Is there a clash of civilisations? | Dr Tim Black

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 was supposed to be a
triumphant moment for the West. But, as Tim Black argues in this
lecture, instead of securing a lasting victory for liberal
democracy, it created an existential crisis. For decades, the
Cold War had given the West a clear sense of purpose—defeating
communism, leading the "Free World," and shaping global history.
But with the USSR gone, Western elites were left disoriented,
scrambling for a new narrative. Enter Samuel Huntington.


In The Clash of Civilisations, he rejected the naïve optimism of
thinkers like Francis Fukuyama, who proclaimed "the end of
history." Instead, Huntington argued that the world was not
moving toward a universal liberal order, but toward an era of
civilizational conflict. Cultural and religious identities, not
ideology or economics, would define the post-Cold War
world. 


Huntington’s great mistake? He saw the West as under siege from
external forces—Islam, China, and non-Western civilizations—but
failed to grasp the deeper rot. The true threat to Western
civilisation is not coming from Beijing or Tehran but from
within—from Western elites who have spent decades dismantling
their own culture, disavowing their own history, and undermining
the very values that once made the West dominant.