Idealism, Culture, and Why Good Intentions Are Not Enough
How the culture wars between the Left and the Right should turn to philosophy to recapture their sanity and reshape their values
Knowledge is power. Without it, even the most intelligent mind lacks the tools necessary to fully leverage its potential. Similarly, brute strength alone is of no use to a stonemason if he doesn’t know how to properly apply it and extract what he most needs from the mountain.
Analogies could continue almost infinitely to conclude that an intelligent mind paired with knowledge makes a person better equipped to face the world and succeed.
Knowledge has been and remains a cornerstone of our Western civilization. In terms of social mobility, it is also a key factor in rising within social hierarchies. An educated person can go up the so-called social scales, if not with money, at least in the way one sees the world.
However, when discussing knowledge and wisdom, we must also introduce the concept of culture — a word whose meaning has already filled countless books and continues to generate meanings.
If we think of culture as something that makes us more ‘civilized’ and tempers our more ‘barbaric’ instincts, it becomes a virtue that…
