A man whom I respected died a few days ago, on February 28, 2007. In 1949, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., published his book, “The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom.” In it he argued that pragmatic, reform-minded liberalism, limited in scope, was the best that man could hope for politically. He explained --
Problems will always torment us because all important problems are insoluble: that is why they are important. The good comes from the continuing struggle to try and solve them, not from the vain hope of their solution.
Much more recently he defended Western culture by arguing that the concepts of freedom of expression, religion, human rights, liberty and democracy are distinctively Western values. He wrote --
These are European ideas, not Asian, nor African, nor Middle-Eastern ideas, except by adoption. There is surely no reason for Western civilization to have guilt trips laid on it by champions of cultures based on despotism, superstition, tribalism, and fanaticism.
Well, I think that not be entirely true, but Schlesinger has here offered a useful reminder of the blessings of Western civilization and of the limitations of many other cultures.
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