The Spectator's recent dialogue between Rob Henderson and Theodore Dalrymple, riffing on Dalrymple's seminal Life at the Bottom, cuts to the bone of Western malaise. From a conservative standpoint — rooted in reverence for tradition, personal responsibility, and the hard truths of human nature — the West isn't merely stumbling; it's unravelling from within. Not through some grand geopolitical cataclysm, as Oswald Spengler prophesied in The Decline of the West, where civilisations rise and fall like organisms in an inexorable cycle of birth, vigour, senescence, and death. No, this is a self-inflicted sickness: a cultural rot fostered by elite progressivism, where victimhood supplants virtue, excuses erode accountability, and spiritual poverty festers amid material plenty. But unlike Spengler's fatalism, conservatism offers a cure; not guaranteed, but possible through deliberate renewal. Let's dissect the affliction and chart a way out from this mess.
The Cultural Erosion: From Bourgeois Virtues to Victimhood Cult
At the core is a betrayal of the West's foundational ethos. Conservatism has long championed the "bourgeois virtues" — industriousness, punctuality, honesty, thrift, and law-abidingness — that built stable societies from the ground up. These aren't innate gifts; they're habits cultivated through family, community, and culture. Yet, as Dalrymple observes, progressive elites have systematically dismantled them, especially in the underclass. They peddle a narrative of systemic oppression, where criminals aren't perpetrators but "victims" of shadowy forces: poverty, inequality, or even "the patriarchy." Henderson, drawing from his own gritty upbringing, nails it: university seminars blame everything on external structures, ignoring the agency in poor choices like drug abuse or absentee parenting.
This victimhood cult isn't harmless rhetoric; it's a solvent dissolving social norms. In Britain, Dalrymple recounts a burglar in prison who candidly admits his crimes stem from being "stupid and lazy," laughing at the absurdity of wanting unearned luxuries. But elites recast such admissions as cries for therapy or redistribution, excusing behaviour that destroys communities. The result? A "dishonest passivity and spiritlessness," where gratitude vanishes and resentment reigns. Graffiti, once a petty nuisance, becomes an "inflamed need to make a mark" in a world that devalues ordinary, humble work. Swearing, violence, and incivility aren't rebellions; they're the default in a culture that mocks attainable virtues while idolising innate traits like beauty or charisma. Those lacking them? They turn vengeful, lashing out at a society that no longer demands better.
From a conservative lens, this is the folly of unchecked intellectualism: abstract theories from ivory towers — criminology treating people as "billiard balls" bounced by forces beyond their control — trickle down to policy and culture, eroding the traditions that once restrained human frailty. The West's cultural sickness is this: we've traded the wisdom of ages for fashionable excuses, leaving a void where character once stood.
Social Dysfunction: Crime, Fragmentation, and the Underclass Trap
Socially, the West is fracturing along class lines, with the underclass bearing the brunt while elites escape the fallout. Crime statistics tell a damning tale. In Britain, the prison population ballooned from 8,500 in 1938 to 87,500 today, with indictable crimes per prisoner sixfold higher — not due to poverty or inequality, which haven't worsened proportionally, but cultural shifts. The US saw male incarceration quintuple since the 1970s, concentrated in the poorest quintile across races. New Zealand's violent crimes surged from 200 in 1950 to 70,000 fifty years later, far outpacing population growth.
Henderson contrasts this with slums elsewhere: California's foster homes and projects seethe with hostility and isolation, while Malaysian ones foster neighbourliness — delivering food, raising well-behaved kids. Why? Western progressivism lowers expectations for the disadvantaged, treating them as perpetual victims incapable of change. Mental health excuses compound it: DSM-5 suggests the average person has 2.5 disorders yearly, turning bad behaviour into diagnoses. Dalrymple's train anecdote — a man blasting rap music in a quiet carriage, citing ADHD and autism — illustrates how this pre-empts accountability, imposing chaos on others.
Family breakdown is the epicentre. Single-parent homes, normalised by elite relativism, correlate with higher crime, poor education, and intergenerational poverty. Covid lockdowns exposed this: low-income kids fell further behind not from the virus, but absent parental coercion to learn. Conservatism sees this as a direct assault on the nuclear family, the West's social bedrock, replaced by state dependency and cultural permissiveness. The sickness manifests in atomised lives: no community ties, no shared morals, just isolated resentment.
Political and Economic Mirage: Abundance Without Purpose
Politically, the West's institutions have been captured by this rot. The Left blames "systemic" ills, demanding more welfare and "defund the police" schemes that spiked crime without genetic shifts overnight. The Right sometimes errs toward genetic fatalism, excusing behaviour as inevitable. Both miss the conservative truth: culture and incentives matter most. Policies like lax borders and "hate speech" laws prioritise globalist abstractions over national cohesion, importing tensions that exacerbate domestic fractures.
Economically, the paradox stings: the West is richer than ever, yet spiritually bankrupt. Dalrymple contrasts African material poverty — harsh but paired with vitality — to Britain's underclass, where abundance breeds ingratitude. Doctors from India or the Philippines praise UK healthcare but sense a deeper wrong: patients who complain endlessly without appreciation. Relative poverty in the 1970s didn't yield today's crime rates; cultural attitudes did. Elites, insulated in gated enclaves, preach tolerance while the working class pays in eroded safety and opportunity.
This is no mere inefficiency; it's a civilisational anaemia. As Henderson notes, the rich glamorise recovery (rock stars profiting from drug tales), while the poor sink deeper. The West's economic engine hums, but without moral fuel, it drives toward nihilism.
The Spengler Shadow: Is Decline Inevitable?
Spengler's vision haunts: civilisations as organisms, doomed to senescence. The West, in his Faustian phase, exhausts its creative energies, succumbing to Caesarism and cultural petrification. Symptoms abound — decadence, loss of faith, demographic decline — echoing Rome's fall. But conservatism rejects this determinism. Human agency, divine providence, and historical contingencies offer escape hatches. Spengler overlooked revivals: the Renaissance reborn from medieval ashes, America's founding as a deliberate return to classical virtues. Decline isn't fate; it's a choice renewed daily.
A Cure Beyond Death: Renewal Through Resolve
The cure demands courage, not capitulation. First, reclaim personal responsibility: enforce standards universally, raising them for the struggling to shift cultural "distributions" toward virtue. Dalrymple's prison anecdote, rejecting swearing, met with appreciation, shows people crave boundaries. End excuse-making: treat mental health as aid, not absolution; affirm choices matter.
Second, revive traditions. Strengthen families through policy, tax incentives for marriage, curbs on no-fault divorce, and culture: celebrate bourgeois virtues in education and media. Restore faith: the West's Christian roots provided purpose; secularism's void invites despair. Communities must foster humility, valuing the plumber's craft over the influencer's fame.
Third, confront elite hypocrisy. Intellectuals must face skin-in-the-game: no more theorising from afar. Borders and laws should prioritise citizens, rejecting indiscriminate tolerance that breeds chaos.
Finally, cultural pushback: consistent voices like Dalrymple's remind us people know these truths but rarely hear them. Grassroots movements, churches, schools, neighbourhoods, can rebuild from below.
This isn't utopian; it's pragmatic conservatism. The West has recovered before through resolve. Ignore the doomsayers; the sickness is curable if we choose life over languor. The mud awaits only those who surrender.