'Le mot déclin est presque trop doux': Michel Houellebecq's (Euro)déclinisme. (2nd January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sweeney, Carole
• Is Part Of: Modern & contemporary France. Volume 27:Number 1(2019)
• Page Start: 45
• Page End: 59
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02
• Subjects: France -- History -- 18th century -- Periodicals; France -- History -- 1789- -- Periodicals; France -- History -- 20th century -- Periodicals; 944
• DOI: 10.1080/09639489.2018.1558192
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0963-9489

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Michel Houellebecq's views on the European Union have been consistently negative, recently declaring in an interview that anti-Europeanism is his 'only political engagement.' Houellebecq's work takes for granted civilizational decline, what Oswald Spengler called the 'decline of the West', and regards the EU, described in Submission as a 'putrid decomposition', as central to this vision. The only way to revitalise Europe and to reverse this decline, Submission suggests, is by reinstating the traditions and moralities that have been eradicated in Europe by post-'68 moral and sexual liberalisation. On this view then, only those cultures untouched by progressive politics can rebuild Europe and in Submission only the Muslim Brotherhood can provide 'the moral and familial rearmament of Europe.'