Must the Sun Set on the West?

The answer to the titular apocalyptic question is “no,” at least according to Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi in this series of 10 lectures delivered at the University of Minnesota. Of course, there's an “if”: the Indian-born Mangalwadi argues that the West can survive and prosper provided it returns to foundational principles it has tossed aside. Westerners must embrace the reverence for human dignity that has been replaced by nihilism, regain the confidence in reason and science that has given way to mysticism and obscurantism (often of Eastern origin), and—most important—recover the religious underpinnings that once grounded Western beliefs and practices. Mangalwadi, a decidedly conservative Christian convert, casts these and similar nostrums in the form of questionable contrasts between past greatness and contemporary embarrassment (Bach/Kurt Cobain, Da Vinci/Dan Brown, Martin Luther/Hugh Hefner, the Apostle Paul/Paris Hilton), while also identifying the usual suspects in the intellectual degeneration that could doom the West—Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx. But while Mangalwadi is a very personable lecturer, his historical evidence tends to selectively arrange facts to buttress his preordained conclusions. DVD extras include a bonus lecture. While likely to appeal to those who already agree with Mangalwadi, this is unlikely to persuade others. Optional. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)