A Civilization Ashamed of Itself Cannot Lead

Author: Alex Leontaridis (The Stanford Review, October 13, 2026; his first piece for the paper) URL: https://stanfordreview.org/a-civilization-ashamed-of-itself-cannot-lead/ One-line: The West’s slowdown is cultural, not material: having learned to be ashamed of its inheritance (“oikophobia”), it traded a culture of progress for one of self-expression, and it needs a new Renaissance built on pride, excellence, definite optimism and courage, starting with Stanford restoring its Western Culture requirement.

The Review promoted it in a three-part thread on X (thread); its second and third posts repeat the same sentence about a society “governed by excellence.”

Key claims

• The occasion. Marco Rubio, speaking in Athens (the author’s home country), described a West “ashamed of its own greatness, no longer inventing, neglecting its industry.”
• Stanford as early symptom. In January 1987 about 500 students marched chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go”; fourteen months later the faculty senate voted 39–4 to end the required Western Culture course.
• Oikophobia. Roger Scruton’s term for fear of one’s own home and inheritance, a “culture of repudiation” that began in universities teaching that no culture is better than another, “and therefore that none is worth defending.”
• Institutionalized restlessness. Other civilizations had explorers and inventors; the West built institutions that convert dissatisfaction into progress, from Greek contest culture and the medieval university to scientific societies and companies. Its fuel is Thymos, spiritedness and the desire for recognition, which “we have lost.”
• Progress vs. self-expression. Citing Peter Thiel’s “The End of the Future” (1969 as the year of both the Moon landing and Woodstock), he splits culture into one that builds and one that challenges convention “without making any meaningful impact on the world.” Outside computing, progress has slowed since the 1970s: no faster travel, failed energy innovation, nuclear held back, the war on cancer unwon.
• The shortage is ideas. “The deepest shortage in the West, right now, is not capital, nor compute, nor talent. It’s ideas.” The model is the original Renaissance, a rediscovery of Greek and Roman ideas.
• The program. Make building appealing; pride earned by what the West built; a society “governed by excellence” that “never sacrifices meritocracy on the altar of inclusion”; more definite optimists; courage. Stanford should bring back the requirement and have students read Homer, Plato, Thucydides and the Founders “before they are invited to criticize it.”

Notable quotes

The western spirit is one of institutionalized restlessness.

Over time we came to believe that progress was inevitable. It’s not.

The deepest shortage in the West, right now, is not capital, nor compute, nor talent. It’s ideas.

Whether it keeps that lead depends less on its wealth and weapons than on whether it still believes in the ideas that built it.

How it connects

• Peter Thiel, The Great Stagnation, Definite Optimism: the stagnation thesis it borrows.
• Roger Scruton, Western Canon, Great Books: the conservative case for the curriculum.
• Why I’m Obsessed With Early American History: a same-week argument for reading the Founders, from enthusiasm rather than grievance.