The attacks on Western civilization are about power, not progress.
The attacks on Western civilization are about power, not progress.
I n his recent cover story for National Review, Andrew Roberts, the most recent of many biographers of Winston Churchill, warned that, though their methods are “obviously not so appallingly extreme,” a new wave of zealots — as found among Instagram influencers and the dominant media class — are “now succeeding where Adolf Hitler and the Nazis failed” in undoing Western civilization. That’s a strong statement. And yet, these days, the examples bombard us.
Across Europe, as in America, many have taken to attacking statues of controversial historical figures. In Bristol, England, a 125-year-old statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader, was thrown into a nearby harbor. In London’s Parliament Square, a statue of Winston Churchill was graffitied with the words “is a fascist,” (“wait until they hear about the other guy,” one Twitter user responded). The mayor of London has promised to review all statues, landmarks, and street names associated with slavery to ensure that they “suitably reflect London’s achievements and diversity.” The Spectator’s satirical column, “Steerpike,” suggested starting with Downing Street (“named after George Downing, who defended from first-hand experience the economics of West-Indian slavery”) as well as Buckingham Palace (“built by John Sheffield . . . who was the founding governor and largest shareholder of the Royal African Company”).
Streaming services are behaving with similar rashness. Little Britain, a British comedy series, has been taken down from Netflix because of its use of blackface, as have all shows by the un-PC Australian comedian Chris Lilley. HBO Max has pulled until further notice Gone with the Wind for its nostalgic portrayal of the pro-slavery South. The New York Times explains that though there was little criticism of the film when it was released, “in 1939 an editorial board member of The Daily Worker, a newspaper published by the Communist Party USA, called it an ‘insidious glorification of the slave market’ and the Klu Klux Klan.” So the Communists were on the right side of history?
Even the dictionary needs to get with the program, immediately. Recently, a 22-year-old student wrote to Merriam-Webster Dictionary to complain that she had been losing arguments about racism on the basis of the word’s current definition and argued that they ought to change it to incorporate “systemic racism.” They, at once, agreed — promising to express the definition “more clearly to bring [in] the idea of an asymmetrical power structure.”
Of course, words do evolve over time, as do our societal standards. Statues erected 125 years ago may well be inappropriate now. These are debates worth having. But amidst the rush to “cancel” the more unsettling aspects of Western civilization, we risk losing the good with the bad, and — more worrying still — the capacity for critical judgment, debate, and due process. Plus, there’s more to this revolutionary impulse than meets the eye. This is not merely oversensitivity in the context of current events, but a forgetfulness of the complexity of human nature (and so of history), in part due to the ideological prioritization of power.
Solzhenitsyn once remarked that “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. . . . And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.” Solzhenitsyn’s message, that there is virtue in the worst of us and vice in the best, is a reminder that people are morally complex. So, too, is history.