The “existential” drama at the heart of modernity is the recent result of a truly cataclysmic transformation in our institutions and modes of belief that at least rivals in scope and significance, if it does not surpass, the transformation occasioned by the “Scientific Revolution” of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. It was that revolution in the Western world that led to the transformation of an agriculturally-based and theologically-centered medieval world into the scientifically-based commercial and industrial civilization of the modern nation state. Originally initiated in Western Europe, this transformation has increasingly become global, first spreading essentially east and south across Europe and west across the Atlantic Ocean, and then incorporating Asia, Africa, and Oceania. By the end of the twentieth century, only a relatively few remote regions remained significantly unaffected by the pervasive influence of an ever-expanding Euro-centered civilization.

This transformation is practical as well as conceptual. Increasingly all aspects of daily life are in the process of being dramatically transformed — but our ways of thinking have not caught up with these changes. What is needed is a fundamental  re-framing of the way we understand the world and our place in it. And this re-framing will have radical consequences for the policies and practices that guide our daily life. In the months to come, I will — in a clear and concise manner — be addressing both the theoretical and  practical issues that confront the modern world. I will be coming each Monday, as well as on specific occasions when events call for it. And I welcome your comments on my remarks.

For additional information, check out www.davidsprintzen.com

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