Is the West Dead Yet?

The West is paradoxically dominant on the global stage and eroding from within.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

 

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21 thoughts on “Is the West Dead Yet?”

  1. Dear VDH,
    This is one of the best articles you have written and one of the best I have read in a very long time.

    There is nothing like the truth, blame and credit plainly put for all to read and contemplate.

    Now let’s see how long it takes some morons to label you as racist, sexists, homophobic, jingoistic or xenophobic.

    You are a straight shooter among the vast majority of mumblers, bumblers and stumblers, most of whom don’t know which end is up, which side of their bread is buttered or that their left is not right.

    Keep up the good work.
    Best,
    Marshall

  2. Liberals in the 19th century were fervent supporters of nationalism and the essential importance of being part of a community with shared traditions and common ancestry. None of these liberals ever envisioned the nations of Europe and the USA as mere places identified by liberal values belonging to everyone else and obligated to become “welcome” mats for the peoples of the world. Professor Kevin MacDonald has written how Caucasians, even independent of Jewish power, would occasionally sabotage their own material interests in the service of an ideology, especially because of religious motivations. In the long run, identity can even be formed on ideological lines, as with religious sects who consider racially alien co-religionists to be their “brethren” but ignore their racial or ethnic kinsmen. The civic religion of Americanism is an attempt to do just that – and it just so happens that most of the true believers are white. The patriotic dedication of American whites to the nation of the past has led to an ideological devotion to the anti-white, egalitarian United States of the present.

    Author Byron Roth explores the history of immigration to the United States prior to World War II and contrasts it with post-war immigration in the West. The evidence marshaled makes clear that the earlier largely European immigration experience of the United States is so different from post 1965 and current patterns that it cannot provide a useful template for understanding and assessing those patterns. In addition, Roth addresses the disturbingly undemocratic nature of the regime of mass immigration imposed by authorities on the citizens of all western nations in defiance of their clearly expressed wishes. He shows that the chasm between elite views and public opinion is so deep that current policies can only be maintained by an increasingly totalitarian suppression of dissent that undermines the very foundations of western democracy.The diversity and multicultural ideology is based on a huge distortion of history and is alien to the vast majority of citizens. It can only be maintained by ignoring the wishes of the majority and by increasingly coercive and totalitarian means to silence dissent.

  3. If “Progressive-Retardnation” worldview education was defunded at K-12, university and Journalism Schools, and in its place “Tragic-Liberty” worldview education was taught… then would UC Irvine students be made so stupid, so pathetic, so lambs-ready-for-slaughter as to say Old Glory is, to them, a micro-aggression?

    We need to defund “Progressive-Retardnation” worldview education… yesterday. Time to get ‘er done.

    1. Robert Burke — For some reason many Latinos are very jealous of white Americans. I used to think that they were unhappy with the outcome of the War of 1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, but now I’m not so sure.
      Back in the 70’s there were Mexican-American student activists who proclaimed that the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture was “culturally offensive” to them. I don’t think anyone but the LA Times paid any attention to them, but I wasn’t interested enough to learn anything about them or find out how they did once they were out of school.
      I am pretty sure that once the UC Irvine Latinos have been out of school for five or ten years, they will agree with you that “micro-aggressions” are too insignificant to worry about.

  4. Reporting live from Europe with the latest batch of refugees living in an abandoned office building 1km down the road: Those refugees flee to the North, that is to say the rich countries. They don’t necessarily go for the West, that is the free world. Don’t fail to distinguish between these two directions.

    As it happens if you enter a country underprivileged North seems to be exactly where West is. If one was richt to begin with, probably the non-free world would offer even more affluence at the expense of a majority which would enjoy less freedom. I have a feeling the one-percenters dream of this every night.

    Certainly Europe ignores the fact that only one power guarantees the Free Western World be in the same location as the Rich World of the North. That power is, or at least used to be, the USA. In historical terms Britain could have had 100 Churchills last century, no Chamberlain at all, and still would have gone down without US military power and resolve.

    If one wants freedom now it’s good enough to live in the Western World. If one still wants freedom next year it is better to be in NATO. If one wants freedom 10 years from now one should better do something about it right now.

