European Obsession with Security

The inquisitive mind of Michelle Malkin finds and links to a Theodore Dalrymple essay about The Old World.

Is Old Europe Doomed? The principal motor of Europe’s current decline is, in my view, its obsession with social security, which has created rigid social and economic systems that are extremely resistant to change. And this obsession with social security is in turn connected with a fear of the future: for the future has now brought Europe catastrophe and relative decline for more than a century.

What exactly is it that Europeans fear, given that their decline has been accompanied by an unprecedented increase in absolute material well-being? An open economy holds out more threat to them than promise: they believe that the outside world will bring them not trade and wealth, but unemployment and a loss of comfort. They therefore are inclined to retire into their shell and succumb to protectionist temptation, both internally with regard to the job market, and externally with regard to other nations. And the more those other nations advance relative to themselves, the more necessary does protection seem to them. A vicious circle is thus set up.

I can only imagine how the European wars of the twentieth century affected the minds of the survivors, and how the magnitude of loss and suffering in the population shaped the subsequent culture. It does seem plausible, however, that an excess of trauma could lead to an increased love of safety, and electorates that desire and approve maternalistic governments. The question of the moment is whether these societies of social security are viewed as vulnerable targets by poorer neighbors indoctrinated not to show fear.

Effects of Tawhid on Human Life: This declaration inspires bravery in man. There are two things which make a man cowardly: (i) fear of death and love of safety, and (ii) the idea that there is someone else besides God who can take away life and that man, by adopting certain devices, can ward off death. Belief in La ilaha illallah purges the mind of both these ideas.

The United States may have been fortunate that the immigrant pressure following the Civil War for the most part shared the social values of the country.