"We are the Fellowship of the Round Table, Knights of the Third Millennium, dedicated to the regeneration of the western soul".  These very last words in our fellowship charter have a fine melodramatic ring, but we are in a world consumed by practical issues  - finding the right job, keeping it, preserving one's health, being fashionable and paying rent, mortgages and interest on loans.

How does all this high flying "western soul" stuff relate to the bread and butter issues that concern most people; ?    After all, it is almost impossible to fill a hall to capacity with ordinary rank and file suburbanites unless the public meeting deals directly with health, personal safety or a threat to the value of real estate in your area, a challenge to personal freedom, the liberty of the subject along the lines that 'Big Brother' is out to get you if you don't watch out' may still be a draw card with an audience one step above the average, a thinking audience shall we say.

I hosted just such a meeting not so long ago, the speaker was a well known talk back radio personality and about 90 people crammed into our little hall to hear how various elite, covert, wire pullers were binding our hands and minds with the gossamer thread of "Brave New World" by stealth.  We could quite easily go to bed under democracy and wake up in the 'gulag'.

Wonderful, I thought, this is surely a gathering of the sort of people who will take the message of our fellowship to heart, so I circulated a melodramatic one page 'call to arms' entitled - 'Share our Dream' - it's theme "The western world has a soul, it exists wherever personal liberty is cherished in conjunction with social responsibility; it exists across the globe and backwards in time to it's origins when individuality was first cherished amongst the ancients.  We uphold the cultural unity of the western world and we seek union with kindred souls wherever they may be"….etc.

The first paragraph read: "We are part of a world community whose boundaries are not defined by race, politics or geography - it is the western world and it is united by an idea alone - the dignity, value and liberty of the individual" and more along these lines.

I thought it was quite splendid - I don't regret one single word, but the point is that only one person showed the remotest interest in it out of approximately 75 people at the meeting who were not members of our fellowship

So even for a thinking audience it was a trifle obscure - perhaps 'off the edge', irrelevant or even too 'transcending'.  They preferred bread and butter stuff that they could more easily 'chew'.  After all they were only an audience addicted to talk back radio and that does not necessarily train the mind for ideological map reading and Jesuitical chess.

So we bombed out, no converts from this meeting; despite the incredible complexities of modern 'hi tech' civilisation most people's lives are still bound by the tribal perimeters of  home, family, job and human relationships, with the eternal 'box' as a cheap window on the wider world.  Unless this 'tribal ground" is directly threatened they see no reason to get their hair in a knot over issues and causes, lost or otherwise.

Now here I will digress our fellowship is saying certain things.

1) The community we are part of is under the kind of threat which will affect the personal life of every member within one generation or less.

2) This will take effect in the areas of personal liberty, living standards, our language, our love life, ownership of property, education of children, freedom of expression and the circulation of money will all be affected, not to mention health, reproductive technology and the right to life itself.

3) The reasons for this are both internal and external; there are forces - tendencies within our western society which are bent on changing it's nature and making it into something quite alien to the culture most of us grew up in and still take for granted.

This is the internal factor - the 'reconstituted west' will lack the will, the power and even the moral justification in the eyes of it's own people to maintain the world we have inherited. From this point the more virile and evangelical cultures of Asia and Africa will fill the breach.  This is the external factor.

The cultures and peoples of Asia and Africa re not to be denigrated, they should be studied, understood and respected as they have often remained far more cohesive and resilient than our own.  If we succumb in the future struggle it will not be because of them but because of ourselves.

So what is the present situation in our own own backyard?  What exactly is the rot from within?

To quote from our "fellowship charter" - "modern society is suffering from self hatred, confusion of values and the decay of moral willpower, it's religion is an amalgam of greed, envy, self indulgence, guilt and despair"

Greed

Firstly the greed machine; modern consumerism makes us feel that a certain lifestyle is a matter of stark necessity.  This involves extensive outlay - cars, holidays, fashion clothes, mortgages and hi tech chattels cost money and need to be paid for.  Thus a feudal dependence on the finance sector by most people. Amongst couples two jobs become a necessity so having children is limited - postponed; and the children they have are then farmed out on child care centres etc.

