Thread by @docMJP

Crisis of West THREAD

“The crisis of the West consists in the West’s having become uncertain of its purpose. The West was once certain of its purpose—of a purpose in which all men could be united, and hence it had a clear vision of its future as the future of mankind.

We do no longer have that certainty and that clarity. Some among us even despair of the future, and this despair explains many forms of contemporary Western degradation."

—Leo Strauss, 1963 (Introduction, The City and Man)

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the UN.

Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite...

Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

—Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, 1978 (Harvard Commencement Address)

“This national feeling is good, but it won’t count for much, and it won’t last unless it’s grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.

An informed patriotism is what we want.

And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American.

And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions...[but] things have changed...Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it...

I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.”

—Ronald Reagan, 1989 (Farewell Address)

And here we are, hurtling on.