It’s also instructive to note that he objects to the attempt to “turn a tale of heroism and glory into one of oppression and shame”—American history is neither, factually speaking, Murray merely objects to one interpretation being challenged by another. If enough are convinced that Western history is nothing more than a catalogue of moral outrages and that Western societies remain irredeemably oppressive, tyrannical, bigoted, and all the rest of it, then what sense is there in preserving such a system?

At times Murray is aware of the counterargument that this 'war' is overblown and asserts this not just standard culture war fare but an existential problem yet regularly he cites just a few or even a singular example as evidence or worse just rants about what 'they' think without any attribution. Intrigued, I decided to have a look at Spengler’s best-known work before reading Murray’s new book, hoping to gain some idea of what exactly he was so grateful for having escaped. What is needed is a rival movement that caters to people’s aspirations for social fairness and the remission of suffering without recommending that we tear down statues, throw out the Western canon, obsess about superficial aspects of our identities, and so on. And so it seems that the culture war that so terrifies Murray has had no effect of any significant kind.He even claims that there was no racial motive to the killings of George Floyd and Tony Timpa, which is a somewhat naive interpretation of the events.

Nothing speaks more strongly to the spiritual aridity of social justice extremists than their complete insensitivity to aesthetic nuance and artistic value. Could it be because they’re the first generation who will live a worse life than their parents in financial terms? Similarly, it does not denigrate our history to point out that Euclid’s Elements—the most influential mathematical work in history—only entered western civilisation because Adelard of Bath translated it from the Arabic in the 12 th century, or to point out that Adelard’s translation introduced Arabic numerals into the west, the numerals that form our current number system. To this end he fantasises about what his honest answer is to the question what is good about being white. The culture war is an easy fight to have—indeed, it’s just a rehash of political correctness gone mad—for a political ideology that has no answers to the actual issues of the day.

He seems to think that we’re not allowed to talk about the ideas of Hume, JSM, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson or a wealth of other characters, when this simply isn’t the case. Big Caesars and Little Caesars, Ferdinand Mount ( hardback July 2023) €23,95 Big Caesars and Little Caesars : How They Rise and How They Fall - From Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson.