When our ‘weird’ civilisation becomes vulnerable
Western civilisation must rebuild resilience, responsibility and national security to meet modern threats.
Joseph Henrich’s “WEIRD” describes our civilisation at its best: Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. “VULNERABLE” warns what happens when those strengths — openness, empathy, tolerance, trust and liberty — are severed from judgment, memory, duty and courage.
In The WEIRDest People in the World, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2020, Henrich explains how Western institutions, law, literacy and markets formed people who were individualistic, rights-conscious and willing to cooperate with strangers. That inheritance produced liberal democracy, scientific inquiry, free markets and representative government. It is rare and fragile.
The WEIRD world is VULNERABLE because it believes kindness requires credulity, inclusion requires self-erasure and safety requires freedom from discomfort. Gad Saad describes one expression as “suicidal empathy”: compassion detached from wisdom, courage and boundaries. Untethered empathy becomes an open gate.
V — Virtue-Signalling
Vulnerability begins by substituting visible virtue for actual virtue. We measure morality through slogans and tribal badges rather than conduct and consequences. Virtue asks: what is true, who is harmed, and what is my duty? Virtue-signalling asks: how do I appear to my tribe?
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