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The Forgotten Pillars of Civilization
In a world where political discourse has become a battleground of tribal identities, Ben Shapiro's "The Right Side of History" arrives as both diagnosis and prescription for our cultural malaise. The book has garnered attention from across the political spectrum, with figures like Jordan Peterson praising its intellectual depth while others criticize its traditionalist stance. What makes this work particularly relevant is how it addresses our paradoxical moment: despite unprecedented prosperity, Americans report record levels of unhappiness, with suicide rates climbing 30% since 1999. Shapiro argues this contradiction stems from abandoning the twin pillars that built Western civilization-Jerusalem's divine purpose and Athens' rational inquiry. As we navigate an era where both religious faith and rational discourse face mounting skepticism, this exploration of Western civilization's foundations offers a timely reminder of what we stand to lose.
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The Pursuit of Happiness Through Moral Purpose
When are you truly happy? For Shapiro, the answer comes during Sabbath observance-those twenty-five hours disconnected from technology, surrounded by family and community. This personal reflection points to a larger truth: genuine happiness requires more than fleeting pleasure or material success. It demands moral purpose.
Both Judeo-Christian and Greek traditions understood this fundamental truth. The Hebrew Bible uses "simcha" to describe happiness-not as an emotional state but as right action aligned with divine will. Solomon's warnings that pursuing mere pleasure is "vanity" echo through Ecclesiastes. Similarly, Aristotle's concept of "eudaimonia" refers not to momentary joy but to a life well-lived through virtue and reason. These traditions converge on a crucial insight: happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
Modern research confirms this ancient wisdom. Studies show that people with strong purpose live longer, have lower dementia risk, and enjoy better health outcomes. Yet only about a quarter of Americans strongly endorse having a clear sense of purpose-a public health crisis hiding in plain sight.
The foundation of Western civilization begins with Genesis 1:26: we are all made in God's image. Unlike pre-Biblical codes where only kings had divine connection, this revolutionary idea established that every person has inherent value and purpose. Without this individual moral purpose granted by relationship to a Creator, we either seek meaning in collective movements or destroy ourselves through hedonism.
Even Voltaire, though an atheist, recognized the social utility of belief: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Today, we're drawn to false gods-from intersectionality to consumerism-that provide only transitory distraction rather than lasting purpose.
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From Divine Image to Human Dignity
What if you discovered you weren't merely a plaything of capricious gods or fate, but a being with inherent worth and agency? This transformation-from cork bobbing on life's waves to captain of your own ship-is what the Jewish and Christian God introduced to humanity.
Before monotheism, polytheism dominated religious thought-not because ancient peoples were foolish, but because polytheism was sophisticated in its ability to absorb new gods from other cultures. As Orientalist Henry Saggs noted, ancient peoples readily accepted others' deities; "difficulties only surfaced when one group assertively denied the very existence of other gods," making Jews "the least tolerant of all ancient peoples."
Paganism acknowledged the universe's apparent chaos, reasoning that competing divine minds must govern such unpredictable existence. Pagan creation stories like the Mesopotamian tale of Apsu and Tiamat reflect this worldview-gods murdering each other to create heaven and earth.
The Bible revolutionized this by establishing a singular God with a singular moral standard. Consequences weren't arbitrary divine whims but life lessons teaching morality. Judaism argued we should be holy in imitation of God, not merely serve Him.
Many ancient cultures viewed history as circular-Greeks saw recurring cycles, Eastern religions rejected linear time. The Bible introduced a revolutionary concept: God exists outside time but intervenes purposefully to create progress. History becomes the story of God's relationship with humanity, with each reconciliation bringing progress toward a historical culmination.
Perhaps most revolutionary was Genesis 1:27: "God created man in His image... male and female He created them." This established universal human dignity in societies where only rulers enjoyed freedom of action, often declaring themselves divine. Judaism granted all humans the value of choice, as seen when God tells Cain before he slays Abel that "you can rule over" sin, emphasizing our capacity to choose between right and wrong.
