The World is in the fast track of History. We are entering the era of big changes. The changes we desperately need, particularly in the west
More than a hundred years ago, the first volume of Spengler’s book “The Fall of the West” was published. It soon gained the status of a classic work. Spengler opened the question of the fate of Western culture in style.
At the end of the XX century, progressive optimism about the triumph of the West was overwhelming. However, it seems that nowadays Spengler’s thought has experienced a renaissance. The number of new books in which the question of the fate of the West is raised is growing. Almost everyone agrees that the European Union and the United States, and thus the Western world, are in crisis. The overwhelming awareness is that major changes are taking place in the West. Turning point has been reached. The crisis was caused by internal rather than external factors.
Historian David Engels believes that the European Union is in a deep identity crisis. Unfortunately, that is not the only crisis the union is going through. However, it might be at the very core of everything else happening in the union. As we know, identity implies connection with cultural and historical roots. If traditional values are denied, and they try to replace them with new, universalist ones, the community loses its orientation. That inevitably puts it in danger. The root of the crisis in the West is in the revaluation of values. As someone from Serbia, I often hear about “European values” when talking about Serbia’s attempts to join the European Union. What are these values really? Is there any document you can point me to that states what are these values exactly. Or should I try to figure it out myself, based on historical experience.
If history is cyclical then…
Conclusions about the future of the West can be drawn based on the fate of cultures that have gone through the same phase of development. Many believe that the decline facing today’s West shows many similarities with the state of the late Roman Republic. As in Rome, so in Europe, the lack of fundamental identification factors is one of the sharpest elements of the moral, human and material crisis in these two societies.
Breaking with the traditional ideals of the past displaces meaningful concept of the future. “The idea that traditional values can be replaced by universal ones is not the basis on which a sense of identity can be created. Identity is built on negations and there is no absolutely inclusive community. The “anything goes” is hardly helpful for building identity of any community. We are seeing increasing dependence on social benefits, declining savings and worries about the future, rising public debt, social stratification, rising divorce, declining traditional families, declining birth rates, rising crime, mass immigration and falling educational standards. We also see embarrassingly high levels of social injustice growing. While poverty is being reduced in most of the world, it is growing in the west. In spite the fact that west is made of the richest countries on this planet.
Terror of individualism in the west
A society in which only individuals who are selfish and free from the obligations to community are successful will not be able to survive. Excessive cosmopolitanism, family breakup, overthrow of traditional authorities, careerism, conformism, and materialism break the bonds of social loyalty. So cherished individualism inevitably leads to the breakup of any society. It works in Hollywood films only. The “west” (Europe) created America. It seems that America is now pushing certain “values” that will lead it to decline. I think that the west’s influence over the rest of the world has already declined significantly. And that is despite enormous efforts by the west to control modern arts and to facilitate them to influence new generations at home and internationally. Even the western absolute dominance over international news and social media is losing the battle for hearts and minds of younger generations in Asia, Africa and South America.
The identity crisis must leave consequences in terms of foreign policy orientation. Without a clear awareness of oneself and one’s identity, one cannot expect to recognize and articulate one’s own interests. If foreign policy is understood as a “struggle for universal values”, the West will be drawn into an increasing number of aggressive and exhausting wars for which there is no real interest other than ideological. The wars waged in the name of introducing human rights can only end when the entire planet is forced into the craziness of one ideology.
Racism against nationalism
What completely astonish me is the fact that the push against “nationalism” is led by group of nations that are very firmly connected by belonging to the same nationality (or origins). They also formed a spy-ring called the “five eyes”. These five countries are official and unofficial leaders of the “west”. They are also self appointed leaders of the “free world” or “international community”. Common for all of them is being geographically isolated (protected) on islands (two of them continents). Four of them are ex colonies conquered by the fifth one. The number of surviving original nationals in these ex colonies represent a tiny fraction of their population. All of them still have high levels of immigration. They profess “multiculturalism” but truly practice assimilation or “melting pot”. Not surprisingly, they also have very high incidence of racist incidents in daily living.
The nation state is the only framework known so far in which civil liberty, rule of law, political responsibility of government, social solidarity and democracy are possible. Many authors have long warned of the crisis of the rule of law in the West. WE see denial of sovereign rights of individual countries, encroachment of the state in the private sphere, violation of private property rights, narrowing freedom of speech, etc. A creeping suspension of civil rights has been going on since the beginning of the war on terrorism, which reached its peak during the corona virus pandemic. In the West, the state of emergency is becoming more and more regular.
Brainwashing and Propaganda in the west
Many wars and interventions are started in the name of these new values. We have seen countries bombed and lives destroyed under R2P (Right to Protect) slogan and similar “values”. We heard that starving 500,000 Iraqi children in the name of bringing democracy to Iraq was “worth it”… It might be acceptable to brainwashed masses living in the west, but it is not to the rest of this planet.
The real victims of these ideological crusades are presented as villains by western propaganda. Without any chance to speak for themselves as western media controlled by state (BBC…) or by corporations (CNN…) is leading these ideological crusades and wars. Once left alone and often bribed, citizens of the west are starting to get on the receiving side of these ideological wars recently. Canadian government blocked bank accounts of people contributing to protests against compulsory vaccination. That was something unthinkable in the past in capitalism where private property used to be protected.
So, can anyone help me in determining what are these “European values” please?
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