Is the West in decline?

[Argus]

There was an interesting article in the Citizen yesterday - possibly in others in the chain, titled Age of Terror, Age of Illusion, by Robert Sibley. It was about 4-5 full pages so many might not have read it through. There are a number of key points, however, which seem worthy of discussion which I'll attempt to summarize for those not willing to read the entire thing.

First, the West is in decline, mainly because of the opinion leaders who are decadent, lazy, thoughtless, and self-indulgent, and who cannot imagine any threat to the comfort, safety and freedom they have always known.

I return to my chair and the book I had been reading -- Samuel Dill's Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. At the time, Christianity was displacing the old pagan religion and the empire was under frequent attack from barbarians. The great weakness, though, as Dill recounts, was the empire's effete elites. He describes the period as a time when the ruling class -- politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, artists -- were cocooned in lifestyle luxury, unwilling to respond to the barbarian threat on the borders. "This self-centred contentment with the material pleasures of life, this rather vacant existence, gliding away in ease and luxury, and a round of trivial social engagements ... is the real reproach against the character of the upper class of that age ... Faith in the stability of the Empire and Roman culture is perfectly untroubled. There is not a hint of those dim hordes, already mustering for their advance ..." It was, Dill concludes, an "age of illusions."

It is true that many of our "elites" if you want to call them that, are an unimpressive lot much given to naval gazing and ranting over trivialities, and demographics, esp a terribly low birth rate, particularly in western europe, combined with an apparent inability or disinterest of Muslims in absorbing much in the way of western liberalism is troubling.

Sibley says there is a war on, and we're not really fighting very hard, and quotes Italian philosopher Marcello Pera. "My answer is: from Afghanistan to Kashmir, to Chechnya, to the Philippines, to Saudia Arabia, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, and elsewhere, in a great part of the Islamic and Arabic world, groups consisting of fundamentalists, radicals, and extremists -- the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group, and many others -- have declared war, jihad, against the West. They have said it, written it, diffused it in plain speech. Why should we not take action?"

He goes on to cite liberal guilt and self hatred in the way they refuse to consider that we even have a culture worth protecting, much less that we should actually care what happens to it.

In a 2004 speech, "The Spiritual Roots of Europe," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- said: "There is a self-hatred in the West that can be considered only as something pathological. The West attempts in a praiseworthy manner to open itself completely to the comprehension of external values, but it no longer loves itself; it now only sees what is despicable and destructive in its own history, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure there."

I don't believe I've made much effort at concealing my own beliefs in this regard, that the world outside the west is largely a great heaping manure pile, and that most third world cultures are to blame. I see nothing at all wrong with saying our culture, our value system, is and are far superior, more sophisticated and more advanced than what passes for same in the middle east, Africa or Asia, but for some reason, this is not considered politically acceptable to the liberals.

I can think of no better example than the reaction to former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's remark that western civilization is superior to Islamic culture.

"We should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion," Mr. Berlusconi said in late September of 2001. "This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries. ... We must be conscious of the strength and force of our civilization."

Not surprisingly, Muslims denounced him. "I consider his remarks racist, and by such remarks he has crossed the limits of reason and decency," said Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League. In Turkey, the Islamist newspaper Akit described Berlusconi as "a new Mussolini." But the denunciations of western politicians and commentators were equally vitriolic. Amos Luzzatto, spokesman for the Italian Jewish Organizations, told La Repubblica newspaper: "In my opinion, one can not speak of the superiority of one culture over another." (You have to wonder what he would say about Nazi culture in Germany 70 years earlier.) The Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, thought Mr. Berlusconi's remarks could have dangerous consequences. "I can hardly believe that the Italian prime minister made such statements."

It was, indeed, a surprising thing to say, considering the climate of opinion that prevails in western societies, particularly among the intelligentsia. As historian Keith Windschuttle says, "The statement was extraordinary because, although western superiority in every major area of human endeavour, especially in political and individual liberty, is patently obvious to everyone, it has become a truth that must not be spoken."

