Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 2:57pm

Decline and Fall of the European Project?

Volkwanderung

 

“A people who still remembered that their ancestors had been the masters of the world would have applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient freedom, if they had not long since been accustomed to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty and greatness.”

Edward Gibbon

Historian Niall Ferguson sees ominous parallels between the situations of modern Europe and the Roman Empire in the early Fifth Century:

 

Let us be clear about what is happening. Like the Roman Empire in the early fifth century, Europe has allowed its defenses to crumble. As its wealth has grown, so its military prowess has shrunk, along with its self-belief. It has grown decadent in its shopping malls and sports stadiums. At the same time, it has opened its gates to outsiders who have coveted its wealth without renouncing their ancestral faith.

The distant shock to this weakened edifice has been the Syrian civil war, though it has been a catalyst as much as a direct cause for the great Völkerwanderung of 2015. As before, they have come from all over the imperial periphery — from North Africa, from the Levant, from South Asia — but this time they have come in their millions.

To be sure, most have come hoping only for a better life. Things in their own countries have become just good enough economically for them to afford to leave and just bad enough politically for them to risk leaving. But they cannot stream northward and westward without some of that political malaise coming along with them. As Gibbon saw, convinced monotheists pose a grave threat to a secular empire.

It is conventional to say that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Europe are not violent, and that is doubtless true. But it is also true that the majority of Muslims in Europe hold views that are not easily reconciled with the principles of our modern liberal democracies, including those novel notions we have about equality between the sexes and tolerance not merely of religious diversity but of nearly all sexual proclivities. And it is thus remarkably easy for a violent minority to acquire their weapons and prepare their assaults on civilization within these avowedly peace-loving communities.

Go here to read the rest.  I think the historical parallel is overdrawn, but there is no doubt that Europe is in trouble.  Hedonism is a poor basis for a civilization and that is what European elites have attempted to do over the past half century.  These elites convinced their societies that the good life could be theirs gratis.  War would be abolished, kids would become an optional hobby and all of it would be paid for by money conjured out of nothing by beneficent welfare states.  Even by the standards of prior utopian disasters, the whole project from the start had a deep air of make believe and mendacity and it has come aground, as human fantasies always do, upon hard reality.  Life in this Vale of Tears is always a struggle, and any people who seek to pretend otherwise are doomed.  The refugee crisis has merely given a push to a very ramshackle edifice.

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DonL
DonL
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 4:52am

Could it be that Europe will eventually fall because of their (like us) contraception mentality?
Children are to the continuation of a society as essential as gasoline is to the ability of a car to travel.

Philip
Philip
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 5:10am

Degeneration is in full stride with the exception of the Muslim community.
“Love things and use people,” has infiltrated the spirit of many men. The person has devalued, cheap life, abortion on demand and as the love of things increase the future of America as once our grandparents knew it to be, is compromised beyond recognition.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 6:21am

Europe will receive what it justly deserves.
.
So will we in America.

DJ Hesselius
DJ Hesselius
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 6:24am

Muslims are every bit as degenerate sexually as the West, for what else is polygamy, child brides, sex slavery and 72 virgins in Heaven if you kill other people?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 7:29am

The degeneracy of the Roman citizen was a major contributing factor. In my opinion, another was mass barbarian (antithetical to Roman polity and warlike) migrations/invasions to the borders of, and into, the Roman provinces (like Obama – amnesty, Muslim refugees – is doing to fundamentally change – destroy – America).
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Mass Latino/Mmuslim immigration isn’t about economic growth and prosperity. It’s not about charity or social justice. It’s all about replacing the evil, racist, unjust American way of life with some Alinskyite pipe dream.

Art Deco
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 7:57am

Mass Latino/Mmuslim immigration isn’t about economic growth and prosperity. It’s not about charity or social justice. It’s all about replacing the evil, racist, unjust American way of life with some Alinskyite pipe dream.

There’s a business/libertarian version of that pipe dream. The disreputable Mr. Derbyshire elucidates it in his critique of Jeb Bush and the characters at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University are given to uttering the most disarming admissions. The people sticking up for ordinary non-exotic Americans are the people most impervious to elite opinion (e.g. Steve King, Mark Krikorian) or speak from the margins of academe and journalism (David Brat, Thomas Sowell).

Art Deco
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 8:02am

A problem Europe has is leapfrogging loyalties. In much of Europe, elite positions are held by creatures such as this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland

who should have no influence in any self-respecting society. Analogues in this country would be George Soros and the incumbent President. Things have gotten disagreeable enough that you have a critical mass in places like Sweden and Flanders who are saying no, but it’s still only 25% of the population in these loci.

Philip
Philip
Friday, November 20, AD 2015 8:20am

DJ Hesselius.

Excuse me please. I meant to say that the generational decline of peoples, under replacement births, is Eroupe and America’s future, while the Muslim community is attaining levels above replacement. I used degeneration incorrectly.

I do agree with your point about the degenerates in Muslim culture.

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Tuesday, November 24, AD 2015 8:43am

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