<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # Western self-doubt becomes strategically... > Western self-doubt becomes strategically consequential when it changes what a nation teaches, builds, defends, and allows itself to imagine. Rubio's account of monuments, industry, borders, military capacity, and rival powers describes the material effects he attributes to civilizational shame. I read his criticism as a demand to reconnect cultural confidence with productive capability. America will not carry Athens into the next century by admiring a past it is unwilling to extend. **Source:** [[articles/America's Neo-Western Renewal from the Acropolis of Athens to Eternity|America's Neo-Western Renewal from the Acropolis of Athens to Eternity]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Western self-doubt becomes strategically consequential when it changes what a nation teaches, builds, defends, and allows itself to imagine. Rubio's account of monuments, industry, borders, military capacity, and rival powers describes the material effects he attributes to civilizational shame. I read his criticism as a demand to reconnect cultural confidence with productive capability. America will not carry Athens into the next century by admiring a past it is unwilling to extend.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-western-self-doubt-past-unwilling-extend ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->