November 3, 2023

A year and a half ago, Russian troops invaded Ukraine. And almost a month ago, swarms of irregulars from Gaza suddenly crossed the border into Israel, spreading death and destruction.

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A “barbarian conspiracy” is once again testing the resilience of civilization. It is as if the basic view of human dignity that shaped Western refugee policy in the post-war period has suffered a defeat. Apparently, large segments of world opinion (originating in societies without traditions of personal freedom and hostile to Western liberalism) are prepared to tolerate Nazi-style massacres of civilians. Sadistic orgies are readily justified by reference to historical “injustices,” especially those concerning territorial remapping and entrapment of ethnic minorities (i.e. with the Treaty of Versailles as a prototype).

Since the execution of the Final Solution, solidly documented by the Allied troops who liberated the death camps, and to most westerners the epitome of human depravity, there have been numerous outbreaks of ethnic and ideological conflict across the globe, claiming millions of lives. Atrocities amounting to genocide involving the hallmark triad of murder, rape, and looting — have been committed within and beyond Europe’s borders, including Cambodia (the Khmer Rouge Year Zero, 1975-1979), Rwanda (massacres of Tutsis, 1994), and Yugoslavia (massacres of Bosnian Muslims, 1995).

As in most other cases where world peace is broken by the enemies of freedom, the open society of the West is divided. Misgivings and lack of resolve pervade the political processes on one side of the Atlantic. Europe as the center of the civilized world is a thing of the past. This acknowledgment may be hard to articulate by members of the ruling elite in Brussels — the seat of the European Union. Nevertheless, armed conflicts of the past century, whether in the heartland itself or elsewhere, have demonstrated the growing dependence of Europeans on the United States for moral stamina and military capability. Thus, in 2023, 448.4 million citizens of the European Union prefer to hand over ultimate responsibility for their own security to 334.2 million American citizens. How did it get this far?

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If we are not to face the future blindfolded, our perspectives on the direction of world affairs should extend beyond day-to-day speculation in malgovernance, party intrigues, and other (high-profile) scandals from the corridors of power. In short, we need to reflect on the historical causes and consequences of our identity-disturbed, self-flagellating, and fatalistic worldview as Westerners. Do we have the will and the ability to defend civilization in the long run?

It goes a long way back. World War I itself has been likened to a suicide attempt. At any rate, the frustrations of an irreparable trauma became like a disease of the soul that damaged our instinct of self-preservation as Europeans.

Shortly after the 1918 armistice, signs of an apocalyptic event shaking familiar notions appeared everywhere. The change showed itself in literature, visual arts, and architecture. There was like a common urge to break up and escape from the past. It was the origin of the new zeitgeist celebrated in avant-garde circles — the birth of both modernism and totalitarianism; the evil twins of our time.

In academia, political circles, and the art world, progressive zealots were anxious to destroy all traces of a past whose legacy they collectively despised. The picture of impertinence, they pretended that we could rise like a Phoenix from the ashes, reborn as a new (and infinitely purer) humanity. As they were dancing on the grave of fallen Europe, they undertook to design the modern man — an immaculate, well-disciplined android who submitted to the whims of the modern world without protest.

However, we never recovered from the wounds on our self-understanding. The grief over our fallen sons deteriorated into melancholy — a self-denying and morbid doubt about everything that we had previously believed in. We lost faith in ourselves. Something had been broken in the European soul. The “Great Melancholy,” as we may aptly term the reaction, paralyzed our judgment and willpower. The tragedy on the battlefield became the first ominous sign of an impending decline.

As Europeans, we remain invalids of sorts. The damage to our moral foundation is like an inherited disease. Giving in to both guilt-ridden self-scrutiny and hostile accusations from the outside world, we decided to give up, not only the claim to supremacy in the world, but also the right to survival. In this sense, the political-moral collapse of the old order was total. The self-denying resolution was radical and irreversible. We decided to commit suicide as a millennial civilization.