Recent events raise an important question: Is the West tired of dealing with the rest of the world?

In the United States, the Trump administration’s new zero-tolerance border policy has taken the extraordinary step of splitting families in an effort to tell Central Americans that they must solve their own problems at home. In Germany, a key member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government says he is going to rewrite her policy to get a “grip on the whole migration issue.” In Italy, migrant ships are being turned away.

There is a mounting sense that the West is struggling with human rights fatigue. Since World War II, the West has had an expansive mind-set, promoting the idea that universal principles, when spread, benefit all. By virtually every measure – from wealth to war to health – this has proved true.

But that worldview has also created a flow in the other direction. It has brought the rest of the world to the West’s doorstep, often literally. And it has committed the West to actually caring about those countries, not simply colonizing them economically or militarily. The result is a constant pressure for the West to become more permeable – to prove the universality of those principles by assimilating other countries’ cultures and challenges. The resulting tension is the essence of the backlash against globalization.

The underlying question to be answered is simple: Are we better off together, or not? The past 70 years offer a compelling answer. But they also suggest that, for the West, globalization is more than just cheap microwaves and lofty talk. It is a commitment to actually embrace the world. 

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