Modernity on Endless Trial

DuelingWeltanschauungen: Contemporary Collegiate Worldviews Part 1

“…That it is not an inevitable defeat is a claim that cannot be defended in good faith…One can accept (it) only if one accepts that there is sense beyond that which is inherent in human history-if in other words one accepts the order of the sacred 122 If you are a believer, the highest aspiration is to have another life in the after world. If you are a nonbeliever, the most you can hope for is another life in this world 123 We pray to God when we feel the need to, but when we come here to America, we don't feel the need" 124 Our current thematic focus is that of religious diversity and pluralism.…”

“…64 In fact, humancentered values associated with individual autonomy in particular ascended so conspicuously and completely that it might fairly be argued that they triggered the larger cultural shift: in postmodernity at least, values may have led worldview instead of vice versa.…”

Epilogue

“…"Some of them, like Marx, Freud, and Einstein," to quote Leszek Kolakowski, "were to become real world-conquerors; thousands found their places in the elites of all realms of civilization-the sciences, arts, humanities, and politics." 21 To put this another way, if Jews of the Diaspora came to feel at home in foreign lands, it wasn't so much because they wholly immersed themselves in gentile society and culture as because they added to them a high cosmopolitan polish of their own making.…”

Why the far-future matters to democracy today

“…Though we want to utilize the power of visions to vitalize our democratic debate-in a time of technocratic decisionmaking-we also want to steer clear of the authoritarian aura that surrounds utopian thought. In a discussion about the concept of fraternity the Polish-American scholar Leszek Kolakowski [20] touches upon a possible solution to our dilemma. He writes: "the idea of human fraternity is disastrous as a political program, but is indispensable as a guiding sign".…”