Western Fundamentalism: Democracy, Sex and the Liberation of Mankind

"If you want to feel smart, read this book" Lewis Jones, PhD Astrophysics

"Unquestioning commitments to democracy, sexual freedom and markets are the hallmarks of Western liberalism. The ways in which this 'fundamentalism' has increasingly come to undermine our thinking about relationships and society are spelt out in this carefully crafted book" Donald Hay, Jesus College, Oxford

"This book helpfully looks behind the stereotyped Left and Right narratives and asks if both sides have adopted a notion of freedom that is so radically individualistic that it may ultimately undermine human flourishing..." Prof Patrick Parkinson, Dean of University of Queensland Law School

Gordon Menzies was in the room as bankers, economists and politicians deregulated the economy in the late twentieth century. And he was personally shaped by a greater cultural deregulation — the sexual revolution. He argues that both changes are part of the same, hard-line movement. As he discovered when he was a student debater at the Oxford Union, many Westerners, on both the Left and the Right, demand an unreflective celebration of democracy, free markets and sexual freedom - which he calls Western Fundamentalism. Its prophets are John Stuart Mill, for his emphasis on freedom, and Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that the powerful and beautiful have a moral duty to marginalize the weak. Power and beauty are more marketable than their opposites so that a society which submissively follows ‘what the market wants’ aligns itself with Nietzsche’s vision.

At a time when Western economies and families are in flux, he invites us to a vision of intimate and economic relationships that demands higher respect for the human.

Gordon Menzies is a Commonwealth Scholar with a DPhil from Oxford University, and a former member of the Oxford Union debating society. He is an award-winning researcher and educator, and a former economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia.