Re: so what?

Some of the difficulties in this discussion come in efforts to evaluate a creed 
as a whole.  All creeds include the orthodox, mystics, radicals, etc. who stake 
out a variety of positions. I denounce modernity because I think we will need 
to severely modify our thinking if we're going to move forward.  Of course, 
having grown up in the modern world, much of the residue of modernity is 
inescapable--just as European modernity was, however much it claimed to be a 
break, continuous in some ways with Christianity.

Alan--I don't believe some sort of genetic 'will to power' is responsible for 
the failures of Marxism in power.  And I recognize that capitalism constrained 
what could be accomplished.  However, many crimes were committed by people 
sincerely acting on their beliefs, and the way their beliefs encouraged those 
crimes must also be recognized.

Khaldoun--Modernity has produced the greatest economic inequalities ever seen.  
However, it is difficult to identify any other creed that has produced the 
framework for the assertion of rights by practically any individual or group, 
and even explicit efforts to defend the rights of some aspects of the non-human 
world.  It is difficult to imagine slavery being revived as a legal category in 
the modern framework.  This social egalitarian aspect of modernity needs to be 
acknowledged before it can be transcended.

Steven Sherman