PROMOTE Conformity in the Guise of Individualism. Has there ever been such conformity among the youth of a democratic nation before? Most young people are politically correct. They have been reared to believe in themselves as individuals, and to hold their own self-esteem (their very high and totally unearned self-esteem) as an intrinsic part of said individuality. But in reality they have been socially engineered into individuals who all believe the same thing.
THE Marxist left/liberals have completed their ‘long march through the institutions’. They claim the varied lunatic policies they enacted were for the benefit of society, but can this really be the case? When viewed through the prism of reality, much of Socialism’s ideology appears to have one aim and one aim only: the total destruction of society. This is not an overreaction by any means — if societal destruction was your bag, would you not carry out the following?
Europe’s war on speech and Hollywood’s corporate implosion signal the end of an era and (perhaps) the beginning of another.
In his brilliant book on the precariousness of Western Civilization, , scholar Spencer Klavan cites an epic historical change that took place in a single moment. It was the Visigoths burning the city of Rome in 410 AD, observed by Saint Jerome. “Who would believe that Rome would fall, she who had been built up by the conquest of the whole world?” Jerome wrote. Klavan captured the irony that evaded even the saint. “But even as he wrote these words, Jerome himself had already completed a Latin translation of the Bible which would serve as a foundation stone of Christendom in western Europe.”
THE West – a metaphor abused and rarely understood – is nearing its end. Its decline is no longer exceptional but emblematic. In fact, credible augurs claim its demise is no more than 20 years away. Democracy, for its part, never truly rose from the grave after its passing more than 2,000 years ago.
What is democracy? On paper, it is an arrangement grounded in unconditional pluralism and unreserved respect for individuals, administered by honest civil servants in an atmosphere of frugality, transparency, uprightness, strictly limited terms of office for all officials – elected or unelected – alongside direct citizenship participation. The individual – not the pack, not the people, not society – is the cornerstone of any community worthy of the name. Over body, property and mind, the individual is the uncontested sovereign. True democracy upholds the indisputable supremacy of the individual over the collective. Yet today it is a chimera rather than the system proclaimed to be in force.
In just the last few years, Canada has dropped to the rear of the pack on any number of economic indicators in which it used to do quite well.
Canada now has the slowest per capita GDP growth of any other large OECD country. It continues to post the world’s most unaffordable housing. Canada isn’t even one of the richest countries on earth anymore. Whereas Canada used to make the top five as recently as the 1980s, it’s now behind 14 countries that are officially wealthier.
From Birmingham to Berlin, Madrid to Malmö, people have given up on safety — and on those who were meant to guarantee it.
Twenty years ago, Europe still felt whole. Streets were still. Nights were calm. Many slept without worry. You could wander Marseille’s streets without a thought or lose yourself in Venice’s narrow lanes without a trace of fear. Today, that sense of sanity feels like an artifact from an ancient time. The latest World Safety Index report confirms what most already sense. Europe is no longer secure. France and Italy — once the crown jewels of the continent — now rank below Rwanda and Bangladesh for public safety.
I was on a panel recently talking about work visas and immigration policy. Despite some disagreement about tactics, we agreed more than I expected on policy. Something else struck me, too. We didn’t interrupt each other. We spoke in turn, deferred to each other, and otherwise behaved civilly.
These days, that seems rare. The Left-wing broadcast media is increasingly intolerant of particular views. A recent report from the Media Research Centre, for example, found that the supercilious CNN host Abby Phillip interrupted liberal guests three times but conservative guests 127 times during a “random sample of 10 episodes” of her news show. In that, she was perhaps just mirroring the West more broadly, in which supposedly “offensive” speech on subjects like gender or race is ever-more heavily policed.
I write from a quiet, mountainous part of Central Europe. The scenery is idyllic, and the fall air is crisp. But much as the case has been in my other recent trips to the European continent, the sights I see and the conversations I hear are all underscored by a similar haunting concern: Will there even be a Europe, in any cognizable sense of the term, a century from now?
