I don't have anything as strong as a justification ... just a hunch that one of the best things we can do in a secular society (assuming of course that we've agreed that this IS a secular society, and there you and I are in established disagreement) is to decide upon and promote some set of shared "core experiences". Like maybe a universal reading list, whose contents are negotiable.
One of the things that trouble me in modern America - and that contribute to a sense of alienation and anomie - is cultural fragmentation, the loss of common cultural stories and phrases to help us communicate.
Certainly, one of the advantages of a largely churchgoing community is that the church and its library provided a common cultural anchor. Our public schools need a common cultural protocol~syllabus~portfolio, and as Gov't institutions they should have one that is neutral to the many religions that have adherents in the citizenry. And that includes the nonreligion of the agnostic or atheist, which is much bigger country than the quasireligion of the dedicated secular humanist (y'know, the whole Godless liberal agenda hooey).
So I have this abiding hunch, and I am interested in dialog on how to equitably materialize this hunch, if that can even be done. However my bid for dialog is perhaps out of place here, since this thread has become to some extent a polarized kvetching ground between standardbearers of the religious right and irregular commandos of the liberal left. I've been painted into the latter camp, even though I am neither neoliberal nor left-leaning. Hazards of combat, I guess. <sigh> |
