Decline & Fall

No other author has chronicled the nihilistic spirit of our times with such pitiless clarity.

Something in the United Kingdom is fraying. It’s hard to pin down, but in the years following the pandemic, there has been a perception across the country that ‘things’ are persistently getting worse, and slowly, but surely, a muted retreat is taking place. The decline is not dramatic, nor is it grabbing any headlines. It’s quiet, domestic, deeply human—and perhaps in its own way, therefore uniquely British. Fewer people are having children, fewer people are purchasing their first home. Slowly, there has been a fade from our cultural life.

In the Britain of 2025, fewer people are getting married, and fewer are starting families. We are not just facing an economic downturn, we are looking on as a nation unravels.

When the adversary denies borders, morality, and the value of human life itself, refusal to resist is not a path to peace. It is a path to erasure.

Imagine: war has broken out again in Europe. But instead of mobilization, we see debates. Instead of heroes—hashtags. Instead of resistance—philosophical arguments about the nature of evil.

Today’s Europe is not ready to defend itself—neither institutionally nor morally. And even if new Churchills and de Gaulles were to appear tomorrow, they would likely be powerless to change anything. Because there would simply be no one left to stand behind them.

This is excellent. @fancypants_s https://t.co/bVAToQS0li

— Patti Jo (@TheSupeHero) January 10, 2025

h/t Patti Jo

The combined federal and provincial government debt in seven provinces has surpassed the value of all goods and services produced in those provinces. This not only impairs economic growth but also directly impacts our daily lives and living standards, as revealed by a new study published by the Fraser Institute.

Author Jason Childs says, “When government debt grows so high that it is larger than the entire value of the economy, not only does additional debt offer no benefit to growth, living standards stagnate.”

When a banana duct-taped to a wall is juxtaposed against a Monet, the absurdity of this cultural revolution is starkly apparent.

In the intellectual and cultural arenas of the Western world, a counter-revolution to the burgeoning woke ideology is underway. Yet, the bastions of academic arts have entrenched themselves deep within the doctrines of intersectionality, pushing their agendas with a zeal that borders on the religious. This persistence is partially reshaping the cultural landscape, transforming the zeitgeist into a mere tool for career advancement rather than a beacon of diverse thought. Today’s cultural dialogue is one that is commodified, delivered by way of push notifications on smartphones that signal not groundbreaking ideas but adherence to the latest politically correct trends.

Is the rise of digital media causing the fall of literacy?

For a brief period after the near-simultaneous birth of the smartphone and social media, euphoria prevailed. Instant web-enabled communications networks, it was widely believed, were delivering into the hands of the masses the means to fulfill the brightest hopes about globalization that had been raised at the end of the Cold War. Abroad, advocates of democracy would use the new technologies to beat back the forces of tyranny and repression; within the liberal West, the same technologies would rejuvenate democratic culture and civic life. An array of disparate ideological factions—from liberal internationalists to libertarians to anarchists—seized on versions of this narrative. And for a time, it seemed to be borne out, as tech-savvy young people challenged entrenched power and scored some remarkable (if short-lived) victories, notably in the Middle East.

Insanity in the west includes marching against Israel, the country that symbolizes all the lost values of western society.

In Pedro Almodovar’s film, “La mala educación”, there is an amazing phrase from the protagonist, Ignacio: “I don’t believe in anything and therefore I’m not afraid of anything”. Here it is, the new spirit blowing in the West from Columbia University to the Biennale in Venice, one of the world’s most famous artistic festivals which opened this week in Italy.

A progressive, inclusive, anti-colonial Biennale open to the “South of the world”, where sexual gender and geographical origin count more than talent.

Hitler banned smoking and the Germans obeyed. In the West, it all began in 1995 when liberals got a cause, no smoking, sanctioned by the government. They went on from there.

I’d been reluctant to say this, but now I think it is time…that the ban on smoking is responsible for all this.

Been downhill ever since. The rats are out in the open. The good people are in hiding. As at Columbia U, where thousands there and elsewhere are staging an American Kristallnacht.

Yes, I know, smoking cigarettes can be hazardous to your health, second-hand smoke included, but back then, before 1995, people had choices. It was live and let live.

Our moral confusion is proving suicidal

When and why did American life become so coarse, amoral and ungovernable? In his classic 1993 essay, “Defining Deviancy Down”, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan offered a semantic explanation. He concluded that, as the amount of deviant behaviour increased beyond the levels the community can “afford to recognise”, we have been redefining deviancy so as to exempt conduct we used to stigmatise, while also quietly raising the “normal” level in categories where behaviour is now abnormal by any earlier standard. The reasons behind this, he said, were altruism, opportunism and denial — but the result was the same: an acceptance of mental pathology, broken families and crime as a fact of life.

Elected governments no longer have the power or will to do what is needed to save our free societies

We are threatened by external and internal dangers. We see and feel them. Politicians, generals and diplomats sound the alarm. Our defences are weak. Our enemies are emboldened. Our streets are disorderly. What follows the stark warnings? Not much. Words do not announce action but cover inaction.

Rishi Sunak appeals for calm and urges the police to do their job: and they arrest an anti-terrorist demonstrator. Is the Prime Minister just a spectator? The Budget ignores national defence, which both parties say is inadequate. Does Jeremy Hunt disagree? Michael Gove seeks a new definition of extremism to enable the Government and the Civil Service to decide who are beyond the pale as partners and recipients of public money. Do they not know?