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The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization
The national bestseller that shocked the nation--The Death of the West is an unflinching look at the increasing decline in Western culture and power.The West is dying. Collapsing birth rates in Europe and the U. S., coupled with population explosions in Africa, Asia and Latin America are set to cause cataclysmic shifts in world power, as unchecked immigration swamps and polarizes every Western society and nation.The Death of the West details how a civilization, culture, and moral order are passing away and foresees a new world order that has terrifying implications for our freedom, our faith, and the preeminence of American democracy. The Death of the West is a timely, provocative study that asks the question that quietly troubles Is the America we grew up in gone forever?
324 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2000
251 people are currently reading
5378 people want to read
About the author
Patrick J. Buchanan
22 books408 followersOne of America's best known paleoconservatives, Buchanan served as a senior advisor to Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He ran for president in 1992, 1996 and 2000. Buchanan is an isolationist on the subject of American foreign policy and believes in a restrictive immigration policy.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/patric...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/patric...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 177 reviews
February 8, 2010
A good look at what is destroying Western Civilization. Lack of babies, lack of boarders, lack of God are destroying the West. Discussion on population and the new "Cultural Marxism" were especially poignant. Some might be turned off by some of Mr. Buchanan's discussion on race and ethnicity. What looks on the surface to be racism is rather frank discussion about race and ethnicity. What makes it sound racist is not what he says, but rather that we have been conditioned to think that frank discussions on race and ethnicity are inherently racist. Once one realizes that the comments are not bigoted or racist, the discussion becomes thought provoking and worth pondering.
November 27, 2013
This book is really good if you think that U.S. was built by god's divine will, not by perpetual state of slavery and genocide.
December 26, 2010
My wife reads some Russian nationalist blogs, and one of the bloggers recommended this book to her; I read it for company. The idea is that low birth rates in Western countries and Japan, caused by contraception and the culture of consumerism, spell the death of Western, Christian and Japanese civilization, and third-world immigrants coming to the United States are destroying it. The Wikipedia article about Buchanan says that he married in 1971, and has no children. As my younger brother, born in 1976 to parents married in 1972, put it at age 9, because I teach you to eat cucumbers with a fork, I myself can eat them with my hands. Japan imports 80% of its energy and 60% of its food; last time she tried to grab her neighbors' resources by force she got atom-bombed. Should the population of Japan still grow? Mexican immigrants are, on average, devoutly Christian; how are they destroying Christian civilization? They may not be white, but in the 19th century, a Patrick Buchanan may not have been considered white either; there is a book called How the Irish Became White.
May 12, 2012
Even among conservatives Patrick J. Buchanan is a somewhat controversial figure but his 2002 book The Death of the West is a pretty good account of how our civilisation is being destroyed from within.
Demographic collapse and massive Third World immigration are the most obvious threats but Buchanan also takes aim at the climate of political correctness and the self-hatred of liberal elites.
He provides a good rundown on the long history of cultural marxism which is of course the real key to the decline of our civilisation.
Also in his sights are modernist artists with their agenda of misery, ugliness, degradation and hared of the West (an agenda shared by modern Hollywood).
Unusually (and pleasingly) for a book of this type Buchanan includes some tips on how to fight back.
Demographic collapse and massive Third World immigration are the most obvious threats but Buchanan also takes aim at the climate of political correctness and the self-hatred of liberal elites.
He provides a good rundown on the long history of cultural marxism which is of course the real key to the decline of our civilisation.
Also in his sights are modernist artists with their agenda of misery, ugliness, degradation and hared of the West (an agenda shared by modern Hollywood).
Unusually (and pleasingly) for a book of this type Buchanan includes some tips on how to fight back.
April 23, 2014
I don't know what possessed me to read this. I guess I was challenging myself to see how much pain I could endure in book form. I'm not even sure how to rate it. On the one hand, the author did an amazing job of what he set out to do. So maybe I should have given it five stars. It was also well written. But it was really just a bunch of statistics and the author claiming that our culture is dying and the only way to save it is to keep the goddamn Mexicans out and outlaw abortion so the USA will stay good and white with more and more unwanted white babies. So yeah. Dumb book.
June 5, 2008
This book should be required reading for all American students, so that they can understand how our country has been ripped from us and how we are being deceived into the destruction of our own race.
July 25, 2013
Eugenics? You Bet (a.k.a. Racist, White Supremacist Drivel)
Several reviewers consider Mr. Buchanan's prophecy that there will be a power shift from the West (i.e., White Christian - Aryan) to the growing non-Western peoples (everyone else, including Latinos and Blacks) alarming, the truly alarming thing is that Mr. Buchanan's freakish views have gained credibility among the mainstream.
Mr. Buchanan derives much of the information in the Death of the West from the New Century Foundation, which is headed by Jared Taylor, a white supremacist who embraces the "clear conception of the United States as a nation ruled by and for whites."
Mr. Buchanan's own organization, The American Cause, uses the cloak of mainstream conservative and libertarian political views to hide his disdain for all non-white immigration. "The central objection to the present flood of illegals [sic] is that they are not English-speaking people from Western Europe; they are Spanish-speaking brown and black people from Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean," commented Buchanan in one of his many columns.
Although I gave The Death of the West a star, it is at least one star too many. The only practical uses for this book are to wrap fish or line a birdcage. Then, again, using old newspapers would be a much cheaper way to accomplish this.
Several reviewers consider Mr. Buchanan's prophecy that there will be a power shift from the West (i.e., White Christian - Aryan) to the growing non-Western peoples (everyone else, including Latinos and Blacks) alarming, the truly alarming thing is that Mr. Buchanan's freakish views have gained credibility among the mainstream.
Mr. Buchanan derives much of the information in the Death of the West from the New Century Foundation, which is headed by Jared Taylor, a white supremacist who embraces the "clear conception of the United States as a nation ruled by and for whites."
Mr. Buchanan's own organization, The American Cause, uses the cloak of mainstream conservative and libertarian political views to hide his disdain for all non-white immigration. "The central objection to the present flood of illegals [sic] is that they are not English-speaking people from Western Europe; they are Spanish-speaking brown and black people from Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean," commented Buchanan in one of his many columns.
Although I gave The Death of the West a star, it is at least one star too many. The only practical uses for this book are to wrap fish or line a birdcage. Then, again, using old newspapers would be a much cheaper way to accomplish this.
March 22, 2021
This is probably the best written and laid out explanation I’ve ever read on why western civilization as we know it will almost certainly cease to exist in a few generations. There’s nothing radical or unoptical here, just facts. I plan on loaning this book out to as many people as I can get to read it.
The author’s name itself adds authenticity to the entire thing. It wasn’t written by some fringe “far right” personality but Pat Buchanan, former presidential candidate and senior advisor to three American presidents.
This guy really had it all figured out. He was Donald Trump only more authentic and, unfortunately, less charismatic. And conservatives of the time ignored him so they could vote for the BUSHES of all people.
I read this book almost 20 years after it was written and a lot of it seems downright prophetic given the state of the world today. Many of the problems which Buchanan was sounding the alarm over may have seemed trivial at the turn of the century but now they are magnified and unmistakable and urgent. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on early Marxist leaders, the Frankfurt school, and the long march through the institutions.
My one caveat would be that it is from the moral perspective of a Christian so non-Christians may find some of it off putting. But even to someone who does not practice Christianity, the author still makes a compelling case on why our country might not survive without it. Overall I really can’t recommend this book enough. It’s great for newcomers and grizzled old veterans of the culture war alike.
The author’s name itself adds authenticity to the entire thing. It wasn’t written by some fringe “far right” personality but Pat Buchanan, former presidential candidate and senior advisor to three American presidents.
This guy really had it all figured out. He was Donald Trump only more authentic and, unfortunately, less charismatic. And conservatives of the time ignored him so they could vote for the BUSHES of all people.
I read this book almost 20 years after it was written and a lot of it seems downright prophetic given the state of the world today. Many of the problems which Buchanan was sounding the alarm over may have seemed trivial at the turn of the century but now they are magnified and unmistakable and urgent. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on early Marxist leaders, the Frankfurt school, and the long march through the institutions.
My one caveat would be that it is from the moral perspective of a Christian so non-Christians may find some of it off putting. But even to someone who does not practice Christianity, the author still makes a compelling case on why our country might not survive without it. Overall I really can’t recommend this book enough. It’s great for newcomers and grizzled old veterans of the culture war alike.
February 18, 2025
Pretty good, except for the fact that Buchanan kept using 'Judeo-Christian', instead of just Christian.
August 28, 2014
"الغرب يموت، لقد توقفت أممه عن التكاثر، وتوقف سكانه عن النمو وبدؤوا بالانكماش، ولم يقم منذ الموت الأسود (الطاعون) الذي حصد أرواح ثلث سكان أوروبا في القرن الرابع عشر تهديدًا أخطر لبقاء الحضارة الأوروبية من هذا الخطر الماثل، اليوم؛ هناك سبعة عشر بلدًا أوروبيًا فيها جنازات دفن أكثر من احتفالات الولادة، وهناك أكفان أكثر من المهود، والبلدان هي: بلجيكا، وبلغاريا، وكرواتيا، وجمهورية التشيك، والدانمارك، واستونيا، وألمانيا، والمجر، وإيطاليا، ولاتافيا، وليتوانيا، والبرتغال، ورومانيا، وسلوفاكيا، وسلوفينيا، وإسبانيا، وروسيا، وجميع ملل الإيمان النصراني: الكاثوليك، والبروتستانت، والأرثوذكس ممثلون في المسيرة العظيمة لموت الغرب" صـ27.
