One of the most important distinctions in this debate is the difference between a symptom and a cause.
Mass immigration may be the symptom.
Civilizational exhaustion is the cause.
A confident civilization does not spend decades debating whether it deserves to exist. It does not apologize for its history, abandon its traditions, neglect its families, and then act surprised when others arrive with stronger identities than its own.
The Western Refugee insight is that demographic questions ultimately become spiritual questions.
A people that knows who it is, what it believes, and where it is going can absorb immense pressure without losing itself.
A people that has forgotten those things will struggle to preserve itself even with perfectly sealed borders.
The real challenge is not simply deciding who belongs.
It's remembering what we belong to.
Because a civilization's greatest vulnerability is rarely invasion from without.
It is indifference from those it deems compliant and exclusion of those inside who care enough to question its path.
This has been on my mind too, but very few among us want to look in the mirror and admit there is a rot inside our own cultures. They think deporting all immigrants will send us back to a golden age. It’s simply not true.
This is outstanding and I'm pleased that it is being restacked. On the one hand is a self-created mess involving peoples with an innate sense of self-worth and vitality yet incompatible norms. On the other hand, is a culture without a compass. Zygmunt Bauman called this “liquid modernity,” it has no grounding, it has forgotten its ancestors. There something disordered about this as if it was willing its own destruction. Still, the church bells ring and the great cathedrals stand. History is now.
I don’t think Europe will survive or thrive without a return to Christianity. The foundation of Europe is the Catholic Church. It began splintering with the Reformation, and shortly thereafter with the total revolt against God. Italy, in particular, has always been deeply Catholic but that foundation has been destroyed by the propaganda of the French Revolution, the unification of Italy and bureaucratic centralization. Now, Italy is tied to a supra-national, anti-Christian organization called the EU. It doesn’t work. The EU is very fragile and people in Europe say it’s here to stay. I disagree. Just as those “expert” Sovietologists never foresaw the collapse of the USSR, so too our experts will be taken by surprise when the EU falls apart. What Italy has going for it is this: local and regional allegiance is very strong. I am writing from Venice, living in a sestier where Venetians live. They are proudly and profoundly Venetian.
Very nice perspective. Just a thought that I moot with others over here in the U.S. and A (Borat): Abortion has removed all the demographic tension, possibility of scarcity, and competition that would have made the importation of foreigners (on the scale that we have it) absolutely unthinkable. I don't think that we reflect on that enough. That said, just a sensitive consideration of the cultural mismatch of ourselves and those we import should have tipped us off to our unhinged altruism. Thus, Enoch Powell's name will endure forever. Of course, the altruism was just the husk of a discarded Christianity.
Remigration rhetoric is just the start. You can see the organized civil unrest and pushback occurring in Ireland and eventually it’ll happen in England too. Eventually other European countries will follow suit.
It’s not just a matter of scope and purpose: society in the west is extremely fractured and radicalized on both sides of the ideology spectrum.
This fracture is so deep there is no agreement on anything, not even on reality itself. How can this society be sustainable? It can’t. Democracy will collapse, and civil war is the inevitable end game, no matter what happens with remigration.
Do you find that people, especially young ones, are demotivated by a lack of belief in meaning, or by an unwillingness to commit to a particular meaning? I know culture is downstream of a lot of factors, economic conditions and local community cohesion being big ones. So, if those basic factors are weak, then it seems logical to turn to one’s beliefs about the world, about goodness and evil, etc. for motivation to improve the conditions of one’s life and community. But, if religiosity has declined, and philosophic ideas are either prone to nihilistic tendencies or otherwise not as strongly rooted in “capital M” meaning, where can people turn to for belief in purpose that is meaningful enough to spark action?
Good article. Your reporting experiences make for interesting stories, I’ll bet.
As an African born in the UK I was actually interested in hearing different perspectives as to not become biased, but what do you actually propose Europeans should do to fight the decay (aside from just remigration)? Nietzsche foresaw the "advent of nihilism" within European civilisation, and you gave some examples of how to tackle it by using examples such as embracing spirituality, but what are the actual step-by-step plans you can suggest in order to create change? Sentiments are not enough.
alot of these people, and that includes me, grew up wth a rose-coloured view of the past.
