"I've got a bad feeling about this"

It's perhaps the most repeated line in the Starwars Trilogy. It's also the refrain we are hearing time and time again from every aspect of society. With this country as partisan and fractured as we've seen in a long time, perhaps we should be grateful that we all agree on something. "We're screwed." (to use the parlance of our time)
There are the environmentalists screaming that we are all going to melt under the rays of an unrelenting sun. There are the anti-Bush moonbats who seem convinced that within a few months Bush will call for martial law and declare a herditary theocratic imperial government. Then, on the other side of the spectrum, there is the conviction, (which I happen to share btw), that the west is being swamped with growing Jihadist sentiment, and are worried that our children are going to grow up wearing burqas and paying the jizya, that Iran and other dangerous regimes will soon acquire nuclear weapons, and, (on the domestic end) we risk being overrun by illegal immigration, and losing our traditional character. A prominent politican (whose name escapes me at the moment) even referenced efforts at free trade agreements as an attempt at a North American Supra-government. I'm certainly not immune to it myself. In a converstation with my brother over the Thanksgiving table, he and I ended up essentially agreeing that a return to tribalism/feudalism was on the horizon where people will have to come to terms with the fact that ultimately the state has no intention, or ability to defend them, and so they, (as people usually do), will end up relying on family and friends as allies against the rest of an increasingly darking world.

Stepping away for a moment from actually attempting to validate or invalidate any of these fears, I'm curious why we are facing them at all. At what point did the west lose such confidence in themselves that despite their differences of opinion, they can all essentially agree that a 3000 year heritage has failed. (500 b.c birth of the Greek city-state democracies) A civilization which has survived one dark age already, seen the rise of liberalism, scientific inquiry, and has been responsbile for almost every significant technological development in the past 400 years. Of course if one's catastrophe of choice is the environmental one than its because of those 400 years of scientific advancement. But whether you agree that it is in spite of, or because of our technological and cultural advancements, where did this recurring feeling that we (or perhaps mankind in general) are about to be squashed in the trash compactor of history come from? Some have attributed it to an abandonment of faith and religion. I don't know if that's accurate. While I agree with those who argue that the march of western civilization since at least the protestant reformation has been towards increasing individualism, independence, and ultimately isolation, I think instead it's in part an abandonment not so much of faith, as of purpose. If one's purpose in life is best fulfilled by gossiping over whether or not some millionare trailer trash singer did or did not get filmed while engaging in marital bliss, or whether or not a man decorated as a zebra did or did not make the right call on whether a overpaid athlete did or did not put his right foot down out of bounds. If that's the extent of our existence than perhaps we have simply come to the realization that it doesn't really matter, in the great scheme of things whether some maniac jihadi saws our head off with a rusty scimitar, or if we drown under a wave of fridge ice-cap water. When one realizes that he is 25 years of age, and that in the endeavors of science, culture, philosophy and political thought all concepts worth concieving have been concieved one is struck with the knowledge that we are a civilization in decline.
Have you ever built a sand castle, and, as high tide rolls in, you frantically dig a deeper moat, or pile sand on top of sand, until you find yourself frantically protecting a structure which is either nothing but one large ditch, or a massive pile of sand without any resemblance to the structure you spent 4 hours building? Your fingernails are bleeding from the scraping of sand, and yet ultimately you've accomplished nothingI find something to be hopefully about in that innate desire to act, to save what we have made. You can't help but do it, even though you know its futility. I'll see you on the beach