Will the First World Remain First?
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Conservative columnist Mark Steyn has produced a provocative and sometimes alarming book in America Alone. The work is, broadly speaking, a civilizational survey, and the West does not come out ahead in terms of future prospects. According to the author, most of the developed world outside of America is on the road to cultural and political marginalization. This means that the U.S. should not expect help from Europe in coping with the ascendancy of regions of the world with both people and ideological confidence to spare, particularly the greater Middle East.
Steyn’s argument that developed countries as we know them are heading out the door can be generally traced to two lines of reasoning. First, Steyn places a huge emphasis on demography in his arguments. The fertility rates of Europe have for some time now been depressed relative to those elsewhere in the world. The replacement rate—that is, the fertility rate at which a population will experience no net change—is about 2.1 live births per woman. America, for its part, has a 2.1 rate, but the rates of Canada, Europe as a whole, Japan, and Russia are 1.48, 1.38, 1.32, and 1.14, respectively. One implication of this decreasing trend is that economic might will be diminished. The “Ponzi scheme” welfare states enjoyed in the developed world depend on a large working population to fund social entitlements. Without a substantial labor force, the economic framework of many developed nations is imperiled. One possible solution is to import labor, but poor demographics pose challenges here too—with fewer ethnic and cultural Europeans, it will be hard to assimilate immigrants to European cultural norms. Overall, a population that is decreasing relative to those of other regions is one less able to produce goods and services, exercise political power, and maintain its cultural status.
The second line of reasoning is a more general cultural critique. According to Steyn, Europe does not have the fundamental will to survive as a cultural entity. It has forgone the prioritization of the “primary impulses” of “national defense, self-reliance, family, and, most basic of all, reproductive activity.” Instead, Europeans have indulged social-democratic “secondary impulses.” In Steyn’s estimation, the European citizen “is little more than a junkie on the state narcotic.” This situation, far from promoting social cohesion, makes the most important relationship in Europe that between the individual and the state, at the expense of other considerations. As long as state-subsidized personal gratification continues, family, individual initiative, and cultural traditions can be pushed to the side. Moreover, the pervasive multiculturalism and relativism of Europe testify to a society that has given up belief in itself. Europeans are unwilling to assert that their values are worth preserving and advocating.
The decline of Europe and the developed world in general is only half of the story, however. Steyn worries about what threatens to replace to preeminence of the West. China is refreshingly, if questionably, dismissed due to its own structural and demographic problems. Ultimately, Steyn worries most about “Islamism”—the radical ideology propounded by organizations such as Al Qaeda and their fellow travelers. For one thing, the Muslim world is demographically ascendant. Not only are birth rates substantially higher in the Muslim world than in the West, but they are also higher among Muslims in Europe. This means that Europe’s already high Muslim population is set for further increases going forward. This is, of course, not intrinsically problematic. But Steyn fears that this population may be influenced by extremism. As opposed to the watered-down, platitudinous European notions of identity, at least Islamism is something for people to embrace. Moreover, there is no shortage of radical incitation to be found, even (or perhaps particularly) in an indifferent Europe.
Of the many objects of Steyn’s disapproval, European multiculturalist sentiments have a particularly rough time. Steyn shows, indeed, that modern multiculturalism is hardly multicultural at all. Of course, he makes the standard argument that it makes no sense to tolerate intolerance and be sensitive to insensitivity, but he goes further. For one thing, multiculturalism often entails regressing to the lowest common denominator. There is little cultural enrichment that comes from a street gang that combines a Wahabbist worldview and the latest hip vices among young Westerners. There are other ways in which multiculturalism is effectively unicultural. In Europe, the Islamist perspective tends to push aside more moderate views from the Muslim world, given the loudness of extremism’s supporters and the ampleness of its petro-funding. Europeans, for their part, are perfectly content to let such a viewpoint elbow its way into monolithic official opposition to the status quo. After all, Steyn argues, they don’t really care to look into the subtle differences among other cultures—as long as they’re exotic and different.
Stylistically, one of the primary characteristics of America Alone is its colloquial and sometimes mischievous style. Steyn is witty, informal, sardonic, and at times offensive. Unfortunately, this means that his work probably will not resonate with those who are not already on the same page as he is. A more formal piece would probably have done a better job of persuading those who do not share Steyn’s alarm over Western cultural laxity, radicalism in the Middle East, the lack of integration in Europe, and the fundamental nullity of social democracy. Given the suspicion with which many Europeans and Middle Easterners view the U.S., it’s tempting to say that sobriety and circumspection should be the order of the day. Still, Steyn is undeniably at his best when writing in his joking, conversational style. In a typical instance, he turns his pen on a hypothetical suicide bomber: “A terrorist wakes up in Baghdad early Monday morning, straps on the old explosives, and toddles off to blow up some infidels at the gate to the Green Zone, dreaming of getting at least a couple of the virgins in before lunch. But the belt jams and U.S. troops arrest him and he’s stuck on a plane to Gitmo and forty-eight hours later he’s whining to his D.C. lawyer about the quality of the chicken chasseur and plotting his Supreme Court case.”
Of course, the question remains—what does it mean for America to be alone? Suggestions for our course of action going forward range from de facto isolationism to Bush Doctrine intervention. Steyn adopts the latter point of view, but just because intervention should be used to address coming threats, that doesn’t mean that it actually works. This is an intramural debate on the right in which neither Steyn nor others have had the last word yet.
