The new essay by the editorialist of the Corriere is released on 29 March for Mondadori, which analyzes and denounces the weakening of democracies in the confrontation with dictatorships
Vladimir Putin when they look at the West? A world that will not be difficult to beat and perhaps tear down. To attack, as seen in Ukraine. Weak, confused, irreversible decline. Is that so? Is this our reality? Federico Rampini’s latest book – Western suicide, in bookstores from today for Mondadori – it is not just an example of timing that explains what is fixed in the minds of authoritarian leaders when they challenge liberal democracies. It is above all the recognition of how the latter are seriously engaging in the cancellation of their own values: it clarifies, to say, that behind the invasion of recent weeks ordered by the Kremlin there is not just a generic geopolitical move; at the root is our social, cultural, economic, institutional and obviously political vacillation.
The authoritarian powers – writes Rampini – despise the Western model. But, even before that, “the latter has been repudiated in his own home”: by an economic establishment that, behind globalization, hates national identity, “that is, what was the historical glue of democracies”; and from a cultural establishment sprouted in the Sixties and today in full bloom according to which “we are the supreme Evil”. The book is a broad and precise denunciation of “politically correct”. But not a superficial denunciation of the annoying ways in which left-wing conformism reveals itself: it analyzes its profound consequences on society.
One of the places where “propaganda indoctrination” does the worst damage is the education system, above all in the United States, “where serious culture is banned”. Schools and universities have been largely conquered by an ideology according to which not only every negative phenomenon is the responsibility of the white man, but also according to which this white man must be re-educated and immediately penalized. A racism of the skin that lies behind the anti-racism campaigns conducted for example by the Black Lives Matter movement. And not only that: in many universities it is impossible for those who do not follow even the most extreme positions on sex and gender to have the right to speak. Often, teachers who dare to express opinions different from those of organized militant groups must then humble themselves into public self-criticism and still risk being turned away from teaching by fearful academic authorities.
In this analysis of what happens in the United States, Rampini is particularly critical of the so-called progressive media. Especially with the “New York Times”, which in recent years has made an intolerant turn towards the debate of ideas. In addition to closing itself off due to the activism of many of its young journalists, the great New York newspaper played a central role in building the critical race theorythe theory according to which racism is the building block of American institutions: theory that has become the glue of often violent movements and also the cover of organized gangs.
The responsibility of the “New York Times” is identified by Rampini in the “1619 Project” that the newspaper has been carrying out for years: a series of historical analyzes often unfounded to argue that the true foundation of the United States must be dated to the year in which the first slave ship from Africa arrived.
In the intense criticism that leads to the ideologies of the “illiberal left” that risk destroying the formidable strength of the West, Rampini spares no effort. When he talks about the environmental movements that mobilize on the climate, he talks about “New Paganism”, about the priestly role of this religion carried out by academics, politicians, company leaders, movie and music stars. And, speaking of Greta Thunberg, he says that having considered her the bearer of a new political philosophy “is a sign of cultural barbarism, the flattening of the adult world towards a childish language”. And he concludes: the Communist and Confucian Xi Jinping “observes the” Greta phenomenon “as one of the Western perversions”those that in his reading testify to the decline of the West.
The book is not just an analysis of the serious damage that politically correct does. And it’s not just about the United States. Talk about the waning capacity of democratic states to accomplish things, starting with infrastructure. Talk about the large economic groups that tend to harness the birth of new businesses. Politicians, especially Californians, who, due to an ideology that despises law and law, have made entire parts of the cities they govern unlivable. But it is not a resigned book: the subtitle is an opening, Because it is wrong to process our history and erase our values.
Capitalism, in particular the American one, is in a phase of involution but it is certainly not dead. Elon Musk can only be born in America, however in the West, certainly not in China and Russia. The venture capital continues to finance ideas and businesses. The financial system based on the dollar and the euro is dominant. And, on the geopolitical side, the unfortunate withdrawal of Joe Biden from Afghanistan is contrasted by the “Blob”, the powerful establishment – diplomacy more part of politics than the industrial-military apparatus – which continues to have an imperial vision of the United States.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin see the convulsion of the West. They know that empires, from Roman to American, sooner or later end and usually collapse first from within. They will go out of their way to help and speed up this process. But times do not necessarily dictate them. The war in Ukraine, for example, could give liberal democracies a certain sense of themselves. We’ll see. Rampini, meanwhile, closes the book with a hope: “I would like us to hear a hundredth of what peoples to whom our values are forbidden feel.”
March 28, 2022 (change March 28, 2022 | 21:14)
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