I can’t decide which vision is more damaging: the Fall or Progress. The former results in attitudes of resignation or ignorant reactionism, the other leads to complacence or reckless utopianism.

The controversy of Darwinism / Creationism / Intelligent Design owes its intensity to the conflict between the Fall and Progress. Each vision wants its mythical embodiment taught to the young.

*

Meliorism is the way out of this conflict, but meliorism requires proper education. Unfortunately, in our mania to quantify education we’ve lost all sense of paideia. Only banausos (facts and skills) can be quantified, and we are far too poorly educated to know how to approach that which resists quantification.

We teach only the doing of one’s determinate duty, not reflection on duty.

Consequently, our society is more and more like an autonomous, self-building machine without an operator.