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The Greek Gift of Reason
The battle over Western education has seen classics diminish in importance-where once Latin was required in American high schools and the Founding Fathers were steeped in ancient literature, by 2010 not a single top university required Western civilization courses. Critics argue that classical education perpetuates imperialism by "othering" non-Western cultures.
However, abandoning the Greco-Roman tradition ignores Western civilization's unprecedented role in advancing human liberty. Athens complements Jerusalem by teaching what humans can achieve through reason alone-elevating mankind through our own faculties rather than divine revelation.
The ancient Greeks gave us natural law philosophy, positing that nature itself reveals purpose. Unlike modern philosophers who see only brute facts in the physical world, Plato and Aristotle believed that values are embedded within facts. They argued that everything has a telos (purpose)-a watch is virtuous if it tells time properly, and humans are virtuous when using reason, our defining characteristic.
For this system to work socially, the Greeks posited an objective logic to the universe-a Grand Designer or Logos-that humans could discover through reason. This belief birthed science as we know it. While the Biblical worldview acknowledged God as creator, it offered little about studying nature itself. Greek philosophy made investigating reality imperative for discovering higher meaning.
The Greeks applied reason to governance, believing the polis (city-state) was essential for cultivating virtue. While Plato envisioned a rigidly hierarchical state ruled by philosopher-kings, Aristotle rejected such utopianism, preferring a mixed system combining democracy and aristocracy. Cicero later expanded this thinking, arguing for shared governmental responsibility checked by both monarchy and aristocracy-a system treasured by America's Founding Fathers.
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The Bridge Between Faith and Reason
Christianity represented the first serious attempt to merge Jewish and Greek thought. It universalized Judaism's message by deliberately writing the Gospels in Greek rather than Aramaic, making Jesus's story accessible worldwide. By presenting Christ as the "Logos" and emphasizing faith over works, Christianity broadened Judaism's appeal to billions.
Christianity spread remarkably fast, growing from about one thousand followers in 40 CE to six million by 300 CE. This expansion stemmed from several factors: Christians' care for the poor impressed even opponents like Emperor Julian, and Christianity actively sought converts while offering both universal and exclusive salvation.
The consonance between faith and reason that developed during the Middle Ages ultimately couldn't last. While the Catholic Church filled the power vacuum after Rome's fall, this period wasn't truly a "Dark Age." Monasteries preserved learning, the liberal arts survived, and technological revolutions occurred in agriculture, commerce, and warfare.
Thomas Aquinas led efforts to reunify Athens and Jerusalem, using reason to prove God's existence and arguing that studying nature was studying God's work. This synthesis enabled scientific progress through figures like Roger Bacon. However, the consonance eventually broke down because while Christianity provided individual purpose and capacity, it struggled with communal purpose focused on material improvement.
The explosion of science in the West, far from being hindered by religion, was actually enabled by Judeo-Christian foundations. Church figures like Nicole Oresme, Nicholas of Cusa, and Nicolaus Copernicus made significant scientific contributions while serving the Church. Though religious fundamentalism later led to Galileo's persecution, most scientists like Galileo, Kepler, and Newton viewed their work as exploring God's universe.
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The Birth of American Liberty
The United States stands as the first nation crafted explicitly on philosophical foundations, representing a unique experiment in human governance. The Founding Fathers, extensively educated in classical thought, drew from diverse intellectual traditions including Cicero's republicanism, Locke's social contract theory, Biblical principles of human dignity, and Aristotelian concepts of virtue and political order. This philosophical foundation merged multiple streams of Western thought into a coherent vision for a new kind of nation.
The synthesis they created rested on four main pillars: natural law (derived from both reason and divine revelation), individual natural rights balanced by civic duties, limited government with sophisticated checks and balances, and the essential role of public and private virtue. These elements weren't merely theoretical - they were carefully woven into the nation's founding documents and institutional structures.
