Three centuries later, Pope’s aphorism perfectly — and dangerously — describes President Trump’s understanding of history as a zero-sum clash of civilizations in which “the West” can triumph by imposing its will. It had nothing useful to say about today’s interconnected world in which goods, people and ideas have contempt for borders. “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” the president said. Imagine Italy without tomato sauce, a gift from the New World — or the United States without the high-tech companies founded by immigrants, gifts from the Old. But the solution, in a globalized world, cannot be to hunker behind walls, however big and beautiful those walls might be.

Source: Washington Post July 06, 2017 23:37 UTC