Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism
Author:
Genre: Politics & Social Sciences
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genre: Politics & Social Sciences
Book Type: Paperback
"Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide."
With those explosive words, Burnham capably constructs his theory about the decline and fall of the West, which many see as inevitable at this point. What Burnham argued nearly sixty years ago has become presciently prophetic, to a degree I believe he would scarcely imagine. I've read this treatise for college courses previously, for the first time in about 2005, for a History Since 1945 upper division course, but this time around, I'm reading it for an online discussion group, so I wanted it to be fresh in memory.
The title is somewhat misleading, however: it should perhaps be alternatively titled "What is a Liberal, and Why Does it Matter?" Burnham's inquiry began decades ago when the author was perusing an old historical atlas from his school days. Therein, with new eyes, he observed from a perspective informed by analyzing trends over millennia, in some cases: nascent empires which rose and fell, represented by variegated colors on the maps. When reaching more modern times, Burnham observed that within "two generations," Western civilization has been indisputably shrinking, beginning largely with the defection of Russia, of all places. From 1917 to 1921, Russia, a formerly highly influential power, not only separated itself from Western civilization but became directly hostile to it, in moral, philosophical and religious, as well as material, political and social dimensions. This open hostility was finally symbolized by the sealing of the borders, which has, culturally, at least, persisted even after the so-called fall of Communism and its Iron Curtain, a notion which should at best be treated with skepticism.
As in the case of several other prominent books I've read recently, Burnham argues yet again for the world that Hitler created: specifically that after WWII the disintegration of "Western Europe" accelerated, with China's isolation and the breakaway of territories over which the West had long held sway, for some cases, centuries. That included, most significantly, Germany itself, which became concealed along with many other contributors to Western Civilization behind the Iron Curtain.
Burnham argues that liberalism, though he is reticent to define it precisely, has held sway in the original "social media" of the day, the newspapers - most prominently the NY times and WaPo - since the 1930s. The second chapter, "What is a Liberal," begs a question as explosive as the question What is A Woman? these days. However, B. does provide a list of telltale queries to determine whether an individual harbors more "liberal" or "conservative" views by the way they answer questions such as "everyone has a right to free, public education," "political, social or economic discrimination based on religious belief is wrong," and "except in cases of a clear threat to national security or, possibly to juvenile morals, censorship is wrong." This list is more comprehensive than many others I've seen, and, despite being rather replete with heavily-laden terms, at least attempts some metric to determine where someone stands on vital issues, if somewhat dated by this list, which was compiled some six decades ago.
The beginning should perhaps start with the end, where he essentially summarizes his thesis. The book is academically oriented in that respect, structured in the manner of a Ph.D. dissertation, perhaps sans extensive literature review. In a nutshell, B. makes the following assertions (since he is so fond of lists!):
1) "Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide. When once this initial and final sentence is understood, everything about liberalism - the beliefs, emotions and values associated with it, the nature of its enchantment, its practical record, its future - falls into place. Implicitly, all of this book is merely an amplification of this sentence."
2) "Liberalism is not equipped to meet and overcome the actual challenges confronting Western civilization in our time."
The reasons are many and varied. Perhaps at its core, his argument is that the ideology he terms "liberalism" is fatally flawed: "the characteristics of all liberals - or perhaps all ideologies, is that to believe that there are solutions to social problems." We see this manifest in the approach of many well-meaning political leaders, who genuinely believe that they can somehow legislate their way to a solution.
I was, in fact, engaged in just this discussion the other day, regarding the failure of "the government" to take aggressive action to stop mass casualty events. The other individual was advocating, as we are incessantly told, that stricter laws and banning the ownership of certain types of weapons would solve the problem, but therein lies yet another problem: the idea that there is a legislative solution to everything... which there isn't. When I pointed out, for example, that the border is completely unregulated and that untold numbers of illegal goods, including drugs, weapons, endangered species, and, heaven forbid, even slaves, are pouring in on a daily basis, resultant of the seemingly insurmountable obstacle that criminals don't follow laws, which certainly seems to be a supportable argument, the person had no real reply, because there just isn't one.
A related point: B. states that "believing that man's capacity for self-improvement and to achieve complete social harmony and ultimate freedom is borne of the idea of "faith in intelligence," that man can actually do anything. It's yet to be determined whether this is accurate, but I think we can agree, it ain't looking good. B. further states, "inside the liberal system of ideas, we have so far found, human nature is changing and plastic, with an indefinitely large potential for progressive development. Through reason, freed from superstition, authority, custom and tradition, human beings can discover the truth and the road toward the betterment of society. There is nothing inherent in human nature that prevents the attainment of peace, freedom, justice and well-being - of, that is, the good society. The obstacles are ignorance and faulty social institutions. Because both theses obstacles are extrinsic and remediable, historical optimism is justified. Social problems can be solved: the good society can be achieved, or at any rate approximated."
