What's Wrong With Society?

Part 3B. Ideology.

In David Koyzis book, political visions and illusions, he surveys the most dominant ideologies in our country. He claims that they become forms of idolatry, where the thing they espouse becomes the most important thing (essentially they become a god we worship).

- Liberalism (superiority of individual sovereignty)
- Democratism (superiority of collective participation)
- Nationalism (superiority of the nation)
- Socialism (superiority of communal ownership)
- Conservatism (superiority of the past)

Koyzis argument is not that these ideologies don’t have a place but rather they need to be integrated into their proper place inside a higher order. Otherwise they distort and corrupt.

Dive deeper into this topic by watching my discussion on the subhect with David Koyzis on the Share Life podcast.

What's Wrong With Society?

Part 4B. The Autonomous Individual

This dominant ideology is corrosive to us as individuals and society. We’re entangled in it, some more than others.

Rowe continues.

“that the story of the autonomous individual cannot fund life together. It will break down and eventually fail, and the lives we've hoped to live together will come apart.”

How does this play out in society?

“Lawyers have a central place in the story of the autonomous individual precisely because they must exist to enforce the contracts that we agree to but to which we are not truly bound.”

“Law, and the force that backs it, are conceived and used as resistance to the implosion of a society that believes the story of the autonomous individual.”

All of this is descriptive and helpful for making sense of the political polarization and conflict that has, is, and will continue to play out.

Dive deeper by watching my discussion with Rowe below.

What’s wrong with society?

Part 7A. Driving The Machine.

We have a machine. Who is going to drive it? Perhaps we all are???

In my discussion with Jesse Nigro, he shares the following insight.

"MacIntyre is saying, when you pretend there's no such thing as a Telos (transcendent purpose/vision) what happens is you get the sort of Nietzschean reaction, which is to say that, someone with a will to power is going to come along and apply their will to this situation and we'll all just be doing what they think we ought to do, regardless of what the sort of surfacy, cover story is."

If this is all a veil, and we’re “playing house”, someone can come along and step outside the rules to manipulate the system for personal gain.