An unhappy civilization, but not one in 'decline'
by Conrad Black https://www.conradmblack.com/861/an-unhappy-civilization-but-not-one-in-decline Nearly 40 years ago, I read Oswald Spengler's brilliantly cultured but excessively gloomy Decline of the West, published in two volumes in 1918 and 1923. It was uplifting in its scope and erudition — but also heavy-going, turgid in spots, and arbitrary in that authoritarian Teutonic manner that is no less annoying to read than it is to encounter socially. History consisted, Spengler wrote, of eight high cultures, including Babylonian, Chinese, Classical (Greek and Roman), Arab and "European-American." Each lasted about a thousand years, and his point was that the modern West comprises an heroic but tragic civilization, striving valiantly for an ideal it cannot attain. As the First World War reached its sanguinary climax, Spengler concluded that Western civilization's irreversible collapse would accelerate into a final phase that would require about a hundred years. Upon first reading Spengler's theories, I considered that the West was much too vital and effervescent to be in the kind of nose-dive Spengler was describing. Moreover, I generally don't buy these theories of natural replication in human affairs, according to which whole civilizations cycle predictably like the seasons. Further, Spengler does not provide for the genius of the renewal of civilizations — which the Chinese are demonstrating, as they have done several times before. Of course, it is certainly tempting to imagine that some secular and irreversible decline is occurring in the West when considering the dismal spectacle of American lassitude and inertia, the floundering of the European concept, and the debt-ridden, delusional posturing of what were formerly and for over 400 years described as the Great Powers. Perhaps the symbolic nadir of this trough was reached two years ago, when a British and a French nuclear submarine, ferrying nuclear-tipped, submerged-launch missiles, collided with each other, under water, in the Bay of Biscay. Or perhaps it was when the French and British took up aerial bombardment of Muammar Gaddafi's beleaguered Libyan despotism and shortly ran out of air-to-surface missiles. The shoestring by which their tenuous claim to ancient status hangs is very frayed. Other signs of civilizational decline — for those seeking them — can be found in the endless descent of the film industry into ever more vapid orgies of violence and wantonness, and the unutterable drivel that clogs most of the hundreds of television channels. Meanwhile, the political commentariat, especially in the United States and Great Britain, is thickly populated with imbeciles screaming epithets and shibboleths at each other. It is depressing to see Eliot Spitzer, who probably deserves compassion as a compulsive sex addict, return to political life in pursuit of the post of New York City comptroller; while the leading candidate for mayor of New York emerges as the deposed Twitter-exhibitionist congressman, Anthony Weiner. Such discouraging milestones are everywhere. The principal judicial event now unfolding in the United States is the trial of George Zimmerman, incited by Al Sharpton and now argued by the New York Times for the prosecution (whose case has collapsed), according to the rhetorical formula that if the skin colour of the victim and defendant were reversed, it would be an open-and-shut case. The judge is, as usual in the United States, part of the prosecution. At least Spengler's opus, prolix and obscure though it is in many places, and doom-laden as is the burden of it, sold over 100,000 copies in Germany alone in less than 10 years, and was translated and commercially successful in almost every language of the world (including Chinese). But today, there are probably scarcely 100,000 people in the world's much larger and ostensibly more literate population who would not be afflicted by lip-strain trying to slog through either of Spengler's volumes. All of this having been said, I still do not believe that the world is in "decline." (This is important to emphasize, because I know, from decades of observation, that few phenomena are more tiresome than people of my age, and older, grimly lamenting the decline and fall of almost everything.) Yes, the proportion of people practising or professing a religion has declined, but most of those claiming not to adhere to any religion do commune in some measure with an invisible means of support and focus of belief, whether they worship it or not. They are not atheists and so the world is not becoming increasingly vulnerable to the tendency to fill the vacuum where God resided with nihilism, paganism, or the elevation of men to the status of deities by state fiat, as in pre-Christian Rome. The hour of Nietzsche and CNN has not struck yet. What we have instead is a vast treading of water, and a widespread attitude of self-disliking narcissism. This includes an absurd and vain preoccupation with the minutiae of self, as in the vapid postings on Facebook, with a discontent at the loss of the capacity to be inspired or awed, other than by ever more elaborate spectacles. The population is ageing. And in most wealthy places, the ancient concern about over-population has flipped over to concern of inadequate numbers of people to support the benefit-recipients at each end of the average life-span. But crime is declining and all the financial problems of governments can be worked out with a little leadership. Nor can we pile too reproachfully onto the Americans, even if Washington's global leadership is ebbing. The fact that the world became accustomed to American leadership in World War II and the Cold War, and to the glorious victories we achieved under that leadership, does not empower us to expect that the United States will always wish to perform that function, and it is clearly withdrawing from it now. It is milling uncertainly about, other than when provoked, as on 9/11. The United States is not the only country unable to pull its full weight: Of all the major powers, only Germany has been able to keep unemployment rates low and maintain a sound fiscal posture. Indeed, it may be said that Germany and Canada are the only two major democracies that have been relatively sensibly governed in the last 25 years. The Chinese premier visited Germany a few months ago and pronounced the two countries "a dream couple." They aren't, but Canada and Germany are: They should both shed their outworn reluctant attitudes about leading in the world, very differently acquired, and try to impart some lessons in sensible government. Perhaps some other useful changes of cultural attitude would follow. We will have to start somewhere; no matter what anyone thinks of the world's current ethos, it cannot go on as it is. © 2024 Conrad Black |
Search Website |
||||
© 2024 Conrad M. Black |