Western Culture: Crisis of Confidence?
From Mark Steyn‘s paranoid but enviably well-written America Alone:
The question for today’s Europe is whether the primary identity of their fastest-growing demographic is Muslim or Belgian, Muslim or Dutch, Muslim or French.
That’s where civilizational confidence comes in: if “Dutchness” or “Frenchness” seems a weak attenuated thing, then the stronger identity will prevail. One notes the similarities between revolutionary America and contemporary Europe: the United Empire Loyalists were older and wealthier; the rebels were younger and poorer. In the end, the former simply lacked the latter’s strength of will.
My own view is that Steyn greatly underestimates the confidence of Western culture (and probably Belgian/Dutch/French culture, though I know a lot less about these specifically) because the West has so few self-conscious spokesmen. In fact, though, the shortage of spokesmen is a sign of a culture so confident that it doesn’t bother trying to win converts. Western culture, beautiful, fun, and smart, wins converts and undermines the competition simply by existing.
For most of the 20th-century, socialists had hyper-confident advocates, but they lost anyway – in large part because capitalism is simply better-looking. I say the same thing will happen in the 21st-century competition between traditional Islam and Western culture. Islamists have an army of fiery spokesmen. But the West has Paris.
![America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It [Book]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9FNY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6976c6d0-726a-4802-ba1e-3ab72f4dc9c3_667x1000.jpeg "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It [Book]")
The post appeared first on Econlib.
Dutch here! I think and hope you are ultimately right, but it’s more tricky than you think..
Islam is not just a slightly exotic christianity. Its much more comprehensive, with its own legal system, more political organization, etc. These things persist in Europe: most muslims in the Netherlands marry through arranged marriage, often with someone in the home country, sometimes with cousins. We had many cases of marital captivity, secret sharia courts, etc. Religious identity gets mixed with ethnic and national identity of the country of origin. The loyalty of most of our Muslim immigrant population is not hard to guess, and its not with us.. Even my ex-girlfriend, who is a diplomat, signalled quite often that her ultimate loyalty was with muslims, not with the country.
Especially for guys its a pretty sweet deal: they tend to drink and fuck around, until they want to marry: a virgin muslim girl of course. Change has to come, and is often coming, from girls, who choose freedom over their second-class role. I think on balance, things will work out, and if we limit immigration, we can keep Islamization of our country to a minimum - liberalism will then prevail. But its a subtle balance, and not at all a done deal. Mind you: our second city, Rotterdam, is already co-governed by a Muslim party that calls for the chemical castration of sex offenders, abolition of Israel, claimed that Dutch doctors are purposefully killing Moroccan patients, etc..
What's impressive is that almost 20 years after America Alone, came out, how correct it's been. It came out years before Merkel opened up the floodgates of Islamic immigration, but Steyn correctly called out how at even lower previous levels, Islamic immigration would change life in Europe and its foreign policy. The show of force carried about by European Islamic immigrants since October 7th and EU governments reluctance to back Israel, further bolsters Steyn's thesis on how immigration will make Europe more similar to Damascus than the reverse.