The Arab suicide bomber is the spiritual cousin of the despondent aboriginal of the Amazon rain forest. And European apathy is the opposite side of the coin of Islamic extremism. Both apathetic Europeans and radical Muslims have lost their connection to the past and their confidence in the future. There is not a great deal of daylight between European resignation to cultural extinction at the hundred-year horizon and the Islamist boast, “You love life, and we love death.” Which brings us to Spengler’s Universal Law #2: When the nations of the world see their demise not as a distant prospect
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