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Is Western Civ Strong Or Fragile?
There is an odd inconsistency between how virtuous we see our culture and how fragile many believe it to be. How can Western Civilization be the historic apex of human existence and finds itself under a dozen Swords of Damocles – from threats inside and out? I believe the reasoning behind this view is that, in a vacuum, human nature appears to be pretty awful. But when reminiscing on a debate with Stephen Balch from Texas Tech’s Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, Bryan Caplan points out the popular notion of dire circumstances conflicts with the evidence.
First, from the Institute’s website:
Western civilization has remade the world. Most of the West’s inhabitants live lives of which their ancestors could only dream: doubly long, rich in diet, teeming with comforts and diversions, and, most of all, endowed with the gift of liberty–not just for a privileged few, but for the many.
But Caplan recounts a different feel to Balch’s overall evaluation of Western Civ:
During our exchange, however, Balch rarely discussed the wonders of Western civilization. Instead, he emphasized its fragility. Every twenty years we breed a new generation of barbarians called children. To preserve our society, we have to teach each wave of juvenile barbarians to appreciate the Western civilization that makes everything possible.
Fortunately, the fragility thesis is flat wrong. There is absolutely no reason to think that Western civilization is more fragile than Asian civilization, Islamic civilization, or any other prominent rivals. At minimum, Western civilization can and does perpetuate itself the standard way: sheer conformity and status quo bias.
But saying that Western civilization is no more fragile than other cultures is a gross understatement. The truth is that Western civilization is taking over the globe. In virtually any fair fight, it steadily triumphs. Why? Because, as fans of Western civ ought to know, Western civ is better. Given a choice, young people choose Western consumerism, gender norms, and entertainment. Anti-Western governments from Beijing to Tehran know this this to be true: Without draconian censorship and social regulation, “Westoxification” will win.
A big part of the West’s strength, I hasten to add, is its openness to awesomeness. When it encounters competing cultures, it gleefully identifies competitors’ best traits – then adopts them as its own. By the time Western culture commands the globe, it will have appropriated the best features of Asian and Islamic culture.
My guess is that human nature is not so simple. It is as varied and complicated as all aspects of the individual. Just as it only takes occasional geniuses to greatly further human knowledge, it only takes the occasional soul, blessed with innate moral virtue, to greatly further morality, from Aristotle to Adam Smith and beyond.
But as we know, it doesn’t necessarily require geniuses to make progress. While there are enough naturally bad people to ruin things in some circumstances — especially when they gain influence — this does not mean someone of average innate morality cannot contribute to the greater whole or choose better morality when it is presented to him. It takes someone of incredibly low mental intelligence and/or willpower to be a net drain on society. I get the sense that “moral intelligence” works in much the same way. That is, on net, there is an upward pressure on collective morality, just as there is upward pressure on human technological advancement, even though the vast majority is not exceptional.
This means existential crisis is not necessarily the proper response to highly visible setbacks. As Caplan says, Western Civilization is a hearty weed, and we own it to ourselves to embrace our awesomeness!
Published in Culture
We won’t have a universal church to tie it all together.
Misthiocracy: Western Civilization survived the fall of Rome, the French Revolution, World War II, the collapse of the British Empire, and the Summer of Love.
Perhaps it can also survive the financial bondage of the United States.
Sounds like the answer is ‘hope’?
And those happen to be events that defined a literal ‘fight for freedoms’, except the ‘Summer of Love’ which was one more reason to party for the boomer generation. I’m not sure ‘indulgence’ can rise to the level of fighting kings, colonialism & fascists.
Yabbut, Western Civ at that time was hobbled by poor storage and transmission of information. They didn’t even have the printing press yet. We have digital storage and transmission of information. The destruction of Western Civilization would require the destruction of pretty much all communications technology developed since the 15th century.
It did not survive all these things! It was wiped out with Rome & it came back, which is to some extent luck. It is not Western civ–it is civilization as such, as opposed to Chinese despotism, let’s say. It’s just in the West.
