Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 57

Was there ever a Golden Age? Camelot and the Vision of Albion, by Geoffrey Ashe (1971)

Geoffrey Ashe is one of my favourite authors, and Camelot and the Vision of Albion (1971) is (for me) his best book. Strongly recommended. 

I have been re-reading it - slowly and with much provoked thought - for the past couple of weeks; and pondering its core ideas, concerning the powerful conviction of a "golden age", specifically for Britain ("Albion") - how this is exemplified by the Arthurian "matter of Britain" through its many developments. 

William Blake's writings, especially his long prophetic poem "Jerusalem", are given especially close attention. 

More broadly, the book is about the idea of a golden era that is lost ("Camelot"), remains as a visionary memory, yet may be recovered; including an heroic leader (such as Arthur) who has died, yet may return... 

Ashe considers how such visionary ideals have been recurrent through many places and times; how they have shaped, and continue to shape, the human imagination - and have inspired human action: individual and societal. 

The book is typical of the best of late 1960s, early 1970s psychological and social reflection (which is, at a higher general level than anything since) - which means that the treatment of Christianity is largely "comparative" and in terms of its effects - rather than assuming (some form of) Christianity to be Truth about Reality, and exploring the consequences of that assumption.

(...This despite that Ashe was himself an active and devout Roman Catholic - he never states this in his major works, and I did not know about it until after his death.)

   

When it comes to the basic idea that there once was a Golden Age, and we that we ought to be working restore its essence in the future - I assent only partly: only about fifty percent!

Clearly an idea as frequent and near-universal as the past Golden Age must be based in something real; and my assumption is that this is some combination of our memories of early childhood, with some kind of yearning for the simple hunter-gatherer life that used to be universal for Men. 

But how "golden" are such lives? I think the point is that the human consciousness of the golden age is best understood as being much more natural and spontaneous and present-minded; and much less self-aware than adults and modern Men.   

Therefore, the golden age cannot be restored when Men have modern adult consciousness; and it cannot be restored in the context of any settled, civilized, organized society or civilization - because such lives require planning, specialization, organization... and many other things that alienate us and subjugate us. 

More deeply, there are the twin realities of evil and entropy. 

Firstly: what about evil, and entropy (i.e. disease, degeneration and death) in the Golden Age? 

My understanding is that awareness of these was diminished by the lesser development of consciousness among children and early tribal people. Therefore, evil and entropy were always present - but not conceptualized, mostly ignored, easily forgotten.  

So (by my understanding) the Golden Age did not solve the perennial problems of mortal life on earth - it just found these problems much easier than we do Not to think about. 

This is why there can be no future Golden Age, because we now are aware of these problems - to the extent that many people's lives are made fearful and miserable by thinking about them - even when they are not actually being experienced. 

Those who believe in the possibility of a future golden age must therefore posit some qualitative change in Men - the future golden Men must (if that age is to be golden) not be motivated by evil, they must not be susceptible to disease and degeneration, they must not be troubled by death and loss. 

...Which means that such Men will not be like us, they will no be us; and it's no solution to the problems of entropy and evil in the human condition to posit a golden age for "other people" and "somewhere else" in which there is neither entropy nor evil - it's a non-sequitur. 

If everything needs to be changed, then that is a replacement, not a solution. 

More deeply still; the ideal of a future golden age does not, and cannot say how - even in theory - evil could be eliminated, when it is found in all beings including ourselves; and how entropy could be eliminated when it seems universal.

My conclusion is that the golden age for us, for our-selves, can lie only in another state and place of being, not in this world. 

For me; that would be Heaven, and it lies outwith this mortal world.

In sum; the yearning for a restored Golden Age is understandable, significantly reality-based, and we can learn much from it; but ultimately it is impossible. 

The strategic PSYOP of global horror intended to overwhelm with fear and inculcate despair

It strikes me that there has been and is a very long-term demonic PSYOP, which has largely succeeded in embroiling the world's discourse in a non-stop festival of horror, with the aim of overwhelming us with fear and inculcating an extremity of despair. 

