It’s time to love the West, and our times, more, as others envy us so much.

Western Crisis, Western Freedom

By Guy Sorman

The rest of the world would gladly take our problems.

Are we better off than our generational predecessors? Some say no, but I’m old enough for such pessimism to seem absurd. My parents knew nothing of modern conveniences like central heating, television, or advanced antibiotics; to travel for them was a luxury, to cross a border a risky adventure. They lived in an age of turmoil and horror. Yet they remained hopeful. Having survived the Bolshevik revolution, Nazism, and—after fleeing Germany and arriving in France in the 1930s—the Vichy regime, they opened a garment shop in 1945 in a working-class suburb of Paris and called it Au Progrès: “to progress.” I remember vividly the painted sign, with its brown letters against a yellow background. The name was an affirmation that the world could only get better.

This optimism, expressed in 1945, would be confirmed in the following years—for them and for so many others. Our lives, collectively, are better now, sheltered from ideological catastrophes, from great epidemics, and from mass famine. We can only rejoice in the massive reduction in poverty across the globe. War and malnutrition haven’t disappeared, but the number of victims keeps declining, thanks to a more lawful world order, effective economic policies, and scientific breakthroughs. Today, 7 billion humans are better off and live longer than the 3 billion who peopled the planet in 1945. If the price to pay for such advances is a hypothetical global warming, I’ll pay it. In any contest between Man and Nature, I’ll take the side of Man.

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