Here is Susan D. Harris writing at American Thinker:
Classical music is a pinnacle of Western civilization that always evokes in me a feeling of prideful human achievement. Now, seeing Western civilization seeming to scramble in disarray, I sometimes feel a bit mournful when I listen to the great composers. As ISIS tries to drag us into the dark days of bloody beheadings and jihad, and the globalists push us toward a social justice that would have us all grubbing in the Ganges equally, I struggle to hold onto the beautiful things that used to define us.
Mendelssohn is a classical composer who lifts me to another realm – a kind of escapism resulting from the composer’s passion and the symbiotic relationship it forms with my cerebral ear.
Recently, however, while listening to the Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave), I rejected the mournful contemplation of our current cultural demise and mused instead on those small, seemingly inconsequential moments that affected Western advancement.
Closing my eyes, I could see Vincent van Gogh’s hand as it made circular swirling motions while composing “The Starry Night.”
I could hear Ludwig van Beethoven working out the beginning strains of Für Elise, defiantly creating though nearly deaf.
…
There was Michelangelo in 1512, sighing with exhausted arms, as he made has last brushstrokes for “The Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel.
Farther on in my journey I saw Martin Luther looking for a nail to hammer his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg.
Alas, the music did not last any longer than to accommodate those few thoughts.
The music stops, and I am back in a harsh reality. I see anarchy on the roads, crime in our streets, drugged and drunken masses. I see foul-mouthed, vulgar young adults who have no larger concept of where they came from or where they’re going. Indeed, they mistakenly think Western civilization, America in particular, is waiting breathlessly to embrace their falsely fresh concepts of failed utopias. They believe that everything that came before them was a terrible mistake; it’s up to them to expose and destroy the hypocrisy of Democrat ideals, capitalism, and Judeo-Christian morality.
It makes one wonder how so many people can be so easily misguided. It’s like riding 50 miles on a horse and then being persuaded to shoot him because it’s better to walk.
Read more: American Thinker
Image credit: Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night.
