Responses in 2008
To A Study Of Our Decline by P Atkinson

October

30th

Wolf Hessler, Canada

If I said you're brilliant would I be out of line? I found you by accident from another reader. I'm very impressed and you, very intelligently, put forward what many are thinking and know intuittively what's happening/unfolding.
I'm a 30-something white collar worker with a Bachelor's and surrounded by baying sheeple. One of my majors was History (and still is, ofcourse, always in pursuit of its understanding) in university. I'm very familiar with Gibbon, Durants, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, Toynbee and more specialized works like Pendell's "Sex and Civilization".
I think and know if western civilization is to continue to survive men have to grow balls and "freedom" and liberty has to be valued again along with our heritage. It may be "revived" through a authoritarian regime but our civilization, alas, as how we know it is doomed........so be it. What will surface I don't know.
The historical record is clear and constantly evolving.
That all said, I liek what you wrote beause it is very logical and introspective/analytical. Only a man and one who works specifically with logic (computer trouble shooting) could write like that. You remind me of the early 19th century to early 20th century authors who were, to me, some of the best ever produced unhampered by PCness and a stong ethos behind them. And, thank you.
Please don't stop, we need more truth tellers like you.

September

19th

Vicki Mazis

I can't stop agreeing with everything that is being said. I am a teacher (second year in) and am at my wits end everyday. Everything that is said about children and the failing role of parents is so spot on its scares me. the filth and the rudeness that I have to put up with everyday is so frightening — because it's almost becoming normal. As if — yes — this is how young people should be behaving. Sometimes I think this mess we are in is part of a big plot because it's just too incredible to believe.

13th

Mark Ceare

In my spare time from work, I use the computer to try and educate myself about various topics. Discovering your site has inspired me to propogate/stimulate intelligent discussion concerning human behavior. I appreciate the time and effort you're spending on this analysis and want to thank you. From this observer, the seed you're planting will take root and hopefully grow for the betterment of mankind.

July

15th

John Gibbs

I am not crazy— Hi Phillip It was good to stumble into your website. I thought I was going mad — it was like a dream. Nothing made any sense at all. But over the last 20 years my understanding of what was happening became clearer. My boss at one time told me: "It's all about perception". Your writing expresses all this and more most clearly. If only there was space left on earth where like-minded folk could gather together and start again, so that our children and their children could enjoy a society that is not in such a shocking mess, further back on the curve.

I have left South Africa for reasons similar to Mrs Paton - and many others - and am working to settle in New Zealand - but this thing you speak of is certainly global. It is here too. Same graph, different point.

It is like a flood that is rising — areas of higher ground will be overcome last — but it seems that no corner of the globe is immune from a certain swamping in selfish, bone-headedness.

One wonders if it was unkind to have had children. We have been raising them with a very firm grip on what is evil, and what is good — what is real, and what is just all bling. We have taught them to respect authority — but also to use their brains. Of course this is setting them up for social failure, a hard-working life, making it possible for far lesser people to enjoy a materially higher life than theirs. I guess the introduction of such children can work to slow the crumble, but they will be living in a world that is worse than the one we live in now.

I see that you have seen Global Warming for the red herring that it is - boy, try convince my friends... even many intelligent folk seem hopelessly vulnerable to rubbish that is well presented, disguised as scientific documentary material.

Humanity is just plain hopeless. Without faith in an afterlife it is utterly depressing. It was just great to see that there are still people out there that are interested in truth. Thanks for sharing your work. I have not finished working through it — but so far it show a healthy respect for absolute truth... which many people want us to believe does not exist. —Godbless

June

27th

Trey Williams Austin, TX

Do you feel that we are headed for a similar decline to that of The Roman Empire? I want to Thank You for your discussion on this site. I find the material to be fascinating and I agree with you on every subject. Why are we such a minority now? I feel as though I'm screaming into the wind every day. I honestly see myself leaving this country to escape the madness.

May

28th

Nasser Tavakoli London U.K.

