Sir Jonathan Sacks: The West can revive through remoralization
4 replies
MiamianNew MemberOPhttp://www.aish.com/ci/sept11/How_to_Reverse_the_Wests_Decline.html#.Tm8Jxk8JJpE.facebook
The real challenge of 9/11 is not what it seemed at the time: Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Sayyid Qutb and radical Islam. These were real and present threats, to be sure, but they were symptoms, not cause. The challenge was the underlying moral health of Western liberal democracies, their asabiyah, their sense of identity and collective responsibility, their commitment to one another and to the ideals that brought them into being. The counter-narrative of 1989 and the fall of Soviet Communism saw it not as a victory for the West but as part of a law of history that says: all great civilizations eventually decline, and the West will be the next to go.
There is, to my mind, only one sane alternative. That is to do what England and America did in the 1820s. Those two societies, deeply secularized after the rationalist 18th century, scarred and fractured by the problems of industrialization, calmly set about remoralising themselves, thereby renewing themselves.
ירושלים, בירת עמי
padre31Luxury BoxOne of my pet causes Miamian, however not the in your face sort of approach, or the "I'm better then you because" but simply a rational choice to behave morally simply because it offers the most positive benefits for the greatest number of people who make that choice.
"we" can chuckle at Charlie Sheen's antics, try and emoluate them and the average person would be bankrupt and in prison in a couple of yrs.
OhiophinphanStaffWhile I understand the argument, it seems that the moral bankruptcy of fundamentalist Islam could be just as much to blame. Indeed the moral "superiority" of religious extremists in general is at least as much an issue as the moral laxity of secularism.
OHIOPHINPHAN
Witness to the first ever practice of the Miami Dolphins, 1966.
padre31Luxury Box"Ohiophinphan wrote:
While I understand the argument, it seems that the moral bankruptcy of fundamentalist Islam could be just as much to blame. Indeed the moral "superiority" of religious extremists in general is at least as much an issue as the moral laxity of secularism.
Differing systems of Morality OHp, one is totally compromising, the other violently non compromising.
OhiophinphanStaff"padre31 wrote:
Differing systems of Morality OHp, one is totally compromising, the other violently non compromising.
I don't want to come across as a relativist but I do think context matters. Radical non compromise has a place but it should be excercised with extreme caution!
OHIOPHINPHAN
Witness to the first ever practice of the Miami Dolphins, 1966.