The Evolution of U.S. Business Models in the Digital Age

the invitation not to see the world around us solely as raw material with which we can do something, but to try to discover in it 'the Creator's handwriting,' the creative reason and love from which the world was born and of which the universe speaks to us, if we pay attention, if our inner senses awaken and acquire perception of the deepest dimensions of realityBonner's recovery prescription is compatible with this counsel. The pinnacles of civilization have achieved clarity of thinking and beautiful architecture by organizing society in accordance with the patterns and cycles of creation. By imitating these past examples—whether the order of Vitruvian and Palladian architecture or Confucian and Thomist wisdom—we can rediscover and apply the ideals of clarity, elegance, and order in a modern settingI believe this is correct, but I would add that the past is more than just a foreign land; it is terra incognita, which we only know dimly through flawed sources. Civilization has always "spread and developed through the imitation of past examples," as does the darkest barbarism of the current day. The past can be both exploited and used. D'Annunzio's proto-fascism combined hedonic futurism with an atavistic nationalism that evoked both Rome's distant grandeur and the current memory of blood-earned and treaty-lost Italian land. The Nazis were notably preoccupied with creating a past for Germans to recapture based on pseudo-scientific fiction and archaeological fabrication. 

Civilisation, then, is more than just looking to the past

it is also about having the appropriate orientation to the past, which means seeing back and ahead to the future not through ancient or modern eyes, but from the timeless viewpoint of eternal truthAt the start of the last chapter, Bonner promises readers that "[t]he picture emerging from the last three chapters is not wholly bleak." Determined to leave the reader with hope, he finds reason to be optimistic in an unexpected place: China, notably the recent resurrection of Confucian thought. The Chinese Communist Party's belated admission that man cannot live solely on ideology is a significant concession, but I disagree with Bonner's assessment of the regime's overall approach to religion. He adds, for example, that the state still "approves the curriculum in seminaries, making sure that the political slogans of the day are included" and "determines who may be ordained," but concludes that this "is a substantial improvement over banning religion entirely." I disagree. A Christian may willingly be a martyr, but he should never be a collaborator. Such an unholy partnership cannot produce beneficial results.The past is more than just a foreign place; it is terra incognita, which we only vaguely understand from faulty sourcesThe past is more than just a foreign place; it is terra incognita, which we only vaguely understand from faulty sources.

I'm also not convinced by the book's appeal 

to revive "clubs, societies, [and] volunteer groups." This social infrastructure necessitates anchored lives, therefore civil society's foundations can only be erected on sand until we stop moving around as freely as we do now. When Bonner indicates that he's "thinking of the post-industrial parts of Britain and Canada, or the American rust belt" and inquires, "[w]hat would the renewal of institutions look like in such places where it is most needed?" He is asking the correct questions, but in the incorrect areas. Those "left-behind" locations are the final spots where benevolent societies, churches, and local taverns and diners with lifelong customers can still be found. Civil society has crumbled in our political and financial capitals, where we build seventy-story apartment complexes for warehouse guys who don't know their neighbours The more I think about it, the more obvious the solution to my original query becomes. Like the poet of The Ruin, we dwell in the valley between civilizations, in the shadow of a peak that is still visible behind us but cannot be seen in front of us. This should not be cause for despair. Although human history has been the chronicle of the rise and fall of civilizations, the most significant fact is that civilization has never died out completely; it has always been preserved someplace. 

There is something important in human nature

a civilisational élan, that ensures that every decline is followed by a rebirth, just as a felled tree will produce new seedlings. Civilisations come and go, but civilisation endures, perpetually reborn someplace.It is also possible that civilisations require both troughs and peaks, just as we require sleep between our waking days, and that the retrospective orientation that distinguishes each civilisation is even more crucial between them. If this is the case, the fact that the ruins are too worn to be restored does not absolve us of responsibility; in fact, it makes our work much more essential. It is up to us in this Dark Age to discover what went wrong, study the lessons of the previous collapse, and save that knowledge for a time when it will be useful.5 We must do our part to preserve the memory of civilization, even if it will be up to other people to restore what we have lost. Renewal will happen. Not in our lifetimes, but it will happen.