Oh I don’t really disagree with much of that. But I think where we diverge is that I see the achievement of protections against the sort of encroachments you describe as a political fight and not really better achieved by trying to depoliticized the issues. Big cultural ideas like divine right or religious mores or the value of diversity…
Oh I don’t really disagree with much of that. But I think where we diverge is that I see the achievement of protections against the sort of encroachments you describe as a political fight and not really better achieved by trying to depoliticized the issues. Big cultural ideas like divine right or religious mores or the value of diversity are necessarily also political fights, and advancing a society where as many different views and individuals can freely exists and stake a claim on the public sphere requires winning political fights about speech protections, minority rights, and the inherent value of pluralism. And because this involves the way people imagine themselves and the world around them and make and mediate meaning in that world, they’re also inherently cultural.
They're political fights for the moment, but, for me, what's needed is kind of religious or spiritual revival that draws some of the energy out of the political conflict -- because it belongs elsewhere to begin with. Until that happens, we're sort of stuck culturally.
We probably disagree on what such a revival would look like. I don't believe that Christianity is well-suited to this project. In fact, none of the traditional Axial Age religions are. (This isn't to discount their importance historically, or what we can learn from them). Neither is "Science" with-a-capital-S. My view is that there is an imperative to create something new, and people need to wake up to it.
I suspect there's a lot we could discuss on this topic, because we seem to agree mostly on how civil society should be structured.
Oh I don’t really disagree with much of that. But I think where we diverge is that I see the achievement of protections against the sort of encroachments you describe as a political fight and not really better achieved by trying to depoliticized the issues. Big cultural ideas like divine right or religious mores or the value of diversity are necessarily also political fights, and advancing a society where as many different views and individuals can freely exists and stake a claim on the public sphere requires winning political fights about speech protections, minority rights, and the inherent value of pluralism. And because this involves the way people imagine themselves and the world around them and make and mediate meaning in that world, they’re also inherently cultural.
They're political fights for the moment, but, for me, what's needed is kind of religious or spiritual revival that draws some of the energy out of the political conflict -- because it belongs elsewhere to begin with. Until that happens, we're sort of stuck culturally.
We probably disagree on what such a revival would look like. I don't believe that Christianity is well-suited to this project. In fact, none of the traditional Axial Age religions are. (This isn't to discount their importance historically, or what we can learn from them). Neither is "Science" with-a-capital-S. My view is that there is an imperative to create something new, and people need to wake up to it.
I suspect there's a lot we could discuss on this topic, because we seem to agree mostly on how civil society should be structured.