{"id":30454,"date":"2019-09-29T03:31:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T08:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30454"},"modified":"2019-09-29T03:34:13","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T08:34:13","slug":"briefly-i-fear-that-shallow-ideas-will-soon-destroy-western-civilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30454","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: I fear shallow ideas will soon destroy Western Civilization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Cardo-Maximus.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30455\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Cardo-Maximus.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"290\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Cardo-Maximus.jpg 460w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Cardo-Maximus-300x189.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>More and more of what I hear and read today seems like complete nonsense. Even things which most people treat as great wisdom seems ridiculous and shallow to me. Then when I run across ideas and information which seem to be exciting and potentially life-changing to me, I find that most other people\u2019s eyes glaze over when I try to share those things. My uneasiness about this isn\u2019t about politics or ideology or religion. It\u2019s not about one particular interest group or another. It\u2019s something far more fundamental. It seems to be a difference in how we view the world and evaluate foundational information \u2014 how we process reason and truth. It feels as though the foundations of the Enlightenment have radically eroded and we\u2019re descending into a new Dark Age in which the philosophical values I hold dear will largely be forgotten. The Western Civilization which has given us such great gifts is in jeopardy \u2014 and I fear the things we are proud of today will soon lie in ruins, as has been the fate of so many other great civilizations which have died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More and more of what I hear and read today seems like complete nonsense. Even things which most people treat as great wisdom seems ridiculous and shallow to me. Then when I run across ideas and information which seem to be exciting and potentially life-changing to me, I find that most other people\u2019s eyes glaze <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30454\" class=\"more-link\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-briefly","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-7Vc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30454"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30458,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30454\/revisions\/30458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}