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A review by jamie_o
The War on the West by Douglas Murray
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
5.0
This excellent book is vast in scope. The best way I'd sum it up is: there's a movement against Western values, history, art, culture, politics, and historical figures. One doesn't need to look far to see that this is obvious.
Murray is a critical thinker who displays an astute understanding of history. This is a touchy topic to tackle, but he nailed it. I appreciate his respectful tone and dry British sense of humor.
Did Europeans of the past do bad things (conquering, slavery, racism, killing)? Yes. Did Africans, Asians, Middle Easterners, and Native Americans do the same bad things? Yes again. Murray contends that the anti-Western movement ignores crimes committed by non-Western peoples/Countries and blames the West for all the World's problems. The solution according to the proponents of anti-Westernism, is to destroy, condemn, and blaspheme the West, and the very racist, anti-racism. Murray quotes popular anti-racist author/professor Ibram X. Kendi, "The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination, and the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination, and the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." And if you disagree with Kendi, on anything, you're labeled a racist.
I like that Murray offers ideas to change our trajectory, giving the book a hopeful note. One of my favorite parts of the book was his interlude on gratitude. As he states, "for, of course it is possible to lament what did not come to you or did not happen for you. That process could be endless and everybody on Earth could play it. The more important task of life is to recognize what you do not have, while being grateful for what you do." He also emphasizes that everything created by past Westerners is here for us all to enjoy and benefit from. We need to look for good and seek unity. I love this quote he provides from professor Jodi Shaw, "Stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself. Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color."
more Douglas Murray quotes:
"There is something not just sad, but shameful about an era trying so hard not to admire, appreciate, or even just understand the hopes and dreams of earlier days. As though everybody who dreamed or created before the present must be found to have slipped up somewhere and then be cast aside for good."
"When you are speaking into a great vacuum of ignorance, people with malign intent can run an awfully long way awfully fast. They can tell their listeners things that they will simply believe and tell them what they should not question, and as you speak into a vacuum of knowledge, you can if you are so ideologically inclined, completely rewrite the history of the West, divorcing it from any proper understanding and certainly from any wider context."
I listened to the audiobook read by Douglas Murray himself.
Murray is a critical thinker who displays an astute understanding of history. This is a touchy topic to tackle, but he nailed it. I appreciate his respectful tone and dry British sense of humor.
Did Europeans of the past do bad things (conquering, slavery, racism, killing)? Yes. Did Africans, Asians, Middle Easterners, and Native Americans do the same bad things? Yes again. Murray contends that the anti-Western movement ignores crimes committed by non-Western peoples/Countries and blames the West for all the World's problems. The solution according to the proponents of anti-Westernism, is to destroy, condemn, and blaspheme the West, and the very racist, anti-racism. Murray quotes popular anti-racist author/professor Ibram X. Kendi, "The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination, and the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination, and the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." And if you disagree with Kendi, on anything, you're labeled a racist.
I like that Murray offers ideas to change our trajectory, giving the book a hopeful note. One of my favorite parts of the book was his interlude on gratitude. As he states, "for, of course it is possible to lament what did not come to you or did not happen for you. That process could be endless and everybody on Earth could play it. The more important task of life is to recognize what you do not have, while being grateful for what you do." He also emphasizes that everything created by past Westerners is here for us all to enjoy and benefit from. We need to look for good and seek unity. I love this quote he provides from professor Jodi Shaw, "Stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself. Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color."
more Douglas Murray quotes:
"There is something not just sad, but shameful about an era trying so hard not to admire, appreciate, or even just understand the hopes and dreams of earlier days. As though everybody who dreamed or created before the present must be found to have slipped up somewhere and then be cast aside for good."
"When you are speaking into a great vacuum of ignorance, people with malign intent can run an awfully long way awfully fast. They can tell their listeners things that they will simply believe and tell them what they should not question, and as you speak into a vacuum of knowledge, you can if you are so ideologically inclined, completely rewrite the history of the West, divorcing it from any proper understanding and certainly from any wider context."
I listened to the audiobook read by Douglas Murray himself.