A Civilization Ashamed of Itself Cannot Lead

 Last Wednesday, Marco Rubio stood in Athens, in my home country, and described the West: ashamed of its own greatness, no longer inventing, neglecting its industry. The cause is cultural; we stopped believing in the ideas that made us great.

In January 1987, about 500 Stanford students marched across campus chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go.” Fourteen months later, the faculty senate voted 39 to 4 to end the required Western Culture course. Few people noticed at the time, but it was an early symptom of a much larger shift. 

The West is suffering from a fear of one’s own home and inheritance, known as oikophobia. Those who suffer from oikophobia align themselves with ‘them’ rather than with ‘us’ in any dispute. Oikophobes regard national loyalty as a form of prejudice, and see our customs as something that needs to be apologised for.