Western Naïveté & Self-Destruction
Prologue
Western values are under heavy attack. In wake of the recent protests against Israel by a coalition of radical leftists and Islamic fundamentalists, I am sharing an essay defending Western values against these parties’ dangerous claims. The notion that Israel is the epitome of Western evil is partly motivated by pure anti-Semitism and partly motivated by profoundly misguided radical views. The greatest danger is that the obfuscation of truth that these fundamentalists promote has led many impressionable people to parrot their talking points and skew basic morality.
We cannot let these people shout us down, and we need to understand what is at stake if they get what they’re after. If you wish to raise your children in an open society that values individuals as well as technological and social progress, then I encourage you to find your voice in combating these anti-West actors.
Western Naïveté & Self-Destruction
Most people who live in Western nations, who trust their institutions and enjoy civil liberties and tolerance, believe that everyone would want the same way of life in their nation. This seems reasonable considering that the West, while not totally perfect, has established an order that has unleashed human creativity, scientific knowledge, material wealth, and unprecedented peace between the world’s most powerful nations. From the inside looking out, we assume no one could be so irrational and so unreasonable to deny the self-evident virtue of Western morality. But this is our gravest and most naïve mistake.
There are many people – some that live in the West and others outside of it – that inexplicably reject what the West has to offer, and there is almost no point reasoning with them. The anti-West movement is an odd coalition comprised of two main blocs whose motivations and ideologies could not be further apart: religious Islamic fundamentalists and secular fundamentalists (the radical left). Neither group can be convinced that the West has any merit, and they present a united front to actively crusade for the dismantling of the institutions that counter to their worldview.
To understand what’s at stake, consider what motivates these blocs and what they would do with power. Islamic fundamentalists do not think in terms of civil liberties or utilitarianism. They believe that their ideology is the unquestionable, morally perfect, and final word of God. They oppose Western values because such values separate church from state and emancipate freethinkers (apostates) and other individuals – including women, minorities, and homosexuals. They regard Sharia as the immutable, divine epitome of human existence.
Secular fundamentalists are motivated by excessive and often unqualified sympathy for any group that they perceive to be marginalized. They despise the West for its cultural hegemony, its excesses, and its apparent inequities. They want to address historical and class-based grievances, and to that end place group interests and equality of outcome above individual liberties and meritocracy. To that end, they state that there is moral utility in collectivizing social institutions, disestablishing cultural norms, and treating morality through the lens of various group identities (class, race, sex, etc.) and historical grievances.
Because the West tolerates alternative viewpoints, it has been masochistically willing to entertain pseudo-intellectuals from both fundamentalist blocs that denigrate its achievements. Both blocs present worldviews that, no matter how problematic or refutable, somehow evade common sense, social criticism, and empirical evidence against their cause. When Islamists tell us their scriptures and beliefs are absolute, incontrovertible, and above any moral reproach or anyone’s right to free speech, we hold our tongues to carefully avoid the label “Islamophobia” or incite violent retribution.
Secular fundamentalists, meanwhile, remain largely unchallenged in the self-congratulating theoretical landscapes that they inhabit – academia, legacy media, and social media. In these arenas, ideas don’t have to work necessarily to survive; they simply exist to reinforce the self-concept of moralists who believe that common sense does not apply to the “uncommonly” intellectual.
Eventually, playing this game that gives voice to demagogues is how democracy and progress defeat themselves. Consider that the West’s moral positions did not occur “in a vacuum,” but instead were the gradually adopted alternative to religious fundamentalism, which was the only social order for most of recorded history until the Age of Enlightenment. Religious fundamentalism (Islamic and Christian mostly) held up institutions like despotism, slavery, and corporal punishment. This is not to say that religion has no place in society, but that societies that fail to discriminate between religious dogmas and universal ethics necessarily use authoritarian structures to intimidate, propagandize, broadcast libels against infidels, and justify mass suffering.
The radical alternative of secular fundamentalism has only existed on a meaningful level since the Industrial Revolution (ca. 1850), and it has faired even worse than religious fundamentalism in that short history. The division of social welfare by class and racial identity and the belief that the state can cure historical grievances are both central to fascist and communist ideologies. In every precedent that such a system has been carried out, there has been devastating human suffering and death. This is because centrally planned political systems like to kill the geese that lay golden eggs. They run roughshod over individual interests with large and ineffectual states that are invariably held together by authoritarians with a cult of personality and a penchant for killing dissenters.
Considering the totality of the arguments, the evidence is basically unquestionable that Western civilization and the morality of its values are objectively better for humanity than any alternative to speak of. Broad criticisms of racism and colonialism within Western society should be directed at the remnants of archaic social orders that the West is attempting to address. In terms of public discourse and policy, tolerance and the desire to improve the liberty and welfare of the average individual are central virtues in all Western nations.
The great irony of modern geopolitics is on full display at the United Nations. Western values are directly responsible for transforming countless intolerant and impoverished nations (Germany, Japan, most central European nations) into tolerant, progressive, and wealthy societies. Meanwhile, the most intolerant, regressive, and impoverished societies today – Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Yemen, etc. – are those that reject the validity of Western values and cling to grossly oppressive systems while cynically charging the rest of the world (and Israel in particular) with human rights violations.
Today, the West approaches a critical juncture. Multiculturalism is failing, and Western influence is waning. The notion that the West could promote its values to the world by opening its borders and allowing discourse with other nations was, at-first, noble. But in the current state of affairs, Western society has a serious free rider problem (not exclusive to immigrants). Legions of people want Western material comfort and entitlements but have shown limited willingness to accept the values that created those opportunities in the first place. Meanwhile, thought leaders in academia and the public sphere continue to openly promote views that betray Western morality and widen the rift between liberalism and radicalism. Should this importation and promotion of anti-Western ideals be allowed to go on, the West will self-destruct and global suffering will rise considerably.
There can never be nor will there ever be a perfect civilization. There are no solutions to complex sociological or political issues that come without some degree of collateral damage. Since the enlightenment, the West has approached things through a scientific method, testing hypotheses to continually push society towards happiness and progress. Sometimes, science creates unintended consequences, and sometimes, new ideas betray progress. Nevertheless, Western civilization, through a time-honored pursuit of life, civil liberty, tolerance, and reason, has brought the world life-saving material wealth, beautiful artworks, inspiring literature, and genuine political and economic freedom. This is the right side of history, there is no doubt about it. Any suggestion otherwise is moral anarchy. If the West collapses, so goes human welfare, creativity, liberty, accountable governance, and progress.
