On the Essence of Europeanism: Excellence or Evil?

1,669 words

Ricardo Duchesne
Greatness and Ruin: Self-Reflection and Universalism Within European Civilization
Antelope Hill Publishing, 2025

Everyone agrees that we Europeans are distinct from (and therefore stand out amongst) the other members of our species. Where the disagreement begins is when we attempt to apprehend the precise nature and substance of this difference. Those on the political left, regardless of their racial or religious composition, perceive Europeans based on a constitutive lack – that is, the lack of some essential human quality – be it empathy, dignity, or even the presence of a soul. According to this view of European difference, we are made unique by our propensity for evil.

Little needs to be said about the political challenges posed by such a conception, for we are currently living through them. Academically speaking, we are also all too aware of the costs imposed by this way of thinking, for all the disciplines of self-understanding (from our study of the classics to the fields of history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and so on) have regressed into malevolent incoherence. Not only is this perspective inaccurate, but more importantly, it is dangerous and genocidal in intent; the disciplinary discourse of European wickedness plays an important role in the destruction of European civilization (both in the Old and New worlds).

Members of the political right have their own, varied, answers to this question ranging from our propensity to innovate, our capacity for philosophical inquiry, our higher average IQ, our adherence to Christ, our will to power, our ability to make war, the high-trust societies we produce, and so on. While these explanations do not lead to ethnocide (at least, not as rapidly as those proffered by the left), they do not seem to bring us any closer to a genuine understanding of what makes us, as Europeans, so unique. If anything, they tend to obfuscate the true source of our unique heritage rather than illuminate it.

In many cases, rightist accounts of European distinction serve an apparent therapeutic function, one intended to counteract the maledicted theorizing proposed by Europhobes in the social sciences and elsewhere. Still other explanations fail due to a tendency to mistake the effects of European distinctiveness for its cause. For example, we are not different because we innovate; we innovate because we are different. Our high-trust societies are not what make European life inimitable from other forms of social organization, rather, we tend toward these kinds of social outcomes because of an inexorable otherness inherent to European personhood. There exists, in fact, a deeper and more perplexing basis for our profundity and excellence than even the most ardent champions of Europeanness are often able to conceive of.

Which brings me to the purpose of this essay: to discuss Greatness and Ruin: Self-Reflection and Universalism Within European Civilization, the latest release from Antelope Hill Publishing, written by the controversial academic from Canada, Dr. Ricardo Duchesne. Trained as a historical sociologist, Dr. Duchesne’s academic career has focused on the particularity of both Western civilization and the European character, as examined in his works The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Brill Academic Publishing, 2012), Faustian Man in a Multicultural Age (Arktos, 2017), Canada in Decay: Mass Immigration, Diversity, and the Ethnocide of Euro-Canadians (also released in 2017 by Black House Publishing), and most recently, his newest title Greatness and Ruin.

An outspoken critic of multiculturalism, immigration, and diversity, Dr. Duchesne campaigned – both on campus and off – against the disenfranchisement of white Canadians and the sinister program of replacement migration (which, in recent years, has become so pronounced as to be undeniable). In 2019 Dr. Duchesne came under intense scrutiny for his anti-progressive views, culminating in a cancelation campaign which led to his early retirement (he was, until this point, a professor at the University of New Brunswick). Whereas lesser men might have surrendered in the face of such overwhelming resistance, Ricardo Duchesne has since only intensified his efforts. An exceedingly ambitious work clocking in at nearly 700 pages, the towering Greatness and Ruin demonstrates that Duchesne has not spent the last few years of early retirement lackadaisically. Rather, the good doctor instead has refined and expanded the scope of his longstanding research subject: the European mind.

Uncovering the Source of European Particularity: Consciousness and Constructivism

Relying heavily on the framework provided by Joseph Henrich’s 2020 publication, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, Duchesne makes the case for a historically unfurling European consciousness, one that has seated Whites atop an impressive (even if now declining) global hegemony. Blending essentialism with a Hegelian social constructivism, Duchesne argues that Europeans were made unique through an ongoing cultural process of introspection and self-interrogation, a process not replicated by any other group at any point in human history. So great was the prowess of European consciousness that it not only achieved an unparalleled insight into its own nature, but it came to know the nature of non-European consciousnesses, too. Much of what we know about the world we owe to the labor of European thinkers (as Dr. Duchesne demonstrates repeatedly over the course of his book).

