Some thoughts on the breakdown of Western Civilization

Last updated on February 2nd, 2023 at 09:35 am

Over the past 60 years Western Civilization has been in a death spiral. Thousands of years of Western wisdom and experience have been jettisoned in the span of just a few decades. What have been primary drivers of this collapse? Some thoughts….

1. The demise of traditional sexuality and the family. Since 1960 the out-of-wedlock and divorce rates in Western countries have skyrocketed. Indeed, in the United States during this time the illegitimacy rate increased 8-fold (from 5% to 40%) and the divorce rate doubled.  And as Mary Eberstadt has written in her book How the West Lost God, as the family falls collapses, the Jewish and Christian religions underlying Western Civilization collapse as well.
2. The takeover of the “commanding heights” of Western culture beginning in the 1990’s by the 1960’s radicals. The majority of the student radicals in the 1960’s came from well-to-do families, were highly educated, and highly ambitious. After quietly working in the main culture-producing institutions (Hollywood, the media, academia, publishing, Big Business, etc.) in the 1970’s and 1980’s, these radicals became the heads of these institutions beginning in the 1990’s and have been infusing their left-wing ideology in them since then.
3. Related to #2 above, the critique by left-wing Western elites of Western Civilization—and the Judeo-Christian worldview underlying it—as a civilization of racism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, etc. These elites highlight only the faults of the West and ignore its grand achievements. They topple the statues of Western heroes and rewrite history books to promote their warped narrative. West bad, non-West good.
4. The massive influx of non-Western immigrants to Western countries. In order to be “inclusive” and “welcoming” to their immigrant populations, Western elites have decided to downplay Western experience and ideas in their countries.
5. Related to #2-#5 above, the growth of identity politics in the West. Leftwing elites in Western countries have made one’s identity— one’s race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, “gender,” etc.—and not one’s character and competence, the determining factor in a person’s worth. Someone is worthy—and should be given preference in hiring, promotions, contracting, university admissions, etc.—if they are members of racial and ethnic minority groups, identify with a letter in the LGBT movement, are non-Christian, etc. And the cultures of these worthy people are to be promoted and extolled as flawless exemplars that must be imitated. On the other hand, heterosexual, Christian, white people of European ancestry—and the Western culture they have created—are the enemies that must be demonized at all times.

These are just some thoughts about the tragic decline of Western Civilization since the 1960’s. Maybe there are other reasons for the almost complete collapse of a civilization that has brought more good to more people over the past several thousand years. Not a perfect civilization by far, but the best of all the alternatives. If only Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, Charlemagne, Maimonides, St. Francis of Assisi, Dante, Copernicus, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Rafael, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Mozart, Bach, Bonhoffer, St. Maximilian Kolbe, Mother Teresa, St. John Paul II—not to mention Christ and Moses—could see the wreckage that used to be known as Western Civilization.

Image: Map from Idril’s Fantasy