Are you a ‘pejorist’? I wouldn’t blame you if you were. I am currently reading Melanie Phillips’ brilliant book The Builder’s Stone, and as I read it I can feel ‘pejorism’ creeping over me. ‘Pejorism’ is the belief that the world is getting worse. In The Builder’s Stone Phillips persuasively argues that Western civilisation is facing a critical moment. She says that foreign enemies are circling (rather like Chinese battle-cruisers circling Australia) while internally the West is being consumed by division, decadence and demoralisation. That certainly sounds like the news headlines, doesn’t it? Hence my pejorism. It comes from the classical Latin word pēior meaning ‘worse’.

There is also a verb form ‘to pejorate’ – meaning ‘to make worse’ – which reminds us that Anthony Albanese has been pejorating away like crazy since his election in 2022. Overseas the picture is just as grim, with Europe and the UK wallowing in a swamp and American elites rising up to block Trump at every turn. Victor Frankl once famously said: ‘Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.’ Is any of this making you feel any better? I thought not. Welcome to my pejorism. And at least you now have a word to name it.