بهذه الكلمات الرثائية يمهد الكاتب الشهير جيه بوكانن لشهادته القوية عن موت الغرب الأوروبي والولايات المتحدة الأمريكية المنتظر، في كتابه الأكثر أهمية "موت الغرب- أثر شيخوخة السكان وموتهم وغزوات المهاجرين على الغرب"؛ وكل ذلك - كما يرى "بوكانن" - نتيجة انخفاض معدل النمو السكاني من ناحية، والتباين الهائل بين معدل الوفيات في بلدان القارة العجوز ومعدل المواليد بها من ناحية أخرى، إلى جانب جحافل غزوات المهاجرين من العالم الثالث، وخطر التعددية الثقافية أو على وجه الأصح انهيار النظام الأخلاقي للمواطن الغربي.
ويقولها "بوكانن" صريحة مدوية في مقدمة كتابه: "يبدو أن مبدأ "اللذة" الجديد غير قادر على إعطاء الناس سببًا كافيًا ليستمروا في الحياة، وثماره المبكرة تبدو سامة" صـ 27، فثقافة الغرب التي يباهي الساسة بها الجماهير في العصر الحديث؛ والتي تعتمد على مبدأ التمتع "بالملذات الحسية"، هذه الثقافة الجديدة "المحررة" يرى بوكانن أنها "عامل مسرطن أقتل منها كلها، وإذا كان الغرب في قبضة "ثقافة الموت" كما يجادل "البابا" وكما تبين الإحصاءات على ما يبدو، فهل توشك الحضارة الغربية أن تلحق بإمبراطورية لينين (الشيوعية) إلى النهاية المشينة نفسها؟" صـ28؛ أو كما يقول بوكانن بلهجة تحذيرية متنبأة بالنهاية المرتقبة لموت الغرب البطئ: "هذه الثورة الثقافية هي التي أدت بالضبط إلى مثل هذا التعديل العميق في أفكار الناس، وهذه الأفكار جعلت النخبة الغربية غير مبالية بموت حضارتهم، ويبدو أنهم لا يهتمون فيما إذا جاءت نهاية الغرب بزوال السكان، أو بتسليم القومية، أو بالغرق بأمواج من المهاجرين من العالم الثالث، الآن بعد أن أُعفى الإنسان الغربي من واجبه نحو تمدين البشرية، وهو مستغرق كليةً بالرفاهية في عصرنا المتصف بالإفراط بالمتع الشخصية، يبدو أنه قد فقد إرادته ليعيش، وقبلت نفسه موته الوشيك، فهل نحن في وقت شفق الغروب في الغرب؟ هل موت الغرب لا رجعة فيه؟" صـ29.
http://www.alukah.net/culture/0/75225/
بهذه الكلمات الرثائية يمهد الكاتب الشهير جيه بوكانن لشهادته القوية عن موت الغرب الأوروبي والولايات المتحدة الأمريكية المنتظر، في كتابه الأكثر أهمية "موت الغرب- أثر شيخوخة السكان وموتهم وغزوات المهاجرين على الغرب"؛ وكل ذلك - كما يرى "بوكانن" - نتيجة انخفاض معدل النمو السكاني من ناحية، والتباين الهائل بين معدل الوفيات في بلدان القارة العجوز ومعدل المواليد بها من ناحية أخرى، إلى جانب جحافل غزوات المهاجرين من العالم الثالث، وخطر التعددية الثقافية أو على وجه الأصح انهيار النظام الأخلاقي للمواطن الغربي.
ويقولها "بوكانن" صريحة مدوية في مقدمة كتابه: "يبدو أن مبدأ "اللذة" الجديد غير قادر على إعطاء الناس سببًا كافيًا ليستمروا في الحياة، وثماره المبكرة تبدو سامة" صـ 27، فثقافة الغرب التي يباهي الساسة بها الجماهير في العصر الحديث؛ والتي تعتمد على مبدأ التمتع "بالملذات الحسية"، هذه الثقافة الجديدة "المحررة" يرى بوكانن أنها "عامل مسرطن أقتل منها كلها، وإذا كان الغرب في قبضة "ثقافة الموت" كما يجادل "البابا" وكما تبين الإحصاءات على ما يبدو، فهل توشك الحضارة الغربية أن تلحق بإمبراطورية لينين (الشيوعية) إلى النهاية المشينة نفسها؟" صـ28؛ أو كما يقول بوكانن بلهجة تحذيرية متنبأة بالنهاية المرتقبة لموت الغرب البطئ: "هذه الثورة الثقافية هي التي أدت بالضبط إلى مثل هذا التعديل العميق في أفكار الناس، وهذه الأفكار جعلت النخبة الغربية غير مبالية بموت حضارتهم، ويبدو أنهم لا يهتمون فيما إذا جاءت نهاية الغرب بزوال السكان، أو بتسليم القومية، أو بالغرق بأمواج من المهاجرين من العالم الثالث، الآن بعد أن أُعفى الإنسان الغربي من واجبه نحو تمدين البشرية، وهو مستغرق كليةً بالرفاهية في عصرنا المتصف بالإفراط بالمتع الشخصية، يبدو أنه قد فقد إرادته ليعيش، وقبلت نفسه موته الوشيك، فهل نحن في وقت شفق الغروب في الغرب؟ هل موت الغرب لا رجعة فيه؟" صـ29.
http://www.alukah.net/culture/0/75225/
October 28, 2015
"When Cornwallis's army marched out of Yorktown, the fife and drums played "The World Turned Upside Down." Now our world has been turned upside down. What was right and true yesterday is wrong and false today. When was immoral and shameful- promiscuity, abortion, euthanasia, suicide- has become progressive and praiseworthy. Nietzche called it the transvaluation of all values; the old virtues become sins, and the old sins become virtues."
"But where Lenin's revolution failed, the one that erupted on the campuses in the sixties succeeded. It put down roots in society, and it created a new America. By 2000, the adversary culture of the sixties had become our dominant culture, its victory conceded when the political base camp of traditionalism raised a white flag in Philadelphia. On the moral and social issues- the fight for the sanctity of human life and the return of God to the public square of this land we used to call "God's Country"- the Republican party raised its gloves and pleaded, "No Mas".
"Why is this happening? Socialism, the beatific vision of European intellectuals for generations, is one reason. 'If everyone has the promise of a state pension, children are no longer a vital insurance policy against want in old age, ' argues Dr John Wallace of Bologna's Johns Hopkins University: 'If women can earn more than enough to be financially independent, a husband is no longer essential. And if you can also have sex and not babies- and this seems to be true now of Catholic Italy as it is of secular Britain- why marry?"
"Comfort is now the only thing anybody believes in.The ethic of sacrifice for a family- one of the basic ideas of human societies- has become a historical notion. It is astonishing."
"Either Europe raises taxes and radically downsizes pensions and health benefits for the elderly, or Europe becomes a Third World continent. There is no third way."
"Friedrich Engels, who wrote in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: The first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex into public industry and...this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society."
"But when the income tax rate for the wealthiest was above 90 percent in the 1950s, America, by every moral and social indicator, was a better country."
"Early feminists had been fiercely antiabortion. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organized of the first women's rights convention in 1848, called abortion "a disgusting and degrading crime"...And Susan B. Anthony, early crusader for the women's vote, wrote that 'No matter what the motive...the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life; it will burden her soul in death." It was in fact the 19th century feminists who campaigned to pass the laws that criminalized abortion."
"Today, the perception that marriage is human bondage has become a hallmark of movement militants."
"Only a social counterrevolution or a religious awakening can turn the West around before a falling birthrate closes off the last exit ramp and rings down the curtain on Western Man's long-running play. But not a sign of either can be seen on the horizon."
"The equality the revolution preaches is a corruption of Jefferson's idea 'All men are created equal.' Jefferson meant that all were endowed by their Creator with the same right to life, liberty, and property, and all must be equal under the law. He rejected egalitarianism. As he wrote John Adams in 1813: 'I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent.'"
"These ideas have been internalized by the Left. As early as the mid 1960s, conservatives and authority figures who denounced or opposed the campus revolution were routinely branded "fascists". Baby boomers were unknowingly following a script that ran parallel to the party line laid down by the Moscow Central Committee in 1943: 'Members and the front organizations must continually embarrass, discredit and degrade our critics. When obstructionists become too irritating, label them fascist, or Nazi or anti-Semitic...The association will, after enough repetition, become "fact" in the public mind'"
"In a third of a century, what was denounced as the counterculture has become the dominant culture, and what was the dominant culture has become, in Gertrude Himmelfarb's phrase, a 'dissident culture.' America has become an ideological state, a 'soft tyranny,' where the new orthodoxy is enforced, not by police agents, but by inquisitors of the popular culture. We see it in the mandatory requirement for "sensitivity training' in the military, in business, and in government. Turn on the TV and observe. The values of the revolution dominate the medium. Political correctness rules. Defiance of our new orthodoxy qualifies as "hate speech," disrepsect for its dogmas as a sign of mental sickness. "Get John Rocker to a psychiatrist!" A few years back, a wag described America's universities as "island of totalitarianism in a sea of freedom." Now even the sea has become inhospitable. Emily Dickinson spoke to our time as well as to her own:
Assent- and you are sane-
Demur- you're straightway dangerous
And handled with a Chain".
"As conservative scholar Robert Nisbet reminds us, boredom "is one of the most insistent and universal (of the) forces that have shaped human behavior," and the "range of cures or termination of boredom is a wide one." High among them are sex, narcotics, and revolution. In the 1960s, what Arnold Toynbee called an "internal proletariat" of students, bored with their studies, encountered graduate instructors, bored with their subjects and unexciting lives- a combustible mixture."
