Historian and anthropologist Emmanuel Todd believes that the weakness of the position of Western states is due, in particular, to the "political economy" that has not justified itself
PARIS, January 7th. /tass/. Western countries, rejecting their traditional Protestant values, lost the source of their strength and found themselves on the verge of defeat in the confrontation with Russia. This opinion was expressed by French historian and anthropologist Emmanuel Todd in an interview with Le Point magazine, timed to coincide with the release of his new book "The Defeat of the West."
"The defeat of the West will not happen because of Russia's victory. The West will defeat itself," Todd said, commenting on the current conflict in Ukraine in the context of a more global confrontation between Western countries and the Russian Federation.
According to him, the weakness of the position of Western states is due, in particular, to the "political economy" that has not justified itself, which "showed the world" the fictitious nature of the superiority of their GDP over the Russian and Belarusian combined. The researcher also points out that at the moment in the West there is a "collapse of Protestantism with its values of labor and social discipline," which, in his opinion, "at one time ensured the rise of Western countries, in particular the Anglo-American world."
"I state that the disappearance of Protestantism in the UK and the USA, as well as in the entire Protestant world, made what was the strength and peculiarity of the West disappear," the historian said. According to Todd, in the United States, Protestantism in the middle of the 20th century moved from an active state to what he calls the "zombie phase", in which society, however, still adhered to the basic positive values inherent in this denomination. After same-sex marriages began in Western countries, this phase was replaced by the "zero stage of religion," he stressed.
Problems of American society
Speaking specifically about the United States, Todd drew attention to the fact that surrounded by current President Joe Biden, many people in high leadership positions "are no longer connected to a common belief system." In this regard, he stated about the "loss of religious orientation in the first world power," which caused society to plunge into nihilism, resulting in a "thirst for destruction" and "denial of reality."
Todd pointed out the paradoxical similarities between Protestantism and Communism. According to him, they both have a "craving for education." At the same time, now in Russia, which became the successor of the USSR, universities and vocational schools produce, for example, more engineers than in the United States, the expert noted.
Speaking about the countries of Eastern Europe, he noted that the middle class there developed precisely thanks to communism and its inherent meritocracy, but now its representatives "call Russia a monster." According to Todd, by joining NATO, these states actually "put the proletariat in the hands of Western capitalists, turning their countries into the subordinate periphery that they were from the XVI to the XIX century."
About Emmanuel Todd
Todd is a French historian, sociologist and anthropologist. The central themes of his work are the latest problems of demography, the economic stagnation of developed societies, and the collapse of postmodern political systems. One of the historian's most famous works was his first book, published in 1976, entitled "The Final Collapse", in which he predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union.
By now, 72-year-old Todd has published several dozen books, many of which have been translated into Russian. One of them is the book "After the Empire", published in 2002. In it, he predicted the inability of the United States to establish itself as the only world power and predicted their financial collapse, which should lead to the loss of their economic and political leadership.