From the honor-seeking aristocracy of the Indo-Europeans to today’s hyper-individualized lovers of democracy, European peoples have cultivated and participated in a distinctly “de-Darwinized” culture capable of producing universalizable thought and virtuosic output (which is to say that the development of European civilization was not random, but increasingly self-directed over time). To prove this, Duchesne analyzes every field of human endeavor from philosophy and literature, to music and architecture, demonstrating not only the distinctiveness of European cultural output relative to other people groups, but moreover, its unqualified superiority. Duchesne places a premium on psychological insight in his analysis by utilizing Piagetian thought to illustrate those features of European consciousness which have allowed for such sustained and characteristic excellence; it is our capacity for what Piaget termed “formal operational” cognition that has allowed European man to think reflectively, that is, to think about his own thoughts and interrogate them critically. This capacity for self-critical cognition, Duchesne will argue, is both the source of our greatness but also a cause for much consternation. It is the mechanism through which de-Darwinization, or self-mastery, became possible.

Immaculately sourced and impossibly well-researched, Duchesne seems to leave no stone unturned in his quest to uncover the origins of European particularity. A brief list of thinkers and historical figures discussed in this tome includes Camille Paglia, Daniel Dennett, Homer, Eric Neumann, Julian Jaynes, Karl Jaspers, Max Weber, Plato, Kevin MacDonald, John Locke, Heraclitus, John Rawls, Herodotus, and Karl Popper. If Greatness and Ruin was nothing but a compendium of European accomplishments, it would surely merit publication in its own right; the sustained attack on European particularity and excellence has gone uninterrupted for so long that unquestionably a detailed academic rebuttal has been necessary for some time. A quick perusal of Dr. Duchesne’s X account will show his daily commitment to defending European civilization against the baseless charges of thievery, mediocrity, and depravity, a feat certainly worth recognition. But in the ephemeral age of digital media, a well-written rebuttal posted to social media is about as substantive and enduring as a gourmet cheeseburger. Gratifying, yes, and certainly consisting of a kind of excellence, but nonetheless quickly digested (and even more quickly forgotten). Greatness and Ruin is much more than simply a racial “greatest hits collection”, however, for it also chronicles the transformations within European consciousness which produced such unrivaled excellence.

Dr. Duchesne’s latest work is particularly of interest given his career trajectory. As staunch a defender of European civilization as Ricardo Duchesne has been, his contributions have not always been warmly received by those most passionate about the causes of identitarianism, nationalism, and nativism. In fact, at the time of his (highly publicized) cancelation, many on the hard right showed indifference, even antipathy, due to the perceived timidity of his approach. Duchesne himself has observed this tendency, lamenting it, and in my opinion, Greatness and Ruin represents a quantum leap in both the depth and seriousness of his approach to the subject. Duchesne’s unflinching examination of European psychology has enabled him to leave behind certain misconceptions commonly adopted by those who critique the excesses of establishment liberalism (insisting on the preeminence of so-called “cultural Marxists,” for instance). So not only does Duchesne expand on his thesis (one which stretches back to the very beginnings of his publishing career), but he also prunes those arguments which do not comport with reality.

Greatness and Ruin is not without its controversies, however. Undoubtedly, Duchesne will find some disagreement amongst those who do not accept Henrich’s WEIRD hypothesis in toto (particularly Henrich’s, and by extension Duchesne’s, claim that Catholicism weakened European attitudes towards kinship). Others may find that this text overcompensates for earlier positions Dr. Duchesne has taken, leading him to overdetermine the causal link between historical European psychology and the present-day crisis of confidence found within European civilizations the world over. It was quite fashionable, some years ago, to claim that the problems confronting Western civilization (i.e., population decline, decadence, etc.) inexorably flowed from its own logic, but this too is a specious argument, ignorant of historical contingency, but to elaborate this point further would push us beyond the scope of this essay. It would also detract from highlighting the outstanding accomplishments otherwise achieved in this latest work by Dr. Duchesne.

His accomplishments include an account of European difference and excellence which does not rely on chauvinism or vulgarity, two tendencies which often undermine the pursuit of a moral argument for racial self-determination. Nor does Dr. Duchesne’s explanation entangle us in the cause of other groups who might seek to exploit our struggle for their own purposes. Ricardo Duchesne avoids virtually all the usual bear traps and pitfalls associated with so-called “race science” and the White Identity movement more broadly. For these reasons (and more), I urge you to pick up a copy of Greatness and Ruin: Self-Reflection and Universalism Within European Civilization from Antelope Hill publishing today. You can also purchase your copy from Amazon.com.

Josh Neal is on X @stilljneal and also writes on his Substack page, Pyschopolitics.