Due Reverence

Bill Vallicella has an incisive post on the meaning and importance of reverence, a concept that has fallen into much disrepute in our culture. Postmodern culture despises the idea that we owe anything or anyone reverence, because it flies in the face of the kind of debased egalitarianism, unthinkingly embraced by many, that flattens distinctions and denies the truth of any moral or aesthetic judgments that might imply a hierarchy of values. How long any civilization that embraces this kind of nihilism can last is an open question.