It is STRONG. That’s why it has taken the left ages to slowly chip away at teaching it, passing it on to our youth, in order to weaken it – but they will not defeat it. The ideals in Western Civ were developed through centuries of trial and error, of pain and suffering, and revolution. I believe the first thing people do when they experience pain and suffering first hand (we are there now) is to look for a quick way out. The left will offer collectivism subject to the arbitrary whims of The State, but the right will offer freedom – the foundation of Western Civ.
Well, I was nitpicking your throwing “Summer of Love” in with “Collapse of Rome”- they are rather incongruous (damn dirty hippies / barbarians aside).
Every political fight is a “fight for freedom” to at least one of the combatants, and not necessarily the winner.
I’m hesitant to label the winners of the French Revolution champions of freedom, nor am I ready to concede that the British Empire was a indisputable force for oppression and that it’s demise was an indisputable win for “freedom”.
The point was that the goal of that social movement in the late 60s was revolution against Western Civilization.
Something cannot come back if it was wiped out. It was reduced, not destroyed.
Sit-ins and riots are not analogous to military coups, foreign invasions, and total economic collapse.
We certainly have a continuation of some civilization from Rome, but what we live in now is really a different creation in many respects. Roman civilization really can be said to have been wiped out, with Western Civ building on its ruins and improving on what it found by combining it with what the German invaders brought with them.
The Left is as much a product of Western Civilisation as the Right.
And imho they’re both pretty robust, given the ongoing adoption of their fruits by the rest of the world.
When China went Communist, for example, it was adopting a Western ideology – not reverting to Confucianism.
It is true, Zafar, that China adopted Communism, but wouldn’t you say China had given it the flavour of Confucianism? Strong central government, strong, well-trained civil service, based on service to the people and building a well-run country. Just like Confucius suggested. That’s the theory anyway.
I’m not referring to the opinions–or morals–of our leaders or the intellectual elite. They’ve always been a mixed bag. I’m talking about the citizens, the individual building blocks of society.
In the past personal morality was considered important (I’m not focusing on sexual mores particularly here), but now your personal views on social justice are the mark of a moral person. Never mind that you might be a cad, a liar, a cheat. If your main concern is the downtrodden victims of sexism and racism, all else is forgiven. Bill Clinton?
When the individual bricks have integrity, the structure will be strong. No matter how well a building is designed, if the materials are faulty it will fail. The structure looks more impressive than ever but I worry that we aren’t making citizens like we used to.
Communism will never be the same, but neither willConfucianism.
It makes me think that this civilisational interaction is a two way street – even that the strict demaracations between them are blurring.
Where exactly does Western civilisation stop and Chinese civilisation begin? I don’t think it’s an easily discerned, or static, point.
And as with the West and China, so with the West and India and the West and Islam. Hard boundaries are easier to think about, but they exist less and less in real life.
Civilization is constantly wiped out. If Russia comes back to something like the rule of the Tsars, that is civilization coming back. Civilization collapsed in Germany & then was wiped out by the Nazis. It was brought back by war. But for America, Europe, where all the civilized powers lived, would have gone to hell. In the case of Rome, it’s just too obvious to deny. Civilization is political, it depends on regimes. Surely, Constantinople maintained civilization while the West was brought to ruin, as long as that lasted. Look at Britain after the Roman collapse: How much more obvious can the wipe out of civilization be?
Civilization is not your race or your faith, even. That is why it can come up in Greece & in Rome, to some extent independently. That is why it could come up again later. The simplest way to understand it is a combination of art & freedom. The development of arts, crafts, & science is not sufficient–all sorts of despotic regimes had that; nor is freedom alone–barbarians surely are free. They have to be put together. That is possible. Human beings have done it. But it is difficult & it never lasts that long…
Not a difficult question: What we used to call civilization requires political freedom. It has little to do with building astounding buildings or even developing some technology or another, although food & weapons are needed.