"Third, 1960s television could convey the tactics and triumphs of campus radicals and urban revolutionaries instantly to their peers. And the medium, now matured, no longer the fifties fiefdom of Howdy Doody and Matt Dillon, could not only transmit the new ideas, it could reinforce them by creating new visual realities. The fourth indispensable element was Vietnam. If the war meant sacrifice, bloodshed, perhaps death, the Woodstock generation wanted no part of it. What Marcuse offered was intellectual cover for cowardice, a moral argument for malingering, a way to dodge the draft while feeling superior to those who went. The "real heroes" of this war, said Senator Fulbright and New York mayor John Lindsay, are in Canada. The message fell upon receptive ears in the Ivy League and not only there."
James Cooper:
"Seventy years ago, the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) wrote the most important mission for Socialism was to "capture the culture". By the end of WW2, the liberal Left had managed to capture not only the arts, theater, literature, music, and ballet, but also motion pictures, photography, education and the media. Through its control of the culture, the Left dictates not only the answers, but the questions asked. In short, it controls the cosmological apparatus by which most American (s) comprehend the meaning of events. This cosmology is based on two great axioms: the first is there are no absolute values in the universe, no standards of beauty and ugliness, good and evil. The second aximo is- in a Godless universe- the Left holds moral superiority as the final arbiter of man's activities."
"How does one sever a people's roots? Answer: Destroy its memory. Deny a people the knowledge of who they are and where they came from."
"Cultural Marxists understood this. Their Critical Theory was a prototype of the politics of personal destruction. What the latter does to popular leaders, Critical Theory does to an entire nation through repeated assaults on its past. It is the moral equivalent of vandalizing the graves and desecrating the corpses of its ancestors. Many of the institutions that now have custody of America's past operate on the principles of Big Brother's Ministry of Truth: drop down the "memory hole" the patriotic stories of America's greatness and glory, and produce new "warts-and-all" histories that play up her crimes and sins, revealing what we have loved to be loathsome and those we have revered to be disreputable, even despicable. Many old heroes have not survived the killing fields of the New History. Ultimate goal: Destroy patriotism, kill the love of country, demoralize the people, deconstruct America. History then will no longer unite and inspire us, but depress and divide us into the children of victims and the children of the villains of America's past."
"In The Disuniting of America Arthur Schlesinger cites a character of Milans Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have someone write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was."
"To our new cultural elite, America's Civil War was a revolt of slave owners and traitors to destroy the Union to preserve their odious institution, and the Lost Cause was ignoble and dishonorable. Hence, the Confederate flag should be as repulsive as a Nazi swastika, and only white racists and the morally obtuse would defend that bloody banner. As for Lee and Jackson, they led hundreds of thousands to their deaths in an evil cause, and if the NAACP demands we rid the public square of all plaques, statues, or flags of the Confederacy, they are not only within their rights, they are morally right."
"What doe these incidents tell us? That those who loudly preach diversity often do not practice it, that those who decry intolerance may be found among the most intolerant. Like the Taliban and the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan, our cultural revolution intends to tear down all the flags and statues of the old America that it abhors. And it will hear no appeal. Whether a state chooses to honor Dr. King or Robert E Lee should be a decision for its own people. No stigma should attach to any state that chooses to honor one, both, or neither. But that is unacceptable."
"Not to honor Dr. King today is intolerable. When Arizona voted not to have a holiday for King, the state was theatened with loss of the Super Bowl and convention boycotts, and berated by the national press. The pressure and abuse were so unbearalbe that the state overturned a popular vote and ratified the holiday. Only then was Arizona permitted to rejoin the Union."
"In our Orwellian world of Newspeak, diversity means conformity. In the name of diversity, every military school must look alike. None may be all0male, even if that is what those to whom the school belongs desire. Is this freedom? Is this democracy? No. Orwell got it right "One makes the revolution...to establish the dictatorship." The French and Russian and Maoist and Khmer Rouge and Taliban revolutions all dethroned the old gods and desecrated their temples. So it is with our cultural revolution. It cannot abide dissent. Only after Senator McCain apologized for not having denounced the Confederate battle flag over the South Carolina capitol, and confessed to opportunism and weakness, was he restored to the good graces of the revolution."
"The war on America's past and the dumbing down of American children- to make their minds empty vessels into which the New History may be poured- is succeeding. In a recent student survey, 556 seniors, from fifty-five of the nation's top rated0rated colleges and universities, were asked thirty-four questions from a high school course on U.S. history. Four out of five flunked. Only one-third of the college seniors could name the American general at Yorktown. Only 23 percent named Madison as the principal author of the Constitution. Only 22 percent linked the words "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The good news- 98 percent knew rapper Snoop Doggy Dog, and 99 percent identified Beavis and Butthead."
"Cultural Alzheimer's"
"A people without religion will in the end find that it has nothing to live for."
"Gramsci's answer- a "long march" through the institutions. The Marxists must cooperate with progressives to capture the institutions that shaped the souls of the young: schools, colleges, movies, music, arts, and the new mass media that came uncensored into every home, radio, and, after Gramsci's death, television. Once the cultural institutions were captured, a united Left could begin the de-Christianization of the West. When, after several generations, this was accomplished, the West would no longer be the West, but another civilization altogether, and control of the state would inevitably follow control of the culture."
"Art" he (Picasso) said, "is not to decorate apartments. Art is a weapon of revolution..."Wheeler Williams, one of America's great sculptors, "acknowledged that the purpose of modern art was to destroy man's faith in his cultural heritage." In other words, art is but another front of the cultural revolution's relentless war on Christianity."
"Art, it is said, is the mirror of the soul. T.S. Eliot called art the incarnation of a people's religion. If that is true, who or what inhabits the souls of these "artists"? What would happen if they mocked the Holocaust by presenting a computerized photo collage of a naked Anne Frank frolicking with SS troops at Auschwitz? Or put on a satirical minstrel show that mocked Dr. King?"
James Cooper:
"Conservatives, he said, seemingly never read Mao Tse0tung on waging cultural war against the west. Mao's essays were prescribed reading for the Herbert Marcuse-generation of the 1960s, who now run our cultural institutions...Conservatives were oblivious to the fact that...modern art- long separated from the idealism of Manet, Degas, Cezanne and Rodin- had become the purveyor of a destructive, degenerate, ugly, pornographic, Marxist, anti-American ideology."
"The revolution will coexist until it attains hegemony. Then it will dictate."
"The de-Christianization of America is a great gamble, a roll of the dice, with our civilization as the stakes. America has thrown overboard the moral compass by which the republic steered for two hundred years, and now it sails by dead reckoning. Reason alone, without Revelation, sets our course. The Founding Fathers warned that this was a bridge too far. No country could remain free unless virtuous, they said, and virtue could exist in the balance of faith. Do not "indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion," said Washington in his Farewell Address. "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." John Adams agreed: "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Consider what has happened to our society with over throw of the old moral order."
"No matter how far back you look, you will find that religion was always foundational to the great societies. Whether in India, China, Palestine, Greece, Carthage, Africa, or the civilizations of South and Central America, the story is always the same: Civilization arises from religion, and when the traditional religious beliefs of a nation are eroded, the nation dies".
T.S. Eliot-
"If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready-made. You must first wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great-grandchildren; and if we did not one of us would be happy in it."
"Moreover, many conservatives in politics, journalism, and broadcasting are far better versed in economics and foreign policy than in history, philosophy, or theology. As one wit has observed, "Republicans were put on this earth to cut taxes." At times, it seems that is the only reason they were put on this earth. Unschooled in matters of morality and culture, many are uncomfortable with such issues, have no interest in them, and don't believe they belong in politics. The late Richard Weaver had these conservatives in mind when he wrote that "many traditional positions in our world have suffered not so much because of inherent defect as because of the stupidity, ineptness and intellectual sloth of those who...are presumed to have their defense in charge." Confronted with moral, social, or cultural issues, these conservatives move swiftly off them and onto taxes and defense, where they feel on terra firma. But despite an ardent Republican wish that this culture war would just pass away, it will not pass away. For, as Trotsky said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
Second, by capturing the institutions where the young spend most of their waking hours- MTV and prime-time, movies and magazines, schools and colleges- the revolution is able to shape the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the young. Artists, actors, playwrights, song writers, and popular singers are almost all on the other side. Op-ed page commentators and radio and TV talk show hosts cannot match this cultural firepower. The arsenals are unequal. Moreover, the entertainment that the cultural revolution has on offer is far more attractive and alluring; thus many of the children of traditionalists defect. Though as they grow older, many prodigal sons and daughters do ruefully return to their father's house."
"Calling opponents Nazis, fascists, and Klansmen, when it carries no penalty can be rewarding. It places an opponent outside the company of decent ment, discredits in advance what he says, and forces him to defend his character rather than his positions. And there are psychic rewards. After all, if one is standing up to Nazis or night riders, that is surely more heroic than standing up to Denny Hastert or Dick Armey. The more one demonizes an enemy, the more one "heroizes" oneself."
"What happened on 9/11/2001, was a direct consequence of an interventionist U.S. policy in an Islamic world where no threat to our vital interests justifies our massive involvement. We are a republic, not an empire. And until we restore the foreign policy urged upon us by our Founding Fathers- of staying out of other nations' quarrels- we shall know no end of war and no security or peace in our own homeland."
"Secession form this culture can take many forms- from giving up movies and TV, to blacking out channels, to homeschooling, to protesting outside abortion clinics, to moving to a less-polluted environment. The Amish seceded long ago. Orthodx Jews have seceded. Mormons seceded with Brigham Young's trek to the Great Sale Lake. Catholics in the nineteenth century removed their children from public schools to put them in parish schools. In the 1980s, Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians began to create an alternative culture and parallel institutions- Christian schools, TV shows, magazines, radio stations, networks, bookstores, and publishing houses. Millions of children attend Catholic and Christian schools; over a million are homeschooled. Addressing Catholic traditionalists, Wanderer columnist James K. Fitzpatrick writes, "We will have to adjust to life as a subculture with all that implies...The alternative is making our peace with the new America being shaped by the Hollywood porn merchants...That surrender is unthinkable."
