No fate worse than death

I have barely begun reading Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost and haven't even reached the first chapter. From the Introduction:

Latter-day sensibility, and a loss of faith in traditional Western religions, has decreed that there is, literally, not a fate worse than death. We have, in our wisdom, transformed our short span of existence into a kind of living Purgatory, where life itself is misery and palliative surcease can only be found via drugs, sex, or therapy. That there might exist a teleologically aspirational end state is unthinkable; past and future have vanished, to be replaced by an eternally torturous present that can only be endured, and not transformed. Death becomes no one; if there is nothing worth living for, except for the sake of living, then what is worth dying for? ....

In an age of victimhood and identity politics, heroism is increasingly regarded as an antiquated relic of the "patriarchy" as if, historically at least, there had ever been an alternative. Is it "racist" to sacrifice yourself for your own kind rather than submit to the sword of the alien enemy seeking to supplant you? By regarding all cultures as equal, or even superior, to one's own, has not treason therefore become the highest form of patriotism? The cultural-Marxist import of "Critical Theory" would have us ask these questions, not to illuminate the moral issues, which have long since been decided, but to sow doubt about our most basic social concepts: a pacifist, post-Christian, feminized West seemingly can no longer take its own side in a quarrel. Accommodation, inclusivity, tolerance, and, above all, shame have become the new watchwords. In a politically correct culture, only a fool would sacrifice himself for something as fashionably objectionable as the traditional nuclear family or as base as personal honor. ....

If the importance of the individual is central to the social and political meaning of the West, if we are not to be cogs in a wheel or clerks in a gigantic post office, then our fates as free and autonomous men and women are what must most concern us—far more than the static and sometimes destructive collectivism that seeks to supplant our agency. Western art and culture is the story of heroes, not groups. What may seem today to be antiquated concepts of honor, virtue, glory, and the chivalric protection of women and children we forsake at our existential peril. The great stories of our patrimony are the stories of heroes, generally martial, not diplomats or committees. What features do these stories have in common? The first is the embrace (often, at first, reluctant) of a great cause, one that allows, or propels, the individual into the service of his people. Concomitant with this commitment is the hero's acceptance that he may have to give his life in this endeavor, that there are some things, big things, worth dying for so that others might live, or live freely. Self-sacrifice is, after all, the ultimate sacrifice. ....