Photo Credit:Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The moral retreat in the West has set the stage for a tragic repetition of human history; can we right the ship?The moral evil of human action divides people and breeds discord. However, it comes in many guises that may easily deceive us. And for those whose heart is empty, nothing is easier than pretending to be good. Outward piety and renunciation may well mask the worst of cruelty.
In some periods, there is ample cause for optimism (e.g. around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989), in others for the opposite: pessimism. At present, there are many signs that good is giving way to evil. In the countries of the West, we seem to be setting ourselves up for a strange future. Accumulating events both inside and outside our borders relegate us to a secondary role in the ongoing world drama.
For millennia, we in the West have stood for a particular outlook on life. Longing for freedom, honoring the word (as in oratory and logical proof), and godly at the same time, we have integrated structural elements from Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Jewish worship. These pillars of Western civilization, as we know it, have now begun to tremble. Our own world is breaking up under the triadic advance of (a) tyrannical imperialism, (b) Islamic supremacism, and (c) revolutionary totalitarianism.
Apparently, we have to prepare for another world order. It looks as if we, the heirs of both Western Christianity and the ideas of the Enlightenment, the people of the free world, are about to lose our “unalienable rights”. As things stand, our “life” and “pursuit of happiness”, in the words of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, with “liberty” in any meaningful sense being excluded beforehand, may ultimately depend on the benevolence of foreign masters.
As their number increases day by day, Muslims of the diaspora are consolidating their power. And in the style of pre-revolutionary Bolsheviks, Islamists are scheming to take over and impose their rules, inspired by the expansionism of the Rashidun Caliphate. (So far, they are in control of public space in European cities.) In a time of transition marked by secular value confusion, moral decadence, and senseless calls for “diversity,” we are already in the process of renouncing our own traditions, denying ourselves as virtuous beings, and submitting to the “inevitable.” We are witnessing the insidious conquest of the West.
The Muslim invaders of the past, Moors and Ottomans, never dealt with issues of good and evil in a compassionate, moral-humane way comprehensible to us. At any rate, they were not given to critical reflection. With military strategists and civil servants at the forefront, they were busy expanding their dominions and maintaining their undisputed dominance in civil society.
Fleeing poverty and cruelty, the non-military invaders of today settle in the West because we readily open the gates and allow them to enter. Supposed to be civilized and generous to the point of self-destruction, we find it impossible to reject them, which they know very well, and we offer them food and shelter. (Of course, we have largely renounced the Christian faith, but hypocrisy thrives nonetheless.)
Initially, with the emotional (sentimental) appeal of “victims,” adventurous young men disembark from overcrowded boats, band together, and learn by heart the lenient rules of their Christian hosts. Next, they send for their relatives (i.e. parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins etc.), be they true or false, and intended wives. Thus, it is not that any of them come here in deference to Western ways of life, striving for assimilation and integration. From a historical perspective, they are invaders and colonizers.
That the invaders themselves and people sharing their outlook on life multiply and eventually dominate central areas of public life (e.g. schools, hospitals, and retail trade, but also criminal courts and prisons), nurtures triumphant visions of a future where their faith is above the laws of post-Christian society. Much to the chagrin of the progressive elite, which celebrates “diversity” and warns against “bigotry,” a change in attitude is noticeable; the invaders become estranged and keep to themselves. Their dependence on our benevolence decreases.
It is as if orthodoxy and a supremacist contempt for people of other faiths equally prevent individual assimilation and cultural integration. The invaders spy on each other, hold each other accountable for breaking domestic rules (i.e. their own customs as opposed to Western laws), and forbid each other to apostatize the faith of their fathers. What is more, a positively hostile attitude towards everything Western is reinforced in Islamist circles.
As long as they are relatively few and depend on us, the invaders pretend to think and feel like we do. Sure enough, we love that; much like parents, who gratefully watch the infant smile at them from the cradle, we are confirmed in our benevolence and encouraged to continue down the same path. However, as soon as the invaders fall under the influence of (religious) leaders from their own ranks, the opportunistic willingness to adapt socially by pretending “common ground” is gone. They not only demand the right to live by their own rules, which in itself requires special consideration from the rest of society, but also oblige the rest of us to honor them. In short, they claim a special status for their myths and symbols. Latent is the ultimate demand for submission. That is where Western civilization, the basis for our experience of community and social adaptation in life (morality, rule of law, and social cohesion), collapses. With nobody willing to stand up and defend it, it ceases to exist.
Our own ancestors may have known this instinctively, brought up with tales of the Crusades, the large-scale enslavement of Westerners by Corsairs, and the Balkan wars of liberation waged against the Ottoman Empire. Having embraced secularism, however, we thought that we were so much wiser in our time and could win the hearts of the whole world by unprejudiced hospitality and generosity. Instead, our enemies are quite predictably eating us up; we no longer (a) believe in God or a bright future for ourselves, (b) have children, or (c) defend ourselves against those who openly challenge us and humiliate us in our own home.
In the West, people are negligent of the evil that threatens them from without. Yes, against their better judgment, they even doubt the existence of evil in the world. Many years of peace have obviously dulled their senses and made them mellow. In addition, they may have lost some of their courage to speak out against unfairness and defend themselves. Therefore, they hesitate to respond appropriately when the enemy blatantly lies to them and tests their resolve.
The examples of moral retreat in the West are as numerous as they are shameful. However, some are more conspicuous than others. On the one hand, we thus sympathize with feminist demands for equality at home and in the labor market. On the other, we dare not dispute that women from cultures other than our own are enslaved in the “multicultural” neighborhood.
Once people were afraid of being called “racists.” As society has evolved in the meantime, with the emergence of parallel societies and anti-Western riots in the streets, the omnipresent risk of violent reprisals has silenced even the outspoken. Nowadays, large parts of Western Europe are effectively divided into enclaves under Islamic law (including bans on women walking alone in public spaces).
Evil exists as well as good. In order to enjoy the latter, we must be courageous and fight the former. That fight is eternal. And if we think that we can ever rest and take the good for granted, we are definitely wrong and may lose everything that we have. We need to be vigilant to maintain order and human dignity around us. Ignorance, laziness, and cowardice invite tragic repetitions in human history.
The West is not the birthplace of evil. However, it is the only place in the world where people enjoy personal freedom and have a tradition of reflecting independently and publicly on their morality.
<img alt="Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons" captext="Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/good-and-evil.jpg”>
Image: Public domain.
