The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great

by Ben Shapiro

Now, I have argued that the founding philosophy was based on both secular reason and religious morality, that modernity was built on these twin poles, cultivated and perfected through the fires of religious warfare and secular argument. We built a civilization that was practical and purposeful, religious and rational, virtuous and ambitious. Individual capacity and communal capacity had been brought into harmony: citizens had committed to Judeo-Christian values and individual rights, working to bolster one another. Individual purpose and communal purpose had been aligned: individuals were set free to cultivate virtue, and communities were built to set the framework for that pursuit of happiness. But advocates for the so-called Enlightenment offer a different theory. They suggest that the philosophy of the modern West—the philosophy of individual rights, particularly—sprang from rejection of religion and embrace of reason. The proponents of the self-proclaimed age of reason flatter themselves that we live today in accordance with the thought of great Enlightenment thinkers, bold new minds who sprang forth from the ground, wholly formed, ready to do battle with, and