The Ramsay Centre and Open Inquiry

In 1972 Columbia University produced a large  book called The University History of the World. Turning to section 101 on page 1146 I found this apt comment:

Before one can go on to assess with the same detachment the extent to which the hitherto dominant Western civilization is damaged or dying, one must be reminded still of another historical datum, which is that entire civilizations do perish. The tremendous endings of Greece or Rome are not a myth. Life somehow continues after the fall, to be sure, but it is that very “somehow” which tells us that something above mere existence has disappeared. That something is what we call civilization. It is an expression of collective life cast in determinate ways, an expression which includes power, “growth”, a joyous or grim self-confidence, and other obvious signs of a going concern. But it consists also of tacit individual faith in certain ideals and ways of life, seconded by a general faith in the rightness of the whole. It…