The Nature of the Universal Truth As we said above, the Greeks sought universality in all things—and they firmly believed that they were capable of finding it. Judaism, on the other hand, set a limit on human capacity: it believed that there are some truths known only to God, and these can be communicated to humans only through revelations.
In other words, the Greeks wanted to shape individuals to best serve society as citizens; Judaism wanted to commit them both individually and collectively to the Divine Law. Apparently irreconcilable, Judaism and Greek thought were brought together and found some consonance in Christianity, which provided the next layer of foundational ideas in the building of modernity.
Now, contrary to what you believe—and what the four riders of the modern atheistic movement would have you believe—Christianity and science worked pretty well together for long stretches of time:. The problem actually arose because of Martin Luther and John Calvin, after which the Church became suspicious of where the inclusion of secular knowledge would lead to.
Another deeply religious Christian mentioned in this chapter is John Locke, the man who basically invented modern freedom. Locke believed that our rights are a corollary of our duties: we have a right to property since we have a corresponding duty not to steal; a right to life , since we have a duty not to kill; and a right to liberty since we have a duty not to oppress.
As you probably know, John Locke is one of the heroes of the Enlightenment, a period of history which modern proponents of progress read: Steven Pinker et al. This was the period, they say when humanity finally got rid of the Baconian idols of the cave and started seeing the world as it is. Locke, Spinoza, Hume, Voltaire, Kant—they all thought the way a human being should think, i.
Furthermore, these advocates of Enlightenment values argue, it is religion which prevents us from making another step forward.
This, finally, resulted in the at least nominally atheistic and, oftentimes, hedonistic philosophies of Voltaire, Kant, and Bentham who assumed that reason could construct morality from scratch.
But the very fact that their moralities did not coincide should be evidence in favor of the opposite.
Speaking of explosions— then came Nietzsche and announced the death of god , advocating for a world where humans live in accordance with the will of self-perfection.
Of course, there was Dostoyevsky warning that in a world without God, everything is allowed —but nobody listened. The idea that we can all be reasonable and supplant traditional Judeo-Christian ideas with things like tolerance and compassion is a vestige of the Enlightenment mentality.
Unfortunately, this idea ignores the dark side of the Enlightenment hope: the French and the Communist Revolutions. The juxtaposition between the American Revolution and the French Revolution demonstrates the contrast between the strains of Enlightenment thinking. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. The Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free in the first case; the guillotine and , dead in the latter one. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them.
They must be annihilated. Romantic nationalism, collectivist redistributionism, and scientific progressivism did away with the individual need for meaning.
The four elements of meaning collapsed downward into two: communal purpose and communal capacity. The individual virtually disappeared in each of these domains. Individuals were only valuable as members of the collective: as sources of the general will, to be embodied in the unified culture of the state; as members of economic classes, who could unite to overthrow the nature of humankind itself; as citizens to be cultivated by the state, their expertise to be placed in service of the greater good.
Writing n Being and Nothingness , Sartre notes that humans are alone in a chaotic, meaningless world and, thus, are both condemned to be free and responsible for everything they do. Greek philosophy and Judaist religious thought believed that man, like a clock, has a clear predefined purpose. An important disclaimer for our readers: this is a conspiracy theory , which anyone who has actually read the books of these people would probably already know: for a start, the Frankfurt School of Thought critiqued both capitalism and Marxism.
Anyway, you know where this is going: Shapiro firmly believes that these thinkers have questioned the foundations of Western society, just like all those people analyzed in chapters 6 and 7.
In the conclusion of The Right Side of History , Ben Shapiro suggests that it is through our children that we need to start returning to these values. Your Life Has Purpose. You Can Do It. Make the most of it. You are not a victim. In a free society, you are responsible for your actions. Your Civilization Is Unique. And our common cause is a civilization replete with purpose, both communal and individual, a civilization that celebrates both individual and communal capacity.
Before the advent of Judaism, people were nothing more but playthings of the gods, i. Meanwhile, the Greeks devised an interesting idea of their own. They realized that this omniscient and omnipotent Being must have used some laws to create the world and that these laws can be deduced from careful observation of the world. When these two seemingly irreconcilable views of existence came together and meshed through the rise of Christianity—the Western civilization was born.
It is important to note that in every society which thrived, Greek Reason and Judaic Revelation went hand in hand; those which opted for one of the two failed miserably. Thank You! Apple Podcasts Preview.
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