July 20, 2016
“The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization” by Pat Buchanan is a flawed work with some redeeming qualities. Buchanan synthesizes a lot of information in these ~300 pages, and even those who vehemently disagree with him will likely be surprised at some of the statistics he presents. His thesis is that Western civilization is dying before our eyes as other civilizations in Asia, Africa, and South and Central American rapidly outbreed the peoples of Europe, Australia, the United States, and Canada. Also, to maintain population levels, those latter countries must accept immigrants from wildly different cultures that tend not to assimilate in the main cultures of those countries. Buchanan also laments a leftist assault on religion, tradition, and history.
I agree with some of Buchanan’s positions, namely that the federal government interferes far too much in affairs that should be handled by state and local governments and that the U.S. is involved in far too many conflicts abroad. I also agree that the United States as we know it is unlikely to survive too far into the future. We are continually separating into more like-minded communities within a country more divided than at any time since the Civil War. Buchanan laments the federal imposition of progressive values on the entire country, but then turns around and seems to want federally funded public schools to impose his set of values instead. He wavers between wanting state and local determination of values and wanting the leftist values currently imposed from on high to simply be changed to “traditional” values. When he gets on his pro-America rants, he is just as dogmatic as the Marxists and progressives that he hates. ANY imposition of a particular set of values by the American federal government is immoral and unconstitutional, whether it is rabidly pro-American or anti-American.
Buchanan is good at identifying many problems in American society today, but in most cases his proposed solutions are off the mark. It is simply not realistic to expect all states and regions to adhere to the same Christian values when we have 50 states spanning thousands of miles and containing over 300 million people. Local control of our cherished institutions is the only answer to both give Buchanan what he wants and avoid constant nationwide conflict. One national set of values simply is not feasible anymore, in my opinion. This gives local governments the right to decide to promote religion in the public square and parents the right to choose to have religion in their schools, provided we get the federal government out of the education sector (as was intended by the framers of the Constitution).
I do not want to delve into the race issue, which seems to be the most consistent criticism of this book. Buchanan is certainly pro-European and critical of other races and cultures, but I do not believe that these discussions are the weakest parts of the book. I instead believe that Buchanan’s assertion that our public schools should inculcate children with rabidly pro-American values is the weak link. He believes that the federal government should take steps to inculcate the public with pro-American values, a stance with which I disagree. When that much power is invested in the central authority, it is far too easy to hijack that power and use it for even more dangerous propaganda.
I would recommend “The Death of the West” for those that would like to get inside of the heads of many Donald Trump supporters. Buchanan is ideologically similar to Trump, at least if we take Trump’s rhetoric from the campaign trail at face value. Like Trump, Buchanan also desires to restrict immigration, impose protectionist trade policy, and reduce our adventurous foreign policy. These issues will continue to be at the forefront for the foreseeable future, so this can serve as a good introduction to that mindset. I personally did not enjoy the book and disagreed with much of it, but it can still be valuable if you approach it the right way.
I agree with some of Buchanan’s positions, namely that the federal government interferes far too much in affairs that should be handled by state and local governments and that the U.S. is involved in far too many conflicts abroad. I also agree that the United States as we know it is unlikely to survive too far into the future. We are continually separating into more like-minded communities within a country more divided than at any time since the Civil War. Buchanan laments the federal imposition of progressive values on the entire country, but then turns around and seems to want federally funded public schools to impose his set of values instead. He wavers between wanting state and local determination of values and wanting the leftist values currently imposed from on high to simply be changed to “traditional” values. When he gets on his pro-America rants, he is just as dogmatic as the Marxists and progressives that he hates. ANY imposition of a particular set of values by the American federal government is immoral and unconstitutional, whether it is rabidly pro-American or anti-American.
Buchanan is good at identifying many problems in American society today, but in most cases his proposed solutions are off the mark. It is simply not realistic to expect all states and regions to adhere to the same Christian values when we have 50 states spanning thousands of miles and containing over 300 million people. Local control of our cherished institutions is the only answer to both give Buchanan what he wants and avoid constant nationwide conflict. One national set of values simply is not feasible anymore, in my opinion. This gives local governments the right to decide to promote religion in the public square and parents the right to choose to have religion in their schools, provided we get the federal government out of the education sector (as was intended by the framers of the Constitution).
I do not want to delve into the race issue, which seems to be the most consistent criticism of this book. Buchanan is certainly pro-European and critical of other races and cultures, but I do not believe that these discussions are the weakest parts of the book. I instead believe that Buchanan’s assertion that our public schools should inculcate children with rabidly pro-American values is the weak link. He believes that the federal government should take steps to inculcate the public with pro-American values, a stance with which I disagree. When that much power is invested in the central authority, it is far too easy to hijack that power and use it for even more dangerous propaganda.
I would recommend “The Death of the West” for those that would like to get inside of the heads of many Donald Trump supporters. Buchanan is ideologically similar to Trump, at least if we take Trump’s rhetoric from the campaign trail at face value. Like Trump, Buchanan also desires to restrict immigration, impose protectionist trade policy, and reduce our adventurous foreign policy. These issues will continue to be at the forefront for the foreseeable future, so this can serve as a good introduction to that mindset. I personally did not enjoy the book and disagreed with much of it, but it can still be valuable if you approach it the right way.
December 12, 2019
"Sex, fame, money, power - those are what our new America is all about. ... The new hedonism seems unable to give people a reason to go on living. ... Now that all the Western empires are gone, Western Man, relieved of his duty to civilize and Christianize mankind, reveling in luxury in our age of self-indulgence, seems to have lost his will to live and reconciled himself to his impending death." (Buchanan, The Death of the West, Introduction)
Hedonism has caused the death of the West. This "death" consists principally of the population decline among Europeans.
"In 1960, people of European ancestry were one-fourth of the world's population; in 2000, they were one-sixth; in 2050, they will be one-tenth." (Buchanan, Death of the West, Europe)
This decline is not due to some virus or plague, as in the Black Death; instead, men and women of Western extraction have decided to stop having children. Why? In the immortal words of Gabrielle Thanheiser, a random woman working as a banker in Berlin, "My reason for not having kids is that I like sleep." (Ibid., Clemenceau's Revenge).
Sleep was not the only reason given for childlessness, however. A survey of Italian women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four conducted by Noi Donne concluded that 52% of these women planned to have no children and that "career" was their main reason. (Ibid., Italy, a Theme Park).
Buchanan concludes, "Comfort is now the only thing anybody believes in." (Ibid.). This criticism runs deeper than Buchanan allows because he implicitly contrasts this faith in comfort with the faith in Christianity. The difficulty with this dichotomy is that comfort has been the primary pursuit of Christianity for centuries. What else was the Good Samaritan doing except providing comfort? Didn't the miracles of Jesus provide comfort? What were all the Christian missionaries and free-mercenary physicians doing?
This is not a problem specific to Christianity, however. The agricultural revolutions which have taken place all over the world were driven by the desire for comfort. Similarly, the industrial revolutions that have followed on the heels of increased food production were also driven by the human desire for material comfort. What is "civilization" itself other than a tremendous, collective effort to reduce human suffering and increase human comfort? Yet now that we enjoy less pain and greater comfort than any generation of humans before, we discover that we no longer feel much desire to live.
The principle expression of this collective suicide is abortion:
"...two of every three pregnancies in Russia are terminated before birth." (Buchanan, Death of the West, Russia)
"Japan was the first modern nation to legalize abortion (1948), and her baby boom ended soon afterward." (Ibid., Japan)
"Historians may one day call 'the pill' the suicide tablet of the West. ... Since Justice Blackmun's decision, 40 million abortions have been performed in the United States. Thirty percent of all pregnancies now end on a tabletop in an abortionist's clinic. ...an immediate cause of feminism is what appears to be an irreversible decline in the birth rate." (Ibid., "Where Have all the Children Gone?")
Buchanan is not shy of tracing this trail of death and hedonism back to its origins: "Is it not a remarkable coincidence how global capitalism's view of women - as units of production, liberated from husbands, home, and family - conforms so precisely to the view of the fathers of global communism?" (Ibid.).
Buchanan frequently alternates in this way from exposing the inventors of the ideologies of death to exposing the moral weakness of those foolish enough to adopt and live by these ideas. Did these ideologies arise as the natural consequences of pervasive, antecedent hedonism, or were they the cause of it? Buchanan does not hazard a guess, but more than one Catholic moral writer has concluded that the rationalization for self-indulgence follows after the fact, not before it.
"We have lost our faith in the noble, the beautiful, and the just. ... Only a social counterrevolution or a religious awakening can turn the West around before a falling birthrate closes off the last exit ramp and rings down the curtain on Western Man's long-running play." (Buchanan, The Death of the West, "Where Have all the Children Gone?")
Hedonism has caused the death of the West. This "death" consists principally of the population decline among Europeans.
"In 1960, people of European ancestry were one-fourth of the world's population; in 2000, they were one-sixth; in 2050, they will be one-tenth." (Buchanan, Death of the West, Europe)
This decline is not due to some virus or plague, as in the Black Death; instead, men and women of Western extraction have decided to stop having children. Why? In the immortal words of Gabrielle Thanheiser, a random woman working as a banker in Berlin, "My reason for not having kids is that I like sleep." (Ibid., Clemenceau's Revenge).
Sleep was not the only reason given for childlessness, however. A survey of Italian women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four conducted by Noi Donne concluded that 52% of these women planned to have no children and that "career" was their main reason. (Ibid., Italy, a Theme Park).
Buchanan concludes, "Comfort is now the only thing anybody believes in." (Ibid.). This criticism runs deeper than Buchanan allows because he implicitly contrasts this faith in comfort with the faith in Christianity. The difficulty with this dichotomy is that comfort has been the primary pursuit of Christianity for centuries. What else was the Good Samaritan doing except providing comfort? Didn't the miracles of Jesus provide comfort? What were all the Christian missionaries and free-mercenary physicians doing?
