On the surface, Americans all value the same things. Life, liberty, equality, the rule of law, the pursuit of happiness – these terms form the basis of our shared moral language.
If nations are to build a common identity, they must share a moral vision, a shared understanding of who they are as a people. To reach that moral vision, people must speak the same language, not just in the literal sense of speaking English. Also, when using a particular term, everyone must have the same meaning.
When progressives destroyed America’s shared Christian culture, they destroyed the basic axioms of our language that allow for moral debate.
Without a common language to discuss fundamental truths, unity of identity and purpose is impossible.
The coat of arms of the United States has a Latin phrase engraved on it. E pluribus num, But we cannot come together if our basic ability to discuss moral truths is broken. A moral discourse crisis has gripped our nation, and until it is resolved, the endless culture wars that rage in every corner of our public and private lives will continue to tear us apart.
in “after virtue” says philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre of the theoretical end. Imagine an advanced civilization suffering a severe disaster and a wealth of scientific knowledge disappearing. Laboratories, universities, scientific literature will all disappear, and people will lose the accumulated knowledge they previously relied on. A group of politicians who blame science for the tragedy that destroyed their civilization are eager to crush what is left of the scientific community.
After several decades, these politicians are removed from power and society begins to rebuild. All the actual scientists have left, but people old enough to vaguely remember a world where science existed start a new movement. They are trying to revive science, but there is a severe lack of understanding. They were still children when their civilization was still mastering science. The leaders of the new movement have no formal training or real knowledge of what the science entails. Necessary equipment and texts are missing. They don’t really understand the theory involved.
This post-apocalyptic society’s concept of science is built on fragments, the fading memories of people who had no idea what science was in the first place. This movement becomes essential to the culture of our imagined civilization. Some adults are discussing scientific theories that they don’t quite understand. Children learn to recite parts of the periodic table as if they were sacred, but no one understands the context or how to apply this knowledge.
The people call this knowledge “science.” They treat their understanding of the subject as if it were extremely important, even though it is tragically divorced from science. do. This broken and impoverished scientific concept is treated as common cultural knowledge. Scientific terms such as “photon” and “chlorophyll” have come into common use, but no one understands their true meaning. No one understands that they are using words incorrectly.
Eventually, competing factions develop radically different interpretations of scientific knowledge. Society splits along these lines, as each faction asserts competing interpretations of this central cultural ideology. The factions do not realize that their civilization will never be able to resolve these competing claims because they lack important information contained in the original concept of science.
By now you can probably see where this is going. Alasdair MacIntyre argues that this is how our current civilization understands morality. Because we are moral creatures, we have a hard time recognizing when our own understanding of morality is broken. We all need the concept of morality in order to function. So even if our understanding of morality is broken and limited, we must treat it as complete because we don’t know how to function any other way.
Even radicals who think the current system is completely broken must act as if our society had the basic language needed to understand morality. .
“Modern radicals are as confident in the moral articulation of their positions as their conservative predecessors, and, as a result, confident in their willingness to use moral rhetoric.” writes McIntyre. “He is convinced that whatever he condemns in our culture, he still has the necessary moral resources to condemn it. In his eyes, everything else Things may appear chaotic, but the language of morality remains orderly. It is inconceivable to him that he too may be betrayed by the very words he uses. Thing.”
It should be obvious why a civilization that can no longer collectively define the terms “man” and “woman” would have similar difficulty defining common concepts such as justice and freedom. When progressives destroyed America’s shared Christian culture, they destroyed the basic axioms of our language that make moral discourse possible. That foundation is so shattered that modern American Christians often have difficulty communicating these concepts to each other.
When there is no shared moral language, no shared moral vision, when there is no vision, people perish.