Which again harkens back to the bleeding hearts of liberal hand-wringers who will swoon admiringly as they speak of third world cultures while bemoaning our own hateful, racist, capitalistic, consumer society. They can see no threat to it, and even if there were, so what? It's a miserable thing anyway!

And so if the West and western liberalism is to be replaced, in large measure through massive Muslim immigration, the Muslim birth rate, and multiculturalist nonsense, it will be in large part because of the decadence and arrogance of blind elites who sneer condescendingly at any and all challenge to their beliefs in the unity of man, in the wonders of brotherhood and the evils of the White man.

So, too, today westerners might not notice -- or notice too late -- when one too many bricks have been pulled out of the western edifice. In any case, it can take a long time for a civilization to fall. The final collapse of the Roman Empire took at least a century -- from, say, the end of Emperor Valentian I's reign in AD 375 to the sad and short rule of Romulus Augustus in AD 476. After that, well, it got very Dark Age very fast. The point, though, is nobody noticed the coming darkness, least of all the Roman elites. Even at the end of the fourth century, with the barbarians soon to sack Rome, "faith in the stability of the Empire and Roman culture is perfectly untroubled," says Samuel Dill. "There is not a hint (in the writings of Rome's elites) of those dim hordes, already mustering for their advance, who within twenty years will be established on the banks of the Garonne."

Age of terror, age of illusion

[Michael Hardner]

There are a few terms in this post which are used interchangeably: culture, society, civilization. To me, our culture is the state of our living in society - generally, the attitudes and behaviors of its people. Society comprises culture, along with the systems and institutions which we build. Civilization, I think, is interchangeable with 'society'.

"I don't believe I've made much effort at concealing my own beliefs in this regard, that the world outside the west is largely a great heaping manure pile, and that most third world cultures are to blame. I see nothing at all wrong with saying our culture, our value system, is and are far superior, more sophisticated and more advanced than what passes for same in the middle east, Africa or Asia, but for some reason, this is not considered politically acceptable to the liberals."

Our culture grows within our value system, or perhaps alongside it. I would agree that our society is more open, and therefore more sophisticated than a society that only allows limited personal expression and monoculture, but comparing cultures seems like an 'apples and oranges' comparison.

Our culture includes performance art, opera, pornography and trash television. What do you do with that ?

I think it makes more sense for us to compare systems/institutions than the cultures that develop within/alongside them.

"Which again harkens back to the bleeding hearts of liberal hand-wringers who will swoon admiringly as they speak of third world cultures while bemoaning our own hateful, racist, capitalistic, consumer society. They can see no threat to it, and even if there were, so what? It's a miserable thing anyway!"

If we admire our systems and insitutions - the openness, the individual freedom - are we obliged to admire all the byproducts of our society, or all aspects of our culture ? Why isn't it acceptable to say that we love a system that comprises openness and to also oppose the "hateful, racist, capitalistic, consumer society" ? After all, you're doing much the same thing - saying that you think our values are superior, yet criticizing our culture of hand wringing, etc.

"And so if the West and western liberalism is to be replaced, in large measure through massive Muslim immigration, the Muslim birth rate, and multiculturalist nonsense, it will be in large part because of the decadence and arrogance of blind elites who sneer condescendingly at any and all challenge to their beliefs in the unity of man, in the wonders of brotherhood and the evils of the White man."

The issues of immigration and birth rate seem to have been handled by left- and right- governments much in the same way of late. It's a matter of economics, and I'm not an expert on that. But I think framing the discussion solely in a social context is misplacing it. The US government seems to take much the same tack on immigration levels as the Canadian government so I don't think you should blame liberals for that.

The other point is that your post assumes that Muslims are different from every other culture that has come to the west, that has assimilated and learned our system and thrived.