  5. Great writing as usual.
    In my limited way I can sum up this current article.
    The people at fault are what Homer Simpson called “Know nothing know-it-alls”.
    Isn’t that about it?
    I heard Kennedy say something on Fox that I hadn’t heard before:
    The term was “Narcissistic Socialists”
    These are both bumper sticker descriptions but completely accurate.
    I think bad things, then I look at the current Republican Clown Car full of presidential candidates
    and I think ……These people seem mostly smart and ethical, maybe all isn’t lost.

  6. Yet another edifying article from Professor Hanson. Thank you. Of concern however is that our youth have been so indoctrinated by the Zinns and Chomskys that they will have no belief in their own economic and political institutions and no will to fight for a society they have been taught is evil. The optimism that sustained earlier generations of Americans seems lacking in the Millennials. We must rely on the exceptional members of this group such as students of yours to carry this society through the coming crisis.

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  8. History is/isn’t linear. History is/isn’t circular. It’s a spiral path up/down. Wether we are ascending or descending can be ascertained by the relative ease of “progress”. That’s life…. Excelsior!!!

  9. Re: ‘So far the West has been lucky’

    For sure. How many times can you fight to the death and come out alive? We have to hope the stat probabilities are on our side if human civilization can continue to exist.

  10. I feel like as far as immigration goes, the west could probably absorb a lot more of the people that want to come here being that our birth rates are declining. As far as I’ve heard, the birth rates in most of the world are declining, not just in the west, so I am actually quite optimistic about the future. I think the non-west has advanced a great deal. http://www.gapminder.org/ has some very interesting data to support optomism.

    As far as the US going bankrupt, that would be hard since we own our own bank. China can’t do much with our debt in the near term since their economy depends on exporting to us. The only way they can maintain their exports is to short their currency (buy dollars). If they ever try to ditch our debt, they will strengthen our currency and help even out our trade balance, which we keep asking them to do anyway.

    I think it is very important to keep an eye on current parallels with history, and to recognize that everything will die someday, but it’s also important to not get too caught up in the “doom and gloom” as they say.

  11. Pingback: Is the West Dead Yet? – VD Hanson | controvercity

  12. The breathtaking downdrafts of recent days show that Wall Street retesting its Tech Wreck and Housing Bubble lows is anything but far-fetched. If it happens before the primaries begin next summer, the bloodletting among the conventional politicos is going to be historic — although, hopefully I suppose — it will remain strictly figurative.

  13. Putin is now putting aircraft and ground troops in Syria in support of Assad and to fight ISIS.

    How far is it to Saudi Arabia from there.

    A large multi-player chess game is afoot. The Chinese have a lot of Africa, The world is being re-subdivided as we watch.

  14. Pingback: The West and Weakness | 38 South

  15. Great as always. But VDH always seems to leave questions of philosophical and religious belief–“worldviews”– largely aside. Material over abundance and leisure time, lack of external threats, etc. no doubt play their roles, but aren’t these subchapters under the broader heading of belief.
    Why do we get out of bed in the morning–ultimately?
    Most Europeans merely shrug their shoulders at such questions. And so too, I’m afraid, with each passing year, are more of us.

  16. Islam will be the world’s dominant religion in 15 years. Nearly every non-muslim reading the above article will be forced to submit to Islam in various ways, and most of us already have.
    Small steps at first, as we are seeing now.

    Cancellation of K through 12 school Christmas programs because they are offensive to Muslims.

    Muslim clergy in the U. S. military.

    Bans on speech or writings in the U. S. Military critical of Muslim culture.

    College campus bans on words, speech, or deeds critical of Muslim culture.

    Risk of job loss for violating hate speech policies by criticising the prophet or Islam.

    Non-Muslim children being forced to recite Muslim prayers in class, where The Ten Commandments or The Lord’s Prayer are not allowed to be recited or posted.

    Sharia law officially recognized and considered legally binding in urban areas with high Muslim populations by our own legal system.

    I will make a prediction that slightly modified Muslim dress will become fashionable and widespread amongst our younger and middle-aged people in the west in the near future, and will remain so.

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