Introduction

After one year on Patreon for patrons only, Myth of the Month #8 becomes open to the public: The notion that there is a coherent society that can be called "the West" or "Western Civilization" -- running from Greco-Roman antiquity to modern North America -- originated during the upheaval of World War I, thanks to an eccentric German history teacher named Oswald Spengler. We consider whether any common thread or trait can be said to unite "the West," and why different nations like Egypt or Poland get tossed in or out of the basket of "the West" at different times. Finally, we consider why the idea of "the West" is often linked to conspiracy theories involving Jews, Marxists, post-modernists, or Jewish-Marxist-banker-Freemason-postmodernists. (Yes, I make an oblique reference here to Jordan Peterson.) The recent debate involving Douglas Murray, "What Is Killing Western Civilization?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJZqKKFn3Hk Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the next Myth of the Month, on the framing of US Constitution and the origins of the Senate & Electoral College: https://www.patreon.com/posts/29819013 cover image: Capitoline temples of Sbeitla, Tunisia, photograph by Bernard Gagnon