Our system was built on universal rights, but was also built so that we could change it if the people wanted to. The American founding fathers were intellectuals who thought that this was the best way to build a society.

If we want to restrict immigration, we can do so. If we want to ammend the constitution, we can do so. In fact, we can turn our country into a montheistic religious state too if we want to do that, and that's the dichotomy.

It seems to me that believing in our insitutions and the freedom that they offer implies believing that the people will prefer this system - that this system is indeed better than others. Unlike us, those who designed the US constitution weren't born into such freedoms - they used all of their intelligence to architect a new society that would allow for diverse religions and cultures, and believed that it would prove better. So far, it has served its intentions, and there's no reason so far to think that anything is different.

To those who were born into them, these freedoms have after 200+ years, become part of the culture. But there's no reason to think that somebody has to be born into this system today in order to see the value in it.

If you think that you have to be born into these freedoms to see the value in our insitutions, then it seems to me that you have less faith in them then those that are criticized in your post.

[jbg]

First, the West is in decline, mainly because of the opinion leaders who are decadent, lazy, thoughtless, and self-indulgent, and who cannot imagine any threat to the comfort, safety and freedom they have always known.

Sibley says there is a war on, and we're not really fighting very hard, and quotes Italian philosopher Marcello Pera. "My answer is: from Afghanistan to Kashmir, to Chechnya, to the Philippines, to Saudia Arabia, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, and elsewhere, in a great part of the Islamic and Arabic world, groups consisting of fundamentalists, radicals, and extremists -- the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group, and many others -- have declared war, jihad, against the West. They have said it, written it, diffused it in plain speech. Why should we not take action?"

I still hold out hope that we're in a "phony war" period similar to the beginnings of WW II, and that eventually, and hopefully not too late we'll get serious.

It is true that many of our "elites" if you want to call them that, are an unimpressive lot much given to naval gazing and ranting over trivialities, and demographics, esp a terribly low birth rate, particularly in western europe, combined with an apparent inability or disinterest of Muslims in absorbing much in the way of western liberalism is troubling.

In our country, that's how we wound up taking the risk of electing Reagan, and opting for full-scale change which rejected those elites. Many Europeans and Canadians have never forgiven us.

He goes on to cite liberal guilt and self hatred in the way they refuse to consider that we even have a culture worth protecting, much less that we should actually care what happens to it.

In a 2004 speech, "The Spiritual Roots of Europe," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- said: "There is a self-hatred in the West that can be considered only as something pathological. The West attempts in a praiseworthy manner to open itself completely to the comprehension of external values, but it no longer loves itself; it now only sees what is despicable and destructive in its own history, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure there."

I don't believe I've made much effort at concealing my own beliefs in this regard, that the world outside the west is largely a great heaping manure pile, and that most third world cultures are to blame. I see nothing at all wrong with saying our culture, our value system, is and are far superior, more sophisticated and more advanced than what passes for same in the middle east, Africa or Asia, but for some reason, this is not considered politically acceptable to the liberals.

Nor have I. I have always pointed out that very few Americans or Canadian flee to North Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan, Cuba, Myanmar, Sudan or Syria.

I can think of no better example than the reaction to former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's remark that western civilization is superior to Islamic culture.

"We should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion," Mr. Berlusconi said in late September of 2001. "This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries. ... We must be conscious of the strength and force of our civilization."

He was spot on. Too bad I wasn't aware of that quote, to use back in those days of the CBC "Town Meeting".

Not surprisingly, Muslims denounced him. "I consider his remarks racist, and by such remarks he has crossed the limits of reason and decency" said Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League.

The truth hurts.

In Turkey, the Islamist newspaper Akit described Berlusconi as "a new Mussolini."

Berlusconi allowed himself to be defeated in an election. Mussolini was strung up by the heels by "partisans".

But the denunciations of western politicians and commentators were equally vitriolic. Amos Luzzatto, spokesman for the Italian Jewish Organizations, told La Repubblica newspaper: "In my opinion, one can not speak of the superiority of one culture over another." (You have to wonder what he would say about Nazi culture in Germany 70 years earlier.)

