Wake up E.J.

E. J. Dionne thinks that the culture wars are over. It is very telling that he thinks that "religion and culture" have nothing to do with "prosperity and security," i.e. with the real life of society. The fascinating thing is that Dionne (a progressive Catholic) shares with his conservative Protestant "enemies" exactly the SAME idea of the relationship between religion and politics. Namely religion brings a "moral" input to politics (on the right, abortion and gay marriage; on the left social justice and the environment). The possibility that what is at stake are the foundations of our life together as human beings (freedom, the value of the person, the nature of the family, the problem of education etc.) seems to escape him completely. This is the tragedy of western liberalism: to take for granted (and often to undermine) all the things that made it possible.