Corruption, Decay, and the Never-Ending Battle for Civilization

Every great city has its ruins, and every civilization has its shadows. In Suicide of the West, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that corruption is not just a crime—it is the natural process of decay. The word itself once meant rot or putrefaction, and that is exactly what happens when societies become complacent.



History is full of warnings: Rome, China, the Ottomans—all succumbed to internal decay as much as external threats. Nepotism, the favoring of kin over merit, is an ancient temptation. The Catholic Church’s long struggle against nepotism—literally, the promotion of nephews—shows how even the most powerful institutions can be undermined from within.

But corruption is more than crime. It is the slow erosion of effort, the belief that what we have will last without work. Civilization is a garden that must be tended, a house that must be maintained. Pluralism—the distribution of power among many institutions—can slow decay, but only virtue and vigilance can reverse it.



The lesson is clear: progress is always uphill. The battle for civilization is never over. Each generation must fight against entropy, or nature will reclaim what was built.

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