https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18853/macron-pessimistic-moment
“Prepare for the end of abundance!” This is the message that French President Emmanuel Macron offered in his first post-holiday pronouncement last month. Though supposedly addressed at the French people, Macron’s lamentation seemed to have the entire “Western world” in mind.
In its current version, the nomos [organizing principle] trying to seize control in almost all Western societies could be described as “victimism”.
In victimism the state is seen as a cash machine distributing money among the victims, while apologizing to them. In the past few years. Western states, both in Europe and North America, have distributed countless trillions…
Some philosophers, among them the German Jürgen Habermas, have tried to give victimism a Christian varnish. In their reading, the Western world, long after having adopted “secularism”, remembers Christianity as a school of frugality, empathy for the downtrodden and atonement of sins symbolized by Christ as the ultimate victim.
The trouble with that reading is that it is closer to the Greek concept of the scapegoat, than to the Christian concept of redeemer.
“Prepare for the end of abundance!” This is the message that French President Emmanuel Macron offered in his first post-holiday pronouncement last month. Though supposedly addressed at the French people, Macron’s lamentation seemed to have the entire “Western world” in mind.
According to him the era of easily available capital and seemingly endless natural resources, notably oil and natural gas, is already over. The “Western world” must learn to live in a different way.