Here is a very insightful article by, of all people, the Archbishop of Australia, that cuts through the cartoonish stand-off between the caricatures of hedonistic, valueless, selfish blue-staters and ignorant, slow-witted, fundamentalist red-staters.
The Archbishop says that the current concept of secular democracy is “a failure of imagination”, to wit, “Democracy can only be what it is now: a constant series of ‘breakthroughs’ against social taboo in pursuit of the individual’s absolute autonomy.” He envisions an alternative form of democracy which he calls “democratic personalism”, which means “nothing more than democracy founded on the transcendent dignity of the human person. Transcendence directs us to our dependence on others and our dependence on God. And dependence is how we know the reality of transcendence. There is nothing undemocratic about bringing this truth into our reflections about our political arrangements. Placing democracy on this basis does not mean theocracy.”
He notes the growing number of converts to Islam in the western democracies, comparing it to the attraction that communism has had, and suggests that this is a result of “how the emptiness within secular democracy can be filled with darkness by political substitutes for religion.”
Like they say, read the whole thing. (hat tip Belmont Club)