The Erasure of Western Civilization Accelerates

The Erasure of Western Civilization Accelerates

Paul Craig Roberts

Heather Mac Donald is an outstanding reporter and analyst of America’s woke era, which might be America’s last era as wokism  is a civilization-killer.  Her article, “The Boston Symphony Surrenders,” in the Autumn 2026 issue of City Journal masterfully explains the defeat of Western civilization by DEI.

In previous issues, she lowered the boom on curators of two of America’s most important museums who regard the artistic treasures under their control as racist artifacts and use them as exhibits of white racism.  I already knew that Western civilization was drawing its last breath, and her articles convinced me that destruction of the Western belief system was complete.

In her current article she explains that the left’s march through the institutions is now undoing classical music.

In his 12 years as conductor and artistic leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons revived the orchestra’s finances with rising ticket sales and earned the love and respect of the orchestra and public.  The Boston Symphony had been impoverished by its management class. Mac Donald reports: “In 1965, the BSO had about half a dozen managerial staff serving 100 musicians–a ratio of roughly 14 instrumentalists to every administrator.  By 2025, while the orchestra still consisted of about 100 musicians, the ratio of musicians to administrators was close to parity.”

The management class, of course, blamed difficulties on classical music’s lack of wide appeal and in an ill-considered decision hired DEI champion Chad Smith (not the famous rock drummer–he would have been better) as president and CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2023. Less than two and one-half years later Andris Nelsons was removed for opposing subordination of standards to diversity. 

Chad Smith’s position is that classical music does not “expansively and inclusively serve our communities.” He said that the orchestra was not serving young people who do not see themselves reflected in classical music.  Smith’s enthusiasm was not for artistic merit and performance but for race- and gender-based programing and hiring.  Artistic merit rang of white racism. The orchestra should be playing multicultural and multidisciplinary combinations of Arabic, Brazilian, and rap music, not isolating music by Mozart and Beethoven.  

Nelsons had introduced some non-classical music into performances, but he was not prepared to sacrifice the core repertoire and artistic performance to “community values” of those with no appreciation for classical music. As for hearing “community voices,” Mac Donald asks the right question: “Isn’t classical music about hearing composers’ voices?”

Chad Smith’s intent of marching through the Boston Symphony is about transforming the orchestra from an artistic achievement into a babel of voices, and Chad Smith regarded Andris Nelsons as in the way of DEI’s war on merit.

The Boston Symphony paid a high price for the diversity that neither the musicians nor the audiences wanted.  In 2025 the Leipzig Orchestra voted another 7 year extension of its contract with Nelsons as that orchestra’s chief conductor. Last June Nelsons was presented with Germany’s most prestigious musical award as Conductor of the Year.

Clearly, the board of the BSO consists of weak-minded and weak-willed non-entities who have betrayed a treasure entrusted to their care.

DEI is taking another piece of civilization away from us.  Hold on to your classical music records, tapes, and CDs as live performances of classical music are on their way out.

Ballet will be the next artistic performance to disappear from Western civilization.  Ballet will probably continue to exist only in Russia as America advances down its path to becoming a Sodom & Gomorrah Tower of Babel.