Europe faces four self-inflicted crises—radical green mandates, collapsing families, unchecked immigration, and rising tribalism—that now threaten Western civilization itself.
Europe is plagued by a number of existential crises. Yet they are all self-inflicted—and by a dominant, therapeutic culture that embraced utopian but lethal bromides.
These suicidal wounds are now nearing the end-stage. Indeed, they are destroying the very civilization that was soon envisioned to be heaven on earth.
The global warming hysterics could not just entertain gradual transformations away from dependencies on traditional fuels and power generation.
Food delivery apps are a harbinger of decline.
The Victorians were obsessed with the idea of the future.
Unlike the dystopias of the 20th century, crafted through the horrors of war and tyranny, the Victorian futurists imagined bright, mechanised utopias where technology delivered fairness, abundance, and joy.
Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) pictured Boston in the year 2000 as a land of equal wealth, credit cards, and benevolent corporations. William Morris, in News from Nowhere (1890), conjured a pastoral Thameside vista where the smog and industry of London was replaced with an artisanal commune in which government and money were no longer necessary.
The decline in wellbeing among young people is an all-too-familiar trend. Less understood is that the situation is significantly worse in the Anglosphere — Britain, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — than in Western Europe. The contrast is documented, chart by chart, in a new report for the Financial Times. Drawing on data from the World Happiness Report, John Burn-Murdoch argues that the “worsening in young adult mental health over the past decade is primarily, if not exclusively, an Anglosphere phenomenon”.
No other author has chronicled the nihilistic spirit of our times with such pitiless clarity.
Whether Michel Houellebecq is a great writer will be debated for as long as his books are read. What few will deny is his status as one of the early 21st century’s most challenging and original artists.
That might not be saying a great deal. After all, the first 25 years of the new millennium – at least in the West – are unlikely to be remembered as a time of great artistic or intellectual originality. Just look at recent winners of the Turner Prize, or read one of Sally Rooney’s novels.
Still, Houellebecq stands out thanks to his willingness to say the things other writers don’t dare to. In an era when artists and authors tend to share the same ‘progressive’ worldview, Houellebecq has consistently refused to bend the knee to fashionable orthodoxies. He remains a critical figure for those who still believe in a writer’s ability to capture the unique ‘spirit’ of the age they live in. Taken together, his works chronicle and explore the creeping sense of decline shared by many in the West.
Something in the United Kingdom is fraying. It’s hard to pin down, but in the years following the pandemic, there has been a perception across the country that ‘things’ are persistently getting worse, and slowly, but surely, a muted retreat is taking place. The decline is not dramatic, nor is it grabbing any headlines. It’s quiet, domestic, deeply human—and perhaps in its own way, therefore uniquely British. Fewer people are having children, fewer people are purchasing their first home. Slowly, there has been a fade from our cultural life.
In the Britain of 2025, fewer people are getting married, and fewer are starting families. We are not just facing an economic downturn, we are looking on as a nation unravels.
When the adversary denies borders, morality, and the value of human life itself, refusal to resist is not a path to peace. It is a path to erasure.
Imagine: war has broken out again in Europe. But instead of mobilization, we see debates. Instead of heroes—hashtags. Instead of resistance—philosophical arguments about the nature of evil.
Today’s Europe is not ready to defend itself—neither institutionally nor morally. And even if new Churchills and de Gaulles were to appear tomorrow, they would likely be powerless to change anything. Because there would simply be no one left to stand behind them.
Suddenly it is all too clear. There is very little that binds together the different sections of what used to be called the Western world. The ascendancy of the 2025 Trump Presidency has crystallised the trend towards the fragmentation of global westernism. America looks inward and an all too ignored Europe knows that its fragility and weakness stands exposed.
The current conflict between Europe and America is not reducible to contrasting approaches towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nor is this simply a conflict over tariffs and trade. Yes, we see the forceful assertion of American national interest but the dynamic set in play is not merely the latest version of the usual competitive positioning between different powers.
