The Meaning of History and Life, Part V

If historical study reveals that life in the modern western offers unprecedented comfort, it also suggests that we labor under peculiar burdens.

Chief among the historically unusual challenges modern Americans face is a lack of consensus on what people are for.  People in most times and places are born with a pretty detailed instruction book attached to their wrists on what is expected of them, how they should act in various circumstances, what their society would define as a life well lived.  The modern U.S. lacks that sort of shared understanding.  In fact we divide sharply on all sorts of important issues, from whom we should marry to how to treat children to when force is appropriate--and of course whether or not God exists and, if so, what he (or she) requires of us.

These many divides over key moral and religious questions not only lead to bitter divisions in our national and even familial arenas, they also create a great deal of stress within individuals.  Evolution has not really fitted us out to create a workable philosophy of life.  The societies we are born into are supposed to handle that.  But we find ourselves confronted with many competing world views--as well as the pervasive consumer-oriented ethos touted in countless advertisements that admonish us to "have a good time, all the time," as a band member of Spinal Tap put it some years ago.

Most of us bumble along as best we can, trying to "have a good one," as the saying goes.  But this leaves us feeling a bit like Homer Simpson, beleaguered and confused by why we are here and by what life throws at us, especially when we encounter--as all of us must--suffering.

With great freedom comes great confusion.