Don’t Panic
by R J Snell, Public Discourse:
For the rationalist or fundamentalist character, hope cannot but seem inadequate, even corny. Such a character has a rage for order and cannot but suffer an anxious repulsion for disorder. Hope, on the other hand, is not blind, or merely optimistic, nor is hope something we churn up in ourselves as a kind of subjective attitude. Hope, rather, is a virtue. It is a state that perfects us, makes us well, capable of thinking, living, and acting in the freedom of excellence.
Given the state of things, the temptation to succumb to moral panic is understandable. It would be easy to conclude that both our culture and civilization are wobbling, with culture understood as a set of judgments of value and civilization indicating the systems of economy and infrastructure.
Our culture has long promoted sexual revolution, abortion, gender ideology, family collapse, religious indifferentism, ideological conformity, transgender contagion, and a seemingly endless litany of confusion and decadence. Now, moreover, cities and states fail to maintain public safety and health while roads crater, bridges sag, electric grids fail, wildfires burn out of control, and the water supply is either tainted or simply disappearing. Culture has long seemed moribund, and now civilization teeters as well.
Given the uneasy mood, it’s understandable why calls for patience, moderation, or hopefulness might appear unresponsive, even ridiculous; when the ship is capsizing, lifeboats are needed rather more than another symposium. Perhaps. Even so, panic doesn’t get lifeboats safely away.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