Rome was destroyed; the empire collapsed, the city sacked, the people lost whatever political association there was left by the time the empire was done with them.
All sorts of things the Romans had written or preserved in writing survived & helped later. The Church survived, which later turned out to be really important.
But civilization is politics–political freedom was wiped out & the possibility that people live a decent life. Ask yourself simply this, had you been there at the time, would you have noticed the political collapse? That is all…
Probably not. This reminds me of Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, in which he describes the process by which a civilization can slowly and mindlessly do itself in. Among other handicaps, we live in human time, not historical time and certainly not geologic time.
Say we lived on a thickly-forested island whose population depends on wood for fuel. Slowly, tree by tree, we deforest our world. What looks like “normal island” changes from generation to generation, until you have the last inhabitant gazing gloomily at the last tree thinking no more than “in the good old days there were two trees…”
Ma’am, things like the sack of Rome are not like the trees whereof you speak. At any rate, I prefer the way the man puts it in the Hemingway story–how’d I go bankrupt? Two ways–first gradually, then suddenly…
It’s easy to feel frustrated, and we seem to have been heading in the wrong direction for decades, but I believe that, overall, “Western Civilization” is extremely strong.
By “Western Civilization,” I mean those nations generally following the US model of representative government, a largely independent judiciary, respect for the rule of law, and protection of individual rights. In my view, it includes nearly all of North and South America and Europe, significant parts of Asia (including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and India), the extreme south of Africa, and Israel.
To evaluate the overall strength of Western Civilization, think of the top 8 nations in the world in terms of economic, cultural and potential military power, other than China. My ranking is:
All of these countries are part of “Western Civilization,” all are allies of the US, and none of them currently poses any threat to the others or to the peace of the world generally. We live in a historically unprecedented situation, in which the US has effective global hegemony and virtually all of its potential competitors are friends and allies.
Frankly, there is no serious threat to this alliance. China is powerful and has been rising, but it lacks the ability to project its power, and I suspect that it will be in relative decline within the next decade. Russia is moribund and declining.
There is no reasonable prospect of unification or concerted action in the “Muslim World.” Moreover, even if ISIS were to realize its wildest dreams, and somehow unify a new “Caliphate” stretching from Morocco to Pakistan, such an entity would be no match for the US alone, let alone its allies. I don’t think that such a Caliphate would even make the top 8 list.
Thus, I don’t believe that Western Civilization faces any serious external threat.
Western Civilization has been in a state of internal conflict since the Enlightenment, which was actually two events — a secular Enlightenment and a Christian religious Enlightenment. The secular Enlightenment led to the French Revolution, the tyrannies of Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin, and modern secular leftism. The religious Enlightenment led (largely via Smith, Locke and the American founders) to American conservatism and, to a slightly lesser extent, conservatism in the other Western nations.
Secular leftism has generally been on the rise in Western Civilization since the end of WWII. It is not clear that this philosophy, if it continues to be dominant in most of the West, can sustain Western strength over the long term, as it appears to be the cause of serious demographic and financial imbalances (i.e. very low birth rates and runaway government spending).
Spain is not a power, nor is Italy. These are brand-new polities which seem almost incapable of dealing with the small-time problems their welfare states & social policies have caused or abetted.
Whether France & Germany have the kind of political leadership required to solve the socio-economic crisis in Europe is doubtful, but at least they do have a claim as powers, & seem reasonable close, so as to not weaken each other.
Where the UK stands is unclear–it is no longer an American ally like in the previous generation, because America has no foreign policy which could call for alliance. The last two PMs who were pro-American, the Great Lady, & Mr. Blair, lost more than they gained by the association, & both ended up abandoned by their parties, without the country showing any strong feeling… I would like some argument as to how or why political leadership in the UK is going to be effective & pro-American when was is next joined.
