Foreign Policy, Cretinism and Decadence

Do We Want to Disprove Putin’s Prophecy of the Collapse of Democracies?

 
Almost fifty years ago, the philosopher and—because he was first and foremost a philosopher—theorist of international relations, Raymond Aron, wrote a book (1977) with the ironic title Plaidoyer pour une Europe décadente (A Plea for a Decadent Europe). Let me reassure my readers: neither Aron nor I ever embraced an Oswald Spengler-style theory of the decadence of nations and peoples. Neither he nor I were inclined to sing the funeral hymn of a past forever more luminous and intelligent than our present. Neither he nor I are inclined to believe that mankind has become more cretinous over the centuries and suddenly incapable of thought. What we say about the mass of our contemporaries also applies to politicians: no doubt there are few great figures, but it remains unproven that there were more of them before.

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