One of the great delusions of the terms 'free' or 'equal' is that they will not reduced to inconsequence and nonsense if they are not placed in the context of a responsibility to a higher and integrated moral order. In the West, that is Christian morality, which is the foundation of our civilization.
If you reduce thse terms to promoting competing points of reference in an amoral and chaotic universe, where only individual rights rule, then you will reduce morality to a 'law of the jungle mentality' of competing interests and power. That seems to happening now, when any absurdity can be declared equal in moral content, to any other, without reference to reason, purpose, tradition.
That seems to be happening in our civilization, and has an eery resemblance to the Oswald Spengler's premonition of a fragmenting civilization, cut free from in founding inspirations, and spinning wildly in space, dissipating its civilizing energy.
Much of what we have seen in our culture and in our economy now is a result of the loss of that sense of confidence in our origins and in a divine, absolute order.
If you reduce thse terms to promoting competing points of reference in an amoral and chaotic universe, where only individual rights rule, then you will reduce morality to a 'law of the jungle mentality' of competing interests and power. That seems to happening now, when any absurdity can be declared equal in moral content, to any other, without reference to reason, purpose, tradition.
That seems to be happening in our civilization, and has an eery resemblance to the Oswald Spengler's premonition of a fragmenting civilization, cut free from in founding inspirations, and spinning wildly in space, dissipating its civilizing energy.
Much of what we have seen in our culture and in our economy now is a result of the loss of that sense of confidence in our origins and in a divine, absolute order.