We Live In A Dark Age

Liberalism makes philosophy impossible

Don’t let the intense secularism of America’s public life fool you. We live in one of the most fanatically religious times in human history. Criticize Zelensky in public or deny the efficacy of the COVID vaccine on social media and you’ll find out exactly how tolerant and loving liberal society really is.

Philosophy is almost completely dead in our time. Virtually no one today is interested in the intransigent investigation of received presuppositions in the name of truth and wisdom. Only a handful of thinkers and writers that I know of—none of whom are in a significant positions of power or prominence—have any interest in such a project.

A philosopher, were he to exist in our time, would question the foundaitonal premises of anti-racism. He would prod and poke at arguments that deny differences between men and women. He would question the foundations of atheism and higher Biblical criticism. He would not be vaccinated against COVID. We can be almost certain he would dabble in flat earth theorizing.

In other words, if a Plato or Aristotle were reborn in our time, he would immediately be denounced as a “science-denier” “conspiracy theorist” and “right-wing extremist.” Or, if you will, a “corrupter of the youth” and an enemy of the city’s morality.

The philosopher is a skeptic of all received opinions and a questioner of all “settled” truths. Very few human beings in any time and place are capable of engaging in such a project without losing their minds or becoming sophistic blatherers. Such a task is even more difficult in regimes filled with crazed fanatics and their ferocious piety. Public confessions, of racism, bigotry, homophobia, etc. are a constant feature of our public life. Even Medieval peasants didn’t flagellate themselves to this degree!

So, is there any hope? Is philosophy still possible? Or has Western Civilization finally given up the ghost? For myself, I’m not so sure. Times of social upheaval and decline are potentially rich soil for philosophic investigation. It was the collapse of moral instincts in Athens that gave us Socrates and, more importantly, Plato. Perhaps we postmoderns will get lucky. As liberal democracy degenerates more and more into clown world, and faith in anti-racism, feminism, and the 21st century global economy fades we might once again see the appearance of heretics to the liberal faith and a return to real philosophic investigation.

It is cold comfort to we ordinary mortals who must live through such things, but at least our descendants might get a Great Book or two out of the deal. We can only hope.