Page 42 - Liberating Liberals V2
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Chapter II Meaning-Making Maestros
So the task becomes how not to be intimidated by what is — by the vast superstructure that buttresses the conservative argument — so that we are free to imagine what could be. Yet we also want to be able to affirm the worthwhile institutions,
the valuable meanings, that already exist. Are the current institutions reasonable meanings or are they arbitrary choices made by some political, religious or philosophical dictator of the past? Yet these choices are no longer questioned because they have become part of the philosophical air we breathe.
The task receives an almost fatal blow at the start because we’re rarely able to consider the first block in the meaning edifice — whether it’s good to exist at all. Instead we must rise at 6 am in the morning, join 70
