New Delhi, Oct. 19 -- My previous column was a reflection on how America, like the triumphant Yadus after the Kurukshetra war, might be defeating itself from within. Today, I want to discuss a grand diagnosis of where the West, in general, went wrong and why it finds itself wrapped in anxiety and insecurity.

I found it in Paul Kingsnorth's Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, never mind his conflation of the West's particular predicament with that of the rest of world.

It is one of those rare books that I liked a lot despite disagreeing with many of the author's arguments. It makes grand claims without presenting empirical evidence. It invites the reader to accept the author's life experiences as a guide to one's own. It lo...