America’s Two Souls and Europe at the Periphery of the West

The United States of America has always appeared to me as a two-headed nation, built upon the permanent tension between two founding souls that have never ceased to confront each other.

On one side stands the legacy of the Founding Fathers, shaped by Enlightenment culture and, in many cases, by the influence of Masonic thought. This is the America of the Second Industrial Revolution, of Wall Street finance, of great universities, multinational corporations, technological innovation, and the political vision that today is generally described as “liberal.” It is also the America of power projection: Washington, through the White House and Congress, often perceives itself as the centre of international decision-making, a kind of new Rome entrusted with the mission of preserving stability, security, and global leadership.

On the other side survives a very different America: the America of the Pilgrim Fathers, rural communities, evangelical churches, Mormons, small towns crossed by endless highways, and motels where a Bible can still be found on the bedside table. It is a deeply religious and conservative America, attached to family values, individual autonomy, and a certain distrust of a federal power perceived as too intrusive.

These two Americas are not separate worlds, but the two halves of the same brain. Like the right and left hemispheres, they cooperate and clash continuously, creating a dialectic that runs through the entire history of the United States. Presidential elections simply make this permanent tension more visible.

I observe all of this from the perspective of old Italy, a country that was once the heart of the Roman Empire and that today occupies a far more peripheral position in the balance of global power. Europe as a whole increasingly appears as a strategic periphery of a Western world whose main centre of decision-making now lies across the Atlantic. This is not a moral judgment, but a geopolitical observation: the United States remains the principal economic, military, and technological power within the Western alliance.

This central role may become even stronger with the expansion of artificial intelligence. AI systems require enormous digital infrastructures and ever-growing amounts of energy. The fundamental question of the twenty-first century may therefore not simply be which technology to develop, but how to produce increasing quantities of electricity at sustainable costs. Solar energy, geothermal power, next-generation nuclear technology, fusion, or other solutions still under development: the real challenge will be to guarantee abundant, stable, and competitive energy. Artificial intelligence will not be limited only by computing power, but also by access to energy.

I do not intend these reflections as a defence of the Italian government or of the current Prime Minister. Domestic politics follows different dynamics, and every political leader must be judged by their decisions and results. However, I observe with some concern the tendency, widespread in European debate, to measure the value of our choices almost exclusively through the perspective of other centres of power.

Forms of cultural and strategic dependence ultimately harm those who accept them first. Remembering that European civilisation, and Italian civilisation in particular, contributed decisively to the creation of ideas such as empire, law, politics, and institutions does not mean living in nostalgia. It means recovering awareness of one’s historical heritage.

No nation can live only on its past; yet without the memory of its own contribution to history, it becomes difficult to imagine an autonomous role in the future.

LGBTQ+ Rights, Civilizations, and a Multipolar World

I have devoted only limited attention on my blog to the subject of LGBTQ+ rights. This is neither an oversight nor an attempt to distance myself from the respect owed to every human being. It is a deliberate methodological choice. The articles addressing this topic are not among the 333 essays that will remain permanently available because I consider the issue to be closely linked to the historical evolution of a particular civilization and, above all, to the geopolitical transformations of the twenty-first century.

Contemporary debate often presents civil rights as the natural destination of history. Yet history teaches us that no political idea emerges in a vacuum. Every right, every institution, and every concept of freedom develops within a specific cultural, religious, and philosophical context.

The contemporary understanding of LGBTQ+ rights has largely developed within the Western world as part of a broader historical process that gradually placed the individual at the center of the legal and political order. Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christianity, Humanism, the Enlightenment, and modern constitutionalism all contributed—each in its own way—to the formation of a culture in which the individual came to be regarded as the holder of rights capable of limiting the power of the state.

Within this historical framework came the decriminalization of homosexuality, its removal from psychiatric classifications, and, more recently, the recognition of civil unions and, in several countries, same-sex marriage.

This does not mean, however, that the same historical development is interpreted in the same way by every civilization.

In many societies, the relationship between the individual and the community follows different principles. Family, religion, tradition, authority, or social cohesion may be regarded as values that take precedence over individual autonomy. This is not necessarily a question of being more or less advanced. Rather, it reflects different conceptions of the human person and of the individual's place within society.

For this reason, I believe the most important question is not whether LGBTQ+ rights are right or wrong. Such a question inevitably leads to ideological confrontation. A more meaningful question is whether these rights should be regarded as universal principles or whether they represent one possible expression of Western modernity.

This question becomes even more relevant in an era marked by the gradual redistribution of global power. For several centuries, the West exercised sufficient political, economic, and cultural influence to spread not only its technologies and institutions but also its understanding of liberty and individual rights.

Today, that predominance appears far less certain. The rise of new economic and political powers, the emergence of a more multipolar international system, and the growing autonomy of many regions suggest that the twenty-first century may be characterized by the coexistence of different cultural models, none of which is likely to establish unquestioned global dominance.

It is precisely in this context that the most significant question arises.

What would happen if the West were no longer the dominant civilization? What if its cultural narrative became merely one among many—or even a subordinate one within the international order? Would the civil rights developed throughout Western history continue to be regarded as universal, or would they gradually be reinterpreted through different conceptions of society?

This question also concerns the future of Western democracies themselves. Rights do not exist independently of history. They depend on institutions, public consensus, and political and cultural balances. If these balances change profoundly, it is reasonable to ask whether the hierarchy of values may also evolve.

This is neither a prediction nor a wish. It is simply a historical question. No civilization has remained dominant forever. No international order has proved permanent. Every major shift in the balance of power has also transformed the language of rights, freedoms, duties, and political legitimacy.

Perhaps the defining question of the twenty-first century will not be which values should prevail, but whether humanity will succeed in establishing a minimal set of shared principles or whether the future will be shaped by the coexistence of different civilizations, each preserving its own understanding of freedom, dignity, community, and justice.

Rather than offering definitive answers, this reflection invites us to acknowledge the complexity of the age in which we live. And complexity, more than certainty, is the proper starting point for any serious historical and philosophical inquiry.