There is, of course, more than enough horror in the world at any time, and then there is a vast amount of lying, selection and distortion. 

And nearly-all of this reported as happening remotely - elsewhere and to other people (or indeed, supposedly, in the past) - and we know it only by second-/ third-/ nth-hand report by agents... 

We know it mostly (or wholly) via agents who serve the agenda of evil; and who supply slanted or inverted concepts with which we are intended to interpret their alleged-facts. 

On top of this there is a dominant ethic, or value-system, which both implies and argues that - because of the alleged extremity, pervasiveness and causes of this reported-evil; remote evils are actually the most significant evil in the world. 

By comparison; whatever evils that we personally experience and know are portrayed as trivial and subjective. 

This combination of depictions of extreme reported horror, with a pervasive and powerfully-enforced value system that puts this reported horror at the centre of the ethical concern of people worthy of admiration and respect, makes for a potentially lethal cocktail. 

I say potentially lethal, because (like so many aspects of the modern world) this evil-made and evil-motivated situation within divine creation, is made-use-of and intended by God to teach us vital lessons during this actual mortal life here-and-now. 

It is nigh impossible to avoid exposure to this inducement to sin; and to be influenced by it. Yet, as Christians; we ought first to recognize that fear and despair are sins that must be acknowledged and repented. 

The upshot is that we are each compelled to deal-with this very strong source of temptation to sin; so that we will not be manipulated into evil attitudes for the evil ends of our evil overlords!

As usual in such situation; our single most vital defence is to acknowledge what is going-on: that we have been deliberately placed and kept in a deliberately corrupting situation by the powers of purposive evil and their servants.

But no matter how corrupting the situation (and how compromised we have become by past choices); our loving God (by his creative power) will always ensure that there is a way to learn and an open route to salvation.

From that basic understanding, our experiences of being-manipulated may lead to us learning many and important life lessons (of permanent benefit to us in the life everlasting to come); and to develop attitudes that lead us towards salvation - rather than towards the intended self-damnation consequent upon surrendering to fear and despair. 

Captivity in the tower of Cirith Ungol is, from Frodo's perspective, the ultimate "hopeless situation": Yet he was wrong to despair

Over at the Notion Club Papers, and using an example from The Lord of the Rings, I discuss how no situation is ever hopeless, and no situation ever justifies despair - for one who inhabits the divinely created world of a good God. 

And, on the other hand, it is despair itself that cuts us off from valid grounds for hope. 

Are all religions fundamentally the same?

When you get something false (because it is false) asserted as often as that "all religions are fundamentally the same" - it is usually because of an unexamined, perhaps unnoticed, assumption. 

Disagreement arises among those who do not share this assumption - yet the root of the disagreement is too seldom unearthed in the heat of argument. 

I think that people started saying all religions were (at root) "the same" when people started focusing (almost exclusively) on this-worldly aspects of religion and began ignoring (or simply not thinking about) what happens to us after death. 

In essence: The disagreement over whether religions are "the same" hinges around whether we assume a religion is defined by what it says and does about this mortal human life on earth; or whether we assume a religion is rooted in what it says about the life of our soul/ spirit after we have died. 

For atheists (and therefore the mainstream of public discourse in the modern world), of course, death is The End; so it is unsurprising that their comparisons of religions focus entirely on the psychology and social behaviour of various kinds of religious people. 

Since there are many broad similarities in the behaviour of people of various religions, then - by these assumptions - it seems reasonable to assert that all religions are fundamentally the same, and that differences are superficial and contingent. 

The other group who assert religions are fundamentally the same are those Westerners who advocate The Perennial Philosophy: some "oneness" spirituality that draws upon mystical (often "Eastern") religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism or the like; and upon the tradition of Neo-Platonism or Gnosticism (for example) either with a pagan or Christian vocabulary. 

