From a loss of meaning after two world wars, the advent of the atomic and nuclear age with its apocalyptic storm clouds permanently hovering over the ancient, verdant fields of Scandinavia and the war-ravaged urban cities of East Africa alike,  casting shadows that many of us prefer to ignore; the Balkanization of peoples within heretofore stable and unified Western nation-states; and a denial of perspicuity in favor of "the theater of the absurd" (Esslin, 1960);  the West was becoming a tinderbox for conflagration \cite{milton2019flanders}. It may be that the global pandemic (2020-21) became the accidental spark to ignite the brush pile of the Great Books of Western Civilization. The populist movements within Britain (viz., Brexit) and the United States (American First), with growing dissatisfaction among remaining member-nations over the failed dream of the EU, may have been unmistakable signs of coming change, a change for the worse. Reacting to a sense of government overreach, corruption, and a dramatic break between an elite in the centers of influence (Hunter, 2010), and those on the outer rings, nationalism and populism are predictable outcomes to a failure to steward democracy and representative government.