God, Nation, Family: The Cure for a Dying Civilization
Radical progressivism promised liberation but delivered fragmentation. In this explosive interview, Israeli philosopher Gadi Taub explains how identity politics, performative solidarity, and the cult of the self are driving the West toward collapse. Can a civilization without God, nation, or family survive?
Stefan Tompson
May 31, 2025 - 2:24 PM
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Postmodernism’s Last Breath
The West is dying of boredom, not fire. Postmodernism won’t go out with a bang. It will wither away, exhausted by its own contradictions. That, at least, is the quiet warning of Israeli political theorist Dr. Gadi Taub, who argues that radical progressivism is not the cure for the West’s unraveling but its cause.
We sat down in Jerusalem to talk about the forces tearing Western civilization apart: gender ideology, postcolonial dogma, the cult of self, and the erosion of shared meaning. At the center of it all, Taub sees a simple tragedy: the West, having vanquished its external enemies, is now being devoured from within by a creed that worships the self and destroys solidarity.
When Everything Becomes Identity
Radical progressivism, Taub argues, rests on a single idea: that identity, biological sex, nationality, even religion is not inherited, but chosen. Not discovered, but invented. But this isn’t liberation. It’s disintegration.
The more the left talks of solidarity, the more it atomizes. Identity politics fragments society into warring tribes. People are no longer citizens, neighbors, or co-believers. They are ranked, labeled, and divided - each a micro-narrative of oppression, locked in zero-sum competition for moral authority.
This is the paradox of progressivism: in claiming to unify the marginalized, it fosters endless division. The “coalition of the oppressed” is a mirage, each new grievance group eventually turns on the last. Culturally, the result is chaos. Politically, the result is balkanization.
Nowhere is the hypocrisy more visible than in the left’s embrace of Gaza. In Western capitals, protesters chant “We are all Palestinians” as though Gaza represents freedom, justice, or progress. In reality, Gaza is one of the most regressive societies on Earth. Try holding a Pride parade in Khan Younis and see what happens.
Taub sees this not as a mistake, but a feature. In the age of self-image, ideology no longer needs consistency just emotional resonance. Gaza has become a symbol, emptied of content, filled with fashionable outrage. Solidarity is now performative. The more radical the cause, the more virtuous you appear.
Truth doesn’t matter. Only vibes do.
From AA to the West: A Recovery Plan
Taub is not a theocrat, he’s an atheist, but he’s honest enough to admit what many secular elites refuse to say: the West cannot survive without some form of higher justification, something larger than the self. Without it, people collapse into instinct, and society collapses into chaos.
He illustrates this through his time spent attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. There, he says, he learned the fundamentals of how a broken person becomes whole: connection to one person, then a group, then a value system, then a higher power. The West needs to follow the same steps.
Despite his atheism, Taub was one of the Jews who gathered to defy the Tel Aviv ban on public prayer. Not because he found God but because he knew that erasing religion means erasing identity.
He grew up in a secular socialist home. He watched the institutions he once trusted - academia, journalism, politics - rot from within. But he also saw glimmers of redemption: a drug addict who finds meaning in the Friday night Kiddush. A secular Israeli who reads the Torah as heritage, not dogma.
He calls it faith without faith. A return to the rhythms that shaped us, even if we no longer believe in their source.
The Last Gasp of Liberalism
Taub believes radical liberalism is committing suicide. A civilization cannot endure when its elites demand submission from the public, apologize for its enemies, and replace truth with power games.
Western guilt has become fuel for jihadist apologia. Liberalism, in its most radical form, eats away at the very values that gave it life. The West isn’t falling because of external enemies. It’s falling because there is nothing solid left at its center. It has forgotten what made it strong, what made it worth defending.
As Taub puts it: “We won’t survive without constraint. The West was built on discipline, not desire.” And it will only be saved by remembering what once made it whole: God, nation, family. Not as slogans, but as anchors in a storm.
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Stefan Tompson
Founder | Visegrad24