These are the old building, paintings, photographs. This is what we used to do and how we used to be.
They dont see the muck and blood and dirt and poverty out of frame. They dont see the craftsmen or learn the craftsmens skills, they dont talk to one another in real life, they dont worship together. they dont go to church or celebrate big occassions together.
Now in our defence a lot of the old traditions were deliberately dismantled by the elites or perverted by an older generation that took them off course.
My point is, it takes work and effort to accentuate the positive and to be a constructive creative person, and I would argue a spiritual belief, so they belief system has to come first. Then you create, build, socialise and interact together in the name of that common belief. Thats what becomes a civilisation.
"a sense in our youth that being a criminal is “cooler” than being studious or ambitious, an ageing population we can’t afford to sustain with a suffocating pension system, the afterlife being stripped away from daily conversations [as an atheist, memento mori still applies, perhaps more so], and an unwillingness to define our collective mission," so incredibly true—yet the real issues are evaded by a right defined by swivel-eyed single-issue monomania when not distracted by conspiracies. Vivek said the truth on mediocrity and paid for it.
The muslims, the jews and asians have strong ties and support each other.
They keep the money inhouse and dont compromise on their core values. The religious or ethnic bond takes precedence over all.
European derived people bicker and argue with each other. Over everything from what denomination of Christianity to what happened in the 19th century to whether you should call it football or soccer to what side of town you prefer to live on to what music you like to how you dress to what your hobbies are to how much money you have. I believe that says in summary that we are too materialistic and status oriented and lack a common spiritual bond.
Alot of these arguments are not that important at the end of the day and yet they’ll decide where you get invited to and who supports your enterprise.
I personally think its not getting better until the fire is right up in your face. You’ll stick with who had your back in your darkest hour.
Agree that Islamic society has been unjustly vilified.
There are obvious differences between them and us in the modern West, but there are also some things that we Westerners could learn from them as well (and definitely they from us, or at least, some of the better aspects of our current culture).
One of the most important distinctions in this debate is the difference between a symptom and a cause.
Mass immigration may be the symptom.
Civilizational exhaustion is the cause.
A confident civilization does not spend decades debating whether it deserves to exist. It does not apologize for its history, abandon its traditions, neglect its families, and then act surprised when others arrive with stronger identities than its own.
The Western Refugee insight is that demographic questions ultimately become spiritual questions.
A people that knows who it is, what it believes, and where it is going can absorb immense pressure without losing itself.
A people that has forgotten those things will struggle to preserve itself even with perfectly sealed borders.
The real challenge is not simply deciding who belongs.
It's remembering what we belong to.
Because a civilization's greatest vulnerability is rarely invasion from without.
It is indifference from those it deems compliant and exclusion of those inside who care enough to question its path.
This has been on my mind too, but very few among us want to look in the mirror and admit there is a rot inside our own cultures. They think deporting all immigrants will send us back to a golden age. It’s simply not true.
Exceptionally written.
This is outstanding and I'm pleased that it is being restacked. On the one hand is a self-created mess involving peoples with an innate sense of self-worth and vitality yet incompatible norms. On the other hand, is a culture without a compass. Zygmunt Bauman called this “liquid modernity,” it has no grounding, it has forgotten its ancestors. There something disordered about this as if it was willing its own destruction. Still, the church bells ring and the great cathedrals stand. History is now.
I don’t think Europe will survive or thrive without a return to Christianity. The foundation of Europe is the Catholic Church. It began splintering with the Reformation, and shortly thereafter with the total revolt against God. Italy, in particular, has always been deeply Catholic but that foundation has been destroyed by the propaganda of the French Revolution, the unification of Italy and bureaucratic centralization. Now, Italy is tied to a supra-national, anti-Christian organization called the EU. It doesn’t work. The EU is very fragile and people in Europe say it’s here to stay. I disagree. Just as those “expert” Sovietologists never foresaw the collapse of the USSR, so too our experts will be taken by surprise when the EU falls apart. What Italy has going for it is this: local and regional allegiance is very strong. I am writing from Venice, living in a sestier where Venetians live. They are proudly and profoundly Venetian.
