The West, in its present state, is weak. Its leadership is poor, its priorities are misplaced, and—more fundamentally—many Westerners can no longer articulate what our civilization stands for. Jihadism will not bring down the West. What may ultimately do so is our own inability to champion what is exceptional about our civilization and to defend, on every front, the principles and institutions that have made it possible. We no longer believe in ourselves, and that is the most tragic weakness of all.
A postmodernist leadership that dominates much of the Western political establishment bears some responsibility for this malaise. So too does the culture of guilt and self-flagellation that has migrated from academia into mainstream society. A civilization that is constantly taught to regard its own history, traditions, achievements, and institutions with suspicion will eventually lose the confidence required to preserve them.
The United States—the epicenter of the West—is perhaps ten or fifteen years behind a moribund Europe in this regard, but its trajectory has been accelerated by political leadership that has too often required prodding to recognize evil for what it is and has repeatedly flirted with appeasement in the face of malignancy. Yet the opposition has not distinguished itself sufficiently either. It may speak with greater authority from the other side of the aisle, but when in office it too often succumbs to the seductions of Realpolitik, sacrificing principle and long-term interests for short-term political expediency.
Structural problems confronting the West are equally serious. Demographically, much of the Western world is approaching a crisis, particularly with respect to persistently low birth rates. Entitlement has become deeply entrenched. Educational standards have deteriorated. Illegal immigration has overwhelmed the capacity of governments to manage their borders effectively. Manufacturing has been hollowed out by decades of indiscriminate faith in global outsourcing, while crony capitalism has concentrated economic and political power in the hands of a financial elite increasingly detached from the interests of the productive middle class.
At the same time, the fixation on identity politics—whether organized around race, gender, or other categories of social identity—has further poisoned the public discourse. Rather than reinforcing a common civic identity, it has encouraged competing narratives of grievance and division. A society cannot remain cohesive indefinitely if its citizens are continually encouraged to see one another primarily through the prism of group identity.
On top of this is the burden of debt. The the trajectory of public finances across much of the Western world is deeply troubling. The consequences will not necessarily be felt immediately, which makes the problem all the more politically convenient to ignore. But debt accumulated today represents obligations that will ultimately be borne by future generations.
Partisan hacks will point to declining unemployment numbers when convenient, but such figures rarely tell the entire story. Headline employment statistics can obscure declining labor-force participation, underemployment, stagnant wages, and the growing number of people who have simply withdrawn from the productive economy. Combined with a weakened manufacturing base and an increasingly unquestioned faith in open-border economics, these trends offer little reason for complacency.
Yet despite all of this, the West is not doomed We still possess enormous wealth, extraordinary technological capacity, formidable institutions, and—most importantly—a cultural inheritance that has produced some of the greatest advances in human freedom, science, law, philosophy, and material prosperity in history. What we lack is not necessarily the means to recover it is our confidence in knowing that we can,
While we still enjoy the luxury of the endless circus that consumes so much of our attention, we must begin pushing back against apathy and indifference. The answer is not another narrow partisan movement, nor another ideological faction competing for control of an increasingly dysfunctional political system. What is needed is a broad civic movement, centered on the productive middle class, that cuts across ossified party lines and places at its core the values that have traditionally defined the West: freedom of speech, equality before the law, rational inquiry, respect for necessary tradition, earned rather than manufactured respect, individual responsibility, and ultimately self-sufficiency grounded in a strong work ethic.
These principles are not relics of a bygone age. They are the foundation upon which a confident and prosperous civilization can be rebuilt.
The people can still take back the nations of the West. Indeed, they must. This is not as a consequence of the perfection of the West but a realization that the alternatives involve a gradual surrender of the very freedoms, institutions, and cultural inheritance that make renewal possible.
We in the west must not apologize for existing. What we require is the recovery of a belief in the overhelming worth of our civilization.
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