I agree with your thesis and support your call for the reawakening of the human spirit and the reestablishment of a "new morality". But it might help for all of us to reflect on the Age of Enlightenment (particularly the Scottish Enlightenment) and how it shaped the thinking and motivations of our American "founding fathers". When reading the works of Thomas Paine (including his pamphlet, "Common Sense") and those of Thomas Jefferson and James Adams. We may find that the "new morality" we are seeking today was already envisioned in the morality of their early times.
But, then came the Industrial Revolution that "required" the amassing of large amounts of capital to build productive capacity and the removal of accountability to the local communities that engendered the creation of corporations. Worse yet - was the growth of "Evangelicalism" that replaced the prevailing original secular "Deism" of the founding fathers and morphed into the Christian capitalist dogma that you describe.
In search of the "New Morality", perhaps we need to become "originalists"!
Insightful, as always. The call is not really for a new morality, but a return to a humane reality that has existing throughout human history in some form or other.
I agree with your thesis and support your call for the reawakening of the human spirit and the reestablishment of a "new morality". But it might help for all of us to reflect on the Age of Enlightenment (particularly the Scottish Enlightenment) and how it shaped the thinking and motivations of our American "founding fathers". When reading the works of Thomas Paine (including his pamphlet, "Common Sense") and those of Thomas Jefferson and James Adams. We may find that the "new morality" we are seeking today was already envisioned in the morality of their early times.
But, then came the Industrial Revolution that "required" the amassing of large amounts of capital to build productive capacity and the removal of accountability to the local communities that engendered the creation of corporations. Worse yet - was the growth of "Evangelicalism" that replaced the prevailing original secular "Deism" of the founding fathers and morphed into the Christian capitalist dogma that you describe.
In search of the "New Morality", perhaps we need to become "originalists"!
Onward & upward! - Rob
Insightful, as always. The call is not really for a new morality, but a return to a humane reality that has existing throughout human history in some form or other.