The Western world is having a crisis of confidence, moral and political, and it is eroding its prosperity and the will to defend its principles. For a bracing and timely antidote, we recommend Marco Rubio's speech Wednesday at the Acropolis in Greece.
It's the speech of the year by our lights. The Secretary of State is on a diplomatic swing through Europe, and he met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has led that country's economic revival. Mr. Rubio also took the opportunity to visit the Pynx, near the Acropolis, that great symbol of Western civilization, and remind us of the history and ties that bind Europe and America.
"Here, in Athens, we found the first full realization of all the essential traits that would come to define the West," Mr. Rubio said: "fierce individuality and relentless ambition; daring exploration and invention; a yearning for discovery, for adventure, risk and glory. An insatiable curiosity about the world and the principles by which it operates, a hunger to know the mysteries of nature and grasp the secrets of the cosmos."
He then connected those traits to the West's achievements. "This was the foundation of the Western mind: our math, our science, our medicine. Our philosophy, ethics, and religion. . . . It was the foundation of the riches of Christian theology -- of Augustine and Aquinas, and the whole tradition of natural law."
It isn't often these days that you hear a politician speak of "the West," much less make the essential connection between our own day and our inheritance from Athens and Jerusalem. Would that we heard it more.
Mr. Rubio moved on with an honest appraisal that "today, too much of the West has forgotten this quality. Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional. We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world. Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt. We no longer believed we deserved and had earned our greatness."
Visit an Ivy League campus any day of the week to see what Mr. Rubio means.
Our enemies, the Secretary of State says, have been only too happy to fill the vacuum left by Western self-doubt. "National interests did not vanish in the face of international institutions. War did not disappear simply because we preferred peace. . . . And now, there is war again. There is new competition between great powers again. There is vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, a whole universe of new threats and attacks again."
So the West is at "a crossroads," and "the course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline. We will either choose to act now, or lose the choice to act at all."
As a senior Trump official, Mr. Rubio says the U.S. is attempting to lead a Western revival. But importantly, he didn't chastise Europe as others in the Administration have done. He asked Europe to join America in this great endeavor, and he even pointed to green shoots that it may be doing so.
Mr. Rubio's speech is all the more notable because it comes in an age of impoverished political rhetoric. Narrow partisanship and sniping rule the day on left and right. Mr. Rubio is describing a larger ambition that connects the best of the West's past to a better future. Our view is that Americans are aching for this kind of vision and leadership, and they will respond to someone who offers it.
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