As for Canada–what’s the point of discussing it? If America thrives, Canada does not matter, but if America enters into a crisis, how would Canada matter?
South Korea is a weak country that cannot deal adequately with the Norks. If it is ever tested, China will swallow it, possibly without war, though probably after Taiwan. Is there any reason to believe South Korea is really pro-American & would join an American alliance at great risk to itself, when it sees what America’s allies suffer for their foolishness?
Finally, Japan. A rather aging country with great difficulty summoning martial virtues which no doubt are still apt to be aroused by a new faith, a fighting faith like that of the oldest few now extant. Japan could lead an Asian effort to fight off China, which seems to be the big threat, but Japan is hated by every other country in her region, & she has done nothing to change that. How could she? How can Japan remember her warlike prowess, but stay well away from the greatest cruelties committed in Asia, shy of Mao, since the Mongols?
This is a harsh way of talking. But I would like confidence to mean that you can answer this harshness, not avoid it. Unless progress has finally arrived, war is coming…
Apocalyptics are always sure they are in the End Times. On the principle of the broken clock being correct twice a day, sooner or later someone will declare the end of the world to be nigh, and wham! The big meteor hits, or the sun shuts down, and that person’s last breath can be a deep sigh of satisfaction at having been right. But she almost certainly will be wrong about what caused the end, because human beings are limited not just by necessarily inadequate information but by the scope of our preferred narratives.
Ma’am, a man alive in some incredibly proud civilized country in Europe would have been right about the end of the world at least three times in the first half of the century. Americans are, admittedly, sitting pretty. No one else is, really. Some were lucky, others very lucky–the terrible wars weren’t such a bother in Latin America…
But if you have any respect for these people–although, can you respect people you call apocalyptics or broken watches?–you should distinguish essentially predictable causes of collapse from the essentially unpredictable. Or perhaps you think such people are not capable of any kind of thinking…
I’m saying that human beings (all human beings) are predictably blind in the present to what will seem blindingly obvious in retrospect.
Take the man in one incredibly-proud country in Europe. Germany. Wouldn’t you think he could have taken a peek at a world map and realized that “today Germany, tomorrow the world” was a insane fantasy? Wouldn’t you think that all he’d have to do is take a look at his Jewish neighbor to realize that here could not be the cause of all the world’s woes? (Certainly, his Jewish neighbor expected him to realize it.)
Once he was in the midst of a firebombing, this man might have been sure it was the end of HIS world, and—if the bomb landed on his house—he would be right. But it wouldn’t be the end of THE world. The man would die telling himself the wrong story. That’s the narrative problem I’m talking about.
If we’re talking about WW2, Hitler came to power in large part because of generally-accepted faulty narratives (not necessarily stupid, nor unreasonable, just—as it turned out–incorrect).
Narrative One: “Germany’s Army won the war but got stabbed the back by the Jews/liberals/hungry women at home…” Not true. But broadly believed.
Narrative Two: “The Versailles Treaty was hideously unfair and unjust to Germany.” Somewhat true—though the peace Germany planned to impose on France would have been even more punitive—and strongly believed by all Germans.
Narrative Three: “Communism is the biggest threat to Germany.” This was at once the most understandable and the most damaging of the narratives. Understandable because the Russian Revolution had provided a picture of what a Communist takeover would look like; damaging because it was fear of communism that made businessmen and the Catholic church, among other institutions, back Hitler and/or fail to oppose him because he seemed the only alternative.
Narrative Four: “There is an international conspiracy of Jews whose machinations lie behind all our misfortunes.” Not true, but even as the American bombers were grinding Berlin into rubble, German civilians were quoted as saying the bombings were the revenge of international Jewry for the mistreatment of German Jews.
So our man Dresden would have died believing that the apocalypse had arrived, and that it was the fault of the stab-in-the-back at Versaille, the communists and the Jews. He would be wrong on all counts.
