In the widest possible view (at least given current notions of the possible), I continue to think that the West is generally prosperous due to the industrial structures constructed after the war, combined with the tenfold increase in global populaiton over the last 100 years. The difficulty is that this prosperity is largely unrelated to the political games and potential corruption inside that (largely idiot-proof) prosperity, and these practices can legitimate themselves by pointing to the prosperity and suggesting that we had better keep doing the things that we're doing. Surely the politics of the last half-decade or so is enoungh to establish that the general notion that everything's normal is an insufficient basis for the shared life. It is necessary to actually understand the world -- not in the manner of the sociologists, revolutionaries, or reactionaries, but in a genuine attempt by each soul to come to terms with what it is that surrounds them. Else, the first person with an answer to come along gets to build his monorail.
