Robert E. Lee is supposed to have said, “It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it.” But when I look around at the wreckage of what now passes for Western culture, when I see the ongoing degradation and decline of Western civilization, I cannot help but think that perhaps peace is more terrible still.

Seventy years of relative peace and prosperity has made our young men hedonists and homosexuals, cravens and cowards who are more inclined to literally emasculate themselves than demonstrate even a modicum of courage. Seventy years of relative tranquility and safety has made our young women into shameless sluts and whores, barren harridans and harpies devoid of self-respect and self-control.

What has peace done for our morals, for our arts, for our sciences? What has peace done for our universities, for our churches, for our moribund civic and social institutions? What has peace done for our nations, invaded by pagans and barbarians and prostrated before them, too helpless to even complain, let alone resist? What has peace done for our minds, our souls, even our bodies, fat, bloated, soft, and weak?

Is it possible that too many generations of peace and pleasure have proven to be little more than an enervating cancer on our culture? Is it possible that peace is more terrible than war?

If these are the fruits of peace, then peace is a dreadful thing. If this is truly the best that peace has to offer, then for the sake of Man and Western civilization, let there be war.

[Adding some of the author's comments below to avoid unnecessary resubmissions]

"You are all forgetting the horror of actual war."

No, we're not. We're noting that DESPITE all the admittedly terrible horrors of war, they did not produce the degeneration and monstrosities that we are witnessing today. Bombs blew up paintings, to be sure, but they did not destroy the ability to paint beautiful paintings. Peace and prosperity did that.

War destroyed the body, but it did not destroy the spirit and the soul in the way peace and prosperity have. Did not the warlike Greeks warn of the danger of lotus-eating?

...

"I kind of understand what you mean but speaking from a Rwandese vantage point (Far from Western Civilization of course) who still fight tears back at each genocide commemoration, i wouldn't encourage a trading of peace for war."
First, don't bother with the emotional appeals. So you shed a few tears over some dead Africans, so fucking what? Go make a record with some pop stars or something.

Second, Rwanda remains Rwanda. Do you think you'll be able to say the same of London should it enjoy another 70 years of peace?

...

"For one thing, you can't remember or forget the horrors of actual war, since you have only read about them and not experienced them first hand. It's not a game of ASL."

And yet, war never led men to cut off their penises or gain 300 pounds. You petty pedants are completely missing the point in your rush to quibble over irrelevancies. Nearly every human society regularly survived periodic wars for thousands of years. 70 years of merely relative quasi-peace and ours is on the verge of collapse.