[00:03.99]Western Civilization Faces a Stark Choice Ⅱ
[00:07.93]Economic Growth
[00:11.42]The west's stunning economic advance
[00:14.02]over the past 1000 years, and especially the last 200 years,
[00:18.76]has made mankind an ecological success and the west dominant.
[00:23.63]Victories over hunger and disease are unprecedented.
[00:27.45]Yet, if non-western countries eventually reached
[00:31.58]western consumption levels, the damage to the environment
[00:35.13]would be multiplied 12 times. The planet cannot cope with that.
[00:39.40]Happily, a new factor is emerging—
[00:42.58]the “personalised economy”,
[00:44.79]driven by imagination and intellect,
[00:47.61]not capital and hierarchy.
[00:49.69]Growth today can be increasingly “weightless”—
[00:53.07]we consume software and services rather than hunks of metal.
[00:56.93]In the last century the US economy grew to
[01:00.13]20 times its earlier size, but the weight
[01:03.17]of output stayed roughly the same.
[01:05.36]Averting ecological suicide requires growth
[01:09.30]using far fewer finite resources.
[01:11.94]Individualism
[01:13.63]This has always been the west's most striking characteristic.
[01:17.76]Now many inside the west are worried by individualism.
[01:21.75]Our highly atomistic society makes it easy to feel a failure.
[01:26.51]Every civilization has had self-made people.
[01:30.25]Ours is the first to foster millions
[01:33.59]of self-destroyed people.
[01:35.31]Yet selfish individualism is a recent heresy,
[01:38.66]a contradiction. Historically,
[01:41.62]individualism has advanced higher standards
[01:44.29]of personal behavior, with community building,
[01:47.25]with leadership. We have stopped requiring that.
[01:50.83]If we do not demand truly responsible individualism,
[01:54.82]from our leaders, role models and ourselves,
[01:58.17]our civilization will disintegrate.
[02:00.80]Liberalism
[02:02.26]The greatest threat to the west comes from liberalism's decline
[02:06.22]and from the “liberal imperialists”
[02:09.31]and neo-conservatives so influential in America.
[02:12.62]Also from the “ultra-liberals”,
[02:15.63]the relativists who see nothing special
[02:17.76]about western liberal society,
[02:19.91]who deny personal responsibility
[02:22.14]and incubate the “victim mentality”.
[02:24.74]But the greatest threat to liberalism is that
[02:27.96]few still believe passionately in it.
[02:30.08]Liberalism's successes have blunted its appeal.
[02:33.34]Western civilisation has reached a fork in the road.
[02:36.81]Down one road lie cynicism, aggression,
[02:40.49]indifference, neo-conservatism and ultra-liberalism.
[02:44.18]Down the other lies a recovery of nerve,
[02:46.95]confidence in ourselves and our culture,
[02:49.38]unity within and between America and Europe,
[02:53.04]a society of individuals held together by self-improvement,
[02:57.36]striving, optimism, reason, compassion,
[03:01.59]equality and mutual identity.
[03:04.42]The road chosen will determine whether our civilisation
[03:08.23]collapses or reaches its destiny.
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