Allen Bloom (The Closing of the American Mind) compared the structure of medieval society as a Gothic Cathedral with the vast amounts of pushes and pulls and strains all balancing out. Trying to undo the natural order causes the whole thing to come tumbling down --since we do not know what makes society tick. Thus he saw the Enlightenment as leading to an eventual collapse of the social contract as he thought was happening around 1990.
Our state of understanding how any human society works is on the order of medieval medicine -that all their theories were wrong, and anything any doctor would do would automatically cause more damage than leaving the patient alone. Medicine has advanced a little since then,- but all our theories of how human society works are clearly 100% wrong; and anything anyone does to improve things just leads to the patient's death all the sooner.
Our state of understanding how any human society works is on the order of medieval medicine -that all their theories were wrong, and anything any doctor would do would automatically cause more damage than leaving the patient alone. Medicine has advanced a little since then,- but all our theories of how human society works are clearly 100% wrong; and anything anyone does to improve things just leads to the patient's death all the sooner.