As a result of this very few western countries have a growing population other than through immigration from the so called - "third world".

Envy

Secondly the green eyed monster - envy.  This is more subtle but very real.  Why should anyone have something that you don't have?  If you are a woman then it is obvious that you are oppressed by the inherited patriarchal assumptions of a male dominated society.  Is your husband less devoted than he should be?  Instead of asking "how can I keep my family together for the sake of my children who need the love of both parents ?", you are encouraged to ask  "what am I getting out this relationship which is binding me to be in the home I have lost interest in when I could be out of it and seeking self fulfillment ?"  Modern "family law' legislation allows you to walk out of the contract, break up the home and keep your half plus the children also if all goes well.

You probably owe your 'development' to the kind of parents who did not take this option, perhaps they are still there for you to fall back on.  What will your children fall back on ?

If you are a child or a teenager why should you take cheek and presumed attempts at advice and discipline from parents, teachers and other adults whose only claim to authority over you rest on the fact that they are much older?  There is no fool like an old fool so tell them 'where to go' and you are sure to be backed up by trendy educators, social workers, child psychologists and social engineers within government departments who will 'sort out your "oldies" and make damn sure that no one dares to lay a hand on your innocent hide.

With a liberal supply of pocket money from demoralised parents - "Big Brother" (social welfare) the night & the streets belong to you - and why not?  Also fashion panders to you and tells everyone over 30 to try & ape your little ways.

As a result the 'youth culture' and all it represents is the dynamic end of society, it makes money, sells goods and thumbs it's nose at every inherited standard that once made the west great.

Self indulgence (and the loss of liberty)

Thirdly "Self Indulgence" - if it feels good do it"  "if I itches I scratches" and so on.  Rabbits have big ears and so do 'bunnies' whereas playboy have "tales" and good ones.  There are not many angels walking around on two legs, but quite a few 'animals' out there in the asphalt jungle.  The human animal is both angelic and beastly by degrees and the most brutal civil warfare is fought out within the divided self; except for those of us who have already thrown in the towel - gone 'ape'.

In an ideal society each citizen would exercise such perfect control over himself that no external laws would be necessary.  We would all be totally moral and self regulating, but the less control we deign to exercise over ourselves then the more the breach needs to be filled by 'big brother' - the state, the community, the police etc.

Control is a basic necessity - one way or the other.  If we all decide to go 'ape' then only a super Stalinist type totalitarian state can pull us back in line.

If we fight the war inside ourselves and win then there will be no war in the streets and a lot less government intrusion into our lives.  Control of self means freedom from control.

As a result of our western cult of gross self indulgence we are seen as flabby, degenerate and impotent - a sitting duck for colonisation by a leaner meaner breed of 'neo Spartans'

Guilt

Fourthly the 'guilt trip'. Our colonial ancestors  may have gone out and conquered the four corners and the seven seas, but they would have done far better to stay at home and leave the original inhabitants to pursue an ecologically sustainable hunter- gatherer existence that was organically sound and spiritually earth centered.  Our contaminated, buccaneering exercise in international "smash and grab" should be a cause for profound shame; our civilisation is a plague, if not a cancer on the face of the earth.

Of course even in the older settled societies of Europe there is no one in occupation whose ancestors did not usurp the 'natives'.  In Britain the Druids might have a case.

Also some 'pristine' aboriginal races in the New World built their 'ecologically sound' societies on the bones of  even earlier inhabitants whom they supplanted. They were colonists, no less.  So where does the chain end ?

The sad truth is that the conquest of weak societies by the strong is the law of history.  We cannot change it.  All we can do is either grow more and more shame faced and guilty and thus blush ourselves into oblivion, or reclaim that pride in our western heritage which we once had , dig our heels into our 'native' turf and gain the strength to fight again.