Such people do believe in existence beyond death; but this existence is impersonal. Survival is without ego, without personality; perhaps pure passive contemplation, perhaps by assimilation into The One (from which all originated). Oneness spirituality regards this mortal life as secondary, temporary, superficial; indeed an illusion ("maya") - the only real-reality is in the permanence and changeless stillness of oneness.  

Therefore, from the Perennialist/ Oneness perspective; all specific religions are this-worldly, ego-focused, and delusional: therefore all religions are fundamentally The Same - i.e. wrong!

But if instead we assume (as I personally do) that the fundamental nature of a religion is defined by its account of what happens after this mortal life: that is after death - then we get a very different understanding. 

If the main thing about a religion is supposed to relate to this mortal life and world; then we may well conclude that the similarities are more important than the differences; and that all religions are - near enough - "the same". 

But if instead we focus on the nature of life after death - as I believe that we should - then we discover that there are many, qualitatively distinct and mutually incompatible differences between religions - and differences between any religion and other types of world-view and ideology. 

For instance; if we expect or desire to reincarnate after death there are several very different models of how reincarnation works (re-cycling of souls, spiritual evolution, operations of karma etc).

If one of these reincarnations happens to our soul, then the others don't happen! And therefore the religions are different.

Like wise with other possible outcomes. If like the ancient Greeks or Hebrews, every soul is assumed to become a demented ghost dwelling forever in an underworld; then this post-death outcome is absolutely distinct-from and incompatible-with  the Christian belief in resurrection of the body to eternal Heavenly life.  

In sum; all religions came be regarded as very broadly "the same" if we focus wholly on our bodies, on human psychology and sociology, during this mortal life on earth; but there are many distinct religions (and non-religions) if, instead, we define a religion primarily by its assertions concerning the nature or absence of existence of the soul or spirit after death.  

Q: Why can't Western nations "mind their own business?" A: Because they have no business to mind.

Sensible and common-sensical people from places like the USA, UK and France will often wail: "But why can't we just mind our own business?" 

Meaning, why are we intervening/ interfering abroad; when so much needs to be done to sort-out our affairs "at home"?  

This, especially, when it comes to engaging in wars on behalf of nations with which we have no treaties; or intervening to replace the rulers and change the way of life of... anywhere we fancy, anywhere in the world... for as long or as short a period as is convenient to us. 

But the simple answer is that we cannot mind our own business because we have no business to mind. 

For instance; what, exactly, is the business of the UK? 

(I don't mean to ask what our business should be, but what our business actually and currently is?) 

To which we can only say - there isn't anything At All: No actual business... Not so far as the people who run the UK, and their obedient managerial-state minions are concerned.

At least, there is no positive business... 

The fact is that our rulers (e.g. in politics, finance, mega-corps, and the mass media) are already sorting our our affairs "at home" in just the way that they want it sorted. 

That is: they are replacing the native population with immigrants and encouraging hatred between them; they are destroying the economy and the environment; and have already captured and corrupted the military/ legal system/ policing/ education/ health services/ churches.

Their home "business" of civilizational and social destruction is going very well, therefore they are "minding their own business" - i.e. the business of destruction; so (from their perspective) they are free to engage in similarly-destructive foreign adventures to their hearts content!     

Dealing with the problem of entropy. Love versus Bliss - Creation versus Stasis

Mainstream Christianity (although, presumably, not what Jesus actually said and did!) has apparently always embodied a fundamental, metaphysical, incoherence  - whereby it has tried to assert two incompatible world-views and life-aspirations. 

(I assume - but cannot "prove" - that this arose as a consequence of early theologians being unwilling to give-up their Judaic assumptions and/or the Classically-derived Greek and Roman philosophy - especially Neo-Platonism; and instead fitting the simple reality of Christianity into one, the other, or both of these pre-existing moulds - thereby creating the unclarity, paradoxes and "mysteries" which have existed since.) 

Entropy - leading to our death and the death of every person and thing that we know - is an unavoidable experience and fact of life; unavoidable so long as we are aware, purposive, and/or take memory seriously. 