This is not a problem specific to Christianity, however. The agricultural revolutions which have taken place all over the world were driven by the desire for comfort. Similarly, the industrial revolutions that have followed on the heels of increased food production were also driven by the human desire for material comfort. What is "civilization" itself other than a tremendous, collective effort to reduce human suffering and increase human comfort? Yet now that we enjoy less pain and greater comfort than any generation of humans before, we discover that we no longer feel much desire to live.
The principle expression of this collective suicide is abortion:
"...two of every three pregnancies in Russia are terminated before birth." (Buchanan, Death of the West, Russia)
"Japan was the first modern nation to legalize abortion (1948), and her baby boom ended soon afterward." (Ibid., Japan)
"Historians may one day call 'the pill' the suicide tablet of the West. ... Since Justice Blackmun's decision, 40 million abortions have been performed in the United States. Thirty percent of all pregnancies now end on a tabletop in an abortionist's clinic. ...an immediate cause of feminism is what appears to be an irreversible decline in the birth rate." (Ibid., "Where Have all the Children Gone?")
Buchanan is not shy of tracing this trail of death and hedonism back to its origins: "Is it not a remarkable coincidence how global capitalism's view of women - as units of production, liberated from husbands, home, and family - conforms so precisely to the view of the fathers of global communism?" (Ibid.).
Buchanan frequently alternates in this way from exposing the inventors of the ideologies of death to exposing the moral weakness of those foolish enough to adopt and live by these ideas. Did these ideologies arise as the natural consequences of pervasive, antecedent hedonism, or were they the cause of it? Buchanan does not hazard a guess, but more than one Catholic moral writer has concluded that the rationalization for self-indulgence follows after the fact, not before it.
"We have lost our faith in the noble, the beautiful, and the just. ... Only a social counterrevolution or a religious awakening can turn the West around before a falling birthrate closes off the last exit ramp and rings down the curtain on Western Man's long-running play." (Buchanan, The Death of the West, "Where Have all the Children Gone?")
January 24, 2022
I can't believe how long it took me to buy and read this book. It's been on my list for years at this point.
The last chapter or two struck me emotionally in a way I did not expect. I just put the book down, so it's quite a fresh feeling, and it stings.
I remember myself, nearly four years ago now, getting a deeper education on so many evils in the world (in particular the Islamic world) and being gripped by a feeling of hopelessness, rage, and terror.
And then came the gut-punch of realization that brought to the surface the questions I'd never asked properly: "What gives me the strength to carry on against impossible odds? Is there anything I believe that is worth sacrificing for?"
The answer to that was Christ, and I answered that call rather passionately. I have no regrets.
For a book written 20 years ago, it has only become more correct with age. Buchanan was right about a heck of a lot - not everything, no, but a lot - and it is growing rather tiresome watching 99% of conservative leaders refuse to learn lessons he laid out in this easy to read, entertaining book.
I found the book shocking in the sense that it takes a lot to depress me or to galvanize me at this point in regard to politics and religion, but this book still did it. I'm an optimist in the Christian sense, but being a Catholic who converted in the era of Pope Francis and the Summer of Shame and Pachamama and all the rest, I'm at home with shame and ruin. Ditto for my politics. Ever since I realized something was up with feminism in my teens, I couldn't really go back.
It took some time (unlike Mr. Buchanan, I am a child of the time, even being born to married parents and raised going to an Orthodox Church every Sunday, it wasn't sufficient to keep the reek of culture off. I left Christianity for many years. That's another long story). I tumbled towards the right, moving away from almost literally every single person I grew up, and it wasn't really fun. It was hard. It was hard always being the person who didn't fit in, castigated by the very people who preached being myself and achieving my dreams and all the rest. But isn't that always the way?
I am "farther to the right" than Buchanan on certain things, just plain disagree with him on a few points, but man, I'm amazed at how this now-elderly American fellow speaks so many things that I've been thinking back and forth on as a millennial from Canada raised by liberals.
Maybe today was the right time for me to read this. This book connects the world of my childhood with my present day, and makes sense of how I changed in that time in a world that went the other direction. And things have changed. As Buchanan laments the loss of his old-timey upbringing, I'm running to my husband to tell him just how crazy it is to think that back in 2000, the Boy Scouts were getting into hot water for not letting homosexual men camp with young boys.
In the current era, of course, they were pressured into accepting girls.
I am almost nostalgic for the trampy music videos of 2003, because at least back then porn stars and drag queens weren't reading to children.
The prognosis is dire, and I like that Buchanan is honest about that. Things have only gotten worse since he wrote Death of the West. Much worse, in fact. But I know that God did amazing things for me that I didn't deserve, and I now have two children (and Lord willing, we would love more) who my husband and I are raising to serve Jesus Christ.
I've already surrendered my reputation, peace with family and friends, and now thanks to the vaccine mandates in my country that impact my husband's field, we are giving up our financial stability and dreams of owning a house. On top of that, of course, we're not allowed to eat in restaurants or do all kinds of other things, but hey, we can take it.
The future belongs to those who show up, and my family is going to be there. We may yet lose the West, but I'm not surrendering God nor country.
Full review blog post here: READ MY BLOG!
The last chapter or two struck me emotionally in a way I did not expect. I just put the book down, so it's quite a fresh feeling, and it stings.
I remember myself, nearly four years ago now, getting a deeper education on so many evils in the world (in particular the Islamic world) and being gripped by a feeling of hopelessness, rage, and terror.
And then came the gut-punch of realization that brought to the surface the questions I'd never asked properly: "What gives me the strength to carry on against impossible odds? Is there anything I believe that is worth sacrificing for?"
The answer to that was Christ, and I answered that call rather passionately. I have no regrets.
For a book written 20 years ago, it has only become more correct with age. Buchanan was right about a heck of a lot - not everything, no, but a lot - and it is growing rather tiresome watching 99% of conservative leaders refuse to learn lessons he laid out in this easy to read, entertaining book.
I found the book shocking in the sense that it takes a lot to depress me or to galvanize me at this point in regard to politics and religion, but this book still did it. I'm an optimist in the Christian sense, but being a Catholic who converted in the era of Pope Francis and the Summer of Shame and Pachamama and all the rest, I'm at home with shame and ruin. Ditto for my politics. Ever since I realized something was up with feminism in my teens, I couldn't really go back.
It took some time (unlike Mr. Buchanan, I am a child of the time, even being born to married parents and raised going to an Orthodox Church every Sunday, it wasn't sufficient to keep the reek of culture off. I left Christianity for many years. That's another long story). I tumbled towards the right, moving away from almost literally every single person I grew up, and it wasn't really fun. It was hard. It was hard always being the person who didn't fit in, castigated by the very people who preached being myself and achieving my dreams and all the rest. But isn't that always the way?
I am "farther to the right" than Buchanan on certain things, just plain disagree with him on a few points, but man, I'm amazed at how this now-elderly American fellow speaks so many things that I've been thinking back and forth on as a millennial from Canada raised by liberals.
Maybe today was the right time for me to read this. This book connects the world of my childhood with my present day, and makes sense of how I changed in that time in a world that went the other direction. And things have changed. As Buchanan laments the loss of his old-timey upbringing, I'm running to my husband to tell him just how crazy it is to think that back in 2000, the Boy Scouts were getting into hot water for not letting homosexual men camp with young boys.
In the current era, of course, they were pressured into accepting girls.
I am almost nostalgic for the trampy music videos of 2003, because at least back then porn stars and drag queens weren't reading to children.
The prognosis is dire, and I like that Buchanan is honest about that. Things have only gotten worse since he wrote Death of the West. Much worse, in fact. But I know that God did amazing things for me that I didn't deserve, and I now have two children (and Lord willing, we would love more) who my husband and I are raising to serve Jesus Christ.
I've already surrendered my reputation, peace with family and friends, and now thanks to the vaccine mandates in my country that impact my husband's field, we are giving up our financial stability and dreams of owning a house. On top of that, of course, we're not allowed to eat in restaurants or do all kinds of other things, but hey, we can take it.
The future belongs to those who show up, and my family is going to be there. We may yet lose the West, but I'm not surrendering God nor country.
Full review blog post here: READ MY BLOG!
May 6, 2010
Highly recommended. Buchanan is pretty much a redneck to me, but at least he's fairly transparent. I found myself fascinated by and agreeing w/ large portions of this book- except when he talked about race, when he might as well have had 6 heads on his shoulders. I cannot take anyone seriously who does not acknowledge the socioeconomic and psychological damages of slavery and who discusses problems in the black community w/o reference to the history of black people in this country. It simply can't be done. That said, he made interesting points about the declining birth rate in the West, the excesses of political correctness and the need for an orderly and legal immigration policy. Been wanting to get to this book for a long time and it does not disappoint- will get you riled up, but has much worthy of consideration.
March 8, 2016
'The Death of the West' is without a doubt Pat Buchanan's magnum opus. Though now more than a decade old, it re-emerges with great relevancy in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis and rising tensions in the Middle-East.
The title is to be understood literally: declining birth rates and mass immigration in the US and Europe threaten to overwhelm native populations and extinguish their cultural identity. Different to earlier waves of immigration, the author argues, these people often don't share our Western values and their allegiances lie with countries we could be at war with. And as societies in Europe grow older, the European welfare-state can only be sustained through mass immigration, for many Europeans not only stopped reproducing, but revel in their demise, by celebrating being childless and having double income.
