The third desire

Fukuyama postulated that history would end in liberal democracy since it satisfied our material and thymotic desires. But beyond our need for material goods and recognition is also our need for worship. We can’t understand the current world and its fractures, zealots, and move towards illiberalism if we don’t understand that something more than material well being or superiority was behind the Salem Witch hunters of the 1690s, the Catholic inquisitors in the 1490s, or their woke equivalents today. The need to worship explains why universities have become medieval in their approach to free speech, why irrationalism has taken over the Republican Party, and why Putin is invading Ukraine. The God shaped hole in the heart is the crucial explanatory variable left out of most social theories today and until we recognize it, we can’t find the only appropriate solution.