The Origins of the Current Crisis of Meaning in Liberalism It is often said that our world today gives human beings an unhealthy existence, where they exist merely as slaves to their economic needs, and where individuals exist in an atomized form, alienated from other people and thus prevented from having their full range of social needs met. It is also often said that this existence has taken a toll on the psychological health of many, contributing to the high rates of mental illness in modern society. I guess all this has to be true, at least to an extent. Various political factions, including, unfortunately, extremists, have offered supposed ways out of this situation. However, they are all both impractical and unconvincing. Some are even literally dangerous to humanity.
To understand our current plight, I guess we should take a look at how we got here. As Europe was emerging out of a feudalistic order and into the earliest stages of industrialized economy back in the 18th and 19th century, the political divisions that we often take for granted today began to emerge. The first stage saw the division of politics into a 'Left' and a 'Right' during the French Revolution, with the Left including those who wanted a more egalitarian order, and the Right including those who want to maintain as much of the old order as possible, and as such, were generally against egalitarianism. (Note that the 'historical Left' and 'historical 129
