The Europeans are starting to catch on to the idea that they’re destroying their own culture at fatal cost to the liberal project of universal progress for individuals everywhere. Yet though Der Spiegel, at least, can see clearly enough to the crisis, the worried fumbling toward awkward questions that closes out the inquiry is cause, over here, for extra concern. In all fairness, it’s a devilish problem. Western liberalism may have already sown the seeds of its own demise. The European experience disproves the hypothesis that American-style underclasses are the ruin of the hegemon alone. And however much we might enjoy a laugh at the folly of idealists, there is absolutely zero guarantee that what will replace it won’t be even worse.