Can’t you think of some liberal apocalyptic narratives that are quite likely to still be on the lips of the faithful even as the meteorite hits?
This is reminding me of a joke my father told me back in 1978 or so. Newspaper headline: WORLD ENDS TOMORROW. WOMEN AND BLACKS EXPECTED TO BE HIT HARDEST.
:-)
Yeah, that’s a good one. Liberalism will die of peace, if it will die at all. If you like to look at individual cases, maybe health will get some, too–like in that Twain line, Be careful with health books, you may die of a misprint…
Those narratives you mention–they are not about you individually or anyone else. They are beliefs a people may hold. It is remarkable that people have come to use this word–narrative–like sometimes framing is used–it is so wise & knowing. People who use this word are so much better than the ones of whom they speak. Belief & opinion–these are far less damning, for who were exempt?
When people start believing insanities, they either can practice them or not, & they will either die by it or not. Some insanities are not particularly dangerous; others are deadly. It matters what they are, as well what the circumstances are. A man in Germany, even a man of sense, or maybe especially a man of sense, would have seen the end of the world just as surely. The Great War could have been far worse–but anyway, when it was done, Germany was no longer a civilized country. Very early in the 20’s things got to where decent politics was almost impossible. They later got to the other kind, half-unwilling. Then it got worse. Then under Soviet rule, worse still. If people need something else than mere life, if civilization means something, all these occasions were the end of the world in a more serious sense than some cosmic collision. Humanity is more immediately obvious to us than almost anything…
I don’t mean to use the word “narrative” in a snotty, academic way. Just that, as human beings, we tell stories. (Not lies—though we tell them, too but stories). We have a hard time seeing things as just a string of episodes —this happened, then this happened, then this happened…and when something isn’t a string of episodes—when causality is involved—this is a powerful ability.
In fact, it’s incredibly powerful, for individuals and for countries (and civilizations, especially those that get to start naming themselves with capital letters).
I don’t want to hijack this thread…but maybe I’ll start a different one about apocalypticism and why I’m snotty about it? If I do, please comment—I always find you interesting.
Civilization is not your race or your faith, even. That is why it can come up in Greece & in Rome, to some extent independently. That is why it could come up again later. The simplest way to understand it is a combination of art & freedom. The development of arts, crafts, & science is not sufficient–all sorts of despotic regimes had that; nor is freedom alone–barbarians surely are free. They have to be put together. That is possible. Human beings have done it. But it is difficult & it never lasts that long…
If people need something else than mere life, if civilization means something, all these occasions were the end of the world in a more serious sense than some cosmic collision. Humanity is more immediately obvious to us than almost anything…
I like these two quotes of yours very much. In the second one—can I substitute a proper noun for “occasions?” E.g:
Auschwitz (for shorthand) was the end of the world in a more serious sense than some cosmic collision…
Yes, I see that, I think. Back in #19, I think what I was trying to say is that the progress we’ve made in this country when it comes to race is a lurch away from the end of the world. If the arc of the moral universe isn’t a smooth line, but more like one of those cartoon business graphs that look like a mountain range, Auschwitz is a very deep valley and MLK and I Have A Dream is a peak…but is it enough of a peak? And is the overall trajectory up or down?
Thanks for the kind words, ma’am. My education concerns politics. I am, therefore, unable to avoid the thought that the end is inevitable. I do not recommend that kind of thinking, because it would not make people happy. But it is necessary in politics–only people who fear the coming war can prepare for it. Whether their judgment & their actions & their circumstances will jointly cohere, whether they will suffice to fend off destruction again, I do not know. But I am persuaded it is worth trying. There is also something to be said for this, if America is preparing for the next war, domestic matters will not be allowed to reach disaster. But if your parties are persuaded that there is no threat beyond your borders, that will certainly lead to disaster.
The end IS inevitable! That’s okay—it’s always been inevitable. Like death. “When you’re falling out of an airplane without a parachute, there’s no hope. Just curiosity.”