A recent survey by Pew showed that affiliation to Christianity is falling away in Britain faster than in almost any other country. By 2050, the Pew projection suggests, religious affiliation to Christianity will have fallen by a third in the United Kingdom from almost two-thirds in 2010 and will thus become a minority affiliation for the first time. By the same date, Pew indicates, Britain will have the third-largest Muslim population in Europe, higher than France, Germany or Belgium. The left-wing demography expert Eric Kaufmann wrote in 2010 that even in Switzerland by the end of the century 40 per cent of the country’s 14-year-olds would be Muslim.3 Of course, all such predictions are rife with possible variations. For instance, they assume that Christians will continue to become non-religious whereas Muslims will not, which may be the case or may not. But such statistics also fail to take into account ongoing mass immigration, let alone an upsurge of the kind in recent years. In any case, these are movements – like those across Europe and the United States (where Muslims will by 2050 outnumber Jews among the American population) – that cannot fail to have significant repercussions. Demographic studies show ethnic Swedes becoming a minority in Sweden within the lifespan of most people currently alive, which raises the fascinating question of whether Swedish identity has any chance of surviving this generation. This question will also have to be faced by every other Western European country. Europe was proud of having ‘international cities’, but how will the public react to having ‘international countries’? How will we think of ourselves? And who and what will ‘we’ be?

Addressing or even acknowledging questions of meaning has become so uncommon that the absence seems at least partly deliberate, as though our problems have fuelled a habit for distraction as well as ennui. Despite the unparalleled opportunity, our media and social media cannot help purveying endless rounds of reaction and gossip. To immerse oneself in popular culture for any length of time is to wallow in an almost unbearable shallowness. Was the sum of European endeavour and achievement really meant to culminate in this? All around us we see other demonstrations of shallowness. Where once our forefathers built the great structures of Saint-Denis, Chartres, York, San Giorgio Maggiore, St Peter’s and El Escorial, the great buildings of today compete only to be taller, shinier or newer. Municipal buildings seem designed not to inspire but to depress. Skyscrapers in European cities steal the glances of people from the nobler skylines that are now all but dwarfed. In London the great building to commemorate the turn of the millennium wasn’t even a structure built to last, but a vast empty tent. If it is true that the best test of a civilisation are the buildings it leaves behind, our descendants will take a very dim view of us. We look like a people who have lost the desire to inspire because we have nothing to inspire anyone with.