>Western civilisation is on the brink of a collapse like that of ancient Rome because the modern generation does not want the responsibility of bringing up children, the former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks has warned.
>He singled out falling birth-rates alongside the addiction to debt, the breakup of the family unit and a growing gap between the super-rich and the rest among a handful of major crises facing Britain and other European countries which neither governments nor the market seem able to solve.
>But ultimately, he said, European society as we know it “will die” because of the demographic crisis.
>He warned that even mass immigration is not a solution because of problems integrating new arrivals into existing society.
>Europe is going to die because of this because Europe can only maintain its population by unprecedented levels of immigration
>His intervention, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, makes him one of only a handful of public figures in recent memory to raise the alarm about declining fertility rates as a serious social problem.
>He also warned that Britain is losing its national “memory” and cultural identity because people in the digital age simply have shorter attention spans and have little grasp of history.
>There was, he said, “no question” that this poses a serious threat to the future of western civilisation as we know it.
>“The contemporary historian of ancient Greece and ancient Rome saw their civilisations begin their decline and fall, both the Greeks and the Romans attributed it to falling birth rates because nobody wanted the responsibilities of bringing up children,” he said.
>Both the Greeks and the Romans attributed it to falling birth rates because nobody wanted the responsibilities of bringing up children
Lord Sacks
>“They were too focussed on enjoying the present to make the sacrifices necessary to build the future …. all the historians of civilisation have told the same story.”
