Historical social change vs. the decline of civilization. Part 1

Among the various threads that constitute this educational project, there is the focus on the peculiar social anxiety among certain sections of the population regarding the supposed civilizational collapse or decline. We have discussed this feature within the context of 19th century urbanization in the so-called Western world, for example, or in relation to the liberalization of divorce in the USA. Hence, we have already noted - and more than once - that no matter how often someone proclaims the end of the world, it just stubbornly does not care to not arrive. Likewise, neither the abolition of the feudal social hierarchy and the corresponding privileges of the nobility, nor giving women the right to vote brought about the demise of human civilization. And yet, at every historical turn there still appear various prophets of apocalypse who can not help themselves but repeat the same mistakes that the previous generations would make.

Isn’t it ironic that just as this particular post was being conceived, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has once again decided to confirm our observation. Hence, this is what our modern day prophet had to say in Athens on the 7th of October, 2026

“The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, and servitude, and decline. [...]. The next decade will write the story of the next century.”

In order to diversify a little bit the case studies that we have touched upon so far in this blog, we might start off with a quite peculiar form of end-of-worldism. And here, coincidentally, we will deal with an individual who is very close to JD Vance, the vice-president of the USA, as well as a colleague of Rubio. That extremely wealthy individuals can often be out of touch with the general population is common knowledge. But, perhaps, a less often considered aspect regarding such personalities is their frequently espoused mental delusions that go way beyond simply not understanding the daily struggles of the poor. Peter Thiel is the person who serves here as a perfect example. The following is from October of 2025:

“Over the past month, Thiel has hosted a series of four lectures on the downtown waterfront of San Francisco philosophizing about who the antichrist could be and warning that Armageddon is coming. Thiel, who describes himself as a ‘small-o orthodox Christian’, believes the harbinger of the end of the world could already be in our midst and that things such as international agencies, environmentalism and guardrails on technology could quicken its rise.”

All of the religion-based nonsense aside, it will suffice to note three classical aspects in relation to Thiel’s interpretation of the current configuration of the world. First, according to The Guardian, Thiel “believes the Armageddon will be ushered in by an antichrist-type figure who cultivates a fear of existential threats such as climate change, AI and nuclear war to amass inordinate power. The idea is this figure will convince people to do everything they can to avoid something like a third world war, including accepting a one-world order charged with protecting everyone from the apocalypse that implements a complete restriction of technological progress.” Again, the general public, the masses, the ordinary people, etc., are basically reduced to cannon fodder - they can not think for themselves and can not have their own organic beliefs. Their political role is merely to be convinced by the key protagonists, either by the “antichrist-type figure” or the saviours of humanity like himself.

Secondly, according to Peter Thiel, during the Cold War “our side” - meaning the West - “was more the good side”. Of course, who will ever admit to representing the “bad side”? There is no way that Thiel himself could represent the figure of the Antichrist, or is there? And this leads us to the third aspect. Since by definition one must establish that mister Thiel and his followers represent the “good side”, everything that they do not like - or that does not benefit them - by default becomes evil. This allows him to defend the following proposition:

“Thiel said that international financial bodies, which make it more difficult for people to shelter their wealth in tax havens, are one sign the antichrist may be amassing power and hastening Armageddon, saying: ‘It’s become quite difficult to hide one’s money.’”

Would you imagine that? A wealthy person claims that taxes are the work of the devil. Who could have foreseen that? Anyway, here is how it is supposed to work. Taxes reduce the wealth of people like Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is on the side of Christ. And he does not want to have to share his wealth. Hence, it is evident that it would be “natural to think about the antichrist in the context of the world of financial architecture”. Especially when it restricts an oligarch’s financial freedom and attacks tax havens. And to all of this we could still add the UN or the ICC - institutions that also “hasten the coming of Armageddon”. And if someone had doubts over why the ICC should be considered as harmful, here is what Peter Thiel has to say:

“They’ve started arresting more and more people. Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, was arrested this year. They had arrest warrants out for Netanyahu and Gallant.”

Exactly, the International Criminal Court is on the side of the Antichrist because they are trying to do their job. And who else but the devil himself would ever want to punish war criminals? In any case, to wrap up our brief investigation of Thiel’s conceptions, it is useful to note that certain lines of his thoughts are also usually found within the wider range of discourses regarding civilizational decline. Hence, even if the individuals in question here are not as deranged as our oligarch above, the conservative (and not only) politicians usually also fall into some of the same fallacies. For example, they too can consider the general populations as hardly having any agency in terms of their political beliefs. Also, quite naturally, they naturalize their own political beliefs, treating historically contingent arrangements as timeless, organic, and self-evident. Moreover, they equally share a sense of urgency in the face of an upcoming catastrophe - if nothing is done. And, arguably most importantly, their fear of the decline of civilization is equally irrational.

