modern, the up-to-date, they consider an improvement on the past. History
teaches that civilizations rise and decline. When a civilization is rising, those
called progressive are more apt to be right; when a civilization is declining,
the conservatives are more apt to be right. But few have the judgment to know
when a civilization is rising or when it is declining. Much so-called progress
is a delusion, temporarily appearing to advance but in the long run hastening
a decline.
A wise man never accepts the name of a progressive or a conservative. He
looks for what is genuine in the present and in the past, and is opposed to the
false, the counterfeit, whether it be in the present or in the past. As the Lord
said: “Every scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a
man....that bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” (Matthew
13:52)
(WEO)
the light of a small candle
Democratic freedom and the free enterprise system often are derided for the
abuses they spawn – because of the very freedom they grant to all of us. To be
as good as it can be and should be any free system must be rooted in virtue,
morality and a willingness to be led by the Lord. So it is with our own natural
and spiritual freedom. We are always free to turn toward the Lord or away
from Him, and help to define ourselves and our society with our choices.
Consider this perspective from eminent political scientist James Q. Wilson
in Commentary magazine in 1993:
“Almost every important tendency in modern thought has questioned
the possibility of making moral judgments. Analytical philosophy asserts
that moral statements are expressions of emotion lacking any rational or
scientific basis. Marxism derides morality and religion as ‘phantoms forged
in the human brain,’ ‘ideological reflexes’ that are, at best, mere sublimates
of material circumstances. Nietzsche writes dismissively that morality is but
the herd instinct of the individual. Existentialists argue that man must choose
his values without having any sure compass to guide those choices. Cultural
anthropology as practiced by many of its most renowned scholars claims that
amid the exotic diversity of human life there can be found no universal laws
of right conduct.
“I wish to argue for an older view of human nature, one that assumes
that people are naturally endowed with certain moral sentiments. We have a
peculiar, fragile, but persistent disposition to make moral judgments, and we
generally regard people who lack this disposition to be less than human.
“Despite our wars, crimes, envies, snobberies, fanaticisms and persecutions,
197