ROGER KIMBALL: The Slow-Motion Suicide of the West. “Some people thought James Burnham’s identification of liberalism with civilization’s suicide was hyperbolic. In light of American institutions’ embrace of anti-Americanism, what would they say now?”

Plus: “While there are, as a matter of historical fact, plenty of civilizations that succumb to invasion, occupation, and subjugation, there are also many that wither from within from a failure of self-confidence, of (for the Bergsonians out there) élan vital, of what your philosophy graduate student likes to call thumos: spirit, gumption, ‘heart,’ manliness. The fact that no one can even speak of ‘manliness’ today without looking over his shoulder these days is an index that thumos is on the endangered species list (along, as it happens, with sperm counts in the Western world).”