Very nice perspective. Just a thought that I moot with others over here in the U.S. and A (Borat): Abortion has removed all the demographic tension, possibility of scarcity, and competition that would have made the importation of foreigners (on the scale that we have it) absolutely unthinkable. I don't think that we reflect on that enough. That said, just a sensitive consideration of the cultural mismatch of ourselves and those we import should have tipped us off to our unhinged altruism. Thus, Enoch Powell's name will endure forever. Of course, the altruism was just the husk of a discarded Christianity.
Remigration rhetoric is just the start. You can see the organized civil unrest and pushback occurring in Ireland and eventually it’ll happen in England too. Eventually other European countries will follow suit.
It’s not just a matter of scope and purpose: society in the west is extremely fractured and radicalized on both sides of the ideology spectrum.
This fracture is so deep there is no agreement on anything, not even on reality itself. How can this society be sustainable? It can’t. Democracy will collapse, and civil war is the inevitable end game, no matter what happens with remigration.
Do you find that people, especially young ones, are demotivated by a lack of belief in meaning, or by an unwillingness to commit to a particular meaning? I know culture is downstream of a lot of factors, economic conditions and local community cohesion being big ones. So, if those basic factors are weak, then it seems logical to turn to one’s beliefs about the world, about goodness and evil, etc. for motivation to improve the conditions of one’s life and community. But, if religiosity has declined, and philosophic ideas are either prone to nihilistic tendencies or otherwise not as strongly rooted in “capital M” meaning, where can people turn to for belief in purpose that is meaningful enough to spark action?
Good article. Your reporting experiences make for interesting stories, I’ll bet.
As an African born in the UK I was actually interested in hearing different perspectives as to not become biased, but what do you actually propose Europeans should do to fight the decay (aside from just remigration)? Nietzsche foresaw the "advent of nihilism" within European civilisation, and you gave some examples of how to tackle it by using examples such as embracing spirituality, but what are the actual step-by-step plans you can suggest in order to create change? Sentiments are not enough.
alot of these people, and that includes me, grew up wth a rose-coloured view of the past.
These are the old building, paintings, photographs. This is what we used to do and how we used to be.
They dont see the muck and blood and dirt and poverty out of frame. They dont see the craftsmen or learn the craftsmens skills, they dont talk to one another in real life, they dont worship together. they dont go to church or celebrate big occassions together.
Now in our defence a lot of the old traditions were deliberately dismantled by the elites or perverted by an older generation that took them off course.
My point is, it takes work and effort to accentuate the positive and to be a constructive creative person, and I would argue a spiritual belief, so they belief system has to come first. Then you create, build, socialise and interact together in the name of that common belief. Thats what becomes a civilisation.
It may not be enough but it’s nonetheless necessary.
"a sense in our youth that being a criminal is “cooler” than being studious or ambitious, an ageing population we can’t afford to sustain with a suffocating pension system, the afterlife being stripped away from daily conversations [as an atheist, memento mori still applies, perhaps more so], and an unwillingness to define our collective mission," so incredibly true—yet the real issues are evaded by a right defined by swivel-eyed single-issue monomania when not distracted by conspiracies. Vivek said the truth on mediocrity and paid for it.
W gli ariani. Morte agli ebrei. L'islam non è il problema diretto bensì solo una conseguenza e lo dico da expat lombardo a Dubai.
Community.
The muslims, the jews and asians have strong ties and support each other.
They keep the money inhouse and dont compromise on their core values. The religious or ethnic bond takes precedence over all.
European derived people bicker and argue with each other. Over everything from what denomination of Christianity to what happened in the 19th century to whether you should call it football or soccer to what side of town you prefer to live on to what music you like to how you dress to what your hobbies are to how much money you have. I believe that says in summary that we are too materialistic and status oriented and lack a common spiritual bond.
Alot of these arguments are not that important at the end of the day and yet they’ll decide where you get invited to and who supports your enterprise.
I personally think its not getting better until the fire is right up in your face. You’ll stick with who had your back in your darkest hour.
Holy Orthodoxy is the answer.
Agree that Islamic society has been unjustly vilified.
There are obvious differences between them and us in the modern West, but there are also some things that we Westerners could learn from them as well (and definitely they from us, or at least, some of the better aspects of our current culture).