The decline of the West is due to the decline of Christianity, which began with Protestantism and was completed by the Enlightenment, Michel Houellebecq writes in an opinion piece published by Le Figaro during the past week.
The backdrop to this hard-hitting analysis of Western civilisation, which the celebrated French author believes is largely behind us, is that France is expected this Wednesday to legalise assisted suicide, something he himself has long opposed in writing and in speech.
– We may no longer be entirely human, for if a sick human being withdraws from the herd in order to die, it testifies to humanity having been reduced to its utility value. Such a concept is devised by the intellect, but the intellect does not grasp the human essence, writes Houellebecq, who appears to believe that religion possesses this ability.
Houellebecq reads Comte in a manner diametrically opposed to that of Comte himself, who regarded the three-stage development from the theological, through the metaphysical, to the scientific as something positive.
A simplified summary of Gibbon’s theses, which explain the fall of the Roman Empire through the development of Christianity, is not only convincing and clear, but also has the advantage that it can readily be extended by Auguste Comte’s theses on the transition from the theological state to the metaphysical state, whose sole function will have been to destroy.
After the First World War, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) had a premonition of the collapse, as expressed in the poem “The Second Coming” (1919), Houellebecq believes.
For Europe, the recently concluded war would be merely the precursor to other, even greater catastrophes. The war led to a new war, Nazism opened a dark door that has never completely closed again, and the two world wars merely accelerated the decline of the countries that committed the madness of entering them.
Euthanasia laws confirm this development, he believes:
It is quite astonishing: “Progressivism” contemptuously sweeps aside, with a wave of the hand, not only all existing religious traditions, but also almost everything previous philosophers have thought. I do not believe such arrogance has ever manifested itself before in human history. But philosophies, unlike religions, appeal primarily to the human intellect and scarcely reach what is essential in the human being.
Perhaps Europe’s foremost living novelist is uncertain whether a West that legalises assisted suicide deserves to be defended.
It is enough to examine more closely the arguments of the advocates of euthanasia to be overwhelmed by disgust, and for this disgust to provoke a moral revolt; these arguments can really be reduced to a single one, namely “dignity”, but this word has been used so often, and in so perverse a manner, that it has become difficult to understand its meaning. From the perspective of the advocates of euthanasia, the dying person’s desire for dignity, as testified to by those closest to them, is usually expressed in phrases such as: “He could not have borne becoming a vegetable.” The assertion would have been more convincing if they could have completed it as follows: “He could not have borne becoming a vegetable; he would have preferred to become a corpse.” Let us add that the vegetable metaphor testifies to a painfully pragmatic view of the human being. Ideally, the human being should move, perform actions, in short, lead an active life. And if this is entirely impossible, the person should at least communicate, demonstrate an ability to interact, at least through speech, with the rest of society. The human being is reduced to his utility value, that is, his original value minus a coefficient of depreciation. It is difficult to imagine a more direct contradiction of human dignity as understood by Immanuel Kant, of the Kantian idea that humanity, both in one’s own person and in that of others, must always be regarded as an end, and never merely as a means.
Houellebecq is revolted by the attempts to idealise euthanasia:
For almost two centuries, the spectre of nihilism has haunted Western Europe. Now it has finally arrived; we had not expected nihilism in this form – it is neither dark nor sinister; rather, it is colourful and cheerful. To imagine it, one should not think of Dostoevsky or Nietzsche, but instead recall an advertisement by Simons, a Canadian clothing chain, which purported to depict a happy assisted death. It was so dignified that one could scream. Filmed by the coast, with waves and a cello, a large, pleasant meal with cheesecake and laughter – the advertisement was entitled “All Is Beauty”; the woman who would soon be dead was young, moving and likeable; she was an artist, and she was shown drawing figures in the sand with a stick.
We may no longer be entirely human, Houellebecq writes.
After a detour lasting several millennia, the West appears to have returned to that ancient animal wisdom which, in almost all social species, causes the sick animal to withdraw from the herd in order to die alone – knowing that it can expect no compassion from its fellow creatures.
The author suggests that the expected euthanasia law bears witness to France’s own death wish:
I cannot help thinking that when France demands access to assisted dying for its citizens, it is really its own assisted death that the country is requesting.
Throughout his body of work, Houellebecq has examined the depths of human existence, but that does not mean that he rejoices in them:
We are entering a world in which it will be easier to die. I would have preferred a world in which one can live.
At a time when there were still Norwegian journalists interested in the ideas of European intellectuals, Houellebecq’s opinion piece would have been covered by some of the largest media outlets.
Unfortunately, these too have been subjected to a form of euthanasia. The lights are still on, but there is no longer any intellectual life to be found there.