But none of this material progress beckons humans to a way of life beyond mere satisfaction of our wants and needs. And this matters. We are a meaning-seeking species.
While protests and car-burnings are actually common in France, what’s
happening now is much worse than usual and will not go away anytime
soon. What observers should know is that this is not about fuel prices
or Macron’s incompetence; this is about the fall of the West.
People have long complained of France losing its soul by becoming a
secularized, progressive, socialist welfare state shortly after two
miserable losses in the two world wars. After being known for its fine
arts, beautiful landscapes, rich Catholic tradition, genius philosophers
and scientists, and famous monuments, people now see France as a
stagnant irrelevant pool of decadence (this descent is captured well in
Thomas Merton’s description of the country in Seven Storey Mountain).
CultML 