And would such a withdrawal come as a surprise? For civilization, at least where it is found among those who are affluent in the West, has amounted to little more than a population of men and women who are driven by their impulses, panicked by a vacuum of meaning that they feel rather than understand, distracted by anything loud enough or bright enough to impose itself on their attention, and closed off to anything that might reveal to them how completely they have abandoned themselves to their craving for influence, fame, and affirmation.