The Declaration of Independence powerfully embodies this philosophical synthesis. Its opening appeal to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" deliberately bridges secular and religious foundations of authority. Jefferson's famous "self-evident truths" explicitly references the classical concept of "right reason" - the idea that moral truths can be discovered through rational contemplation. The revolutionary assertion that "all men are created equal" merged two powerful ideas: the Biblical concept of universal human dignity (all humans being made in God's image) with the Greek emphasis on individual rational capacity.
The document's protection of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" went far beyond simple property rights. The "pursuit of happiness" encompassed the Aristotelian ideal of eudaimonia - the fulfillment of human potential through the exercise of virtue and reason. This wasn't mere personal pleasure-seeking, but rather the serious pursuit of excellence through rational self-governance.
The founding ideology represents a remarkable synthesis of human intellectual progress, developed through the careful integration of Judeo-Christian moral principles, Greek rationality, and Enlightenment political theory. This synthesis emerged through centuries of philosophical refinement and often bloody political conflicts in Europe and the colonies.
The founders' vision contained notable contradictions, particularly in their failure to extend their universal principles to Black Americans, Native Americans, and women. However, as Frederick Douglass later argued, the principles themselves transcended their authors' limitations. The Declaration's assertion of universal human equality and inalienable rights provided the intellectual foundation for later movements seeking to expand liberty to all people. Leaders like Douglass recognized that the founders' philosophical framework, despite its imperfect implementation, contained the seeds for comprehensive human liberation and elevation.
This tension between universal principles and limited historical application would drive much of American political development, as successive generations worked to more fully realize the promise of the founding vision.
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The Unraveling of Western Foundations
Modern politics is characterized by an unprecedented level of moral certainty, with both Left and Right viewing their opponents not merely as misguided but as existential threats to civilization itself. This rigid polarization stands in stark contrast to Western civilization's foundational principles, which historically acknowledged that while society needs a shared moral vision, citizens need not agree on every means of pursuing it. This flexibility allowed for pluralism while maintaining social cohesion.
The philosophical shift began with Thomas Hobbes, whose moral framework led to the concept of an all-encompassing state as the ultimate arbiter of human behavior. In contrast, Baruch Spinoza advocated for a minimal state, designed primarily to prevent insurrection and maintain basic order. This tension between maximalist and minimalist state authority continues to shape political discourse today. David Hume then completed the intellectual move toward atheism by systematically discounting miracles and methodically dismantling traditional proofs of God's existence. With this decisive break, the concept of discoverable purpose vanished from mainstream philosophical discourse.
Though atheism remained a minority opinion well into the modern era, philosophers increasingly rejected core Biblical tenets while attempting to rebuild universal morality through pure reason. These Enlightenment thinkers, including Kant, Voltaire, and Rousseau, attempted to construct comprehensive moral systems from scratch, while unknowingly operating on the inherited momentum of Judeo-Christian values. Their projects often replicated religious moral structures while denying their theological foundations.
The death of Judeo-Christian values and Greek teleology didn't liberate reason as many hoped - instead, it fundamentally undermined it. By reducing the human mind to mere mechanical processes and mankind to purely biological entities, the Enlightenment eliminated transcendent reason as a reliable moral guide. Hobbes attacked both discoverable purpose and human rationality itself, arguing that reason was merely a tool of appetite. Spinoza went further, discarding free will entirely, comparing humans to stones cast through space that falsely believe they direct their own movement.
As scientific materialism gained prominence with Darwin's evolutionary theory, prescient thinkers like Dostoyevsky feared the implications. Without God and the promise of immortality, he argued, all moral constraints would eventually dissolve. In "The Brothers Karamazov," he predicted a future where humanity would proclaim "there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger," leading people to worship dictators who could both provide bread and relieve them of moral responsibility. This prophecy found tragic fulfillment in the totalitarian movements of the 20th century, where materialist ideologies replaced traditional moral frameworks with devastating consequences.
