By Daniel Lattier
| February 20, 2018
I will now add another one to the list—British journalist Malcolm
Muggeridge (1903-1990), who wrote the following in 1976:
“Similarly, it has become abundantly clear in the second
half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself.
Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created his own boredom
out of his own affluence, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, his own
vulnerability out of his own strength; himself blowing the trumpet that brings
the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide,
convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill
and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for
his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and
polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over, a weary,
battered old brontosaurus, and becomes extinct. Many, like Spengler, have
envisaged the future in such terms, and now what they prophesied is upon us.”
It’s difficult to deny that many of the conditions of
decline that Muggeridge lists are realities of today's life in America, which
is regarded by
some as the last best hope of Western Civilization. For instance…
“… his own impotence out of his own
erotomania”:
As reported by a recent Politico article titled “Too Much Netflix, Not Enough Chill,” in spite of the
decrease in sexual inhibitions, “Americans are having less sex, the share of
Americans who say they never once had sex in the past year is rising,
and—perhaps most surprising—this revolution in sexual behavior is being led by
the young.”
“… in a process of auto-genocide, convincing
himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and
scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his
enemies”:
According
to the Centers for Disease Control, U. S. fertility is at an all-time low,
and below the levels needed to replace an aging workforce and keep the economy
stable. And there have been over 60 million abortions performed in the U.S.
since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, which is estimated
to have reduced today’s U.S. population by about 10%.
“… having educated himself into imbecility, and
polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction”:
Student performance in American schools continues
to decline, and they no longer read most of the Great Books that shaped
Western Civilization. In
many schools, students are being taught that past men (rarely women) of the
West have not only made mistakes, but that the West itself is evil and must be
systematically forgotten. As Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen has
noted, “What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a
wholesale lack of curiosity, history-less free agents, and educational goals
composed of content-free processes and unexamined buzz-words like ‘critical
thinking,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘ways of knowing,’ ‘social justice,’ and ‘cultural
competence.’”
And then there’s the high prevalence of drug use: 45% of Americans above the age of 12 take prescription
painkillers, tranquilizers, stimulants and sedatives; 1 in 10 American adults take antidepressants (thirty years
ago it was less than 1 in 50); 22% of Americans use marijuana (some do so legally); and an estimated 10%
of Americans use illegal drugs.
But the question of whether these conditions are actually
signs of civilizational decline represents a point of division in America
today. A large percentage of Americans believe that the earth is already
overcrowded, and thus, that any reduction in population is unquestionably good;
that teaching America’s students to look more favorably on cultures other than
their own is a necessary facet of “critical thinking”; and that increased use
of pharmaceuticals is an indicator of medical progress.
Others, however, see the above conditions as indicators
that Americans no longer believe the West is worth preserving, and are reminded
of the words of another 20th-century thinker, Will Durant: “A great
civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself
within.”
This article was originally published on IntellectualTakeout.org
Dan is a Senior Fellow at Intellectual Takeout. He received his B.A. in Philosophy and Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas (MN), and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You can find his academic work at Academia.edu. E-mail Dan
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