What Life Asks of Us

David Brooks, you make a good point about institutional thinking in your article. I am also a huge fan of Ryno and have met him a few times. I would just like to say that in the background of institutional thought you speak of are individual decisions and ethics of purpose behind successful institutions.

Guiding principles of duty have made many individuals and institutions great at different points in history, and we are at a point in time where guiding ethics are greed and individualistic goals that are juxtaposed against the common good. The erosion of institutional ethics/accountability is due to competing selfish worldviews that cause more harm than good. That liberal education you speak of is to allow individuals to see the benefit of ethics and to learn from the past. Unfortunately, this emphasis has been lost with conditional selfishness. The basis of morality and ethics has been skewed to rely on ideology such as the "free" market or on religious belief to find truth in an otherwise overly complicated world.