I’ve just read a good item, by Joel Kotkin at City Journal, about a conference in Normandy on the future of Western democracy. It is appropriately gloomy, and savvy readers will catch a whiff of the Iron Law of Oligarchy in the extent to which democratic rule in Europe is anything but representative, and proceeds without much regard for “consent”.
An excerpt:
European intellectuals at Normandy focused mostly on the cultural roots of continental decline. There was much discussion about the erosion of affiliations that long bound the citizen of European nations to one another. This erosion is most notable among those whom British author David Goodhart calls the “anywheres’””cosmopolitan and largely post-national elites””who generally look down on ordinary, more rooted Europeans, or “somewheres.’ The “anywhere’ tendency is prominent in European media, which downplays coverage of Islamist agitation, as well as rapes and crime associated with refugees, since these disturb its preferred narrative of a multicultural, post-national world. Other “everywhere’ prejudices can be seen in the progressive political elites of both parties and academia. “Liberalism is stupid about culture,’ Goodhart suggests.
Many conference speakers tied these “anywhere’ values to a weakening of European identity. “The European ”˜we’ does not exist,’ suggested Manent. “We don’t know any more what we are.’ The EU, that great construct of progressive centralism, he added, “is devoid of any character. European culture is in hiding, disappearing, without a soul.’ Critical here is the precipitous decline of Christianity, the ideal that forged Europe’s premodern identity. Well over 50 percent of Europeans under 30 don’t identify with a religion; in the UK, the Muslim population could exceed Anglican Church membership within a decade.
Christianity’s decline, observed Tocqueville scholar Joshua Mitchell, represents a direct threat to European democracy. The great French writer, he reminded us, was Christian, and his descendants today remain committed to the Catholic faith. Christian values tempered the transition from aristocracy to democracy; Tocqueville saw Christianity as a constraint on the rampant individualism and materialism characteristic of democratic societies, which he had observed in the United States. Tocqueville, Mitchell suggested, “believed people have to have a culture, a place and a religion.’
Perhaps the most heated expression of demo-pessimism comes as a reaction to mass migration, notably from Islamic countries. The decision of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to open her borders to refugees from places like Syria and Afghanistan and the African continent has destabilized European sensibilities in a way not seen since the Second World War. Few speakers defended Merkel’s actions, reflecting almost three-to-one negative reaction to mass migration among Europeans.
Read the whole thing here.