The Late Man, according to [Oswald] Spengler, acts like a mouse-sized, self-adulating simulacrum of the god whose existence he dogmatically denies but whose role of unmoved mover he wants to assume. Guided by his theories, the Late Man, as liberal-socialist, tinkers persistently with the social and moral universes, while granting no possibility of unforeseen or untoward consequence in respect of his agenda. The Late Man, with his contempt for the past and his narcissism, cannot acknowledge that anything inherited, whether custom or institution, has ever justified its function.[1]
This isn't new. The ancients knew all about hubris. Icarus is the template. More than ever before simpletons, thugs, naifs, connivers, and liars now have income, leisure, a megaphone for their views, and, of course, access to the ballot and the public treasury.
Folly unleashed.
I recently had occasion to mention the medieval Church to a new but elderly acquaintance. Her immediate reaction, and I do mean immediate, was that it "did a lot of bad things." She had a professed interest in theology but had blithely cast off from 2,000+ years of effort to establish workable moral and theological ideas to guide imperfect humans.
She's not an opinion leader herself but she and millions like her enable this deadly toying with our civilization.
Notes
[1] "Oswald Spengler On Democracy, Equality, And 'Historylessness'." By Thomas F. Bertonneau, The Brussels Journal, 5/31/13 (emphasis added).
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