As a result of the guilt trip and it's multicultural 'back up' our children are growing up without really knowing who they are and it has always been a hard job to defend the unknown.

Despair

Fifthly we arrive at the gate of the "giant - despair".  One of the great pastimes of the contemporary west is "nostalgia".  We find infinite charm in those quaint pictures, photos, postcards, old movies and songs that were 'all the go' in the days of grandfather and great grandmother.

In this decadence, desperation or just sheer diversion, perhaps things really were better in those days, or maybe just better for some.

But in any case most of the thrusting nations of the emerging world do not have a similar bent; they are too busy forging the future.

During the first world war a new cult emerged in the art world - it was called the "Dada" movement, and it expressed a sort of modernist despair translated into abstractions and absurdities.  One could say that it was the inevitable cultural by product of the sense of futility engendered by mass slaughter in the trenches.

In any case there is not much nostalgia for the "Dada" movement, when people look back over their shoulders it is towards the rose tinted past, the happy, jolly, beautiful, quaint and "bitter-sweet" things that the quintessence of humanity, not the faceless, dehumanised images of despair and conformity.

Perhaps even decadence is better than despair as even decadence has a certain skittish arrogance whereas despair is essentially the soul mate of soullessness.

Modern architecture, some modern art and lots of contemporary music are totally aligned with despair.  They spring from it and they engender it amongst the timid of heart.

Utilitarianism is the essence of soullessness and modern architecture is utilitarian as it is pre eminently functional.  Also we have lived with it for so long that we have forgotten what a hybrid and sterile thing it really is.

If we love the quaint little human images and icons of our past it is through an instinctive awareness that they were the byproduct of optimism & joy and yes, even a trace of arrogance, which we also need.

So let us enjoy the past and recapture as much of it's spirit as we really need to build our future, and this means that we must put guilt and despair behind us for ever.  Let us create the kind glories that our ancestors would have taken pride in and then regenerate the spirit of optimism, joy and moral justification which forged our inheritance.

The education system and the schools require a total overhaul and the prospect of unemployable 'teachers' being retrained for manual occupations should not dismay us.  The teaching profession in it's present guise has much to answer for , but those who have trained the teachers should answer for even more.

"Nothing is but thinking makes it so".  Some would say "you are what you eat", but I say "You are what you think".  The human spirit is unquenchable. I recently hosted a talk given a man (a Vietnamese) who had been held in solitary confinement and tortured by the communists for over 10 years, and yet he finally emerged with dignity and personality intact and with more fighting spirit than ever.  Though no longer young, he was a living example to every single person in the room of the "will to win".

Perhaps our whole western society should embody that same will, the same unquenchable spirit.  Leadership can make a people great, they are no longer a demoralised rabble haunted by fear and doubt; they walk with 'destiny'.  Leadership may come from a person of from an idea.

The Fellowship

The idea behind the Fellowship of the Round Table is that the rediscovery and proper reharnessing of the traditional western values of "honour, chivalry, service and nobility" can transcend our problems and transform our society.  That we can use folk memory as a catalyst for social change.

1)  Instead of greed and gross consumerism we will serve others, live on less and enjoy the difference.

2) Instead of envy of the fortunate we will exercise chivalry towards the weak and needy and others will envy us.

3) Instead of self indulgence we will be masters of our own lower nature, not it's servant.  We will achieve nobility in a society with fewer controls because control is within ourselves.

4) Instead of feeling guilt for what our ancestors may have done we will take pride in our heritage and seek to serve the whole world by sharing it.

5) Instead of the spirit of despair expressed in debased and degraded art forms and soullessness all around us we will prove that our proud heritage is an honourable thing and  worthy to be cherished.  A new renaissance may even flow from this awareness.

I am not naïve enough to believe that all of this will just happen through 'wishing upon a star'.  Far from it.  The is a battle looming on several fronts; in the schools, in the universities, in the courts, in government, in the media, in the world of entertainment and fashion, in the arts, in the market place, in the bureaucracy, in the home and finally within the soul of each person.