The Great Challenge

A while ago, LabRat wrote about why some ideas which are detrimental in the long term for society as whole (specifically, socialism) still survive. The main reason seems to be, our brain is unable to contain the mere information relative to the thousand and more people that we need to relate to in order to live in a modern society; we still think - due to "hardware" limitations - in terms of a 150-200 people tribe where collectivism was good if not necessary.

Kevin examined the pitiful situation of public schools in America and concluded that there has to be more than mere stupidity at the root of it; most likely, there is a deliberate effort to use the schools as socialist/tranzist/multiculturalist indoctrination tools.

Dave Schuler briefly reflects on the role of guilt in the Western liberal democracies, and the contrast with cultures where the main restraint on the actions of men is shame instead. Is it possible to have liberal democracy without a sense of guilt in the population?

The great philosophical challenge of this age is to make some sense of this mess. In part, the challenge is to build a morality that is not necessarily founded on a revealed truth but does not slide into useless relativism. Another part is to restore the foundations of the West - seen as politics, philosophy, culture, arts, science - against the rot and decay plaguing it from within.

Even more, to adapt the West to a world that is different from when its foundations were laid for the first time. A philosophy and culture that can cope with the interconnected and by many means smaller world of this age.