People have therefore dealt with entropy, tried to remove it from experience and/or from reality, by several tactics and strategies. 

One is the goal of living in a perpetual present. If Time is cut down to a present-moment in which (so far as we can tell) nothing happens; then we have apparently deleted Time. If there is no Time, there is no entropy, and no death...

The idea in practice may become manifested as life being cut-up into a sequence of disconnected "now"s; each without relation to what went before. 

To some extent, this can be seen in popular mainstream culture, and its extreme un-interest in looking at trends, or "joining the dots" between facts or experiences. "That was then, this is now"... so why bother about it? Concern about the past or future is a "downer". If I feel OK now, then that's all that matters... 

In effect: if I can say "I see no entropy now" (i.e. there is no change, no degeneration, no death) in the time-slice that is the present moment under consideration; then (it is inferred) entropy can be denied or ignored.

This "works" insofar as analysis is restricted to this present moment. 

Ultimately, this aspires to delete Time - or, if not possible, to delete any perception of Time. 

Thus life aspires to a state of stasis - preferably blissful stasis. 

The aim is contemplative, not creative.

Thus the ideal state is to "stop" or escape Time, and therefore (necessarily) to "stop" creation - more exactly, to stop creating. 

(God's creation is seen from this perspective as done and finished, completed once and for always, total and complete - a creation to which nothing can be added.)

The above analysis and purpose seems to be converged-upon by a wide range of religions and spiritualties; I think because it arises from commonly shared assumptions and practices - from a particular way of dealing-with, of escaping-from, the problem of entropy. 

The attitude aimed-at is indifference, detachment, not-feeling, not-caring; the desire is to become unaware of entropy and its consequence. 

The attitude aimed at is acceptance: don't compare, don't remember, don't plan... 

Accept whatever happens. Maybe it is all regarded as "good"... But however regarded What Is, Just Is, and should be accepted. 

(Our misery is interpreted as a consequence of failing to accept.)

But (by my understanding) what Jesus said was aimed-at those of us who choose creation as our primary goal, not contemplation. 

Those of us who choose love as our fundamental value, rather than indifference.  

Jesus dealt with entropy by accepting its inevitability in this mortal life; and offering the elimination of entropy ("life everlasting") in resurrected heavenly life - after death. 

The need for resurrection derives from the inevitability of entropy in this mortal world. From the fact that this mortal world cannot be "redeemed". 

Entropy is a part of this mortal reality - therefore there cannot be a heaven in this life or on this earth - which is why the Heaven of Jesus is in the resurrected life and in Heaven.

Jesus's teaching is linear, sequential, includes time, includes change, entails freedom and the capacity for love - and from this it promises to eliminated death - which concept included sin and corruption. 

In the Heaven made possible by Jesus; there will be love, creation, and change - but there will not be sin, corruption or death. 

Resurrection is a voluntary remaking: we desire and allow ourselves to be remade without entropy, and without sin by following Jesus - and that is the only way it can happen. 

Implicitly; Jesus dealt with entropy by love; and love is a choice - love entails freedom. 

Jesus embraced creation rather than contemplation, and invited Men to join with the work of creation (to become Sons of God). 

This is why Heaven is necessarily opt-in - because people cannot be made to love, nor to create - these come from freedom, not coercion. And this is why those who do not (from their freedom) opt-in, are thereby (self-) excluded.

And those self-identified Christians who aspire to a Heaven that is without Time, that contemplative not creative, is changeless, is experienced as a constant present... 

Well, such people are wanting something different from what Jesus actually offered. 

"They mean well..." What it Really means...

They mean well is a phrase used frequently about the astroturf-activists who support "good" (i.e. leftist) causes such as antiracism, climate, antiwar etc - but "go too far" by committing acts of sabotage, menace, destruction, violence etc.

The term is also applied to the the totalitarian-manipulated intractably-stupid masses, who get their facts and opinions from officialdom and the mass media... 

"They mean well..." 

So far as I can discern, "they mean well" actually means":

1. "I want to feel good about myself". 

