Without A Sacred Quest, Our Civilization Falls

Most see sacred quests as optional, to be considered only after one has sufficient security and comfort. But in fact, our civilization will plausibly fall, to be replaced by other quite different ones, if we cannot manage to sufficiently organize around a shared civ-level sacred goal. Making that quest pretty essential. Let me explain.Cultural drift threatens to topple our civilization, to be replaced by others with quite different values. I’ve talked often of three main solutions. But actually there’s a fourth similar option, namely fragmentation: break the world into far more insular cultures who have deep, not just shallow, differences in norms and values. E.g., values re war, democracy, gender equality, or beating kids. Like the other threes solutions, this one has a decent chance of working given a particular assumption about value change, in this case that there come to exist many places where most folks have and reliably pass on to descendants a strong value for (1) insularity…