Reflecting on what we can learn from Beatrice de Graaf
January 6 United States Capitol attack (2021).
In the late 20th century, political theorist Francis Fukuyama declared the "end of history"—a moment in which liberal democracy, seemingly victorious, would spread as the final form of human governance. Yet as we look around the world today, that prediction feels not only premature but ironically inverted. The liberal world order has not triumphed, but fractured. The very systems designed to create stability now seem to generate disorder. In this light, the adapted proverb "wie orde zaait, zal chaos oogsten"—“who sows order, will reap chaos”—captures a central paradox of our time: efforts to impose or preserve rigid concepts of order can inadvertently provoke resistance, fragmentation, and ultimately, chaos.
Historian Beatrice de Graaf, in recent interviews on the Dutch TV program Buitenhof, offers a moral-historical perspective to understand this shift. Drawing on the work of Johan Huizinga and Augustine, she reminds us that real order cannot be achieved through force, spectacle, or domination, but through the cultivation of virtues—justice, wisdom, temperance, and courage. These cardinal values, once central to both governance and citizenship, have been eroded in an age increasingly driven by short-term gain, spectacle politics, and polarizing narratives.
The rise of Donald Trump exemplifies this turn. As De Graaf recounts from her visit to the U.S., even academics fear their own students, practicing “anticipatory obedience” in the face of an aggressive ideological wave. Trump's public alignment with ultra-masculine fighting events and right-wing influencers is not random behavior, but the embodiment of a worldview—a form of symbolic politics that celebrates strength, vengeance, and tribal loyalty over deliberation, law, or empathy. This is not simply populism or eccentricity. As De Graaf warns, it is an emerging world vision, one that trades liberal ideals for a blend of post-liberalism, religious nationalism, and even transhumanist techno-fatalism.
Still, it would be too easy to scapegoat the U.S. or lay blame solely at the feet of political strongmen. Europe, too, has been naïve. The post-Cold War order assumed the universality of liberal democracy, often overlooking the ways in which global inequalities, economic exploitation, and cultural arrogance undermined the legitimacy of that very order. As De Graaf notes, liberalism in its complacency allowed illiberal forces to grow within its own system—something thinkers like Patrick Deneen have critically pointed out from within the West.
But the answer is not to abandon liberal values—it is to rediscover and reinvest in them. Europe may have been slow to respond, but it is not powerless. Recent coalitions, such as the German political realignment and the EU’s increasing investments in defense and diplomacy, suggest a recognition that order must be both principled and strategic. Europe can assert its values—not by mimicking authoritarianism, but by combining resilience with responsibility.
One must also challenge the idea that investing in defense necessarily leads to war. As De Graaf notes, deterrence paired with strong diplomacy can stabilize rather than escalate. The history of the 20th century offers cautionary tales of arms races, but it also offers models of peace built on moral clarity and institutional cooperation. The real danger is not military preparedness, but moral emptiness.
The metaphor of “sowing order and reaping chaos” becomes especially potent when the desire for control overrides justice or when systems of governance are treated as ends in themselves, rather than as tools for human flourishing. When order is enforced without legitimacy, when voices are silenced rather than heard, when complexity is flattened into slogans—then chaos grows in the cracks.
There is still a choice. As Huizinga and Augustine argued during the collapse of their own eras, we are not merely witnesses to history—we are its makers. Augustine put it simply: “We are the times.” And as such, we are responsible not only for naming the crisis but for shaping the response.
The antidote to chaos is not control, but character. Not the assertion of power for its own sake, but the cultivation of a moral order grounded in dignity, empathy, and collective responsibility. That is the challenge of our age—and the hope that still remains.