A democratic Community Wanes One of the best articles I had ever read about democracy

 

Lydia Oregon

Thanks again for this brilliance. I posted it on my blog at www.homeliving.blogspot.com and hope many people read it. I get about 1500 hits a day, not much, but these people all have their own blogs with another 1500 each I imagine so it will spread.

I showed my son in law your site and as he read the pages he kept saying "This guy teaches well!" He goes to architecture college and is always frustrated at how the profs are so unclear in their instruction, and the textbooks so full of mumbo-jumbo and you have to pretend to understand in order to appear smart.

My mother and father homesteaded in Alaska in the 1940's and 50's and I wrote a book about them and their life there called "Just Breathing the Air" (lulu.com)

Grandma's diaries from 1930 til 1999 tell it all, so it isn't some fantasy world she lived in where all was orderly until the 1970's and then it crashed—she was actually there and recorded personal experiences with it. Before 1965 she talked about dessert she served or dessert that other people served her and after 1965 the mood plumetted to the subject of divorce.

22nd

Anthony (Nairobi - Kenya)

I read that piece about political correctness and it confirmed everything I've always thought about the entire charade, and still taught me a whole lot more. Thank you.

April

11th

Alex

An Appreciation: To Philip Atkinson. I stumbled into your website this evening when seeking an online text of Gibbon's Vindication of Chapters 15 and 16. You write with such extraordinary lucidity and have such a sagacious understanding of the intellectual crisis in which Western civilization is immersed, that I decided to read your Study of Our Decline in its entirety and to send you this compliment by e-mail.

I'm a teacher who took early retirement from the wretched task of trying to transform sow's ears into silk purses. (I'd been a member of one forlorn hope after another.)

3rd

Bob Smith

Facing reality hurts. Mr. Atkinson, I have been reading your paper,"A Study Of Our Decline" and got as far as "Undeniable Signs Of Communal Senility" yet I am unable to continue, not because I disagree or object but because the truth hurts. The thought that entered my mind was that any freedom loving society must from time to time reclaim that freedom. I do not advocate rebellion and I pray that some event will occur to bring people to their senses. I had thought of relocating from the US to Australia some years back but it seems as if your country is in a further state of decline than mine. Best of luck to you and yours.

February

8th

Dick Carter

Thank you for the opportunity to read your theory. I have been questioning the basic elements of our society for sometime now and just yesterday came to near collapse. I work for a non-profit mental health/addictions/housing agency and a director sent a memo declaring use of the word "restriction" banned from all agency documents. He offered alternatives that were seemingly utilized to confuse not illuminate any "restrictive" action taken against a client. He and others made it quite clear that no specific policy change would occur otherwise, only word change. My questions: if words are now used to confuse rather than illuminate an action, are those reading the words interpreting an honest, albeit confusing, description? Where does it end, if at all? Professionally, I am instructed to go on "restricting" clients for various abuses of program policies, but barred from saying so. One could, in a similar situation, begin harming clients while deceptively reporting to auditors that everything is fine. It's such an illusion and reminds me of the near total lack of reason, honesty and understanding you referred to in your theory. Thank you again. Hopefully,

January

5th

M. Sean Venezia

I've started an internet blog during the Christmas holiday about the global warming hoax and stumbled across your website as part of my research.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and am experiencing the decline in civilization that you so elequently outline, recognize and predict.

This area is a bastion for liberal political correctness. You reference the break-down in education. It's especially true here in California where our public schools have been "dumbed" down to the lowest common denominator mostly as a result of illegal immigration and due to the fact that our public schools are not required to compete. I have three children and send them to highly academic private schools.

I have friends and relatives from England and South Africa who have witnessed the decline of England and South Africa. Now that they are in the U.S., they constantly point out developments that forewarn the impending decline of the U.S. I talk about it all the time with my business partner and my wife. The dumbing down of our education, political correctness, ignorance and lack of virtue amongst the voters, invasion of the Mexicans while we sit idle all contribute to our impending destruction. We are repeating the history of what ended the Roman empire in many ways.

I'll keep reading and have shared your work with my business partner and brother-in-law from Keswick, England.

Is your work available in book form in the United States? I'd love to get my hands on a copy. Great work