is a rather abstract affair. And, after all, we did it to ourselves.