Étienne A. Beauregard: Could generation Z help save western civilization?

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Increasingly, observers are realizing that the younger generations reject the progressive project as much, if not more than their elders, and are among the most enthusiastic supporters of the populist shift to the right. In the 2024 U.S. election, no less than 56 per cent of men and 40 per cent of women under the age of 30 cast a Republican ballot, whereas in 2008, 66 per cent of young people had voted for Barack Obama.

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The first voters to rally behind Donald Trump in 2015 were Americans who were “civically disengaged” and experiencing the most severe social isolation. In France, the National Rally can count on voters who are significantly younger than those of Emmanuel Macron, to the point of challenging the far-left La France Insoumise as the “party of youth.” In Canada, the arrival of Pierre Poilievre at the head of the Conservative Party has given rise to the same phenomenon: for the first time in recent history, young Canadians are voting more to the right than their elders.

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Contrary to all expectations, it seems that increasing numbers of young people, disenchanted with the broken promises of deconstruction, agree with American political theorist and author Patrick Deneen that liberalism has failed, and wish as American political scientist Robert Putnam does for an “upswing” in Western civilization.

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But how does one rebuild civilization on the ruins of deconstruction? Such a revival, on an individual and collective scale, requires, above all, a break with the concept of the atomized individual in perpetual struggle with the institutions that surround him. The present times call for a truly “post-liberal” reflection, which will dare to ask once again the question that was taboo for the great liberal thinkers of the last century: what should I do with my freedom? How can I lead a good life as a free person?

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In line with Western tradition, from Aristotle to Christianity, let us think of a humanity and individuality that strengthens society, rather than setting itself against it. As American political philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues, “We are most fully human when we contribute to the common good and thus earn the esteem of our fellow citizens for the contributions we make. According to this tradition, the fundamental human need is to be needed by those with whom we share a common life.”

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Therefore, we need to reverse the trend toward individual secession in order to rebuild community and mutual responsibilities, instead of commodifying solidarity through digital intermediaries. This means that there is no natural right to non-integration, contrary to what the theorists of multiculturalism claim. Those who join a nation and benefit from its social model must, in return, agree to embrace its customs.

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This also means that the value of elites is measured by their contribution to the common good, not by the amount of prestige or capital they manage to accumulate for themselves. As Rod Dreher explains, “Civilization doesn’t exist to make it possible for individuals to do whatever they want to do. To believe that is an anthropological error. A civilization in which no one felt an obligation to the past, to the future, to each other, or to anything higher than self-gratification is one that is dangerously fragile.”

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In order to learn once again how to live together, because that is what this is all about, we can fortunately still count on the first institution where the common good is lived out, which is also the last holistic institution we still know, the family. Against all odds, it remains the indestructible rock on which human beings can rely, never truly conquered by the spirit of the times, constructivism, or individualism. As French journalist Aziliz le Corre writes, “The family is a determinism that, by definition, cannot be broken. It is a matter of nature, even more so than culture. And it remains biological in its essence. Like birth, gender differences, old age and death, it is immutable.”