Summary

Modern Western Civilization is an intellectual outgrowth of the Enlightenment--the culmination of intellectual ideals set forth some 300 to 400 years ago. All of our cultural institutions are based on the elegant assumption that men and women are rational enough and responsible enough to govern themselves. Our political systems, educational establishments, legal arrangements, media structures, economic and corporate organizations are all intellectual concepts.

This intellectual heritage was characterized by a populace that would seek knowledge, would think rationally, could engage in meaningful social criticism, and was dedicated to a broad, liberal arts cultural perspective. The people would be literate, analytic, competitive, morally clear-headed, self-sufficient, and determined to make the system work as a collaborative coming together of reasoning individuals. Democracy is, after all, basically collective decision-making. This is our libertarian ideal--a coming together of intellectual citizens.

However, since the end of World War II-- most clearly in the last four decades-- Americans have gradually and imperceptibly slipped into a post- intellectual mindset. We experience the disarray of the Progress Paradox. Our social and scientific environments have gotten so complex that we ordinary citizens can no longer pretend to be enlightened enough to participate in collective decision-making. Literacy, privacy, self-

sufficiency, individualism, ecological coherence, and morality fall by the wayside. Citizens stand aside and turn the government over to special interests and specialized technocrats. We survive not as independent intellectual individuals, but as members of tribal lobbying groups. This is the postmodern reality of a post-intellectual culture.