What Marco Rubio gets wrong about The Beatles and Western culture | Opinion

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked The Beatles in a recent speech in Munich, warning the European security establishment about “civilizational erasure.” John Lennon would be appalled. Unlike Rubio, The Beatles were cosmopolitans who embraced the world with open arms.

“Civilizational erasure” is a central idea of President Donald Trump’s “National Security Strategy,” which aims, among other things, at “Restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.” The threat of “civilizational erasure” is linked to panic about immigration. In Munich, Rubio warned that immigration is “an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilization.”

Rubio’s notion of “our civilization” emphasizes “shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization.” He celebrated the “greatness of our past,” explaining: “It was this continent that produced the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, of Dante and Shakespeare, of Michelangelo and Da Vinci, of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.”

Rubio went on to warn the Europeans in the audience to “gain control” of their borders. “The failure to do so is... an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilization itself.”

The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were all about breaking down societal cultural barriers, not defending them.

Rubio’s misplaced emphasis on cultural “greatness” is connected to the Trump administration’s effort to erase the ugly underbelly of “our” history by censoring exhibits at national parks that discuss slavery, among other topics. The National Parks Conservation Association filed suit this week trying to prevent this. It claimed the Trump administration is “mounting a sustained campaign to erase history.”

Erasing the ugliness only creates ignorance. This ignorance may explain the obtuseness of Rubio’s pop culture reference. You cannot understand The Beatles and The Stones without understanding the music of Black America and the sordid history of slavery and Jim Crow.

The Rolling Stones and The Beatles were counter-cultural icons. In “Sympathy for the Devil,” The Stones warned that the sinister heart of Western civilization was led by a “man of wealth and taste” who was responsible for the blitzkrieg. The Beatles, meanwhile, travelled to India, bringing sitars into their music. In his solo music, George Harrison combined “Hallelujah” with “Hare Krishna” in the syncretic anthem “My Sweet Lord.”

Lennon famously criticized the political establishment as “run by insane people for insane objectives.” In “Imagine,” Lennon dreamed of a world beyond religion and nationalism: “Imagine there’s no countries; it isn’t hard to do; nothing to kill or die for; and no religion too.”

Counter-cultural art is an important part of “the West,” made possible by freedom of expression. Unfortunately, the worry about “civilizational erasure” aims to stifle critique. It ironically erases the cosmopolitan and critical spirit that is the best part of the Western tradition.

Western culture has often been synthetic and dynamic. The Medieval European lute was derived from an Arabic instrument, the “al-oud.” Mozart’s famous “Rondo alla Turca” mimicked Turkish rhythms, as did Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk.”

In the Middle Ages, Western theologians studied Muslim thinkers. Martin Luther King, Jr. was inspired by Gandhi, and the Catholic Monk Thomas Merton studied Taoism and Zen Buddhism. The challenge of culture today is not retrenchment but rather creative engagement with the wider world.

Trumpian nationalism ignores the syncretic dynamism of Western culture. It is enthralled by a narrow conception of Western identity and the pernicious ideology of Western triumphalism. Rubio explicitly celebrated Western colonialism and the West’s “vast empires extending out across the globe.” He lamented that Europeans are “shackled by guilt and shame” about that history. He wants the West to be proud and “unapologetic.”

But one can admire Western achievements while also being critical of the evil of slavery and ugliness of imperialism. We learn from history by understanding it. We make progress through critique and cultural innovation.

The living heart of the West is compassionate, inclusive and universalist. Christianity teaches that all people deserve love. The idea of universal human rights develops from this root. This open spirit has given birth to a culture that includes Beethoven, The Beatles and Bad Bunny.

Reactionaries want a culture that is frozen and pure. They view syncretic cosmopolitanism as erasure. But when Lennon imagined that “the world will live as one,” he was not trying to erase anything. Rather, the point was to grow and to love. And in the end, as The Beatles sang, “the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Andrew Fiala is a professor of philosophy and director of The Ethics Center at Fresno State.

This story was originally published February 22, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What Marco Rubio gets wrong about The Beatles and Western culture | Opinion."