Because that's what governments do. That's what politics literally is: public morality. If we make choices about what "marriage" is, or we decide that the makeup of a family is a matter of taste, we necessarily disfavor those traditional views.
We also suffer the consequences of failing to appreciate those realities whilst being awash in misplaced sentimentality and false notions of "equality".
I suppose we'd always sought refuge in "freedom," believing that a healthy pluralism would make room for our views, too. What if that viewpoint neutrality was always a ruse, an illusion?
I hold Mr. David French in the highest esteem. His work to make America livable for all of us should never be forgotten. But maybe the biggest mistake is to believe that most people want to be reasonable.
Or perhaps the illusion was so plausible because most Americans and their neighbors around the world still benefited from the West's consensus about the nature of reality. It's true that Christianity is the beating heart of Western civilization. It's also true that it's not faith per se that makes it work.
Metaphysical realism is what made it work. Metaphysical realism asserts that it is possible to know reality though the use of reason. There is a coherence to reality as we know and can observe it.
When the West slid into philosophical skepticism--the assertion that we cannot know reality as reality through reason--we lost the consensus upon which everything prior had been based. It is perhaps amusing in a morbid way to hear an atheist rave in a Christian society; we treat them like a "crazy" uncle or aunt who drank too much at Thanksgiving. Setting aside faith or the lack of it for the moment, what are we supposed to do when people claim we can't be certain about anything?
Religion hasn't gone anywhere; it's just fractured, and more significantly divided between those systems that assume faith is in harmony with reason, and those that assume it is not. Escape from the world, versus transformation of it. Fideism--faith apart from reason--is ascendant. People aren't just fideistic about religion now; they're becoming fideistic about everything. Bring on the charismatic cult leaders and hucksters.
Somewhat amusing is the realization that the perception that an evil cabal is imposing itself on us, and that "the people" are fighting against them, depends entirely upon what the cabal is selling. (And whether you agree with it/them.)
We also suffer the consequences of failing to appreciate those realities whilst being awash in misplaced sentimentality and false notions of "equality".
I suppose we'd always sought refuge in "freedom," believing that a healthy pluralism would make room for our views, too. What if that viewpoint neutrality was always a ruse, an illusion?
I hold Mr. David French in the highest esteem. His work to make America livable for all of us should never be forgotten. But maybe the biggest mistake is to believe that most people want to be reasonable.
Or perhaps the illusion was so plausible because most Americans and their neighbors around the world still benefited from the West's consensus about the nature of reality. It's true that Christianity is the beating heart of Western civilization. It's also true that it's not faith per se that makes it work.
Metaphysical realism is what made it work. Metaphysical realism asserts that it is possible to know reality though the use of reason. There is a coherence to reality as we know and can observe it.
When the West slid into philosophical skepticism--the assertion that we cannot know reality as reality through reason--we lost the consensus upon which everything prior had been based. It is perhaps amusing in a morbid way to hear an atheist rave in a Christian society; we treat them like a "crazy" uncle or aunt who drank too much at Thanksgiving. Setting aside faith or the lack of it for the moment, what are we supposed to do when people claim we can't be certain about anything?
Religion hasn't gone anywhere; it's just fractured, and more significantly divided between those systems that assume faith is in harmony with reason, and those that assume it is not. Escape from the world, versus transformation of it. Fideism--faith apart from reason--is ascendant. People aren't just fideistic about religion now; they're becoming fideistic about everything. Bring on the charismatic cult leaders and hucksters.
Somewhat amusing is the realization that the perception that an evil cabal is imposing itself on us, and that "the people" are fighting against them, depends entirely upon what the cabal is selling. (And whether you agree with it/them.)
Comments