Buchanan identifies Socialism as the root cause of the Western decline. As he astutely observes how, come 1989, world-wide Communism has failed and why, he further branches out into the tenets of its successor and how it managed to prevail where the progenitor didn't – by changing the culture from within. He goes into great detail how Globalism, Secularism, Feminism, and Gay Rights Activism often hide behind reason and just cause, but show ill-intent towards their dissenters; dehumanising them by calling them bigots, sexists, racists, or homophobes and thus avoiding the debate. What follows is a well-argued, harsh critique of the Mexican government's economic reliance on illegal immigration and a bold defence of the nation-state concept as a necessity in preserving the cultural identity of the United States. In his refusal of amnesty for illegal immigrants for example, he relentlessly makes the case for deportation, by arguing that if rule of law is ignored and pardon given, the weight of immigration laws – however strict they may be – is nullified.
The division and sense of separatism the author sees infecting the United States is evident throughout the political discourse. There is a deep understanding and acknowledgment in Buchanan's writing for the violent history of the West, but as he keenly retorts, this is true for all nations, revealing the gut-wrenching truth, that the West didn't start slavery, it was the West that ended it. And while he is a big proponent of the Civil Rights Act, he sees no obligation for the US to make any further payments to minority interest groups, because he sees them as the great dividers, who out of self-interest will never be satisfied with any form of reparation. And when the state keeps on giving, why should they be?
He then goes on to dismantle the cultural Marxist myth of equality, by arguing that there are no equals, only equal opportunity. But then taints the relevant Thomas Jefferson quote, which would have perfectly stood on its own, by needlessly pointing out the Founding Father's rejection of homosexuality.
With grand vigour he argues for the socially conservative case; even going so far as putting blame on conservatives who surrendered the culture war and retreated solely to economics (read: Neocons), only for the libertarian element of the right to grow stronger. Whatever you may think about the man, it takes guts to slaughter the holy cow of free market capitalism as a right-winger.
As is to be expected by Buchanan, Christianity repeatedly sneaks its way into his argumentation and it is here where the book is at its weakest. While it may be true that a traditionalist, faith-based society produces higher birth rates, a return to faith cannot be a goal unto itself, but must come from conviction. Pure pragmatism does not suffice, when it comes to people's acceptance of a divine creator. However, I also understand that it is not in the author's purview to make the case for Christ. As a stout unbeliever and Cultural Catholic, I therefore have to reject his battle-cry for a return to Christian predominance in Western society. From my European Classical Liberal perspective though, I at least have to commend the author for being open about some of his statist views, which befits someone who accepts God as an ultimate authority; something I always found to be contradictive to the libertarian-leaning wing of the right – and a pitfall Buchanan wisely avoids.
With 'The Death of the West', Patrick J. Buchanan delivers an excellent read, that may make your blood boil, but is so well-researched and written with such finesse and historical prowess, that you will be hard-pressed not to find something to agree with. While I do disagree with many of his assertions, I also found a lot of respectable opinions, the least of which made me understand his brand of conservatism better. And lest those of us, whose parents fled communist regimes to find a better life in the West, forget, why they did so in the first place, this book makes a strong case for why we ought to preserve the West from those who seek to destroy it.
The title is to be understood literally: declining birth rates and mass immigration in the US and Europe threaten to overwhelm native populations and extinguish their cultural identity. Different to earlier waves of immigration, the author argues, these people often don't share our Western values and their allegiances lie with countries we could be at war with. And as societies in Europe grow older, the European welfare-state can only be sustained through mass immigration, for many Europeans not only stopped reproducing, but revel in their demise, by celebrating being childless and having double income.
Buchanan identifies Socialism as the root cause of the Western decline. As he astutely observes how, come 1989, world-wide Communism has failed and why, he further branches out into the tenets of its successor and how it managed to prevail where the progenitor didn't – by changing the culture from within. He goes into great detail how Globalism, Secularism, Feminism, and Gay Rights Activism often hide behind reason and just cause, but show ill-intent towards their dissenters; dehumanising them by calling them bigots, sexists, racists, or homophobes and thus avoiding the debate. What follows is a well-argued, harsh critique of the Mexican government's economic reliance on illegal immigration and a bold defence of the nation-state concept as a necessity in preserving the cultural identity of the United States. In his refusal of amnesty for illegal immigrants for example, he relentlessly makes the case for deportation, by arguing that if rule of law is ignored and pardon given, the weight of immigration laws – however strict they may be – is nullified.
The division and sense of separatism the author sees infecting the United States is evident throughout the political discourse. There is a deep understanding and acknowledgment in Buchanan's writing for the violent history of the West, but as he keenly retorts, this is true for all nations, revealing the gut-wrenching truth, that the West didn't start slavery, it was the West that ended it. And while he is a big proponent of the Civil Rights Act, he sees no obligation for the US to make any further payments to minority interest groups, because he sees them as the great dividers, who out of self-interest will never be satisfied with any form of reparation. And when the state keeps on giving, why should they be?
He then goes on to dismantle the cultural Marxist myth of equality, by arguing that there are no equals, only equal opportunity. But then taints the relevant Thomas Jefferson quote, which would have perfectly stood on its own, by needlessly pointing out the Founding Father's rejection of homosexuality.
With grand vigour he argues for the socially conservative case; even going so far as putting blame on conservatives who surrendered the culture war and retreated solely to economics (read: Neocons), only for the libertarian element of the right to grow stronger. Whatever you may think about the man, it takes guts to slaughter the holy cow of free market capitalism as a right-winger.
As is to be expected by Buchanan, Christianity repeatedly sneaks its way into his argumentation and it is here where the book is at its weakest. While it may be true that a traditionalist, faith-based society produces higher birth rates, a return to faith cannot be a goal unto itself, but must come from conviction. Pure pragmatism does not suffice, when it comes to people's acceptance of a divine creator. However, I also understand that it is not in the author's purview to make the case for Christ. As a stout unbeliever and Cultural Catholic, I therefore have to reject his battle-cry for a return to Christian predominance in Western society. From my European Classical Liberal perspective though, I at least have to commend the author for being open about some of his statist views, which befits someone who accepts God as an ultimate authority; something I always found to be contradictive to the libertarian-leaning wing of the right – and a pitfall Buchanan wisely avoids.
With 'The Death of the West', Patrick J. Buchanan delivers an excellent read, that may make your blood boil, but is so well-researched and written with such finesse and historical prowess, that you will be hard-pressed not to find something to agree with. While I do disagree with many of his assertions, I also found a lot of respectable opinions, the least of which made me understand his brand of conservatism better. And lest those of us, whose parents fled communist regimes to find a better life in the West, forget, why they did so in the first place, this book makes a strong case for why we ought to preserve the West from those who seek to destroy it.
April 5, 2021
I went into this knowing next to nothing about the author. I have to round up to 5 stars simply because his conclusions were so accurate–conclusions he made 20 years ago that are possibly more relevant now than ever.
One huge point that Buchanan hit a home run on was his connecting of the dots on the neo-Marxist religion long before it became the force that it is today. Naming Gramsci, Marcuse, and others is important when the ideology thrives on obscuring itself, many of its adherents simply claiming that “cultural Marxism” isn’t real, when it very clearly is.
4.5 stars is my rating.
I deduct a half star for the excessive ranting against homosexuals. I understand the philosophical argument for the Christian belief in the sanctity of marriage and sexual relations but he really doesn’t do Christians any favors on that front. He makes it very easy to write him off as just being disrespectful when I know there is much more to to it than that. “Love the sinner, not the sin” as they say. The reason it’s only a half star is because his larger point about the sexualization of children still stands.
One huge point that Buchanan hit a home run on was his connecting of the dots on the neo-Marxist religion long before it became the force that it is today. Naming Gramsci, Marcuse, and others is important when the ideology thrives on obscuring itself, many of its adherents simply claiming that “cultural Marxism” isn’t real, when it very clearly is.
4.5 stars is my rating.
I deduct a half star for the excessive ranting against homosexuals. I understand the philosophical argument for the Christian belief in the sanctity of marriage and sexual relations but he really doesn’t do Christians any favors on that front. He makes it very easy to write him off as just being disrespectful when I know there is much more to to it than that. “Love the sinner, not the sin” as they say. The reason it’s only a half star is because his larger point about the sexualization of children still stands.
June 30, 2014
و شهد شاهد من أهلها
كل من يقول أن الليبرالية هي الحل أو العلمانية هي الحل ألجمه بهذا الكتاب
حرية أباحت الشذوذ الجنسي فانقلب على أهلها فالحضارة تنتهي عندما تنهار الأخلاق و الدليل أن البربرية لا تبني حضارة أبداَ
قلة الإنجاب بسبب أن المرأة لا يمكن أن تركز إلا على شيء واحد: إما عملها أو تربيتها للأولاد , طبعاً سبب قلة الإنجاب أو عدم الإنجاب يعود أن المرأة الغربية تريد أن تستمتع بحياتها فمعظمهن يجهضن ويركزن على احتياجاتهن الشخصية.
انهيار قيم الأسرة عند الغرب.
الهجرة هذا كان سبباً في سقوط معظم الإمبراطوريات منها : الإمبراطورية الرومانية,العباسية, الدولة الأموية بالأندلس...إلخ.
قد يكون هذا الكتاب موجهاً للشعب الأمريكي لكن لا يعني أنه لا يمكننا الاستفادة منه فبعض هذه الأسباب تنطبق علينا.
بشكل مختصر أقول أن أغلب المصائب التي تعصف بالغرب هو الحرية الزائدة عن اللزوم.
كل من يقول أن الليبرالية هي الحل أو العلمانية هي الحل ألجمه بهذا الكتاب
حرية أباحت الشذوذ الجنسي فانقلب على أهلها فالحضارة تنتهي عندما تنهار الأخلاق و الدليل أن البربرية لا تبني حضارة أبداَ
قلة الإنجاب بسبب أن المرأة لا يمكن أن تركز إلا على شيء واحد: إما عملها أو تربيتها للأولاد , طبعاً سبب قلة الإنجاب أو عدم الإنجاب يعود أن المرأة الغربية تريد أن تستمتع بحياتها فمعظمهن يجهضن ويركزن على احتياجاتهن الشخصية.