The contemporary crisis of meaning in Western societies can be traced to this philosophical unraveling, as institutions built on Judeo-Christian foundations struggle to maintain their moral authority in an increasingly secular context. The challenge remains: how to preserve social cohesion and moral behavior in a world where traditional sources of meaning have been systematically dismantled.
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The Catastrophic Consequences
The French Revolution demonstrates the contrast with the American. While America embraced Lockean principles of God-given rights and social virtue, France pursued Rousseau's "general will" and Voltaire's scorn for tradition, seeking to free mankind from all constraints-especially religious ones.
The French Declaration of the Rights of Man fundamentally differed from America's Declaration of Independence by subordinating individual rights to the collective will. While claiming "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights," it immediately undermined this by adding "Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good."
Revolutionary France invented modern nationalism by redefining citizenship and centralizing power, removing all boundaries between individuals and the state. The Revolution's 1793 levee en masse created history's first mass military draft, fundamentally changing warfare by mobilizing entire populations.
Marx's philosophy offered meaning in a godless world. He argued that capitalism exploited workers through the theft of "excess labor," and that this system alienated humans from their true nature. Marx promised that the collapse of capitalism would create a new, better human being.
In the absence of Judeo-Christian morality and Greek teleology, new visions emerged offering purpose to humanity. While the American founding provided both individual and communal meaning, romantic nationalism, collectivist redistributionism, and scientific progressivism collapsed these into merely communal purpose and capacity.
Germany exemplified the dangers of romantic nationalism, culminating in Nazism. Russia embraced collectivist redistributionism under Lenin and Stalin, murdering tens of millions. In America, the deep-seated need for collective purpose manifested through bureaucracy-government run by supposed "experts" rather than being answerable to citizens.
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The Search for Meaning in a Post-War World
Existentialism emerged as the dominant philosophy after World War II, arising from the ashes of a conflict that shattered conventional beliefs about human progress and morality. Beginning with Sren Kierkegaard in the 19th century, it rejected both Enlightenment reason and universal ethical systems that had dominated Western thought. Kierkegaard posited that meaning must be found by looking within, not outward. "Subjectivity is the truth," he wrote, focusing on passion over reason. His works, particularly "Fear and Trembling," explored how individuals must make leaps of faith in the face of uncertainty and anxiety.
Jean-Paul Sartre became existentialism's truest expositor, developing these ideas in both philosophical treatises and literary works. He argued that "existence precedes essence" - we're born as blank slates and then remake ourselves rather than being subject to predetermined human nature. With no fixed good or evil, we must utilize our radical freedom to create ourselves through our choices and actions. "We are alone, with no excuses," he wrote, "condemned to be free." This freedom, Sartre argued, brings with it a crushing responsibility that produces existential anxiety.
While faith in Enlightenment reason collapsed after the World Wars, faith in science paradoxically flourished. Science shifted from being merely a tool for improving material conditions to becoming the source of a new morality and worldview. Unlike traditional natural law, which saw nature as revealing universal purposes discernible through reason, this new scientific approach defined "natural" as whatever occurred in nature, removing any moral dimension from natural phenomena. This shift fundamentally altered how humans viewed their place in the cosmos.
Neo-Enlightenment thinkers like Steven Pinker embrace Enlightenment values while attempting to disconnect them from their Judeo-Christian roots. Pinker celebrates human reason and material progress, pointing to declining violence and increasing prosperity as evidence of human advancement. However, he fails to answer fundamental questions: why reason ought to triumph over emotion, why we should choose life over death, or what gives human life inherent value. Their circular reasoning assumes material success and scientific progress as the highest moral causes, yet history shows this purely materialistic view can justify atrocities when divorced from deeper ethical foundations. The Holocaust and Soviet purges were, after all, carried out with scientific efficiency by highly educated people.