This morning, I went to an anti-Hezbollah rally at my synagogue. I was stunned to be arguing with a 74 year old Jewish person about Iran. He was arguing that we should be "negotiating" with Iran's president. I asked him what our first concession should be. I asked, if the first concession on the table was withdrawing support from Israel, thus dooming it, would that be acceptable? He answered "obviously not". I asked if he had any ideas what acceptable goals the Iranian mullahs might have. He had no idea.

Many Jews, it seems, have lost the heart to fight for themselves, and are unworthy of the extensive array of support they receive from Christians of good will such as Harper and Bush. Luzzatto's views, unfortunately, are hardly unique among Jews.

The Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, thought Mr. Berlusconi's remarks could have dangerous consequences. "I can hardly believe that the Italian prime minister made such statements."

It was, indeed, a surprising thing to say, considering the climate of opinion that prevails in western societies, particularly among the intelligentsia. As historian Keith Windschuttle says, "The statement was extraordinary because, although western superiority in every major area of human endeavour, especially in political and individual liberty, is patently obvious to everyone, it has become a truth that must not be spoken."

Dangerous to elites, who rely upon the masses not to hear common sense. Look what a dose of common sense did to Jimmy Carter, John Forbes Kerry and Paul Martin.

Which again harkens back to the bleeding hearts of liberal hand-wringers who will swoon admiringly as they speak of third world cultures while bemoaning our own hateful, racist, capitalistic, consumer society. They can see no threat to it, and even if there were, so what? It's a miserable thing anyway!

And so if the West and western liberalism is to be replaced, in large measure through massive Muslim immigration, the Muslim birth rate, and multiculturalist nonsense, it will be in large part because of the decadence and arrogance of blind elites who sneer condescendingly at any and all challenge to their beliefs in the unity of man, in the wonders of brotherhood and the evils of the White man.

Again, I hope this changes, and fast. I think it will. I see the glass as half full. Unfortunately, it takes atrocities such as September 11, 2001 and the inconvenience of security measures to bring it home.

[Liam]

I return to my chair and the book I had been reading -- Samuel Dill's Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. At the time, Christianity was displacing the old pagan religion and the empire was under frequent attack from barbarians. The great weakness, though, as Dill recounts, was the empire's effete elites. He describes the period as a time when the ruling class -- politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, artists -- were cocooned in lifestyle luxury, unwilling to respond to the barbarian threat on the borders. "This self-centred contentment with the material pleasures of life, this rather vacant existence, gliding away in ease and luxury, and a round of trivial social engagements ... is the real reproach against the character of the upper class of that age ... Faith in the stability of the Empire and Roman culture is perfectly untroubled. There is not a hint of those dim hordes, already mustering for their advance ..." It was, Dill concludes, an "age of illusions."

Sounds like a pretty good description of the Bush administration and its wealthy corporate supporters.

[Figleaf]

[

Edited July 18, 2007 by Figleaf

[M.Dancer]

Back in the cold cold cold war, every nationalist movement was seen as an extension of global soviet revolution. Not that the soviets didn't stoke the fires, but at the same time the actions of the west ccornered and isolated the nationists until it became a self fulfilling prophesy.

Now that being said, there is evidence that jihadists ( ) like modern day che Guevara move from conflict to conflict; from chechnya to iraq, from irag to Afghanistan, from Algeria to Egypt.....

......but unlike Che, they aren't bagging every penelope cruz and jennifer lopez wannabe on the way....

