Coronavirus patient prays
Coronavirus patient praysNati Shohat/Flash90

In several countries, nursing homes are being turned into dying homes. We condemned thousands of elderly people to the most atrocious death, in extreme solitude, deprived of their loved ones, without holding the hands of their children, without speaking to a priest, even brought to the crematorium en masse, without even the slightest funeral ritual being allowed.

It is a form of anthropological transgression that clashes intimately with the conscience of Western civilization.

Half of the deaths from Covid-19 in Europe have been in nursing homes. It is not a coincidence. We deliberately sacrificed these elderly in a form of social Darwinism.

If our conscience will resist this terrible temptation, the West might have some future. Otherwise, it will be transformed forever.

The Covid-19 epidemic destroyed the anthropological, social and cultural illusions on which we Westerners have lived for half a century. Armed with hedonistic rhetoric, we thought we were safe, that we even had abolished death. This disease destroys those illusions and our false consciousness. It forces us to return to the truth of the human condition. Western man now knows that death exists!

We in the West dreamed of transhumanism, gender-free, abolition of borders, digitalization of the world; the very words “border”, “nation”, “people”, “identity”, “family”, were taboo. Now we rediscover all of these are crucial to fight the disease.

This crisis has served to remind us that the family is the fundamental and basic framework that allows life to flourish and unfold, especially when existence is threatened with being pulverized.

When danger came on a collective level, the state was unable to protect us and we retreated into our own family.

It was the crisis of Western man, who wanted to be absolutely the master of himself, free from the bonds of belonging, without a country, without religion, without civilization, without gender. Postmodern nihilism is now decomposing before our eyes.

After years of talking about “Uberization”, the Western man suddenly felt the need for a home, a place to retreat, a fortress, if necessary. The Western utopia where individuals were at home everywhere is dead.

Our cultural imagination was full of Hollywood-type disasters. But when real danger knocked on the door, we had become unable to see and hear it. We lacked the very possibility of realizing an existential danger.

That is why Israel coped with this virus much better than the West. People, borders, family, religion, identity and danger are an integral part of Israel’s identity.

Giulio Meotti is an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.