Donald Kagan Quotes
Religion and the traditions based on it were once the chief sources for moral confidence and strength. Their influence has faded in the modern world, but the need for a sound base for moral judgments has not. If we cannot look simply to moral guidance firmly founded on religious precepts it is natural and reasonable to turn to history, the record of human experience, as a necessary supplement if not a substitute.
There were several dynamics that contributed to the change. Younger Americans of all persuasions were much more tolerant than previous generations. A much larger proportion of Americans did not identify with any religion. The many Christian sects were very diverse and almost never presented a unified view of exactly what were Christian values for any issue. The tactics of the religious extremists had alienated many people from all religious efforts to shape, much less dominate, the norms and culture. Finally, the Courts and the Politicians began to take the separation of church and state much more seriously than and been the case in many past generations.
In the last 150 years that has been changing and globalization of the late 20th century changed it even more.
Donald Kagan is an American historian and classicist at Yale University specializing in ancient Greece, notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. He formerly taught in the Department of History at Cornell University. At present, Kagan is considered among the foremost American scholars of Greek history.
