Abu Wabu

It's frustrating that there is so much traffic to New Criterion that their server has been sidelined. The problem stems from the demand for Roger Kimball's expansive essay, After The Suicide Of The West, which reveals western liberalism and multiculturalism as the recipe for the dismantling of its support structure by its own volition, which of course is the very definition of suicide.

Until the traffic glitch goes away, refer to Belmont Club's thoughtful and illuminating Kimball and Steyn on the end of the West by Wretchard.

That's right- Mark Steyn figures in here as well with his spicier "It's The Demography, Stupid", an unapologetic and brutally frank exposé on the fate of the Modern Leftist State:

"The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birth rate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyper-rationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a twenty-first-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could only increase their numbers by conversion. ...

That’s what the war’s about: our lack of civilizational confidence. As a famous Arnold Toynbee quote puts it: "Civilizations die from suicide, not murder"—as can be seen throughout much of "the western world" right now. The progressive agenda —lavish social welfare, abortion, secularism, multiculturalism—is collectively the real suicide bomb. ... "

Agreed.

Wretchard's final Commentary anticipates the result of the progressive's arrogant and doomed quest for idealistic bliss: he ends up screaming for the one last body he can throw between himself and the murderously ravenous rats. A must read.

UPDATED
No-one seems to know how long New Criterion will be unavailable, so I have taken the liberty of reproducing the Roger Kimball article, After The Suicide Of The West, in its entirety. I hope the author and New Criterion will accept this not as copyright infringement but as a service to their regular readers and others who are interested in seeing what all the fuss is about. The Steyn column, "It's The Demography, Stupid", is available at Opinion Journal.