The West in Decline?

For John, BLUF:  The "West" is what it is because of people being Liberals (vice Democrats) and working to give everyone freedom to be who they could be.  But it depends on perpetuating that idea of the right to be wrong.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Two views of West’s decline

The Orange County Register (California, where I used to vote) has an opinion piece by Reporter Joel Kotkin, in which he examines two books:

1. Submission, by French writer Michel Houellebecq
2. The Family Mandible, by Lionel Shriver

I read the first book a few months ago.  Yes, I didn't do a review.  I had thought Camp of the Saints was enough.  But, it turns out I did a draft and never published.  I will try to correct that mistake.

Both books look at Western society collapsing, in the French case by an agreement between the French Left and Islamic parties, to fight the rise of the "Right" in the form of Ms Marine Le Pen.  The other case is a future (2029-2047) where the establishment collapses and the every increasing Latinos take over (but Mexico builds a wall).

From the Opinion Piece:

But these books are far more nuanced than orthodox Muslims or progressives might assume.  For one thing, neither book blames the newcomers for the crisis of their respective societies.  The collapse, they suggest, is largely self-inflicted.

In the Mandibles’ America, the starting point lies in the loss of basic values such as thrift; chronic dependence on borrowing to a debased dollar and eventually the disastrous renunciation of our own international debts.  Shriver describes her book in economic terms, chronicling “civil breakdown by degrees” as people’s savings and ability to earn money dissipates.

In Mandibles, Wall Street and the Federal Reserve, not Latinos, are to blame for the country’s descent into financial ruin.  President Alvarado is forced to play a poor hand, notes one character, because “the really big mistake was made long ago. You can’t unmake them.”

The decline insolvency also parallels a decline in national identity.  By 2047, Shriver notes, the Fourth of July is decidedly out of fashion.“In hipper cities like New York the holiday,” Shriver notes, “had become an embarrassment.”

In the second book we have an immigrant who experiences “the decline of what he genuinely believed was the greatest nation of earth” as “a source of sorrow.”

I do think that who is in Government doesn't count as much as what they think, what values they have.  It is our values, expressed in terms of what our society provides in material and spiritual benefits, that have made us attractive to immigrants.  I believe that applies to both France and ourselves.

The OpEd is an interesting read and I commend it to you.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff