Book Review: The War On The West by Douglas Murray
Murray rightly asks why the western world is singled out for disproportionate ire and opprobrium?
Douglas Murray continues in the footsteps of his previous works The Madness of Crowds and The Strange Death of Europe with this comprehensive investigation of oikophobia. The phrase oikophobia being a term coined by Roger Scruton for hatred of one’s own culture. In this case it refers to people within the west being highly critical of the west; literally biting the hand that feeds them.
Isn’t life hard enough already without shouldering an additional sense of Original Sin over the history and immutable characteristics we are born with? All animals have fought for expanded territory and conquest against rival groups to the best of their means and capabilities since day dot. The Bantus are invaders and colonisers of South Africa, the Palestinians are the latest population in a line of occupiers of that region etc. Why is the west particularly bad and compared to where?
As vast swathes of Russia, China, Asia, The Middle East, Africa, South America et al continue to lurch from insurmountable misery to insurmountable misery throughout history, there is presumably a sense of comfort and certainty for the critics in turning their attention inwards. They have the luxury of policing the old quotes of western historical heroes and searching for modern day micro-aggressions on social media. As Don Quixote tilted at windmills in the absence of any remaining giants to fight so must they create such chimeras.
None of this is to suggest the west as anything close to a utopia but the crust of civilisation is a thin one and hard won so they are in effect ranting against one of the calmer periods of history in the calmest regions. Meanwhile the global norm continues to be a case of torture, slavery, repression etc. So again, why is there a disproportionate focus on the crimes of the west?
The Arab trading of Africans (and Europeans) toted up higher numbers than the western trade yet receives less attention due to the identity of the purveyors. Britain was the first to stop participating in the existing African slave markets and went to great effort and cost to outlaw the trade globally. The reason Britain’s troops firing on a crowd in India was notable and big news is because it was an unacceptable anomaly, investigated, condemned and the guilty party punished.
This just isn’t the case elsewhere, the crimes would likely never even be acknowledged, nor the free speech granted to criticise them. It is of course easy to constantly guilt trip and make a doormat of the parties who are willing to show the most contrition. Where are the demands for historical apologies globally and where would they end if every scab is continually picked open?
Murray has a rich well to draw from with regular misunderstandings of facts and statistics as social media crowds whip themselves up into a frenzy. The audiobook in particular makes for a good listen as he gives the angry, irrational outbursts a suitably deranged voice for quotations.
Disingenuous and often fabricated claims are taken to task. An interesting point is made when Murray asserts that the “leftist” love for native cultures is fetishistic and shallow. They often wish to impose another foreign, western ideology; in this case putting them under the boot of Marxist industrialism and deconstructionist narratives.
The collapse of religion in the west has left a huge absence of meaning, with many people not satisfied to live out their lives as atomised consumer units. It is thus understandable that an unhappy, wired generation would congregate around a subjective orthodoxy of moral purity and virtue with such zeal.
Those that would once have counted themselves as rebels against a system now fall into lockstep with the globalist elites behind every corporation, education syllabus, media institution and social media platform. This, as rival interest groups repeatedly clash within ever more densely packed nations. Grievance politics and its obsessive devotees are unhelpful to say the least.
As The War On The West exhaustively makes clear, this acquired sense of purpose is sadly masochistic, unhealthy and ultimately unfair. For now there remain some critical voices such as Murray’s who question the wisdom of this skewed focus on all things western; rather than employing “whataboutery” they are simply asking for all important context and consistency.
