In Defense of Decadent Europe

To encourage you to give it a read here are some ideas contained in my long essay for Vital Center (link):
1. The idea that a diversity of opinions leads to rational discussion & decision making presupposes that people want to convince others who are of a different mind: refuse to be separated from them. This desire for unity and self-government cannot be decreed and therefore the political form of the nation that embodies it should be part of an analysis of what makes liberal institutions work;
2. The material weakening of the nation carries with it a crisis of the regime which gives them agency;
3. Maintaining a semblance of agency by understanding nations as units of an international system determined by external causes in which they can and should maximize their outcome neither explains their conduct nor account for what it means to be sovereign;
4. The feats of Germany in Europe exemplify the ills to be expected from such and understanding of political agency which a) measures success according to artificial metrics that obscure obvious political facts, b) presents as a model to be followed by others policies that aggravate their difficulties;
5. That American unilateralism hasn’t achieved what it set to achieve while aggravating the vulnerability of Europe to forces that are hostile to the US;
6. That the US has everything to gain from a more independent and political Europe the political disagreements it is bound to give rise to;
7. That Europe cannot achieve this goal without the US consenting to it and understanding what it has to gain from it;
8. That a postnational dream consists in hoping that the world will provide the rule of the action we no longer trust our own judgment to provide;
9. That it has allegedly broadened our mind but diminished the range of things of we need to be convinced of by one an other and can therefore collectively achieve;
10. That an indifferent diversity administered by neutral laws doesn’t necessarily lead to peace & tolerance & explains a lot of the polarization we have been experiencing in the last few years;
11. That a liberal democratic West will face challenges that require it to be capable of collective actions it is today incapable of motivating.