Plus

2. "What makes me feel good about myself, is approval from those who get their facts and opinions from officialdom and the mass media."

This is understandable - as most types of sin are understandable (e.g. dishonesty, resentment, greed, lust, laziness) - being based in instinct...

But I don't think that really means that such people "mean well" - even when they constitute a large majority of the Western population.  

     

Richard Playne Stevens - the superpowered 1941 genius of night fighter interception

"Steve" Stevens beside his black painted Hawker Hurricane Mk I - credited by his biographer with 15.5 "kills" at night, without the use of on-board radar. He does not look like a nice person - and he wasn't .

I have a fascination with nightfighters of World War II - both the pilots and the radar-operators; and have read several biographies and memoirs of the species. 

Interception and destruction of enemy night bombers became highly desirable after the daylight Battle of Britain turned into the nocturnal Blitz in the autumn of 1940; but although the RAF made considerable efforts, there was essentially no success for many months; due the inadequate aircraft (the too-slow, feebly-armed, Bristol Blenheim) and the primitive on-board radar and inexperienced operators. 

It was only in the winter of 1940 when the fast and heavily-armed, two crew and two-engined, Bristol Beaufighter and better radar became available (and on-board radar expertise, and pilot-operator teamwork, began to develop); that the first successful interceptions began to occur from the exceptionally brilliant duo of John Cunningham and Jimmy Rawnsley. 

But from January of 1941 through to his death not-quite a year later, by far the leading nightfighter was Richard Playne Stevens, who flew the single-crew, single-engine, day-fighter the Hawker Hurricane. He rapidly accumulated "kills" - starting with two kills in one night on 15/16 January, and repeating a double on several more occasions. 

Stevens was instantly propelling into national heroic status with a Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar (i.e. awarded twice) followed by a Distinguished Service Order shortly before his death - The DSO being the highest award for operational gallantry in the UK, except the Victoria Cross.  

The extraordinary thing about Stevens is that he did not use on-board radar, but relied upon his truly exceptional - indeed apparently unique - night vision; combined with exceptional marksmanship. 

In the many accounts of the best fighter pilots from the first and second World Wars, this combination of attributes comes up again and again: exceptional eyesight and marksmanship. These were what, above all, set the aces (or Experten for the Germans) above the rest. 

So it is perhaps unsurprising that the best nightfighter pilot of this first year of the craft, was distinguished above all by the best night eyesight that anyone could remember. 

In late 1940, John Cunningham had been dubbed "Cat's Eyes" by the newspapers, because RAF propagandists falsely claimed that his early successes were due to exceptional night vision, in order to conceal the development of on-board radar. 

But this was not true: John Cunningham did not have exceptional night vision, and radar was essential for his kills. 

However, Richard Playne Stevens really did have astonishing "Cat's Eyes" ability to find, recognize, and destroy enemy bombers when nobody else could do this! His superb vision even extended to an ability to take off and land, and navigate, in appalling weather conditions of clouds and fog; conditions that grounded the rest of the RAF.    

It would not be too much of a stretch to say that Stevens eyesight was akin to the superpower of a comic superhero! - in the sense that his vision was qualitatively superior to everyone else, and it enabled him to do things impossible to normal people. 

As Cunningham himself said: "It was Stevens - and not me - who was unique in being the only really successful "Cat's Eyes" nightfighter pilot in the whole Royal Air Force".  

RP Stevens was also characterized by exceptionally-high, focused and sustained motivation to do that at which he excelled - he wanted to do that, and nothing else would suffice. 

It was my long term interest in the phenomenon of genius that spurred me to read the biography of RP Stevens - Lone Wolf by Andy Summers and Terry Thompson (2019). It seemed that RPS probably had at least two of the three qualities that I had identified as characteristic of the species: exceptional ability and motivation. 

I wanted to discover whether he had an "endogenous" personality - i.e. whether he was unusually inwardly-attentive and inwardly-dominated. Such an endogenous bias has, as an almost inevitable consequence, social consequences; caused by unusual indifference to other people and their feelings or approval.  