[Argus]

I return to my chair and the book I had been reading -- Samuel Dill's Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. At the time, Christianity was displacing the old pagan religion and the empire was under frequent attack from barbarians. The great weakness, though, as Dill recounts, was the empire's effete elites. He describes the period as a time when the ruling class -- politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, artists -- were cocooned in lifestyle luxury, unwilling to respond to the barbarian threat on the borders. "This self-centred contentment with the material pleasures of life, this rather vacant existence, gliding away in ease and luxury, and a round of trivial social engagements ... is the real reproach against the character of the upper class of that age ... Faith in the stability of the Empire and Roman culture is perfectly untroubled. There is not a hint of those dim hordes, already mustering for their advance ..." It was, Dill concludes, an "age of illusions."

Sounds like a pretty good description of the Bush administration and its wealthy corporate supporters.

While I am no fan of Bush or his administration or their mishandling of intelligence data and military tactics and strategy your comment makes no sense. Would you care to expand upon it?

[August1991]

Thanks, Argus, for the link to that article. It's an interesting read.

Here's a link to Part Two:

Political theorist James Burnham addresses this question in his book, Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism, when he describes the "pathology of liberalism" as a failure to understand what is at stake in confronting totalitarianism. Do we really understand, at the deepest existential level, what words like freedom and duty mean, what freedom and duty "feel" like in their lived experience? I suspect the firefighters and the police officers who rushed into the Twin Towers knew, even if they would never articulate that feeling. So, too, do the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But what about the rest of us? After decades of listening to the relativistic catechism of our intellectual elites --Above All, Be Tolerant -- we are drained of the capacity to know how to respond to real-world hostility. Once upon a time, ideas like freedom inspired people to take up arms. Once upon a time, people recognized those who were the enemies of freedom. Once upon a time, intellectuals went to war to defend freedom. Say what you will about the Islamists, but they are idealists, in the sense that they are willing to fight for an idea, that the West is their enemy.

The contemporary generations, on the other hand, shy away from words like "enemy." Our post-modern intellectuals have us taught that such thinking is atavistic. We are too cosmopolitan, too sophisticated to think of those who would kill us as enemies; they are only misinformed.

[Black Dog]

This suggests that an unreasonable devotion to multiculturalism is a formula for self-destruction. Are we going to allow ourselves to be killed for the sake of political correctness? When does tolerance become suicidal? The fantasy world of post-modern relativism has weakened the West's immune system in fighting off the Islamist infection.

First, I love it when coddled western elites rail against coddled western elites. Talk about self-hatred.

Second, in all his masturbatory scribblings, the authour never puts forward his perscription, save for vague invocations of "will". I suspect he doesn't know, or is afraid to say. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the authour and his ilk want to preempt Islamic totalitarianism with their own brand. Indeed, given how often the term "fascism" is bandied about in connection with Islam these days, it's interesting to see the fascist overtones in the arguments of those who long to a return to the glory days, who lament the liberal decadence of our society and who celebrate the triumph of the will.

[Argus]

"... from Afghanistan to Kashmir, to Chechnya, to the Philippines, to Saudia Arabia, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, and elsewhere, in a great part of the Islamic and Arabic world, groups consisting of fundamentalists, radicals, and extremists -- the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group, and many others -- have declared war, jihad, against the West. They have said it, written it, diffused it in plain speech. Why should we not take action?"

(1) Too bad the premises are substantially untrue. Chenyan rebels haven't declared jihad against 'the west', nor is the Kashmiri conflict a 'jihad against the West'. Algerian Islamists are pretty focused on their own turf too, as are the preponderance of the others mention there.

I'm not so much concerned with what a variety of piddling terrorist groups can do. Unless they can set off a nuke somewhere the real cost to our society from them lies in the added security our society has to put in place to make their efforts more difficult. I'm more concerned with the Muslims among us who have a medieval mentality and whose birthrate continues to grow while ours slows, even while we bring in tens of thousands more ever year.

(2) Even if the author's position was factually supported, the question really is: 'WHAT action should we take?'

Stop bringing in Muslims. Actively discourage foreign clerics from preaching in Canada, watch local mosques and community centres and expell those clerics who preach hatred against our society.

