Decline of the West: Historian Niall Ferguson Sounds Wake Up Call

“THE MULTITUDES remained plunged in ignorance… and their leaders, seeking their votes, did not dare to undeceive them.” So wrote Winston Churchill of the victors of the first world war in “The Gathering Storm.” He bitterly recalled a “refusal to face unpleasant facts, desire for popularity and electoral success irrespective of the vital interests of the state.”

The subhead of this article states, "As it leaves Afghanistan in chaos, America's decline mirrors Britain's a century ago. It may invite wider conflict, warns a historian." 

The historian is Niall Ferguson, and he's been flashing warning lights for some time now. One of the books I'm currently reading is Ferguson's The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die. He cites example after example of government red tape and head-in-the-sand decision making would almost suggest that our self-destruction is deliberate.   

You can tell from Ferguson's other titles that he's pessimistic about our future unless things change. His most recent title is Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. Another of his books is Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. But his aim is not to get us depressed. It's intended to wake us up. We've become complacent.  

These titles bring to mind a book I read a while back that underscored how Britain fell from three centuries of global dominance to second rate nation in a 50 year span. That book's message, too, was that we'd better wake up. Empires can fall much faster than you think, and the biggest fall hardest.

I like the title of the Orwell volume that has been part of my recent bedtime reading: Facing Unpleasant Truths.

But as Churchill lamented, leaders enjoyed their roles as leaders and avoided having to make the hard decisions required to keep Britain strong. Today, a lot of U.S. leaders seem to be dancing to the same music, singing the same song, "More bread, more cake, more beer, more cradle to grave security."

Unfortunately, books like Ferguson's get treated like those cartoons in which we see a man on the street with a sign that reads, "THE END IS NEAR." It's become cliche, a joke. We don't take it seriously. 

Ferguson implores us to wake up because civilization is worth preserving. In an interview this past month with Lex Fridman (Podcasting A.I. researcher at MIT) Ferguson expresses concern because Americans have absolutely no concept of what it means when civilizations break down.  

At one point he cites a Polish intellectual who said, "Americans can never imagine what it's like for civilization to be completely destroyed as it was in Poland by the end of World War II, to have no rule of law, to have no security of even person, never mind property rights. You can't imagine what that's like and what it will lead you to do..." Ferguson goes on to say, "To preserve civilization is a tremendous responsibility that we have. It's a huge responsibility."

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Niall Ferguson: History of Money, Power, War, and Truth | Lex Fridman Podcast #239

LINKS

Niall Ferguson on why the end of America’s empire won’t be peaceful

Man Against Himself
   One reviewer of this book read it while in prison and it changed his life. He is now--after finishing his time--top of his class in grad school.
The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die

Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.