He also argues that this is the ideology of, well, the Ideologue, which entails further faulty reasoning, or, in some cases, none at all: "All conceivable evidence will be explained away in order to defend the chosen doctrine. It is a characteristic of ideological thinking, whatever the given ideology, that it cannot be refuted by logical analysis or empirical evidence. Actually, the internal logical structure of developed ideology is usually quite good anyway, rather like the logical structure of paranoiac obsessions, which ideologies resemble in other ways also, and when a logical gap appears... sufficient ingenuity can always patch it up again. The ideology is a way of interpreting the world, an attitude toward the world and a method for dealing with the world. So long as I adhere faithfully to the ideology there is no specific happening, no observation or experiment that can unmistakably contradict it. I can always adjust my categories and my attitude to allow for whatever it is that happens or that I observe; if necessary, I can shut my eyes."
Therefore, ideas become so ingrained into the national mentality that we can't think of any other way to be: "the liberal is not devoid of humility: he can imagine a problem which would remain impervious to the onslaught of his own reason. But what he cannot imagine is politics which do not consist in solving problems, or a political problem of which there is no 'rational' solution at all. Such a problem must be counterfeit. And the 'rational' solution of any problem is, in its nature, the perfect solution... Of course, the Rationalist is not always a perfectionist in general, his mind governed in each occasion by a comprehensive Utopia; but invariably he is a perfectionist in detail."
Translation: there is no problem which does not have a solution; man IS capable of solving every problem we confront... so confounding issues such as the aforementioned mass casualty events, terrorism and the like, which seem to defy legislative solution, exist because people whose ideas run counter to liberal ideologies are blamed for standing in the way, rather than conceding the very likely probability that some problems simply cannot be legislated to a solution.
And who are those standing in the way: John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty," sums up by suggesting that in the liberal view, "the despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary, which is called, according to circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or improvement... The progressive principle, however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of improvement, is an antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes the chief interest of the history of mankind."
Therefore, "the purpose of genuine education as understood by liberalism is, precisely, to liberate the mind from the crippling hold of custom and all non-rational belief," to include all "myriad beliefs within the range that liberalism regards a non-rational or irrational, as the debris of superstition, prejudice, intuition, habit and custom, would be admitted to he curriculum as miscellaneous data to be studied objectively by psychology, history, anthropology and the social sciences, and so, too religion or rather religions. This from Robespierre during the height of the terror put forward the first law requiring compulsory, but free, stat0funded education, to convert all to this view."
This complex book is as timely as ever. Admittedly, it took me some time to get through, as I had to look up many of the names and references to events with which I was not familiar. The more I read, however, the more I saw modern-day parallels: indeed, many of the figures who were once household names in the 1950s and 60s, have an almost carbon-copy counterpart in the modern day: talking heads in the media/entertainment industry (Stephen Colbert seems the most prominent currently, a name which will likely fade into obscurity in a few decades, only to be replaced by yet another clone); politicians who are pretty much interchangeable, religious leaders, world leaders, and so on. I would make the assertion that the more things change, the more they stay the same, but I think the author would dispute that view. His is that Western civilization, itself a nebulous term difficult to define, is indeed headed for an evermore-dramatic collapse, and that things will certainly not stay the same forever; time will tell whether that dreary prophesy comes to pass - or, rather, when, I suppose.
I include in closing a choice bit of graffito which was scrawled on a wall of a tavern in Pompeii. The passage was written by Wilhelmina Jashemski, one of the most prominent archaeologists to excavate there. âDr. Della Corte who for many years was Director of the Excavations at Pompeii is busy copying and studying these graffiti as they are called. One day he copied a short poem scratched on a tavern that had just been excavated on the Via dell' Abbondanza. The same day a pouring rain destroyed the wall and poem. This is what it said:
Nothing can last for ever!
When the sun has shone, it sets in the ocean.
The moon, which just now was full, wanes..."