In a 2004 speech, "The Spiritual Roots of Europe," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- said: "There is a self-hatred in the West that can be considered only as something pathological. The West attempts in a praiseworthy manner to open itself completely to the comprehension of external values, but it no longer loves itself; it now only sees what is despicable and destructive in its own history, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure there."

To the extent that this is true, the good Pope and the rest of us should ask ourselves why this is. Have our institutions and our rulers lived up to their claims, or have they proven threadbare in the face of human aspiration?

Lived up to what claims? I would say that our institutions and rulers, as flawed as they are, are still centuries more advanced in their concern for the human condition than anything you'll find in a Muslim state.

... the world outside the west is largely a great heaping manure pile, and that most third world cultures are to blame. I see nothing at all wrong with saying our culture, our value system, is and are far superior, more sophisticated and more advanced than what passes for same in the middle east, Africa or Asia, but for some reason, this is not considered politically acceptable to the liberals.

Which 'liberals'? I'm a classical liberal and I would not dispute a single word of that paragraph.

Modern liberals

[August1991]

Actively discourage foreign clerics from preaching in Canada, watch local mosques and community centres and expell those clerics who preach hatred against our society.

The best way to counter nonsense is not to forbid it but to shine light on it. The medieval Catholic Church was not defeated by physical force but by the force of reason and argument. It's been a long battle, that's far from finished.

If radical Islamists plan to set off bombs, then let's infiltrate their groups and arrest them. But how can we arrest an imam or anywhere for that matter who gives a controversial speech.

Stop bringing in Muslims.

In practice, that's impossible. You sound like bin Laden who wants to keep non-Muslims out of the Saudi holy land. In this world, it's impossible. And a liberal society wouldn't want to.

----

It seems to me that we must deal with the threat of violence and also present the intellectual arguments for individual freedom. In this, I'm astonished by the number of Leftists who so willingly concede these arguments.

I'm more concerned with the Muslims among us who have a medieval mentality and whose birthrate continues to grow while ours slows, even while we bring in tens of thousands more ever year.

I'd like to see some good demographic data on this. Quebec is obsessed about demographics and throughout its history, an elite has used demography to frighten people. Invariably, the dire projections have turned out to be false.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

You sound like bin Laden who wants to keep non-Muslims out of the Saudi holy land. In this world, it's impossible. And a liberal society wouldn't want to.

I don't believe Argus wants a 'liberal society'.

The best way to counter nonsense is not to forbid it but to shine light on it

I wholeheartedly concur. I think that the world religious leaders should have to stand up and openly debate all of the present (and past) goings-on, until they all are willing to convert to the right one.

It seems to me that we must deal with the threat of violence and also present the intellectual arguments for individual freedom. In this, I'm astonished by the number of Leftists who so willingly concede these arguments

Individual freedom is a double-edged sword, for it is my argument that it has been taken too far, where individual responsibility is avoided at all costs. For this, I blame the consumerist mentality, and those that espouse it.

[August1991]

I just did some quick searches on Statistic Canada's database.

In 1991, there were 27.3 million Canadians of whom 250,000 were Muslim.

In 2001, there were 29.6 million Canadians of whom 580,000 were Muslim.

Muslims represented about 14% of the growth in population between 1991 and 2001.

Incidentally, in the census of 1971 (and before), any Muslims in Canada were indicated as "Other religion".

Argus, I frankly think that you are inventing a phoney fear when you speak of an impending threat of Muslim immigration. It just ain't there. We don't even know about the opinions of these self-identified Muslims.

Fatima Houda-Pepin MNA is included somewhere in those statistics:

Mme Houda-Pepin, qui n'a jamais été tendre à l'endroit des sections radicales de l'islamisme, avait présenté l'an dernier une motion à l'Assemblée nationale (finalement adoptée à l'unanimité) en opposition au projet de tribunaux islamiques en Ontario.

Argus, would you forbid the right of such a Muslim to sit in a Canadian legislature?