Marco Rubio is promoting troubling ideas about âWestern civilizationâ | Ted Widmer
I keep thinking about the irony of that setting. Rubio stood before the Parthenon, a monument built by a city that fought off the Persian Empire, and told Europe to embrace conquest. Ancient Athens was many things, but its greatest claim was that it valued citizenship over kingship, debate over decree. To use that backdrop for a sermon on expansion feels like reading the script of the very empires Athens resisted.
The timing matters too. October 7th is the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, and choosing that date for a speech about Western values sends its own message. I'd want to know more about what specific policies Rubio is pushing for, because "rediscover the values of conquest" is a phrase that should make anyone pause. We've seen this pattern before: leaders invoke the glories of the past to justify the aggressions of the present.
I think the deeper question is whether Western civilization can be defined by its ideals rather than its conquests. Rubio's framing suggests we should embrace the imperial past rather than learn from it. That's a choice, and it's worth saying plainly that it's the wrong one.