انهيار قيم الأسرة عند الغرب.
الهجرة هذا كان سبباً في سقوط معظم الإمبراطوريات منها : الإمبراطورية الرومانية,العباسية, الدولة الأموية بالأندلس...إلخ.
قد يكون هذا الكتاب موجهاً للشعب الأمريكي لكن لا يعني أنه لا يمكننا الاستفادة منه فبعض هذه الأسباب تنطبق علينا.
بشكل مختصر أقول أن أغلب المصائب التي تعصف بالغرب هو الحرية الزائدة عن اللزوم.
September 27, 2018
The Death of the West. What a nice title, surely this would have been an enlightening book right? WRONG. It was mostly a twisted interpretation of really basic statistics (from biased sources like UN for instance) and turning it into some post apocalyptic nightmare for the Caucasians.
The most infuriating thing about Buchanan is that he thinks he understood history and economics but the fact that he thought mixed economy was capitalism and that capitalism was comparable to communism was simply astounding.
The most infuriating thing about Buchanan is that he thinks he understood history and economics but the fact that he thought mixed economy was capitalism and that capitalism was comparable to communism was simply astounding.
September 25, 2015
What an extraordinarily xenophobic and racist piece of garbage. I often find myself agreeing with Buchanan when it comes to his critiques of the American Right Wing. I can't find anything about this book that's worth spit.
April 21, 2024
Published in 2001, Buchanan's analysis is sharp. He opens the book with simple replacement numbers and walks through 21st century demographic projections for many Western countries. Two decades later, missing a decimal point or two does no damage to the projections. Pat suggests a few contributing reasons for the decline - not least among them materialism and luxury. He later moves on to culture war, Gramsci & the Frankfurt school, America's distinctly Christian heritage, blasphemy laws, civil rights, globalism as the antithesis of patriotism, sexual revolution, and assimilation (or lack thereof), to name a few ideas covered. Only at the end of the book does Buchanan propose solutions - counter-revolution (i.e. zero-sum field), "cultural succession," education, deportation (obviously), conservative improvements, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and while his "solution" section was beneficial, it was more of a bonus in the sense that problem definition is prerequisite to problem solution. And problem definition Buchanan masterfully demonstrated.
Read
August 7, 2024My takeaway from this book is that Buchanan is the de facto prophet of Trumpism and the New Right. If you are confused by what has happened to the Republican Party, you don't have to look much further than this book to understand the frustrations of those Americans who view the trends of the last 35 years as tending toward the destruction of the West. You can hear echoes of Buchanan in Tucker Carlson, though I don't know how much Carlson would agree with that assessment. This book may have been written 25 years ago, but much of it still holds true in the minds of right-leaning partisans. The strength of the book is in identifying real and abiding issues with serious political salience, but I'm afraid it, like the New Right, does not offer much in terms of feasible approaches to the cultural divides that exist in the country which are deep and probably insuperable. I'm not optimistic at all, which I suppose is natural given the title.
December 16, 2018
In younger years, I may have been unsympathetic towards Buchanan for his Christianity, but a lot of what he says in this book is on the money. He sees the big picture as well as the details. A very insightful book.
It's hard to believe this came out in 2002. Sixteen years later, surely things have only gotten worse. Yet the tide may be turning.
It's hard to believe this came out in 2002. Sixteen years later, surely things have only gotten worse. Yet the tide may be turning.
June 28, 2020
Patrick J. Buchanan has predicted the death of the west very well. We have clear evidence of that death from the current events. Leftists have been brainwashed into thinking that everything is either racist, sexist or both. The one point that Patrick does not touch on very well is that fact that education is one of the biggest problems and one of the biggest reasons as to why kids are becoming "social justice warriors".
They believe that they are creating change, they are the post-westerners that Patrick was talking about. Post-westerners are essentially the same thing as post-modernists. These kids in school are being taught to hate not only their country, but to hate themselves. To hate themselves either because of their race (and thinking that they are the oppressors) or to hate themselves because "they haven't done enough for the cause."
Individuals with individual thoughts and ideas are dying or at least they are not willing to stand up and present their ideas. You must stand up to the people that are trying to destroy your liberties. We must not let the leftists win. I will not let our country die. "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times." Be the strong man and create good times and teach your children to be strong men.
Our country is beautiful. Its ideals and values must not fall. Leftists are trying to erase American history just because it wasn't perfect. We all need to do our part in order to create good times and uphold our values.
They believe that they are creating change, they are the post-westerners that Patrick was talking about. Post-westerners are essentially the same thing as post-modernists. These kids in school are being taught to hate not only their country, but to hate themselves. To hate themselves either because of their race (and thinking that they are the oppressors) or to hate themselves because "they haven't done enough for the cause."
Individuals with individual thoughts and ideas are dying or at least they are not willing to stand up and present their ideas. You must stand up to the people that are trying to destroy your liberties. We must not let the leftists win. I will not let our country die. "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times." Be the strong man and create good times and teach your children to be strong men.
Our country is beautiful. Its ideals and values must not fall. Leftists are trying to erase American history just because it wasn't perfect. We all need to do our part in order to create good times and uphold our values.
July 24, 2024
Buchanan’s book is covering undoubtedly important topics. No one can deny that we have seen an unprecedented wave of social change in the past decades, starting with the 1960s, and that the results of this have been permeated in every area of society. And no one can deny that in many ways, a creeping negative has risen from these changes. Whatever stance you have on any of the cultural hot-topics, the division itself - the ‘culture war’- has created a level of animosity in society that had never been seen before. And rapid change, whether it produces good in reality or not, is always bound to create short-term problems due to those who oppose change, thereby creating periods of turbulence, division and strife. This is what Buchanan calls the death of the west. By assigning a strictly cultural cause to the death of the west, Pat Buchanan completely misses the underlying reason behind the so-called decline we have witnessed in the west over the past decades and instead produces conservative blabber and the tears of a dying race.
Not only is his reasoning behind this cultural determinism completely erroneous - there was never any Marxist plot to subvert culture, today all liberal values are subordinate to capitalism - but this emphasis on culture means that his analysis can not be used to propose a way forward. Why? Because by completely misunderstanding the cause of the cultural shift, the idea of ‘what is missing’ produces a different set of answers. For Buchanan, what is missing is the old Christian western society. However, even if Buchanan’s dreams became true, and overnight we saw a disappearance of cultural liberalism and the return of the old values, we would inevitably return to a culture shift. This is because the underlying cause was never culture. Yes, the cause behind the decay of culture is not the culture itself. Rather, it is the contradictions of the old society that fell under its own weight. What is missing, really, is not the old set of values we had, but rather, a society in which these contradictions are eliminated, and under which a healthy culture can flourish, free from the influence of the debilitating weaknesses that society had in the first place prior to the cultural shift.
So what are these contradictions and weaknesses that caused the shift in the first place? The main culprit is the fusion of capitalism with the old values that took place after World War II. With capitalist expansion and with its move into the office from the industry, capital became ever increasingly dominant in the daily lives of everyone, thus extending its reach into our culture. A look at the nuclear family’s evolution will give a clear example of this. Pat Buchanan laments the downfall of the nuclear family and blames it on the ideas of women’s liberation and on a supposed Marxist plot to free the family, as in Buchanan’s view, Marxism sees the abolition of the nuclear family as a form of liberation. Pushing aside the completely erroneous reading of Marxism, his reasoning behind this phenomenon is weak and insufficient. Only a small minority of women ever since the counterculture have decided to live according to feminist values. The values that women, however, have increasingly subscribed to, are values that come down-stream from the way the economy and its relation to society changed after World War II. The values in question? The focus on the career and on income. As previously mentioned, the capitalism of the office became the main form of capitalism in the west. While late 19th century and early 20th century industrial capitalism introduced a form of family organization in which the physically demanding factory job was taken by man, mid 20th century office capitalism introduced a workplace in which all men and women could attend to. By its nature and rules, capitalism will always seek to have a larger workforce. Naturally, women rushed to the offices. Mr. Buchanan accurately states that this move would then cause the decline of birth rates, after all, career has become more important than family. However, he does not mention a single time that this broader problem may in fact have to do something to do with the economical system, even though history has proven to us that the organization of the family will always be strictly bound to the economy of the moment.
Similarly, immigration, the sexual revolution, and abortion are all issues that have flown thanks to capital. The sexual revolution comes downstream from the death of the family - which as we have already established was a product of the workings of the socio-economic apparatus. And this initial move of women into the offices, which started in the 1950s, a decade before the counterculture, would facilitate the grounds for women’s liberation and for several other ideas that would accelerate strife in gender relations. Abortion has always been a part of every society, clandestine or not. But the explosion of contraceptives, pills and abortion procedures did not originate in a cultural shift among America’s doctors, researchers and so on. Rather, it originated and was then facilitated by the massive market that abortion has created. Finally, immigration, the problem that Buchanan has shed the most tears to, is also undoubtedly a result of capital. No one can deny that imperialism directly caused the global disparities in the 19th century that would later create the roots for Third World immigration into the First World. And by Lenin’s definition, imperialism is the expansion of monopoly capitalism far from its nation’s borders. And when it comes to the liberalization of immigration laws, particularly in post-war Britain and America, who benefits the most but employers seeking easy-to-hire employees that they can underpay?
And we can not ignore that the old values themselves only existed due to their material reality. Christianity, the nuclear family, rites, traditions, social organization, etc. could have existed on their own, but what Buchanan does not understand is that the form of those traditions that he so wants to return, the old culture, existed only in the context of the economical apparati they were formed in. The nuclear family is not a natural process that existed in the earliest forms of economic organization, and it certainly did not arise out of a conscious cultural movement. Rather, the nuclear family form that Buchanan wants a return to is a form that came out of industrial capitalism. Similarly, the way that Christianity has been seen in the west, and the way it has been utilized, is not the Christianity that came during the times of Jesus Christ, and not even the way of medieval Christianity. Think of all the Biblical passages that are ignored.
