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Stop whatever you’re doing and watch this speech by Konstantin Kisin at the inaugural ARC (The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) conference, because it is quite simply brilliant:

Kisin was given the brief by founding event organiser of ARC, Jordan Peterson, to speak on the theme of “audacity, adventure and a positive vision for our civilisation.” And in response, Kisin has given one of the most memorable speeches so far of the twenty-first century.

Dying Civilisation

With a wonderful combination of humour, cultural insight and moral courage, Kisin challenged the audience with examples of rhetorical flourish such as follows:

I don’t know how long our civilisation will survive. For years now many of us have been warning that the barbarians are at the gates. We were wrong. They are already inside. Now look, I’m not going to be all doom and gloom. There are positives as well. I mean, say what you like about Hamas supporters, at least they know what a woman is.

Kisin’s most substantive exhortation of all, though, came at the very end of his speech. Picking up from the nine-minute mark, Kisin said:

When Columbus and his men got on those boats and took a journey into the unknown, they sailed to certain death. Do you know why? It’s not because they were braver than you and I. It’s because they knew something we’ve forgotten — all death is certain.

And so I say to our friends in the world of business. You’ve made your fortunes by maximising your returns on your investments. We are in the fight of our lives. There is no greater return on your investment than to protect and preserve our civilisation. And so I invite you to follow in the footsteps of Elon Musk and Paul Marshall and Ben Delo, and many of you here who are using your fortunes for the betterment of humanity.

I say to our friends in the media… truth matters! We are in the fight of our lives. There is more to life than clicks and downloads. Let’s move beyond the culture war, where all we do is bat away the litany of slanderous allegations about our history. Let’s set the agenda. Let’s remind our fellow citizens why we are where we are. Let’s remind them that we are the most tolerant, open and welcoming society in the history of the world. We’re not embarrassed about our past; we’re proud of it.

And to my colleagues in new media especially, I say this. The legacy media is dying for a reason. They cannot be saved; they cannot be reformed. Let’s stop complaining about them and start building the media empires of the future ourselves. We have everything we need. We’ve even got rich friends now!

I say to our friends in education and academia. I understand that many of you feel like the French Resistance or Soviet partisans, stuck behind enemy lines, undermanned and outgunned. And you’re right, we are in the fight of our lives. So keep fighting for every young mind you can. It will be worth it.

And finally, I say many to our friends in politics. Many of you here are conservatives. I’m not, I look terrible in tweed. That’s why I identify as politically non-binary. But I can tell you conservatives something. You will never get young people to want to conserve a society and an economy that is not working for them. We will not overcome woke nihilism as long as young people are locked out of the housing market, unable to pair up, unable to have kids, unable to plan for the future.

I know it’s difficult, and I know that whoever solves the housing crisis may well pay the price at the ballot box. This is true of many pressing issues, or at least you think it is. But you did not get into politics to be re-elected. You got into politics to make a difference.

We are in the fight of our lives. And if courage means anything, it means doing the right thing and being willing to take the punishment if you have to. Let me say it again: all death is certain. We do not get to choose whether we live or die. We only get to choose whether we live before we die. Thank you very much.

As I said before, Kisin’s speech is one of the best from the opening twenty-three years of this millennium. And it is unsurprisingly going viral, racking up almost two million views in a little under two days.

Lacuna

One aspect of society which Kisin missed out on addressing, though, was the role of the church. Many of you reading this will roll your eyes at this statement, but it goes to the heart of what Kisin himself identified as being the central problem. At the beginning of his speech, Kisin referenced the following quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialisation. If a nation’s spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand.

Both Solzhenitsyn and Kisin are correct. This is the underlying issue that is ailing us as a culture in the West right now. We have lost our overarching religious story as to what brings life meaning, purpose and fulfilment. Or, as Solzhenitsyn would say, our “spiritual energies” are on the brink of becoming so exhausted as to no longer provide the divine energy to sustain us as a culture and, hence, as a nation.

That being the case, Kisin should also have challenged the Christian churches in particular to fulfil their prophetic role in speaking truth to power. Of preaching their own transcendent message of redemption rather than getting behind every politically progressive parody that seeks to achieve the same.

Hence, can I suggest that Kisin’s speech didn’t actually go far enough? If Western Civilisation is to survive — and it may already be too far gone — then the truths of the Christian faith must again take a central role and place.

That being said, I personally believe that there are more important things than Western Civilisation, or what Augustine would call the City of Man. For there is a City of God which will continue to be realised whether or not the Australian populace is a part of the divine program or not.

As someone who has grown up in and loves this particular country, I hope we can return. But even if we don’t, as a follower of Jesus Christ — and who trusts in His death, resurrection and ascension — I believe that there is a hope that is stronger than even the grave.

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Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons