From the Continent

James Burnham wrote a remarkable book (The Suicide of the West) and Malcolm Muggeridge a remarkable article (“The Great Liberal Death Wish”) about the tendency toward self-destruction in modern Western civilization. Now, just as an individual who accidentally crashes into a tree while driving a hundred miles an hour can neither legally nor theologically be called a suicide, so, with nations, not all forms of self-destruction fall under the categories discussed by Burnham and Muggeridge.

The Ancien Regime in France, for example, unknowingly relied on obsolete institutions, engaged in unwise policies, and ignored the dangers posed by leftist ideologies, and in due course it became extinct. However, one cannot accuse it of suicide, since it struggled valiantly for survival and had a strong will to live, as demonstrated, among other ways, by the high birth rate among its aristocracy.

James Burnham wrote a remarkable book (The Suicide of the West) and Malcolm Muggeridge a remarkable article (“The Great Liberal Death Wish”) about the tendency toward self-destruction in modern Western civilization. Now, just as an individual who accidentally crashes into a tree while driving a hundred miles an hour can neither legally nor theologically be called a suicide, so, with nations, not all forms of self-destruction fall under the categories discussed by Burnham and Muggeridge.

The Ancien Regime in France, for example, unknowingly relied on obsolete institutions, engaged in unwise policies, and ignored the dangers posed by leftist ideologies, and in due course it became extinct. However, one cannot accuse it of suicide, since it struggled valiantly for survival and had a strong will to live, as demonstrated, among other ways, by the high birth rate among its aristocracy.