Professor Jashemski wrote in her memoirs regarding the ancient city's fragility, which is reflective of our own. When lost in the present, I always strive to look to the past. As an ancient historian, that brings me both comfort and dread. I remain uncertain as to the effect that introspection may have on our longevity; that is, we, unlike ancient civilizations, are aware of our own mortality - we have enough history to know that things don't last forever, and that mighty empires and entire civilizations can indeed simply disappear, which was inconceivable millennia ago. To that end, let us never forget how tenuous complex civilization is, and how fleeing it can be, in the stream of time.
------IMPORTANT PASSAGES-------
"The perfectibility of mankind is truly indefinite; and the progress of this perfectibility, henceforth to be free of all hindrances, will last as long as the globe on which nature has placed us."
-Marquis de Condorcet.
Funny you should mention that...
"Civilization is not a static condition but a dynamic development."
"Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow. 'democracy,' 'equality,' 'popular government,' 'free speech,' 'peace,' 'universal welfare,' 'progress,' are symbols that warm the heart; but the mind has a hard time getting through the smoke that surrounds them."
"I do not suggest that liberalism is "the cause" of the contraction and possible, on the evidence probable, death of Western civilization. I do not know what the cause is of the West's extraordinarily rapid decline, which is most profoundly shown by the deepening loss, among the leaders of the West, of the confidence in themselves and in the unique quality and value of their own civilization, and by a correlated weakening of the Western will to survive. The cause or causes have something to do, I think, with the decay of religion and with an excess of material luxury; and I suppose, with getting tired, worn out, as all things temporal do. "
"Liberalism permits Western civilization to be reconciled to dissolution; and this function its formulas will enable it to serve right through to the very end, if matters turn out that way: for even if Western civilization is wholly vanquished or altogether collapses, we or our children will be able to see that ending, by the light of the principles of liberalism, not as a final defeat, but as the transition to a new and higher order in which Mankind as a whole joins in a universal civilization that has risen above the parochial distinctions, divisions and discriminations of the past."
"Liberalism has always stressed change, reform, the break with encrusted habit whether in the form of old ideas, old customs or old institutions. Thus liberalism has been and continues to be primarily negative in its impact on society; and in point of fact it is through its negative and destructive achievements that liberalism makes its best claim to historical justification."
"Suicide," it is objected, is too emotive a term, too negative and "bad." Oddly enough, this objection is often made most hotly by Westerners who hate their own civilization, readily excuse or even praise blows struck against it, and themselves lend a willing hand, frequently enough, to pulling it down."
With those explosive words, Burnham capably constructs his theory about the decline and fall of the West, which many see as inevitable at this point. What Burnham argued nearly sixty years ago has become presciently prophetic, to a degree I believe he would scarcely imagine. I've read this treatise for college courses previously, for the first time in about 2005, for a History Since 1945 upper division course, but this time around, I'm reading it for an online discussion group, so I wanted it to be fresh in memory.
The title is somewhat misleading, however: it should perhaps be alternatively titled "What is a Liberal, and Why Does it Matter?" Burnham's inquiry began decades ago when the author was perusing an old historical atlas from his school days. Therein, with new eyes, he observed from a perspective informed by analyzing trends over millennia, in some cases: nascent empires which rose and fell, represented by variegated colors on the maps. When reaching more modern times, Burnham observed that within "two generations," Western civilization has been indisputably shrinking, beginning largely with the defection of Russia, of all places. From 1917 to 1921, Russia, a formerly highly influential power, not only separated itself from Western civilization but became directly hostile to it, in moral, philosophical and religious, as well as material, political and social dimensions. This open hostility was finally symbolized by the sealing of the borders, which has, culturally, at least, persisted even after the so-called fall of Communism and its Iron Curtain, a notion which should at best be treated with skepticism.
As in the case of several other prominent books I've read recently, Burnham argues yet again for the world that Hitler created: specifically that after WWII the disintegration of "Western Europe" accelerated, with China's isolation and the breakaway of territories over which the West had long held sway, for some cases, centuries. That included, most significantly, Germany itself, which became concealed along with many other contributors to Western Civilization behind the Iron Curtain.
Burnham argues that liberalism, though he is reticent to define it precisely, has held sway in the original "social media" of the day, the newspapers - most prominently the NY times and WaPo - since the 1930s. The second chapter, "What is a Liberal," begs a question as explosive as the question What is A Woman? these days. However, B. does provide a list of telltale queries to determine whether an individual harbors more "liberal" or "conservative" views by the way they answer questions such as "everyone has a right to free, public education," "political, social or economic discrimination based on religious belief is wrong," and "except in cases of a clear threat to national security or, possibly to juvenile morals, censorship is wrong." This list is more comprehensive than many others I've seen, and, despite being rather replete with heavily-laden terms, at least attempts some metric to determine where someone stands on vital issues, if somewhat dated by this list, which was compiled some six decades ago.
