Barbarians At The Gate

What does the future hold for a country that refuses to protect its citizens from foreign intrusion by criminal elements?  The West's future may have been foretold  in G. K. Chesterton’s, The Flying Inn (1914). The book provides present day Westerners and Americans with an opportunity to understand what is happening to their loss of culture and of national sovereignty. The book consists of a “fictional” account of how England had been stripped of its cultural identity. The book was written at the end of the British imperialistic period of dominance in which England had collapsed under the sheer weight of attempting to maintain its vast empire.

In the book, Chesterton maintains that England lost far more than its preeminent position as the world’s sole super power. He postulated that England had lost its national soul through the unintended integration of its culture with more “barbaric cultures” that it had previously conquered.

The protagonist in The Flying Inn, Dalroy, proclaimed that great nations have frequently followed a similar pattern of progressive and complete self-destruction:

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1. The great nation declares victory over the barbarians.
2. The great nation begins to enjoy the fruits of cheap labor by employing the barbarians that it had conquered.
3. The barbarians become so enmeshed into the great nation, that an alliance with barbarians is formed (e.g., de facto amnesty including members of criminal organizations).
4. Assimilation is followed with the barbarians becoming a privileged class. Thus, the great nation is conquered.

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Near the end of the book, almost every virtuous cultural tradition, of the great nation, comes under sharp criticism, while every cultural tradition emanating from the barbarians’ place of origin became praiseworthy.