by mk

A big idea could capture the cover of Time — “Is God Dead?” — and intellectuals like Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal would even occasionally be invited to the couches of late-night talk shows. How long ago that was.

IMO there are two things going on here. The first is that many current Big Ideas are relegated to the sciences, where there is antipathy (as this article suggests), and ignorance, due in part to educational priorities, and in part to the inaccessibility of very specialized ideas. These ideas are ignored. The second has something to do with individualism in the Western world. If the US has a religion, it is that the individual can be a god, the market is the world, and some gods should be worshiped for their exploits and the masses they command. Steve Jobs is Apollo, Sarah Palin is Persephone, Rupert Mudoch is Ares, etc. We worship them. Sometimes they interact with mortals; and some mortals ascend to Olympus. In this religion, ideas that Gabler speaks of have little currency. In fact, due to the considerable effort they represent, they are almost ironic, laughable. A real god can destroy these ideas by sheer will.