This abnormal psychology manifests variously; perhaps as "eccentricity", or even craziness ("psychoticsm"), or sometimes a psychopath-like selfishness and wilfullness. 

 

The biography revealed that Stevens was indeed an "endogenous personality". The title "Lone Wolf" reflects this - he wanted, indeed insisted, on working alone and doing what he wanted. 

At the time; this was uniquely possible for nightfighter pilots, perhaps above all other fighting military personnel. 

Probably, this is why I am so interested in WWII nightfighters: they retained the individualist and distinctive attitudes and behaviours that characterized many of the best 1914-18 war pilots.   

More exactly, it is clear that Stevens was an unpleasant and generally disliked person - going right back to childhood, through schooldays, pre-war work, and into the war: Friendless, tending to blame others, and with a cruel streak. 

As an extreme example, RPS put it about that his wife and children had been killed in the Blitz and that this had filled him with a consuming hatred of Germans and an obsessive desire to kill them. This was widely reported in the press and believed by his RAF colleagues and has been repeated in subsequent histories and memoirs; but it was not true. 

Instead Stevens had a wife and son who were alive, in Sussex; but completely ignored and never visited after the funeral of his beloved toddler-age daughter, who died in a household fire for which he apparently blamed his wife. 

Richard Playne Stevens is therefore an instance of something often seen with geniuses: that they are very difficult people to have around, and they seldom fit into the bureaucratic structures of modern society. 

If society wants the fruits of genius, then there is no alternative but to put up with their difficult behaviour and often unlikeable personalities. 

More than this, a genius must be allowed and sustained-in a niche, an unique environment and situation. In all the RAF it is likely that there was no other pilot who operated in the way that Stevens did; none who were allowed to do their own thing in such an autonomous fashion. 

Britain in the 1940s was the kind of place that enabled geniuses to survive, and indeed thrive. 

The result was that Britain got the society-wide benefits of a wide range of individual geniuses: those unique people who could do what nobody else could do. 

But Britain in 2024 is actively hostile to the genius type - with the consequence that any incipient geniuses are aggressively excluded from the influential and effective social milieu; and most potential genius achievements (which are typically dissonant with prevailing mainstream ideology) will be ignored: in fact suppressed.

Hate-watching Amazon's "Rings of Power"

RoP's Gil-Galad and Elrond - among the wisest, noblest and most beautiful creatures of this world (cough...)

I have never before watched-all-through a long series that I thought was very bad, before Amazon's "Rings of Power" - which is supposedly based-on JRR Tolkien; but isn't. 

But apparently hate-watching is addictive! Because I find myself counting the days (21 to go!) before Series Two appears; and I can again "enjoy" the most all-round-incompetent big-budget TV series of all-time.  

My main fear is that Series Two will not be as bad as Series One - that it might get into the Uncanny Valley zone where it became enough like Tolkien to exert a subversive effect on the real thing. Because Series One was so very bad, so utterly unlike Tolkien, that a lifetime Tolkien-lover could watch it without any sense of distortion or woke-repurposing. 

But suppose Series Two is better enough that I can take it at all seriously as a Tolkien adaptation? That might indeed be so unpleasant that I would need to stop viewing the thing.

However, at present (and having viewed the four minute Trailer), I am quite relaxed in my expectation. So long as the team of wooden-headed Munchkins involved in producing and implementing Series One remains unchanged, and while no mistakes of Series One have been admitted by this team, I look forward to more of the same kind of stuff that kept me glued to the screen two years ago. 

If I'm wrong, however; and the Munchkins have managed to raise Rings of Power: Series Two to the level of mediocrity - I shall be sure to let you know; so we can both avoid it.

Your enemy's enemy is Not your friend (Unless he is your friend anyway, and already!)