The beginning should perhaps start with the end, where he essentially summarizes his thesis. The book is academically oriented in that respect, structured in the manner of a Ph.D. dissertation, perhaps sans extensive literature review. In a nutshell, B. makes the following assertions (since he is so fond of lists!):
1) "Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide. When once this initial and final sentence is understood, everything about liberalism - the beliefs, emotions and values associated with it, the nature of its enchantment, its practical record, its future - falls into place. Implicitly, all of this book is merely an amplification of this sentence."
2) "Liberalism is not equipped to meet and overcome the actual challenges confronting Western civilization in our time."
The reasons are many and varied. Perhaps at its core, his argument is that the ideology he terms "liberalism" is fatally flawed: "the characteristics of all liberals - or perhaps all ideologies, is that to believe that there are solutions to social problems." We see this manifest in the approach of many well-meaning political leaders, who genuinely believe that they can somehow legislate their way to a solution.
I was, in fact, engaged in just this discussion the other day, regarding the failure of "the government" to take aggressive action to stop mass casualty events. The other individual was advocating, as we are incessantly told, that stricter laws and banning the ownership of certain types of weapons would solve the problem, but therein lies yet another problem: the idea that there is a legislative solution to everything... which there isn't. When I pointed out, for example, that the border is completely unregulated and that untold numbers of illegal goods, including drugs, weapons, endangered species, and, heaven forbid, even slaves, are pouring in on a daily basis, resultant of the seemingly insurmountable obstacle that criminals don't follow laws, which certainly seems to be a supportable argument, the person had no real reply, because there just isn't one.
A related point: B. states that "believing that man's capacity for self-improvement and to achieve complete social harmony and ultimate freedom is borne of the idea of "faith in intelligence," that man can actually do anything. It's yet to be determined whether this is accurate, but I think we can agree, it ain't looking good. B. further states, "inside the liberal system of ideas, we have so far found, human nature is changing and plastic, with an indefinitely large potential for progressive development. Through reason, freed from superstition, authority, custom and tradition, human beings can discover the truth and the road toward the betterment of society. There is nothing inherent in human nature that prevents the attainment of peace, freedom, justice and well-being - of, that is, the good society. The obstacles are ignorance and faulty social institutions. Because both theses obstacles are extrinsic and remediable, historical optimism is justified. Social problems can be solved: the good society can be achieved, or at any rate approximated."
He also argues that this is the ideology of, well, the Ideologue, which entails further faulty reasoning, or, in some cases, none at all: "All conceivable evidence will be explained away in order to defend the chosen doctrine. It is a characteristic of ideological thinking, whatever the given ideology, that it cannot be refuted by logical analysis or empirical evidence. Actually, the internal logical structure of developed ideology is usually quite good anyway, rather like the logical structure of paranoiac obsessions, which ideologies resemble in other ways also, and when a logical gap appears... sufficient ingenuity can always patch it up again. The ideology is a way of interpreting the world, an attitude toward the world and a method for dealing with the world. So long as I adhere faithfully to the ideology there is no specific happening, no observation or experiment that can unmistakably contradict it. I can always adjust my categories and my attitude to allow for whatever it is that happens or that I observe; if necessary, I can shut my eyes."
Therefore, ideas become so ingrained into the national mentality that we can't think of any other way to be: "the liberal is not devoid of humility: he can imagine a problem which would remain impervious to the onslaught of his own reason. But what he cannot imagine is politics which do not consist in solving problems, or a political problem of which there is no 'rational' solution at all. Such a problem must be counterfeit. And the 'rational' solution of any problem is, in its nature, the perfect solution... Of course, the Rationalist is not always a perfectionist in general, his mind governed in each occasion by a comprehensive Utopia; but invariably he is a perfectionist in detail."
Translation: there is no problem which does not have a solution; man IS capable of solving every problem we confront... so confounding issues such as the aforementioned mass casualty events, terrorism and the like, which seem to defy legislative solution, exist because people whose ideas run counter to liberal ideologies are blamed for standing in the way, rather than conceding the very likely probability that some problems simply cannot be legislated to a solution.
And who are those standing in the way: John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty," sums up by suggesting that in the liberal view, "the despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary, which is called, according to circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or improvement... The progressive principle, however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of improvement, is an antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes the chief interest of the history of mankind."
