To many in the West, we are living in a time of despair, an era of nihilism and meaninglessness, signified by growing violence, environment degradation and, most importantly, political chaos. This unsettling period is referred to by France's daily newspaper as the 'Trumpocalypse'.
This combination of events, and the sense of hopelessness that accompanies them, can easily be seen as markers of doom, a sign that the era of Western culture is in terminal decline. But it's also possible to interpret them as indicators of the malaise that marks the very peak of life.
In ancient Christianity, the fatigue and inertia that accompanied the middle of the day was known as acedia, or the 'noonday devil'. It described the sense of despair felt by the monks who struggled to devote themselves to lives of prayer and solitude. It was said to strike in the middle of the day — during the hours of heat, when the sun was at its zenith and cast no shadow.
But the term acedia is also appropriate for the present state of the Western world. It captures the pervasive mood in the postmodern, post-truth world, including the mistrust of progress, scepticism about our past, and fear of the future.
In such a world, there is no room for consensus, no faith in the power of humankind to make the world a better place. Instead, the works of humanity — the great discoveries of science and technology — are seen to have ruined the planet and denied hope for future generations.
Nothing survives the attack of this post-truth viewpoint, including history itself, and the value we once ascribed to events and narratives of the past. In Australia, we can see this in bitterly contested attempts to define or celebrate a national identity, and to identify historical moments that are culturally significant.
Attacking the history of a group, or a nation, can have catastrophic consequences. It can erode the very foundations of identity. Recent totalitarian movements understood this well — regimes who wanted to eradicate the past, such as Soviet Russia, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia and the Taliban's Afghanistan.
The leaders of ISIS know this too — hence, the deliberate destruction of the Roman artefacts in the city of Palmyra, as well as other important cultural sites in Syria. They understand that when you destroy cultural memory, you destroy a people.
"Donald Trump constantly invokes the idealism of a 'once-great' America — but he