(A part of a conversation regarding the nature and status of the West and it's ideas and ideals)
I've given a lot of thought to this idea/ideal for about the last ten years. I'll get to the heart of my point and converse directly with yours, but first I need to frame the topic in a paragraph or two.
Man cannot create nor grant universal rights. Universal rights are those things which Man possesses equally in society as well as in the presence of no one. I have thus far found only two: Life and Liberty. Being alive I possess my life, and being in Time I possess the prerogative of choosing how to spend it. There's a lot of things that we call rights that are not. Do you think that you, as a human being, have the right to vote? Go to China, see how that works for you. Do you think that you have the right to free speech? Go to Saudi Arabia and try to exercise that right.
When mankind comes into close contact, being of a like nature, we tend to interact. These interactions amount to transactions of a sort that are governed by mutually agreed upon privileges or are transactions of another sort which are used to establish privileges by which to govern future interactions. In our society we have mutually agreed that free speech is a privilege which we consciously extend to each other, hence the conversation we're having now. In our society we have mutually agreed that you and I can hold different cosmological positions and either choose to or choose not to worship in any way we each see fit. That's a privilege that we have agreed to extend to each other.
Mankind, being alive and engaging in activities, is a slave to another universal: his interests. A man's actions are and will be governed by his interests. What informs and shapes his interests? His values! Those things which he holds dear regarding what he believes is the best way to live constitute his values. When that man comes into contact with another whose interests are contrary to his own because that man doesn't hold his same set of values, the resultant transaction is either going to resemble a triumph of one set of values over the other because their was acquiescence on one side or some compromised alloy of the two.
This is what constitutes the differences between world cultures. It's not superficial qualities like skin color or language, it's values. Now we say that there is a spectrum of values that we in the West hold dear: rationalism, self-criticism, the objective search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality thereunder, freedom to think and express ideas individually, human protection from unjust harm, etc. Why. Why are those important? When entering into a transaction with someone who doesn't value these things, can you defend them? Will these things prevail or will you acquiesce to his interests which may contradict directly these values?
Can we expect future generations in the West to continue to defend and advance these values in the face of direct opposition, stated or not, if they are ignorant of how and why these values were discovered, developed, and adopted? Probably not. That's what I'm talking about when I say our culture is in decline. We're like those denizens of the science fiction theme which explores the actions of a people in possession of and dependent upon an advanced technology that their ancestors created that they now have no understanding of how it works. Something breaks the magic machine that they need to live, or it simply breaks down, and they are left in a crisis trying to fix what they don't understand. That's the world that I feel like we've allowed to grow up around us! Our society operates within constructs of ideas that most of the current population, when asked as to their composition, could not give you a coherent answer regarding what that thing means, why it's important. Ask an average college kid why freedom of speech is important as well as when, where, and why it was first realized by mankind. Ask them to cite positive examples of its accomplishments and negative examples of its use and of its censure. They can't do it! Most of them, if they endeavored to answer at all, would be trying to make something up.
The fact is that most of the West, our kids in particular, are completely unprepared to defend the values of our society in the face of contrary opinions. And yes, there are a whole host of contrary opinions, both without and some within our civilization.
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