The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason

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Douglas Murray begins his most recent polemic with a blunt, clear opening. It is both a warning and a lament for the state of the modern world and contemporary politics: There is an assault going on against everything to do with the Western world—its past, present, and future.” So writes Spectator associate editor Murray, whose previous books have sounded warnings against the presumed dangers of Islam and of non-Western immigration to the West. As the author argues, Westerners are supposed to take in refugees from Africa, Asia, and Latin America while being “expected to abolish themselves.” Murray soon arrives at a crux: “Historically the citizens of Europe and their offspring societies in the Americas and Australasia have been white,” he writes, while the present is bringing all sorts of people who aren’t White into the social contract. The author also takes on the well-worn subject of campus “wokeness,” a topic of considerable discussion by professors who question whether things have gone a bit too far; indeed, the campus is the locus for much of the anti-Western sentiment that Murray condemns. The author’s arguments against reparations for past damages inflicted by institutionalized slavery are particularly glib. “It comes down to people who look like the people to whom a wrong was done in history receiving money from people who look like the people who may have done the wrong,” he writes. “It is hard to imagine anything more likely to rip apart a society than attempting a wealth transfer based on this principle.” Murray does attempt to negotiate some divides reasonably, arguing against “exclusionary lines” and for Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s call for a more vigorous and welcoming civil culture. Too often, however, the author falters, as when he derides Gen. Mark Milley for saying, “I want to understand white rage. And I’m white”—perhaps forgetting the climacteric White rage that Milley monitored on January 6, 2021. The world culture which has brought equality, human rights, individual dignity and democracy into being on a global scale — the West — has suddenly turned on itself and begun tearing itself apart. The collapse of religion in the west has left a huge absence of meaning, with many people not satisfied to live out their lives as atomised consumer units. It is thus understandable that an unhappy, wired generation would congregate around a subjective orthodoxy of moral purity and virtue with such zeal. Susan Sontag called white Western civilisation “the cancer of human history”. Given what Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are up to, it might be fairer, if unconsoling, to see the West as history’s chemotherapy. Traumatic to encounter, in many ways destructive, but the alternatives don’t bear thinking about.

None of this is to suggest the west as anything close to a utopia but the crust of civilisation is a thin one and hard won so they are in effect ranting against one of the calmer periods of history in the calmest regions. Meanwhile the global norm continues to be a case of torture, slavery, repression etc. So again, why is there a disproportionate focus on the crimes of the west? As a result, we get two books in one. A series of celebrations – and defences – of the best of the West sits alongside a catalogue of anti-white discrimination, mostly pursued as a form of white self-flagellation to atone for racial sin. Murray shows how, beginning in the early 2000s and accelerating from 2018, the new antiracism has spread from America and seized many of Britain’s vital and much-loved institutions, from the Church of England to the Royal Academy of Music. While I’m far from suggesting that progressive goal is to triumph through will, I also don’t think the expression of progressive politics fit into the Nietzschean framework of ressentiment. Or said another way, Murray is trying to fit a square peg through a round hole when applying Nietzsche to modern politics. But his polemics are replete with absurd simplifications and this one is no exception. He is wilfully blind to the threat that right wing extremism poses to democracy - even the FBI, that deep state, left wing cabal - thinks white nationalist extremists pose a far greater threat to civilisation. But that does not make him wrong - there is an attempt to delegitimise and shame white people and deny the progress that flawed Western societies have made. He can't help going over the top when spewing out his thesis or his examples. He is filled to the brim with hatred and contempt. Mr. Murray, I may not agree with everything about your politics but I am proud as an American that you had the courage to write this book. It is a clarion call for all of us to reject this noxious divisiveness that is happening around race.stars. A well-written, extraordinarily incisive look at the current climate of scorn and disdain for Western culture and values, primarily focusing on the self-loathing that springs from within the West itself. Murray posits that, in our eagerness to right past wrongs and correct any remaining current wrongs, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater; the West has many redeeming qualities, qualities well worth preserving, and to deny that in the name of “progress” isn’t going to lead to genuine progress at all. Genuine progress would consist of keeping what works and discarding what doesn’t. That this needs clarifying is a rather sad state of affairs. Oh, there were plenty. The chapter about reparations is very good, and the ones about "privilege" and cultural imitation are great as well - in fact, it's hard to find any section one could find redundant or not informative. My absolute top one was about the hypocrisy of the far left, whose witch-hunting efforts' results are sometimes utterly ridiculous, while Marks himself seems to be excluded from any scrutiny ... keeping in mind his letters to Engels, LOL. Murray’s account exposes the UN as a powerful hub of anti West rhetoric, and the UN human rights council’s twisted system of values – there, “Israel, America, and the European powers are constantly berated for historic crimes by such luminaries of human right as Iran, Syria and Venezuela.” It leads readers to the inevitable conclusion that Israel is a target because it is a thoroughly Western state – the obsessive assault against it is part and parcel of the ongoing demonizing of the West. In the end, for all the West’s failings, as Murray says in his chapter on China, the most important question to ask its critics is “compared to what?” Today, the China-Russia alliance presents a chilling glimpse of the real alternative: a pair of genocidal, expansionist regimes, each justifying its crimes in the name of civilisational purity.

Murray levels his sights at a variety of topics and figures, including alleged racism, slavery (and reparations), cancel culture, Edward Said, Michel Foucault and Karl Marx. The list may be long, but Murray’s aim is always true. Murray drops this excellent quote, that was part of an interlude in the book titled "Gratitude." I agree 100%: Most of this chapter just continues with Murray listing off things he doesn’t like and expecting that his readers won’t like them either. By this point the War on the West is less of a book and more a compendium of things that have happened. I also felt like Murray draws attention to how one sided the criticism is for the west, when many eastern and Asian countries have done or doing similar things. China’s expansion and recolonization of Africa in particular is incredibly concerning yet is seemingly unnoticed while the west is focused on social justice issues and searching for every person who should be canceled and what can now be considered a micro aggression.

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Hatred and self-loathing toward Western Civilization and white people, in general, has been a growing trend. Murray traces the roots of this trend to thinkers like Michel Foucault, Edward Said, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Herbert Marcuse out of The Frankfurt School in Germany (although not mentioned in this book) played a large role, as well. Marcuse provided the philosophical underpinnings to neo-Marxists and Critical Theorists; Angela Davis, among the more notable names. The War on the Westby Douglas Murray is not necessarily a history book, but it is one of the most important books that any historian should read this year. Historians (and students of history) are well placed to show that the story of the West is not just a litany of shame. There is plenty in the traditions of the West that should be celebrated rather than condemned.