The crisis of the West can be interpreted in two opposite ways and, paradoxically, it is possible to find valid arguments in support of both. On the one hand, there are those who – running the risk of excessive emphasis – exalt the progress achieved, such as the drastic drop in infant mortality, the increase in the level of literacy, the expansion of rights or the greater longevity, the result of intense scientific research. On the other hand, those who underline the structural deficits fall into the opposite effect; that is, the slide into self-pity that degenerates into a condition of inertia and depression.
A situation of conflict in which, however, an undeniable fact emerges, common to both sides: the perception of a moral and cultural decline, accompanied by a growing gap between elites of various kinds (political power, universities, mass media) and the people. In fact, the West seems to be sinking into a self-flagellation that goes so far as to impose censorship on anyone who does not adhere to political correctness, in particular in its ultra-modern version of woke, and marginalization for those who do not passively accept radical environmentalism, often reduced to ideology , while instead looking with deference to ethnic and sexual minorities who have in the meantime been elevated to sentinels of morality.
In his latest book West us and them. Against surrender to dictators and Islamists (Piemme, p. 224), Daniele Capezzone targets «the enemies of freedom, political democracy and the free market», with particular reference to those gurus, mostly progressive, towards whom he addresses the polemical invitation to step aside : «Who knows why these gentlemen struggle to move to Beijing, Moscow or Tehran. Much better to stay in their comfortable living rooms in Rome, Paris, Berlin or New York, to tell us how much our part of the world sucks, is guilty of old and new atrocities, and morally responsible for all the evils of the planet.”
There is, however, another perspective. Emmanuel Todd, in his volume The defeat of the West (Fazi, p. 360), adopts an opposite approach, based on a couple of decades of medium-long term analysis and forecasts. Todd starts from the examination of family models, demographic and economic statistics, to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the two countries at war (Russia and Ukraine), of the Scandinavian countries, of Eastern Europe but above all of the main Western countries ( United States, United Kingdom, Germany and France) of which it highlights the structural defects, such as the recurring financial crises, the growing distrust in democratic institutions, the widening of inequalities and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. But above all a blindness towards the new multipolar order – in which the United States no longer holds the uncontested hegemony of the past -, for which an event such as the war in Ukraine should no longer be read only as a local conflict, but rather as a confrontation strategy between powers competing for global influence.
Presented in these terms, both positions seem to have valid reasons and a solid foundation, although the preference would be oriented towards our model, which, despite its limitations, continues to guarantee public participation and mostly peaceful and non-violent social relations, in the face of the emergence of new autocracies characterized by the persecution of dissidents, growing religious fundamentalism and the affirmation of political models that limit individual and social rights.
However, in order not to fall into the excesses of one or the other thesis, there is perhaps only one way out: to accept the Spenglerian idea of a cyclical history, in which civilizations pass through phases of growth, transformation and long periods of decline. Having made this admission, it is then possible to recognize the fact that the West, after having reached peaks of power and influence, is actually in a phase of profound transformation in which the insufficiencies are even more evident than in the past, and whose final outcome remains unpredictable.