The reactions of the Fundamentalist Mormons and the Paskowitz family I think smoke out the contradiction at the heart of contemporary elite Western life: the simultaneous superposition of a disavowal of judgement & absolute values and an adherence to a set of standards which scaffold and guide one's life rather rigorously (e.g., the "best schools," the "fulfilling careers" and the "loving spouse"). Conservative Christians in the United States often see themselves as in contradiction to the values encapsulated by the dominant dispensation, and so I believe though they are often guilty of myopia they can easily elucidate the general outline of what they mean by the Good Life. In contrast, mainstream America, the pulse of which is defined by upper middle class professionals, the English gentry of our day, often adhere to a set of values implicitly and discernible only through the subtext of their words and actions.

Modern society has removed the idea of having a holistic goal and has replaced it with a granular society where citizens define themselves in a self-referential way regulated by social context. As a result, the only power this society can wield is disapproval when some hidden code of aesthetic ethics is breached. Consequently, it is ruled by doubt, and people bitterly turn toward making a pile and retreating from the mess, which leaves socialized costs and collective problems running amok. It's better to note, as Plato did, that design logic exists in the interaction of all polycauses in a system, and to plan for those future interactions, than to focus so much on the present and the material that we lose all sense of what kind of future we could create. Our society is negative, and our attitudes are negative, and this shows in the types of decisions we accept and encourage.