Amer El-Ibrahim
November
In recent times, the idea that the West is declining has repeatedly been vehiculated in media, articles and books. Such timidly apocalyptic visions have always plagued the West, especially when it finds itself in periods of crisis, be it moral or economic. Nonetheless, one can wonder: is today’s presupposed decline a real threat to our civilization, or is it just paranoia?
The idea of the decline of the West was born during the Enlightenment. Rousseau was one of the first to raise concerns about civilization's debilitating effects with his idea of the “noble savage.” Later in the 19th century, thinkers such as Karl Marx and Nietzsche expanded on this idea. Nietzsche regarded European culture to be in spiritual decline, undermined by a Christian morality that, according to him, outlived its utility. Marx and Engels offer a materialistic interpretation, attributing this deterioration to the exploitative forces of capitalism, which should at one point bring the societal collapse that would be followed by socialism.
In the 20th century, two other writers delved into this presumed perpetual downturn: Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. Spengler predicted the fall of Western society by comparing it to a living organism that is subject to growth, maturity, and decay. Meanwhile, Toynbee, in his book “A Study of History,” examined cycles of rise and fall across civilizations, regarding Western decline as part of a cyclical pattern of history. Both theoreticized that this fall is not temporary and curable, but an inevitable stage within a broader system.
Additionally, there was a growing pessimism that took hold of post-WWII Western thought, marked by two World Wars, the Holocaust and nuclear war anxieties. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer were key figures in establishing a culture of critique of modernity and the West, with phenomena such as mass consumer culture, technological alienation and bureaucratic rationalism being seen as dehumanizing forces. In the 1970s and 80s, a new declinism made its way onto the stage—present until now—which critiques Western industrial progress for leading to ecological destruction.
All of these iterations of decline across centuries show that declinism has become a mode of Western thought, not lacking in biases. However, this declinist outlook usually displays the spiritual, cultural or economic turbulences of an epoch and not the whole West across centuries. Writers who critiqued the West were driven more by subjective perceptions than objective realities. Nonetheless, the “idea of decline” is serving as a mirror into anxieties of each era rather than an inherent decay of Western civilization. Moreover, the West’s obsession with its own deterioration seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, born of philosophical pessimism that blinds us to our achievements.
On another note, Hegel noted 200 years ago, civilizations perish not because of external reasons, such as war, famine or economic crisis, but due to internal disputes. Enemies from the outside, regardless of their nature, cannot prevail if there does not exist a profound internal scission. Petty rivalries and endless scandals drain the spirit of a particular nation and not wars.
In such delicate moments as those that engulf the West right now, its position is far from being unitary and clear. It hesitates to help Ukraine and to have a rigid position about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. It quarrels with itself to the highest degree and it always finds a way to take a stance too late. In this context, the West is divided as never before in recent history. Even though the West has far more economic power than its main opponents—Russia, Iran, China, Syria, etc—this power is useless if it is not animated by a combative spirit that fights for its values and principles.
An example can be given by the US, which struggled for months on end to vote for a package of 60 billion dollars aimed mainly for the aid of Ukraine, but also for Taiwan and Israel. This postponement stemmed from the petty rivalries between the Democrats and the Republicans. Meanwhile, the EU was blocked from supporting Ukraine by Viktor Orban’s opposition, a giant blocked by an ant. Amidst this air of hesitancy, the West’s main rivals, namely, Russia, Hamas, Iran and China, seem to have no such impediments or ideological hiccups. They arm themselves, violate existing treaties, launch themselves into war economies, as seen in the case of Russia, and control their population—evident in all but especially China. The West, on the other hand, seems to be lost spiritually in its own auto-critic frenzy.
Is the West really in decline, as countless others have hypothesized? Others’ belief that it is in such a state, then, does not matter. What matters is if the West itself believes it.