You grab The Iliad and The Odyssey, I’ll secure The Louvre, the Vatican and the country’s classics departments; the rest of you pillage the music stores for Mozart, Beethoven and Bach. If anyone else is looking to do his part, cut the vulgar Germanic chit-chat, get into the basement and begin: “amo, amas, amat . . .”
What? You have not heard? Western civilization is at the precipice of oblivion. I know this because a new book says so. And according to the author, the “Death of the West is not a prediction of what is going to happen, it is a depiction of what is happening now. First World nations are dying. They face a mortal crisis, not because of something happening in the Third World, but because of what is not happening at home and in the homes of the First World.”
The most uplifting facet about this tough news is its source: Pat Buchanan. Buchanan, an occasional presidential candidate and former presidential advisor, is, like Jesse Jackson, a professional firebrand perpetually displeased. Displeased with what? With everything.
In his new book, The Death of the West, Buchanan says Western civilization is coming to an end. At first glance his thesis may seem a slight overreach, and the mere mention of his name may have traduced my credibility, but consider what he says.
Actually, it is not so much what Buchanan says as the statistics he presents. Western civilization is, in a very physical sense, dying. When Buchanan says something is not happening in the Western World, that something is birth.
Buchanan points out that of the 20 nations with the lowest birthrates in the world, 18 are in Europe. “The average fertility rate of a European woman,” writes Buchanan, “has fallen to 1.4 children, with 2.1 needed just to replace the existing population.” Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Russia are losing populations at astonishing rates. Distilled, this is what Europe faces:
“At present birthrates, Europe must bring in 169 million immigrants by 2050 if it wishes to keep its population aged fifteen to sixty-four at today’s level. But if Europe wishes to keep its present ratio of 4.8 workers for every senior, Europe must bring in 1.4 billion emigrants. . . . Either Europe raises taxes and radically downsizes pensions and health benefits for the elderly, or Europe becomes a Third World continent.”
What has caused the decline in Western fertility rates? Buchanan traces declining fertility rates to, among other catalysts, the coming of the pill, an ultra-feminism that did (and does) not distinguish between slavery and marriage, and the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision perpetrated by the Supreme Court.
The West is dying not only in a physical, statistical sense but also, says Buchanan, in the sense that it is relinquishing its traditional values, virtues, mores and manners.
Buchanan is especially appalled, and rightly so, by people-Americans-who attempt to drain American history of any person or event even remotely redeeming. Buchanan cites a teacher named John Wallace, who said Huckleberry Finn “is the `most grotesque example of racist trash ever given our children to read. . . . Any teacher caught trying to use that piece of trash with our children . . . is either racist, insensitive, na?ve, incompetent, or all of the above.'”
In 1992, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education gave UCLA $2 million to develop new National History Standards for the textbooks for children from the fifth through the 12th grades.
Buchanan notes that in 1997, when the new standards were complete, they left out some history that many Americans might find pertinent: the Constitutional convention, the presidency of George Washington and the 1969 moon landing. The new standards, however, did approvingly mention the “advances” made in space exploration by the . Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Though Buchanan is correct to condemn pro-abortionists, self-loathing Americans and what he calls “cultural Marxists,” many of his criticisms and insights are too pedestrian to impress. Buchanan is best when he is not himself. When he reveals his original thoughts, he often leaves the reader searching for more statistics.
For hundreds of pages, Buchanan decries the divisiveness fracturing American society.
However, Buchanan himself becomes a cause of the division. He is coldly dismissive of the movement in the South to take down Confederate flags and symbols: “America’s cultural elite is almost slavishly on the side of those who wish to dishonor every banner and disgrace every leader associated with the Confederate States of America.”
The country is better off because they are. The existence of the Confederacy was a national blemish, the confederate flag the primary symbol of a region dedicated to contradicting the Declaration of Independence. When Buchanan and others romanticize the Confederacy and its symbols, should black Americans indulge them with docility? Are they not entitled to a modicum of offense at seeing a symbol of their oppression waved proudly above state capitols?
In The Death of the West, Buchanan asks, “Is homosexuality a moral disorder or a moral and legitimate lifestyle?” He then profiles psychologist Dr. Charles Socarides, who “has helped” a third of his patients (homosexuals) “to lead normal lives by marrying and having children.” Clawing to the climax of this inanity, Buchanan belittles one of the best movies of the 1990s, “Philadelphia,” and says: “. Socarides, who claims a cure rate for homosexuals as good as the Betty Ford Clinic, never gave up. Nor should traditionalists.”
Though the credibility of the book is diluted by the unthinking tendentiousness of the author, the Death of the West is useful because it shoves in front of the public a few issues-statistics, really-fundamental to the preservation of our heritage.
For people who are proud of Western civilization and concerned with transmitting the singular magnificence of its art, government, philosophy, history, religion and literature, The Death of the West should not be ignored.
Matt Emerson is a sophomore studying political science.