So, not only does Buchanan apply a complete misunderstanding of the reason behind the old values’ decline, but he also misunderstands the old values themselves. What he looks for in those old values is not something that existed genuinely. They were reflected in those old values but what they really represented was the ghost image of culture that industrial capitalism created. And as capitalism evolved after the war, it created a new image of culture. This image of culture, of course, is the one Buchanan has fought against. And by advocating for a return to the old culture, and by glorifying it, he is not only doing absolutely nothing for the genuine cause of cultural preservation, social moralism and true conservatism, but he is also unwillingly a propagandist for the old capitalism which morphed into modern capitalism.
What those who want to preserve culture ought to do forward, is, beyond the reaches of this simple critique. However, as established, a return to the old values is a blind and insufficient solution. The reality is, that as long as we live in this continuous evolution of capitalism, culture will always be merely an image of economical organization. Any cultural analysis that ignores this, such as Buchanan’s is useless. Those who seek to look at cultural issues ought to look at culture as part of a larger system, in which the economy is at the top. This is not to say that culture exists as an artifice subservient to the economy. Revolutions through the way of culture exist. They can not be genuine if they don’t reach the economical root, sure, but a war in the culture can exist. But among the points I’m making is that Buchanan, like the new culture he despises, is rooting for a cultural vision that ultimately served capital. The end point of a cultural war should always be economic, rather than cultural, which is another naive assumption that Buchanan lays out in his book.
Not only is his reasoning behind this cultural determinism completely erroneous - there was never any Marxist plot to subvert culture, today all liberal values are subordinate to capitalism - but this emphasis on culture means that his analysis can not be used to propose a way forward. Why? Because by completely misunderstanding the cause of the cultural shift, the idea of ‘what is missing’ produces a different set of answers. For Buchanan, what is missing is the old Christian western society. However, even if Buchanan’s dreams became true, and overnight we saw a disappearance of cultural liberalism and the return of the old values, we would inevitably return to a culture shift. This is because the underlying cause was never culture. Yes, the cause behind the decay of culture is not the culture itself. Rather, it is the contradictions of the old society that fell under its own weight. What is missing, really, is not the old set of values we had, but rather, a society in which these contradictions are eliminated, and under which a healthy culture can flourish, free from the influence of the debilitating weaknesses that society had in the first place prior to the cultural shift.
So what are these contradictions and weaknesses that caused the shift in the first place? The main culprit is the fusion of capitalism with the old values that took place after World War II. With capitalist expansion and with its move into the office from the industry, capital became ever increasingly dominant in the daily lives of everyone, thus extending its reach into our culture. A look at the nuclear family’s evolution will give a clear example of this. Pat Buchanan laments the downfall of the nuclear family and blames it on the ideas of women’s liberation and on a supposed Marxist plot to free the family, as in Buchanan’s view, Marxism sees the abolition of the nuclear family as a form of liberation. Pushing aside the completely erroneous reading of Marxism, his reasoning behind this phenomenon is weak and insufficient. Only a small minority of women ever since the counterculture have decided to live according to feminist values. The values that women, however, have increasingly subscribed to, are values that come down-stream from the way the economy and its relation to society changed after World War II. The values in question? The focus on the career and on income. As previously mentioned, the capitalism of the office became the main form of capitalism in the west. While late 19th century and early 20th century industrial capitalism introduced a form of family organization in which the physically demanding factory job was taken by man, mid 20th century office capitalism introduced a workplace in which all men and women could attend to. By its nature and rules, capitalism will always seek to have a larger workforce. Naturally, women rushed to the offices. Mr. Buchanan accurately states that this move would then cause the decline of birth rates, after all, career has become more important than family. However, he does not mention a single time that this broader problem may in fact have to do something to do with the economical system, even though history has proven to us that the organization of the family will always be strictly bound to the economy of the moment.
Similarly, immigration, the sexual revolution, and abortion are all issues that have flown thanks to capital. The sexual revolution comes downstream from the death of the family - which as we have already established was a product of the workings of the socio-economic apparatus. And this initial move of women into the offices, which started in the 1950s, a decade before the counterculture, would facilitate the grounds for women’s liberation and for several other ideas that would accelerate strife in gender relations. Abortion has always been a part of every society, clandestine or not. But the explosion of contraceptives, pills and abortion procedures did not originate in a cultural shift among America’s doctors, researchers and so on. Rather, it originated and was then facilitated by the massive market that abortion has created. Finally, immigration, the problem that Buchanan has shed the most tears to, is also undoubtedly a result of capital. No one can deny that imperialism directly caused the global disparities in the 19th century that would later create the roots for Third World immigration into the First World. And by Lenin’s definition, imperialism is the expansion of monopoly capitalism far from its nation’s borders. And when it comes to the liberalization of immigration laws, particularly in post-war Britain and America, who benefits the most but employers seeking easy-to-hire employees that they can underpay?
And we can not ignore that the old values themselves only existed due to their material reality. Christianity, the nuclear family, rites, traditions, social organization, etc. could have existed on their own, but what Buchanan does not understand is that the form of those traditions that he so wants to return, the old culture, existed only in the context of the economical apparati they were formed in. The nuclear family is not a natural process that existed in the earliest forms of economic organization, and it certainly did not arise out of a conscious cultural movement. Rather, the nuclear family form that Buchanan wants a return to is a form that came out of industrial capitalism. Similarly, the way that Christianity has been seen in the west, and the way it has been utilized, is not the Christianity that came during the times of Jesus Christ, and not even the way of medieval Christianity. Think of all the Biblical passages that are ignored.
So, not only does Buchanan apply a complete misunderstanding of the reason behind the old values’ decline, but he also misunderstands the old values themselves. What he looks for in those old values is not something that existed genuinely. They were reflected in those old values but what they really represented was the ghost image of culture that industrial capitalism created. And as capitalism evolved after the war, it created a new image of culture. This image of culture, of course, is the one Buchanan has fought against. And by advocating for a return to the old culture, and by glorifying it, he is not only doing absolutely nothing for the genuine cause of cultural preservation, social moralism and true conservatism, but he is also unwillingly a propagandist for the old capitalism which morphed into modern capitalism.
What those who want to preserve culture ought to do forward, is, beyond the reaches of this simple critique. However, as established, a return to the old values is a blind and insufficient solution. The reality is, that as long as we live in this continuous evolution of capitalism, culture will always be merely an image of economical organization. Any cultural analysis that ignores this, such as Buchanan’s is useless. Those who seek to look at cultural issues ought to look at culture as part of a larger system, in which the economy is at the top. This is not to say that culture exists as an artifice subservient to the economy. Revolutions through the way of culture exist. They can not be genuine if they don’t reach the economical root, sure, but a war in the culture can exist. But among the points I’m making is that Buchanan, like the new culture he despises, is rooting for a cultural vision that ultimately served capital. The end point of a cultural war should always be economic, rather than cultural, which is another naive assumption that Buchanan lays out in his book.
August 4, 2010
This book explains and illuminates the decline of Western Civilization. It’s not a prediction, it’s a fact. This decline is going on under the collective noses of Americans, Europeans, and Japanese.
Why are birthrates well below replacement level? Why do western men and women choose pleasure over family? Why is it no longer ok to be a patriot, to love the country of one’s birth? Pat Buchanan succinctly explains the root of this decline and what can be done to reverse it. A must read for all Americans –indeed for patriots of Western Civilization the world over.
I give it four starts and not five because Buchanan threw in a comment or two that betray his Son’s of the Confederacy (SC)- based view of the Civil War. He is a southern rights apologist who cannot help himself.
Why are birthrates well below replacement level? Why do western men and women choose pleasure over family? Why is it no longer ok to be a patriot, to love the country of one’s birth? Pat Buchanan succinctly explains the root of this decline and what can be done to reverse it. A must read for all Americans –indeed for patriots of Western Civilization the world over.
I give it four starts and not five because Buchanan threw in a comment or two that betray his Son’s of the Confederacy (SC)- based view of the Civil War. He is a southern rights apologist who cannot help himself.
April 13, 2017
I guess I've heard these arguments for most of my life in some form or another, so none of this was really new unfortunately. Not aimed at persuading the other side, more so written as a call to arms.
November 27, 2007
رغم أنه كتاب موجه للشعب الأمريكي على وجه الخصوص..والغربي بشكل عام..
إلا أن به الكثير من النقاط والأفكار المهمة الجديرة بالنقاش..
إلا أن به الكثير من النقاط والأفكار المهمة الجديرة بالنقاش..
June 4, 2011
A great book that clearly documents that the road the West is currently on will lead to the death of the world as we know it.
November 29, 2021
Пат Бюкянън е архиконсерватор, чиито тези са доста спорни дори сред привържениците на Републиканската партия. Бях харесал някои негови статии от последните години и прехвърлих тази книга, според която културният марксизъм е виновен за упадъка на Запада, изразяващ се в ниска раждаемост и отрицание от собствената култура. Изследването върху въпросния културен марксизъм е интересно, а някои от цитатите, които авторът предлага са шокиращи, но основната теза на книгата издиша, тъй като годините показаха как раждаемостта пада през последните десетилетия в общества като Китай, Индия, Иран и Саудитска Арабия, където е спорно дали има изобщо някакво влияние на Франкфуртската школа. Проблемът с раждаемостта е по-скоро заради урбанизацията и пренаселването на планетата, а що се отнася до тезата на Бюкянън, че пак ще се оправим ако приберем жените в кухнята и обявим хомосексуалността за престъпление - ами не, не съм съгласен.
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