In the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain, prominent writer V. S. Naipaul declared the dawn of a “universal civilization.” According to Naipaul’s vision, the end of the Cold War was a signal that the entire planet was moving toward a single civilizational form that would transcend ethnic differences, ideological cleavages, and the fault lines that have separated cultures in the past.

“Civilization is hideously fragile,” argued C. P. Snow. “There's not much between us and the horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.” Snow's statement takes on ominous overtones in light of the raging riots in and around Paris.

The protection of religious liberty remains a central concern in Iraq, even as the Iraqis struggle toward a constitutional system. Christianity Today features an important interview with Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House. She makes a very powerful argument:
Our State Department bureaucracy, most of our policy makers in Congress, and those in the media are intellectually unprepared for understanding why the denial of individual religious freedom for Muslims is so subversive to democracy. They describe Saudi Arabia’s system simply as rigid and puritanical. We need to understand extreme Islamic law better because it is our main ideological challenge today.

In his seminal 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel Huntingdon argued that a clash between civilizations is the primary cause of conflict on the global scene today. However, in a fascinating article published in the journal Foreign Policy, researchers Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris argue that the real clash between civilizations is not about democracy–but sex.

We are living in dangerous times, but far too many Americans seem to have forgotten this unforgiving fact. How can so many forget the unforgettable?

As historian Will Durant once noted, “Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.” Durant, who along with his wife Ariel surveyed the span of Western civilization, provided a short summary of the process of civilizational decline, as order gives way to a corrupted view of liberty that finally dissolves into chaos. In our times, civilization is standing at the brink of disaster.