It has been one of the week's most enjoyable personal experiences and has reinforced my own thinking about how the modern world is reacting to a long overdue exposure of some of the world's false doctrines.
And perhaps not surprisingly, the pearls of wisdom emerging from this wide ranging discussion were really just the regurgitating of old beliefs and priorities that have formed the basis for egalitarian societies from the beginning of time.
In the end, we learn the things that determine success for the individual and the community we choose to live in are pretty much all the result of the family values we have inherited or pass on to the next generation.
Again, the continued success from one generation to the next will be determined by how many of these family values are adopted by the recipient family member.
Herein lies the point where the sucessful regeneration process is vulnerable to breakdown.
Any astute observer of modern society will identify with Kennedy and Davis Hanson as they point out both the individual and collective failures of past civilizations and attribute blame for the result.
So, what are the parameters for success?
For me who, like both men, grew up in households where a quality education was rated amongst the highest priority, it didn't matter whether the individual went on to a career in Academia, Politics, Science, Medicine or working in the Manual industries, because a stint at University is supposed to teach you how to think for yourself and hopefully base decisions in future life on what you know to be true.
Usually a problem arises when parents emphasise the value of higher education at the expense of all other important aspects of learning such as commonsense or responsibility for and attitude towards our fellow human beings. In other words, we reach maturity without a balanced grounding.
Notice l have deliberately excluded "faith" from my high priority list mainly because it is possible to have a fulfilling life without a belief in a higher being but my personal experience tells me that an agnostic existence leaves the door open for greater contentment while not knowing the answers to all life's questions. An atheist has to know it all.
Be that as it may, the overriding conclusion l reached after listening to these two learned men was that they both acknowledged the simple truths as the lifeblood of a successful multi cultural society wherever and whenever they have occurred in History.
We must respect each other's right of equal access to the "country in which we were born"s natural resources and their right to hold different opinions about how these resources are utilized - it's called democracy. Without these safeguards in our learning process we are open to a poisoning of our imature minds by radical extremists who operate without restraint on this fertile playground.
And how many times have we seen our rights abused by those who care little for the well being of the millions who are unable to exercise that right.
Our future on this planet will depend to a large degree on how many of us mere mortals say enough is enough and return to a time when the priorities we set ourselves are a reflection of who we want to be rather than that of past generations who dropped the ball at a time when they needed to step up and take responsibility for their own actions - it's called good parenting.
Clive Bibby is a commentator, consultant, farmer and community leader, who lives in Tolaga Bay.
3 comments:
>"... my personal experience tells me that an agnostic existence leaves the door open for greater contentment while not knowing the answers to all life's questions. An atheist has to know it all."
It would pay this writer to check up on the meaning of the terms he uses. The term 'agnostic' was coined by Thomas Huxley in 1869 as a reference to people who do not claim to 'know' (it was a play on the term 'gnostic' which alluded to a 1st-century idea that the divine was completely knowable). It is an epistemological stance in that its use implies that the user regards some things as unknowable by their nature - a theme Gould elaborated on last century by referring to "non-overlapping magisteria". I don't see how babbling about "leaving the door open for contentment" has anything whatsoever to do with any of this, but then we are after all operating at very, very different intellectual levels of refinement. As for atheists claiming to know everything, I suggest we drop the 'a' prefix to turn that into a verifiably correct claim - an atheism simply being one who does not acknowledge the existence of a principal god (the term runs into definitional problems when used in the context of a religion such as Hinduism). But again there is an order of magnitude between the intellectual levels being engaged here.
For me as Christian I maintain the two domains do in fact overlap. Newton saw no conflict but rather agreement between the laws of gravity seen scientifically and as the product of God's hand. Other fathers of science like Kepler also expected to find law and order in the universe because they believed there was a law-giver.
Evolution would have us as just the product of
a mindless process of random existence.
Also Christianity is testable not just about non-empirical values.
Christianity has central claims that are falsifiable and supported by evidence, including historical aspects and the transformation of individual lives.
NOMA,strictly, implies a religion is relegated to things that are not actually real , leaving all of reality as the domain of science.
The argument presented rests on a familiar but deeply flawed narrative: that social success or failure is primarily the product of inherited “family values,” that modern societies are declining due to a loss of these values, and that education, multiculturalism, and democracy are being undermined by ideological extremism rather than strengthened by pluralism and institutional reform. While this view is rhetorically appealing, it oversimplifies history, ignores structural realities, and selectively assigns blame.
First, the claim that the “determinants of success” for individuals and societies are “pretty much all the result of family values” is not supported by historical or social evidence. Family environment matters, but it is not the dominant or decisive factor. Economic conditions, access to healthcare, quality of public education, political stability, labor markets, discrimination, and public policy consistently prove to be stronger predictors of social outcomes than moral inheritance alone. Societies do not rise and fall because parents suddenly forget how to parent; they change because material conditions, institutions, and power structures change.
Second, the suggestion that past civilizations failed primarily due to moral or cultural decay is a selective reading of history. Empires collapse due to complex combinations of economic inequality, resource depletion, environmental stress, technological stagnation, and governance failure. Reducing these collapses to failures of values is not historical insight—it is moral hindsight. It conveniently absolves systems and leaders of responsibility while placing blame on abstract cultural decline.
The discussion of education further reveals an internal contradiction. On one hand, higher education is praised as a means of learning how to think critically; on the other, it is subtly framed as a source of imbalance, elitism, or moral erosion. This framing ignores the reality that universities do not suppress common sense or responsibility—they expose students to complexity, uncertainty, and competing evidence. Discomfort with that process is not proof of educational failure; it is often evidence that critical thinking is working as intended.
Moreover, the claim that modern minds are being “poisoned” by radical extremists implies that pluralism itself is dangerous. This is a troubling position. Exposure to diverse viewpoints does not weaken democracy—it is the foundation of it. What truly threatens democratic societies is not too much disagreement, but the refusal to accept disagreement as legitimate. Radicalization flourishes not because societies are too open, but because economic exclusion, political disenfranchisement, and misinformation go unaddressed.
The treatment of faith is also revealing. The assertion that atheists “have to know it all” is a rhetorical caricature, not a serious argument. Atheism, like agnosticism or religious belief, encompasses a wide range of intellectual humility and ethical frameworks. Claiming epistemic arrogance as an inherent trait of non-belief mirrors the very dogmatism the argument claims to oppose.
Finally, the call to “return” to earlier priorities assumes that previous generations were more responsible, more ethical, or better stewards of society. This is demonstrably false. Earlier generations normalized exclusion, tolerated inequality, suppressed dissent, and deferred accountability—often under the banner of tradition and family values. Romanticizing the past does not correct present failures; it prevents us from learning from them.
In short, this argument mistakes nostalgia for wisdom, moral certainty for analysis, and cultural blame for accountability. Successful multicultural societies are not sustained by uniform values inherited uncritically, but by fair institutions, shared rights, evidence-based policy, and the willingness to adapt. Good parenting matters—but so do good laws, good governance, and the humility to accept that complex problems do not have simple moral explanations.
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