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

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Murray’s book is not, of course, apolitical as a whole, and its political aspects account, I think, for some of its shortcomings. It is difficult to take these baleful warnings at face value, however, given that all the Twitter accounts Murray cites as evidence have fewer than a thousand followers, which strikes me as a somewhat insufficient basis of support if your goal is to erase mathematical logic from the minds of an entire generation. Murray’s analysis of the situation at hand hits on many worthwhile points but his analysis is often shallow, and I believe willfully so. He’s certain that people are coming to decolonise maths and make it antiracist, although he can only cite some ridiculous quotes about people trying to prove 2+2=5, before telling the reader that such systems are being rolled out across the west (citation needed).

In November 2017 the people of Zimbabwe took to the streets in an unprecedented alliance with the military. The War on the West, Douglas Murray ( paperback March 2023) €13,95 In The War on the West, international bestselling author Douglas Murray asks: if the history of humankind is one of slavery, conquest, prejudice, genocide and exploitation, why are only Western nations taking the blame for it? Could it be because repeated governments dismiss the concerns of the young and merely continue to wreak the same outmoded, futureless policies that were rendered obsolete by the 2008 recession?The USA may not have had an empire, but it has earned the ire of many a foreign nation through its constant tampering in the affairs of independent nations: much of South and Central America is justified in its resentment towards the USA, as are Vietnam and Cambodia, a swathe of the Middle East, Haiti, Japan and a certain amount of Eastern Europe, to name but a few. Clearly, country’s are complex and their successes and failures are deeply intertwined with their histories. The antiracist component is a far smaller issue within this story and I doubt that if the west was able to compellingly claim moral superiority that it would dare to lecture the Chinese. None of us should feel shame or discrimination on the basis of skin colour which we are unable to choose. Such an attractive and successful culture has no reason to worry about disagreements or debates and certainly doesn’t need the extravagant and often overstated case that Murray makes on its behalf.

Every now and then I like to reach across the political aisle and see what they’re reading on the other side.We can appreciate both “temples of the Far East” and “cathedrals” on our own doorstep at the same time. He levels a very weird and inconclusive critique at the long history of criticising the west, from Rousseau to Naomi Klein. It is worth noting that the west has created a culture so vibrant and fruitful that millions of migrants are willing to risk their lives to get a piece of it. He seems to think that we’re not allowed to talk about the ideas of Hume, JSM, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson or a wealth of other characters, when this simply isn’t the case. After all, if we must discard the ideas of Kant, Hume, and Mill for their opinions on race, shouldn't we discard Marx, whose work is peppered with racial slurs and anti-Semitism?