How false virtues are unmaking the West

A poisoned chalice rarely announces itself as poison.

It gleams. It is lifted with ceremony. It is presented as an honour, an invitation, perhaps even a moral duty. The danger is not obvious at first. Indeed, that is the point. The cup must appear worthy before it can do its work. Its surface must sparkle long enough to capture the eye and dull the senses.

Shakespeare gave the phrase enduring force in Macbeth. The poisoned chalice was not merely a vessel. It was consequence. What a man pours for others may one day be commended back to his own lips. The same is true of nations and civilisations. We may believe we are offering compassion, sophistication, tolerance or progress, only to discover later that we have imbibed confusion, weakness and moral inversion.

Civilisations are not always destroyed by barbarian armies at the gate.

Sometimes they are weakened first by beautiful lies inside the walls.