There are black swans - the unpredictable shocks - and gray rhinos: high-impact, high-probability threats that everyone sees coming but everyone ignores.

The biggest gray rhino in the world today is undoubtedly the spiritual death of the West and its consequences. Everyone can see it's spiritually dead and devoid of genuine meaning, everyone instinctively understands it's unsustainable, yet we largely prefer to ignore what comes next.

This is particularly worrying when it comes to Europe, my prime concern as a European. When Europe goes searching for a new animating purpose - and it undoubtedly will once the realization the current one is unsustainable finally hits home - the rest of humanity has every reason to pay close attention.

Europe's ideological commitments have a way of becoming total: it can be Notre-Dame or it can be Auschwitz. We often picture Europeans as committed to measure and pragmatism but, historically speaking, nothing could be further from the truth: we have a way, like few other civilizations, of taking ideas to their absolute conclusions. Steered in the right direction, this can produce humanity’s most beautiful creations. Steered in the wrong one, we can massacre millions in the most horrific ways and feel righteous doing it.

This is why the present moment is so critical: what will 450 million people with a unique talent for ideological extremism reach for next? That's the gray rhino in plain sight: the continent that gave humanity both world wars will soon go searching for new meaning.

In this new article I look back at one of the most successful ideological transition in human history: the adoption of Confucianism by China's Han dynasty after the ideological failures of the previous Qin dynasty. You couldn't possibly find more successful: the Han dynasty lasted over 400 years, and China has arguably been running on some version of that same Confucian operating system ever since - 2,228 years and counting.

The question I ask, somewhat in jest, is whether Gaullism can be Europe's Confucianism. Sounds a bit crazy at first but, as you'll see, the case is surprisingly strong.