Therefore, "the purpose of genuine education as understood by liberalism is, precisely, to liberate the mind from the crippling hold of custom and all non-rational belief," to include all "myriad beliefs within the range that liberalism regards a non-rational or irrational, as the debris of superstition, prejudice, intuition, habit and custom, would be admitted to he curriculum as miscellaneous data to be studied objectively by psychology, history, anthropology and the social sciences, and so, too religion or rather religions. This from Robespierre during the height of the terror put forward the first law requiring compulsory, but free, stat0funded education, to convert all to this view."
This complex book is as timely as ever. Admittedly, it took me some time to get through, as I had to look up many of the names and references to events with which I was not familiar. The more I read, however, the more I saw modern-day parallels: indeed, many of the figures who were once household names in the 1950s and 60s, have an almost carbon-copy counterpart in the modern day: talking heads in the media/entertainment industry (Stephen Colbert seems the most prominent currently, a name which will likely fade into obscurity in a few decades, only to be replaced by yet another clone); politicians who are pretty much interchangeable, religious leaders, world leaders, and so on. I would make the assertion that the more things change, the more they stay the same, but I think the author would dispute that view. His is that Western civilization, itself a nebulous term difficult to define, is indeed headed for an evermore-dramatic collapse, and that things will certainly not stay the same forever; time will tell whether that dreary prophesy comes to pass - or, rather, when, I suppose.
I include in closing a choice bit of graffito which was scrawled on a wall of a tavern in Pompeii. The passage was written by Wilhelmina Jashemski, one of the most prominent archaeologists to excavate there. âDr. Della Corte who for many years was Director of the Excavations at Pompeii is busy copying and studying these graffiti as they are called. One day he copied a short poem scratched on a tavern that had just been excavated on the Via dell' Abbondanza. The same day a pouring rain destroyed the wall and poem. This is what it said:
Nothing can last for ever!
When the sun has shone, it sets in the ocean.
The moon, which just now was full, wanes..."
Professor Jashemski wrote in her memoirs regarding the ancient city's fragility, which is reflective of our own. When lost in the present, I always strive to look to the past. As an ancient historian, that brings me both comfort and dread. I remain uncertain as to the effect that introspection may have on our longevity; that is, we, unlike ancient civilizations, are aware of our own mortality - we have enough history to know that things don't last forever, and that mighty empires and entire civilizations can indeed simply disappear, which was inconceivable millennia ago. To that end, let us never forget how tenuous complex civilization is, and how fleeing it can be, in the stream of time.
------IMPORTANT PASSAGES-------
"The perfectibility of mankind is truly indefinite; and the progress of this perfectibility, henceforth to be free of all hindrances, will last as long as the globe on which nature has placed us."
-Marquis de Condorcet.
Funny you should mention that...
"Civilization is not a static condition but a dynamic development."
"Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow. 'democracy,' 'equality,' 'popular government,' 'free speech,' 'peace,' 'universal welfare,' 'progress,' are symbols that warm the heart; but the mind has a hard time getting through the smoke that surrounds them."
"I do not suggest that liberalism is "the cause" of the contraction and possible, on the evidence probable, death of Western civilization. I do not know what the cause is of the West's extraordinarily rapid decline, which is most profoundly shown by the deepening loss, among the leaders of the West, of the confidence in themselves and in the unique quality and value of their own civilization, and by a correlated weakening of the Western will to survive. The cause or causes have something to do, I think, with the decay of religion and with an excess of material luxury; and I suppose, with getting tired, worn out, as all things temporal do. "
"Liberalism permits Western civilization to be reconciled to dissolution; and this function its formulas will enable it to serve right through to the very end, if matters turn out that way: for even if Western civilization is wholly vanquished or altogether collapses, we or our children will be able to see that ending, by the light of the principles of liberalism, not as a final defeat, but as the transition to a new and higher order in which Mankind as a whole joins in a universal civilization that has risen above the parochial distinctions, divisions and discriminations of the past."
"Liberalism has always stressed change, reform, the break with encrusted habit whether in the form of old ideas, old customs or old institutions. Thus liberalism has been and continues to be primarily negative in its impact on society; and in point of fact it is through its negative and destructive achievements that liberalism makes its best claim to historical justification."
"Suicide," it is objected, is too emotive a term, too negative and "bad." Oddly enough, this objection is often made most hotly by Westerners who hate their own civilization, readily excuse or even praise blows struck against it, and themselves lend a willing hand, frequently enough, to pulling it down."
