The West is playing with fire by rejecting the Enlightenment values that created it
British intellectuals are now at pains to deny that Western ideas or culture can claim any universal validity or special importance
16 April 2021 • 9:30pm
Those of us who associated Prince Philip with a life of pomp, deference, polo and palaces have learnt that his early life was one of danger, disruption and tragedy. At the time of his birth, an influential best-seller was Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West – our present-day worries are nothing new. The First World War had shattered a two-century story of rising European power, wealth and cultural primacy. Revolution destroyed the Continent’s cosmopolitan aristocratic society. Economic turmoil undermined social stability. Fascism, a toxic hybrid of archaism and modernity, took hold in the cradles of European culture, shaking its moral foundations. For many intellectuals, the liberal order was doomed.