Needless contrition

In the UK Telegraph, Douglas Murray observes how a justified pride in Western civilisation has been reduced over just 50 years to shame and a grovelling, irrational debasement:

More than 50 years have gone by since the BBC ran Lord Kenneth Clark’s extraordinary 13-part documentary series Civilisation. 

It aimed to give a unified history of Western civilisation, and it did so, informing the understanding of millions of viewers around the world.

In 2018, the BBC tried to follow this up. Civilisations (note the plural this time) was a hodgepodge creation of three different historians, trying desperately to make sure that they didn’t sound as if they were saying the West was better than anywhere else and giving a sort of world history that made nothing very clear.

In a few short decades, the Western tradition has moved from being celebrated to being embarrassing and anachronistic and, finally, to being something shameful. It turned from a story meant to inspire people and nurture them in their lives into a story meant to shame them….

Read on…