New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism, by Theodore Dalrymple

This book is an interesting series of short articles on the pessimism that pervades the intellectual world in Europe, and the United States to some extent too.  There are several causes suggested in public discourse that are said to have caused this intellectual climate, and Dalrymple examines each one, among them the cynicism said to result from the destruction of two world wars (a cynicism in little evidence while the wars were actually going on), moral relativism resulting from lack of an objective moral standard, and a selective understanding of European history that strongly emphasizes the wrongdoing and leaves out the accomplishments.

The result is that many Western intellectuals don't recognize that they have inherited anything of value from their forbears and therefore are incapable of defending it.  Hence the allusion to the Vichy government in the title.  Oddly enough, this nihilistic point of view does not cause humility in those who hold it, but pride, because they are aware that Western civilization is humbug, and no one else is.  If you have met people like this, as I have, and you can't figure out where they're coming from, this book offers an explanation.