We really are very lucky, in an ultimate and spiritual sense; because it is getting easier and easier to navigate the realm of public discourse. 
When truth and lies were fairly evenly mixed in the output of officialdom and the media; then in order to get the benefits of truth, we had a tough job to discern it from the dross. 
But nowadays public discourse is very-nearly pure untruthfulness: that is, the stuff we real in all mainstream sources (and most pseudo-alternative sources, too) is a mixture of outright lies and stark truth-inversions; with multiple shades of distortions, hype and other forms of manipulative misleading. 
A realm of anti-truth, in other words; as is inevitable when the motivation behind it is anti-Good (because anti- God, anti- divine creation). Therefore, the main current danger is not that we will miss out on some valuable truth; but instead that we will be tricked into believing stuff that aint so.   

The main way that people are tricked into helping their enemies, is by mainstream persons or institutions being reported as saying some-thing - some one thing usually - that is true or good; and by presenting somebody as your friend simply because he is the enemy of something you also oppose. 
But your enemy's enemy (whether real or pretend) is not thereby your friend. An alliance is qualitatively different from shared opposition - especially when (as now) multiple issues are involved - yet these issues are all linked spiritually into two parties: the party of God, and the party against God.
(When there is one way we ally with God, but an endless number of ways in which we might oppose God.)  

The idea of making an ally of your enemy's enemy is an old delusion, that often backfires - personally and at large scale. 
For instance; when the UK made a de facto ally of the USSR (the most evil regime in the history of the world) in order to fight Germany and Italy; this immediately damaged Britain, and by strengthening the USSR far beyond what it required to defend itself; also proved very costly indeed in the longer run. 
But then, the USSR-British alliance was not what it seemed; not really the pragmatic are war-winning strategy it was presented as being. Because the British ruling class was (as Orwell often described) broadly permeated with many communists and crypto-communists: those whose primary loyalty was to the USSR, and who were willing (and indeed keen) to sacrifice British interests and the British people, to those of the USSR. 

What applies globally applies in smaller scales. It is tempting in the short-term, and may be all-but irresistible, to make common cause with your enemy's enemy - but this should be encapsulated as temporary and for specific purposes; and should not be allowed to become an alliance at the psychological level. 
It is particularly easy to delude people just at present with manufactured and controlled "enemy's enemy" figures, pseudo-allies, and would-be saviours. Insofar as people in The West are becoming aware of the corner into which they have been-painted, of the multi-pointed lethal situation that has been constructed around them - then they become desperate for some way out, some escape from the terrible material consequences that are looming. 
People rarely consider than the material disasters are a consequence of spiritual corruption; and they move directly to seeking some rapid material solution to whatever is currently the most imminent problem - war, violence, immigration, economic destruction, disease... 
They are then very easily tempted to embrace some already-powerful individual or institution who is presented (by the mainstream sources, often presented in an apparently hostile way - yet given wide coverage nonetheless) also to be seeking a solution to one or other imminent problem that is real and which concerns us. 
The invitation is for us to join with them as an ally: to make them the focus of our hope and efforts; maybe to serve them in what way we can.       

But there are no such people, no such institutions in the mainstream sources, nobody with power, high status, or wealth - who is truly on our side as an ally, nobody who deserves to be the repository of our hope. If any such person did exist; then we certainly would not hear about them in any mainstream source, nor by any of the semi-mainstream pseudo-alternative media. 
More profoundly, that whole way of thinking is harmful to our souls - I mean that it is spiritually harmful when we of The West strive to place hope in any external and worldly power; should seek to find someone of some group to obey and to serve...

The fact is that it is now - and by a large margin of decades - too late to prevent the collapse of Western civilization, because Western civilization is now (and by a large margin) not worth saving. 
At the depths of Western Man's soul he knows this and has developed an ideology of abstract altruism that disguises his own nihilistic despair; his own self-hatred, spiritual and physical cowardice, and rationalized suicidality. 
If we are not merely to strengthen our enemies - overall and in the long term; "The way out" must be spiritual before it is material, and must be personal before it is societal...
And anything else is a demonic snare playing upon our (natural!) fears and desperation at the situation which we colluded (whether actively or passively) in making.