This tension between scientific progress and moral meaning remains unresolved in modern thought. While science can tell us how the world works, it struggles to tell us why anything matters or how we should live. The existentialist emphasis on individual meaning-making continues to resonate in a world where traditional sources of meaning have eroded but scientific materialism fails to fill the void.
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The Return to Tribalism
Shapiro recounts his 2015 CNN appearance where transgender panelist Zoey Tur grabbed him by the neck and threatened him after Shapiro asked "What are your genetics, sir?" He notes that panel members reacted with horror not to the physical threat but to his "insulting the pronouns," concluding that "none of this had to do with reason."
The counterculture shifted focus from virtue to self-fulfillment. Abraham Maslow's theory of self-realization was hijacked to suggest that repression prevents us from discovering our inherently good inner nature. This created generations not of fulfilled people but self-obsessed ones, raised on messages like "everyone is special" rather than conscience-driven guidance.
The New Left argued that structural impediments like sexism and racism prevent true self-esteem. After the civil rights movement, figures like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael claimed America was irredeemably racist, with Carmichael introducing the concept of "institutional racism" that exists even without overt discrimination.
The intersectionality movement silences scientific inquiry that contradicts its narratives. When scholars like Steven Pinker discuss facts about group differences in crime rates or gender priorities, they face accusations of racism and sexism. This anti-scientific approach has infiltrated institutions, with universities abandoning standardized tests that show disparities.
The cultural Left's intersectional vision has delivered solipsism and polarization rather than fulfillment. By dividing people into racial groups and pitting them against each other, it has inadvertently fueled reactionary movements. Americans are more divided than ever, with individual agency abandoned in favor of viewing people as mere products of systems.
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Rebuilding on Ancient Foundations
America's greatest struggle is for its national soul amid palpable anger stemming from the destruction of our common vision. We once shared the Founding vision supported by Judeo-Christian morality, seeing each other as brothers and sisters rather than opposing classes or privilege groups. This unity wasn't merely theoretical - it manifested in shared civic institutions, community organizations, and a common understanding of fundamental rights and responsibilities that transcended political divisions.
Regaining these values requires boldness and sacrifice. Shapiro reflects on the biblical story of Abraham's binding of Isaac, suggesting it represents not just personal faith but the difficult responsibility parents have to commit their children to higher ideals. This ancient narrative illustrates how each generation must make profound sacrifices to preserve and transmit cultural values. Modern parents face similar challenges in choosing between comfortable conformity and the harder path of instilling traditional values in an increasingly hostile cultural environment.
Our civilization was built on four essential elements: individual moral purpose, individual capacity, collective moral purpose, and collective capacity. These elements emerged through the fusion of Athens and Jerusalem, creating unprecedented freedom. Individual moral purpose drives personal responsibility and ethical behavior. Individual capacity enables innovation and achievement. Collective moral purpose unites society around shared values and goals. Collective capacity harnesses these shared values for societal advancement. But we're losing this civilization by undermining the two deepest sources of happiness: Divine meaning and reason.
There can be no moral purpose without Divine meaning, and no capacity without belief in reason. The West's history is built on interplay between these pillars-Divine meaning from ancient Jews and reason from ancient Greeks. The Jewish tradition provided absolute moral standards, human dignity, and purposeful history. Greek philosophy contributed logical inquiry, scientific investigation, and democratic discourse. By rejecting these lineages for rootless philosophical movements like moral relativism and postmodernism, we've damned ourselves to existential wandering, unable to answer basic questions about right and wrong or truth itself.
We must return to our roots, which took hold at Sinai and flourished in Athens. The Sinai covenant established moral law and human responsibility before God. Athenian democracy and philosophy developed tools for discovering truth through reason and debate. Only by reclaiming both faith and reason - not as opposing forces but as complementary paths to truth - can we rebuild the bridge of Western civilization that spans the "waters of chaos" and leads to human flourishing. This requires recommitting to religious liberty, rational discourse, and the idea that objective truth exists and can be discovered through both revelation and reason.
