Stream of consciousness

“How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam is Dying Too)” is a book by one David Goldman, an American who writes opinion pieces for a Hong Kong-based newspaper, using the (apparently humorously intended) penname Spengler. The German philosopher Oswald Spengler wrote “The Decline of the West”, and Hong Kong is, of course, in the East. Goldman's book is very stream-of-consciousness, containing a ragtag mix of interesting statements, obvious contradictions and plain junk. I'm somewhat surprised by the large number of positive blurbs for this work!

The author's main thesis is that Europe, Russia, Japan and the Muslim world are facing demographic collapse. This is most obvious in the case of Europe, with its rapidly aging population and a birth rate below replacement level. However, birth rates decline even in the Muslim world. The present-day “youth bulge” in the Muslim countries will be temporary (it's the result of the high birth rates of a *previous* generation, after all), and by 2050 the population of the Islamic world will start to shrink. By 2100, Europe and its Muslim adversaries will both be near extinction. The only exceptions to the rule, the author believes, are the United States and Israel. In the United States, religious couples have more children than secular ditto, which will eventually make evangelicals and Catholics dominant in the only Western nation with a stable and somewhat rising population. Together with its Israeli allies, the United States will therefore remain the dominant global power for the rest of the century. However, the world won't become more peaceful due to declining Muslim fecundity. Rather the opposite: the impending doom of Islam will make Muslim terrorists even more fanatical in their opposition to the West, feeling they have nothing to loose. Goldman therefore opposes U.S.-Muslim alliances, and rather sees all Muslim nations as natural enemies of America.

The author's attempts to explain why certain civilizations die and others prosper centre on the role of religious faith. His speculations on this score are extremely strange, and after a few attempts, I gave up trying to summarize them for this review. Needless to say, I don't think Goldman's ideas makes much sense. Most of them are based on a (home grown?) Jewish-evangelical hybrid theology. His main argument – that atheism, nihilism and idolatry are bad for fertility – can be used to attack feminism, and indeed, the book contains anti-feminist rants. It seems fertility drops the moment women get better education. Yet, Goldman also attacks the Muslim world for being anti-woman since they don't want to educate their girls! But why *should* they (or why should we, for that matter) educate women, if fertility is the most central concern of all civilizations, and educated women bear less children? Why not keep them barefoot and pregnant? Logically, Goldman should propose this, but perhaps he's not daring enough. (That's fine with me, I'm a feminist.) Sometimes, Goldman's private theology takes him to places presumably far away from main-stream U.S. conservatism, as when he supports *Lincoln* in the Civil War, says that it was a “holy war” for the abolition of slavery, and that Lincoln's breeches of the constitution were understandable. Pretty good going for a con (I'm a lib), but somewhat unexpected in a book from Regnery…

Goldman's foreign policy proposals strike me as downright silly even for an imperial interventionist, as when he thinks that rapid police actions against “rogue states” will somehow be more efficient than large occupation armies. How would a smaller American force bring Iran, Syria or Pakistan to its knees, I wonder? The Islamic Republic of Iran has more popular support than Saddam Hussein ever had, and also has large reservoirs of support in Iraq (something Goldman actually acknowledges). Goldman wants to contain “failed states”, but it's not clear how the United States and Israel could contain pretty much the rest of the world? The author proposes that the United States should enrol India and China as allies, and therefore opposes independence for Tibet and East Turkestan. But why should China ally itself with the United States? During the 1970's and 1980's, China was a de facto American ally due to perceived threats from the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, however, China became a competitor and challenger to American global power – a much more logical line up. Goldman wants China to stop its mercantilist trade policy, but why should the Chinese disarm their strongest weapon? The author seems to have a naïve faith in the blessings of free trade, pretty remarkable given his “cynical”, realistic assessment of the failures of “nation-building” in Iraq and elsewhere. His proposal to dump Pakistan and instead support India is more logical, since many Muslims have grievances against the United States and Israel, while most Indians are anti-Muslim and hence pro-Israeli. China and India are competitors, however, most notably in Tibet (which Goldman wants to assign to Beijing). Weirdly, Goldman views Hindu India as an advanced democracy with strong individual rights (!!), and therefore a logical ally to the United States.

For a would-be Spengler, the author is completely oblivious to peak oil, climate change and the impending food crisis, instead concentrating completely on the population issue. The idea that the United States could survive as a global superpower through a century of a long descent in cheap energy production, strikes me as over-optimistic. Goldman's prospective ally China will also be in trouble, if and when its population (which stands at one billion) will be hit by sharp decreases in food imports, rising oil prices, etc. Another factor that's missing in Goldman's analysis are ethnic tensions in the United States. American Christians might be more fecund than atheists, but many of these Christians are Hispanic Catholics. Why should they *not* attempt to carve out a large nation-state of their own in the Southwest?

I agree that Goldman's demographic musings are interesting, but overall, this book feels like a series of unconnected thoughts badly strung together to form a book. It could perhaps be of interest as yet another example of pessimistic literature circa 2011, but I don't think it will be of much use as a compass in the future actually ahead of us…