Some years ago I stumbled across an essay by the philosopher David Kelley, ‘9/11 And The War Against Modernity’: atlassociety.org/9/11_terrorism_modernity. It contains this paragraph describing Modernity and Western society: “The cultural foundation of this society, if we state it as a set of explicit theses, was the view that reason, not revelation, is the instrument of knowledge and arbiter of truth; that science, not religion, gives us the truth about nature; that the pursuit of happiness in this life, not suffering in preparation for the next, is the cardinal value; that reason can and should be used to increase human well-being through economic and technological progress; that the individual person is an end in himself with the capacity to direct his own life, not a slave or a child to be ruled by others; that individuals have equal rights to freedom of thought, speech, and action; that religious belief should be a private affair, tolerance a social virtue, and church and state kept separate; and that we should replace command economies with markets, warfare with trade, and rule by king or commissar with democracy.” It was one of those “Aha!” moments. It wasn’t that I was somehow “converted”. It was that someone with a better way with words than I had set out my own existing underlying beliefs in so succinct and lucid a manner. Has anyone had a similar experience?
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 09:23:14 +0000
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