Without Roots

Without Roots, Pope Benedict XVI

I’ve kept reading notes for years - quotes, ideas, etc. Some make it into my writing, but most don’t. This series is a way to use the leftovers; not quite reviews, not quite summaries - just what I underlined, and why. Enjoy.

Without Roots; The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, by Pope Benedict XVI & Marcello Pera

Bought years ago, I realised I had made extensive notes that would make this perfect for this series.

A foul wind is blowing through Europe. I am referring to the idea that all we have to do is wait and our troubles will disappear by themselves, so that we can afford to be lenient even with people who threaten us, and that in the end, everything will work out for the best. This same wind blew through Munich in 1938. While the wind might sound like a sigh of relief, it is really a shortness of breath. It could turn out to be the death-rattle of a continent that no longer understands what principles to believe, and consequently mixes everything together in a rhetorical hodgepodge. A continent whose population is decreasing. A continent whose economy cannot compete. A continent that does not invest in research. That thinks that the protective social state is an institution free of charge. That is unwilling to shoulder the responsibilities attendant upon its history and its role. That seeks to be a counterweight without carrying its own weight. That, when called upon to fight, always replies that fighting is the extrema ratio, as if to say that war is a ratio that should never be used.

But do not misunderstand me, either deliberately or through distraction. I am not advocating a Western declaration of war or state of war. I am advocating something else that to me seems even more important. I am urging people to realize that a war has indeed been declared on the West. I am not pushing for a rejection of dialogue, which we need more than ever with those Islamic countries that wish to live in peaceful coexistence with the West, to our mutual benefit. I am asking for something more fundamental: I am asking for people to realize that dialogue will be a waste of time if one of the two partners to the dialogue states beforehand that one idea is as good as the other.

The self-criticism described by Vargas Llosa is always useful. But why take it to such an extreme, in Europe and in America, with such self-condemnation, self-immolation, and atonement, combined with such scarce recognition of our great merits? I truly do not understand. Perhaps the West today no longer understands what is right. It only knows what is wrong, and it readjusts its notions of right and wrong every time that someone complains about one of its errors. Or maybe it is simply exhausted. As Vargas Llosa has said, “Democracy is an event that provokes yawns in the countries in which rule of law exists.” I hope that he’s wrong, and that the lethargy he describes does not exist. But if, unfortunately, he is right, then we need to start rubbing our eyes and wake up.

Finally, it feels like we are rubbing our eyes and waking up. The question is whether it is to late to seize the day.

Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as if they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen as a liability rather than as a source of hope. There is a clear comparison between today’s situation and the decline of the Roman Empire. In its final days, Rome still functioned as a great historical framework, but in practice it was already subsisting on models that were destined to fail. Its vital energy had been depleted.

Even when western societies do discuss family policy or formation, they primarily discuss them as an economic measure - a way to get mothers back contributing to the economy. Even when western societies do discuss family policy or formation not as an economic measure, we talk about them as units of production - we never talk about how having children is, or the inherent moral good that comes of a stable family, but about how we have to reach a TFR target. That’s no encouragement to anyone; our vital energy must be restored, and that involves an appreciation of and investment in children on a human level. But as we grow older as a society, it becomes more and more hostile to children.