In this week’s Takimag column, the pessimistic doctor picks up a magazine filled with articles on Lebanon and comes to the stunning conclusion that our once glorious, but slowly fading Western world is on the road to Lebanonization.

No analogies are exact, but Western societies seem to be fracturing into various confessional communities each of which, like the Maronites, Druzes, Shiites, Sunni, and others, claims its share of the politico-economic spoils. They struggle like worms or grubs in the tins in which anglers keep their bait, while an unchanging elite preside, or at least glide, godlike, over the whole. In the meantime, public administration deteriorates, infrastructure rots, and inflation rockets.