A Tale of Two Speeches and the Fight for the West
Western history is no longer approached as a complex legacy, marked by both common failings and unparalleled achievements—but is instead subjected to anachronistic and biased persecution.
The controversy surrounding a recent speaker at Virginia Tech—who justified the slogan “Death to America”—is not an isolated occurrence. It is part of a broader and deeply corrosive cultural pattern. Incidents such as this attract attention for their shock value, but they are unmistakable symptoms of a widespread intellectual and moral disorder affecting Western institutions, particularly academia.
At the heart of this disorder lies a growing civilizational self-doubt, which has morphed into something more dangerous: outright self-rejection and self-destruction. Western history is no longer approached as a complex legacy, marked by both common failings and unparalleled achievements—but is instead subjected to anachronistic and biased persecution.
It calls to mind the medieval Cadaver Synod, in which the body of Pope Formosus was exhumed and put on trial. The past is no longer studied with curiosity and appreciation; it is prosecuted without any meaningful opportunity for defense. It is judged by utopian standards of perfection, with blatant disregard for objectivity, historical context, or the undeniable achievements that unfolded over time.
This tendency did not emerge overnight. It reflects a long trajectory of critique within Western thought itself: from early socialist indictments of inequality, through classical Marxism, to cultural Marxism, critical theory, and postmodernism. Their present culmination is intersectionality, which reduces human experience to rigid frameworks of power, grievance, and identity. These theoretical frameworks, as well as their practical implementations, do not stimulate human flourishing but institute a form of “oppression Olympics.” Such ideas erode the very foundations that made free speech and critical inquiry possible in the first place: liberty, the rule of law, and the primacy of individual rights.
The remedy to social problems is not cultural arsonism, which seeks to burn down the entire civilizational edifice. What is required instead is renewal: a confident and deliberate re-engagement with the best of the Western intellectual and civic tradition. This includes revitalizing the classical liberal arts, which cultivate disciplined thought, moral reasoning, and historical understanding. It presupposes a serious commitment to American civics, rooted in constitutional principles and political responsibility. Such an education does not demand blind and uncritical acceptance of everything the past contains. But it does require intellectual honesty, proportion, gratitude, and acknowledgment of the exceptional achievements of free societies.
A striking contrast to the Virginia Tech episode was offered in recent speeches delivered by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at venues like Cornell University and the University of Dallas. In these addresses, Johnson argued unapologetically for the value and continuity of Western civilization as an unparalleled experiment in ordered liberty.
Invoking the depth of that tradition, Johnson recited lengthy passages from the opening of Homer’s Iliad in the original Greek—a symbolic affirmation that the foundations of the West remain alive and worth preserving. The enthusiastic applause that followed gives reason for hope that even among younger generations, the Classics and Western inheritance are treated with interest and appreciation.
These two moments—one marked by extremist provocation and hatred, the other by rational confidence and continuity—encapsulate a larger struggle over the meaning and future of the West. The stakes in this struggle extend far beyond any campus controversy. They concern whether Western societies will continue to understand themselves as fruitful traditions capable of renewal or as irredeemable structures deserving to self-destruct.
The outcome is not predetermined. It will depend on the West’s will to survive and on how we educate future generations. What is certain, however, is that civilizations do not endure when their internal and external enemies are heeded. Civilizations survive only when they are properly understood, consciously valued, and deliberately sustained.
Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.
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Comments
I think the only hope for future generations of Americans is that Big Education fail, and the renewal that you reference rise up in its ashes. How that happens, I fear there is no immediate answer.
Boris Johnson of all failed leaders
The Cadaver Synod? You know, I can see leftists doing that to Trump after he dies.
Just my opinion, but I think the future of our country lies within primary education and seriously going back to the basics and removing government control completely from all public schools. What’s wrong with re-establishing the subjects we used to have to study in order to graduate and reading the great classics of literature that we also had to complete and write a thesis on what we took from those legendary tomes for our end of year grades? And stop with the editing of History books; I’ve perused a few of these in my district and I’m appalled at the obvious omission of real history. It’s clearly nothing like what my generation learned, but then we were taught by non-activist teachers. Most of our faculty were either wives or sisters of WWII veterans or family members of currently serving military in Vietnam – granted, that was back in the early 70’s, but still history has only strengthened us; we learned from our mistakes and never thought another thing about it. These new generations are literally looking for reasons to be victims.
Obviously they were never taught them how to develop a tough outer shell and shrug it off.
“It is judged by utopian standards of perfection.”
Thomas More deliberately constructed Utopia as a flawed society that included slavery, violent warfare, rigid social control, and bigotry, yet folks seem not to realize this satirical thought experiment was a demonstration that no society can be perfect.
“The West”/”Western Civilization”/”White” are all basically code words for Christianity. Above all else, Marxists are anti-Christian.
Anti Judeo-Christian, more precisely.
Christianity is a Middle-eastern cult run wild.
It was not Christians who created Democracy, Republicanism, Science, Mathematics and Medicine.
It was the people who sacrificed to Zeus and Hera, who learned from Athena and Apollo.
And the West only began to flourish AFTER it fought it’s way through the darkness of Christian dogma and wars over heresy.
I believe it is too late to return to what we all see as the good times. There are several factors that effect the views and opinions that make societal changes. One of course is the msm which has promoted the fringe groups way above their standing and thus they have more influence than they deserve. Another contributor are the teacher’s unions and the terrible things they have done to public education. Then there is the mass influx of third world illegals who have none of the culture or standards that we have and thus drag down every institution they come in contact with. Finally, there is social media which gives a voice to every nut job and American hater. I forgot LBJ’s Great Society of the 60s that has created a cult of young rudderless black men who are now the most dangerous group in America. I don’t see a way to fix this unless welfare stops rewarding fatherless children. Never gonna happen.