Is the West ending? Or is the West as we knew it ending? The public space is filled with that phrase, but it is a false phrase.
The West as a space of freedom, rationality, innovation and prosperity came to an end around 2000, when the full effect of the reforms of the 1970s and 1980s became apparent. Those reforms brought a dramatic decline in economic performance, a collapse of education, existing morality and interpersonal solidarity. In contrast, they brought a huge increase in international trade and the financial sector. And also multiculturalism and 76 sexes.
What liberals call “the end of the West” is nothing more than an attempt to pick up where Western civilization left off from the Industrial Revolution to the aforementioned reforms. Some may call Trump’s actions brilliant, others may call them inept, but there can be no doubt that this is an attempt to save the West. Not its end.
Ironically, it never occurred to Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher what the consequences of their reforms must entail. They caused exactly what they fought against. And Donald Trump personally probably doesn’t realize that he is destroying Reagan’s legacy.
The same paradox applies to the left and the right. The right has spent the last generation trying to find justification for why it bears no responsibility for what it has caused. It mobilizes against the consequences and promotes the cause that led to it. The left, on the other hand, has fought against the changes at the time, while enthusiastically welcoming the consequences of the absolute domination of finance capital. Not surprisingly, on both sides, this has led to a loss of the ability to think.