Finally, after all of this rather lengthy introduction, we can now turn our attention to one particular remedy that is quite regularly prescribed in order to safeguard us from the imagined civilizational decline. In a significant contrast to Thiel’s Antichrist and Armageddon, in this case it is the inherited knowledge and wisdom of the past that will save humanity. A good illustration of the seemingly never-ending historical tradition of empty fear-mongering is a book by Graham James McAleer and Alexander S. Rosenthal-Pubul, published in 2023 and titled “The Wisdom of Our Ancestors: Conservative Humanism and the Western Tradition”. Here is a paragraph from one of its reviews

“The authors consider those three questions in light of the present historical moment. They first affirm the now-common contention that the West is undergoing a ‘crisis of confidence’ stemming from serious and sustained attacks from within and looming threats from abroad. That crisis of confidence, they contend, is existential. As they see it, the crisis has left the West unmoored from a sense of self. As they say in their preface, ‘The modern West is no longer conscious of its identity: it no longer knows what it stands for and what it stands against.’ In response, they contend that the West does, truly, have tremendous wisdom to offer. Consequently, they contend that ‘the contemporary role of conservatism is to act as the guardian of Western civilization’s confidence.’”

Again, many questions could be raised here. For example, when was the West, modern or not modern, conscious of its identity? Must there be just one single all-encompasing identity? And should the identity/identities always remain constant and never change? There were times when conquests and colonies by the European powers were considered as a source of pride. Today the dominant political stance on the so-called old continent is the defence of peoples’ self-determination. There were also times when women were supposed to be subservient to their husbands. Today the so-called Western civilization tends to cherish and be proud of their liberty and equal rights. In both cases we have two opposing European identities. And you can not be both at the same time. So if, for instance, the so-called West has decided to respect sovereignty and self-determination, then it is only rational that its former colonial endeavours will be condemned. However, to say that our ancestors did A, and we consider A to be wrong, hence we shall no longer make the A mistakes of the past - must this be identified as a crisis of self-understanding? It could be, perhaps, from the standpoint of a conservative defender of the old and dying world, who can no longer self-identify himself within the new one.

The above mentioned Marco Rubio himself appears to only know a world made of enemies, threats, and dominance. That is why he is so concerned about the West maintaining "its place at the head of the world”. A lot of people of his generation still subscribe to the notion of the world as a battlefield where only the strongest (civilizations) survive. Unfortunately, having a critical view of one’s past is forbidden within this competitive global order. That is why he laments the fact that “we tore down our monuments” and that “we condemned our own history, and in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit”. Unfortunately for little Marco, he simply cannot grasp that this is the modus operandi of historical social change: that grandsons and granddaughters always see and judge the world from a different perspective than their grandparents.

To sum up, the essential question that has been asked in this part is the following. Are contemporary members of a particular supposed civilization allowed to question their inheritance? For instance, if - hypothetically - there turned out to be nothing valuable for a particular civilization to inherit from its past, should it still stubbornly insist that it is valuable for the sole reason that it is theirs? Is a civilization less worthy if its history is full of horrible things? A person is judged on the basis of his own actions, and not on those of his parents, grandparents, etc. Likewise, current members of a particular civilization should not be judged by their ancestors. It could actually be argued, for instance, that any identity crisis of the Western civilization - if that was ever a true thing - would be best overcome by bravely taking on the ghosts from the past. Colonialism, slavery, religious wars, brutal persecution by the Church, genocides, two world wars - all of these represent the actions of the previous generations. Today we are different. And that is what could make a civilization powerful. Not being afraid to face in an honest manner the difficult moments from its history. And making sure that those mistakes are never repeated ever again.

Unfortunately, that is not the approach of our conservative friends. As has been proclaimed by Donald Trump, “a nation must have pride in its history to have confidence in its future.” Rather than the clash of civilizations, once again we have a clash of generations on our hands. This topic will be continued in the next commentary.

Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-lectures-antichrist
https://fedsoc.org/fedsoc-review/the-wisdom-of-our-ancestors
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmzxl5696l5xo
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-tame-continent-america-945121

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