Andrew Hagen

Are you befuddled by today’s events? Are you left in despair? Do you wonder why the world seems to be falling apart and yet no one seems to care? Have you noticed how Republicans are insane and Democrats are also insane, but in a different way? Does this leave you feeling powerless and hopeless?

If any of those statements apply to you, then you should know you aren’t alone. I feel that way, too.

Yet, there is cause for hope. The origin of hope is understanding. We must comprehend this mixed up modern world.

Alain Finkielkraut’s 1995 book, The Defeat of the Mind, can provide the beginning of a diagnosis. (*) The blog Hassagot touches on the book. (†)

Finkielkraut is terribly pessimistic about the future of the West. His book is an intellectual odyssey that intentionally avoids solidifying into a hardened point by which he may pierce to the heart of the matter. Finkielkraut says the life of the mind is abandoned in the West. He says the mind is defeated; it has lost the war. Yet, what if the mind is defeated in only a single battle? What if the war is not lost?

So we must presume, and so we must work to reinvigorate the life of the mind in our civilization.

And so we come to the end, barbarism replaces culture. In the shadow of the great word, intolerance and infantile behavior increase. When it is not cultural identity restricting the choices an individual can make, using threats of high treason to silence expressions of doubt, irony, and reason—it is the entertainment industry, the creation of the technological age, that reduces great works of art to drivel. The life of the mind has quietly moved out of the way, making room for the terrible and pathetic encounter of the fanatic and the zombie.

Finkielkraut, p. 135.

Updated.

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