The Last Man, an apathetic creature with no great passion or commitment. Unable to dream, tired of life, he takes no risks, seeking only comfort and security, and expression of tolerance with one another: “A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And more poison at the end, for a happy death. They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health. We have happiness-says The Last Man, and blinks.

We from the First World countries find it more and more difficult even to imagine a public or universal cause for which one would be ready to sacrifice one’s life. Indeed, the split between First and Third World runs increasingly along the lines of an opposition between leading a long, satisfying life full of material and cultural wealth, and dedicating one’s life to some transcendent cause. Isn’t this the antagonism between what Nietzsche called “passive” and “active nihilism”? We in the West are The Last Men, immersed in stupid daily pleasures, while the Muslim radicals are ready to risk everything, engaged in the nihilist struggle up to the point of self-destruction. What is gradually disappearing in this opposition between those who are ‘in’, The Last Men who dwell in aseptic gated communities, and those who are ‘out’, are the good old middle classes. The middle class is a luxury capitalism can no longer afford.